Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mold

Two plant growth oddities to ID (mold, fungus?) - Eastern Massachusetts

cocoagirl — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:15:24 -0800

I'm trying to identify two separate growths I'm unfamiliar with, just for curiosity's sake. The first is a tight, cauliflower-like dome found on the base of a cut tree trunk. The second formed tiny red "spears" on a weed leaf. Pics within. Growth #1 was dense and firm, like cauliflower, but from my rudimentary googling it's not Cauliflower Fungus (sparassis crispa), which looks much looser and ribbon-like.
Picture 1 shows a distant shot for scale (the two round white dots on the end of the bench)
Picture 2 is a close up

Growth #2 is a smattering of small red "spears" growing out of a leaf. The plant itself is about a foot high, growing street side. Not all leaves had the spears, just a couple.
Picture 1 shows the leaf for scale.
Picture 2 shows some of the red spears.
Picture 3 is a closeup of the spears
Picture 4 is a closeup of the underside of the spear locations

Sweat -- do I have to wash it off (besides for smell purposes)?

defmute — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:48:28 -0800

I've been looking for info on showering/bathing in relation to sweating and whether it's sanitary or not. I can only seem to find articles that basically say "yeah, you need to shower cause you'll smell" but can't find anything that confirms whether or not it's actually sanitary or not e.g. infections. What do ya'll think/know? PS - I understand that many of you posting will most likely not be doctors.

New Floors, Mold, Destroy, Rebuild, New Floors

silsurf — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:52:20 -0800

We refinished our hardwood floors. About three months later mold started growing up through the floor in a corner of the house. The moisture captured in the area buckled the floors. In the crawl space it looked like this (picture in linked version below) We removed all the fungus, and are now removing the area that was damaged. The big question was how this happened in the first place and why in this exact spot. This seems to be the answer. The spot where the moisture was getting in through the foundation was is a transition from the original foundation to a room addition that was done about 25 years ago. (yellow circle) (photo in linked version below) The transition has a crack in the foundation on both sides (yellow circle) There were NO foundation vents in this corner of the room, no ventilation. Moisture was getting in and trapped, fungus sprouted and destroyed the floors. Here is what I am trying to get information on: What do I do to the foundation wall, interior and exterior where this crack is to thwart any future moisture issues? Here is the same text with images

Experiences with essential oil to get rid of mold?

small_ruminant — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:01:54 -0800

Our wooden baseboards and wooden furniture have mold on them from being too close to the outside walls of a 1913 house. It's not the nasty black mold- just the green stuff that wipes right off. I'd like to know the best way to get it off, and keep it off, if that's even possible.

The internet is giving me conflicting advice. (Vinegar works. No it doesn't. Tea tree oil kills mold. Tea tree oil eats furniture finish.)

Do you have any suggestions?

I was thinking of trying out a diluted cedar or pine or lemon oil solution. Has anyone tried that?

So far I've only used this stuff called Kruckenberg's Gourmet Floor Care that I got at the local Ace Hardware. It seems to work but it's supposed to just be for floors, so maybe it's a bad idea to use it on baseboards and furniture?

And if mold is on the painted walls at all, any suggestions for that?

Thank you!

That's no moon

Diskeater — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:25:24 -0800

Help me create the perfect Death Star ice sphere. My lovely fiancee bought me this kick ass Death Star ice mold for Christmas and I love it. Problem is that the iceological terrors I've constructed are insignificant next to the power of the ones posted on ThinkGeek; mine are cloudy and they have a slight vertical line running through them.

I also have no idea how much water to use. I either use too much and some will spill out the top or too little and I'll only get the super laser portion (which is the most important part but still...). The instructions have long since been discarded.

For those of you with extensive Death Star construction experience: how much water do you use and what are your tricks to get the clearest Death Star this side of Alderaan?

Help me, Metafilter, you're my only hope.

Massive Mold Mishap

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:01:30 -0800

My little brother had a jellow wrestling party in his basement with his college friends. It was a great success. However, they (he and his three roommates) left a large kiddie pool full of jello in his warm, wet, dark basement three weeks ago. Now there is giant kiddie pool full of mold in his basement. Much of the floor is also covered in mold. It's....very scary and smelly. How best to clean up? They've finally decided to deal with this funguspalooza, but I'm concerned this clean up job might be a little our their relm. Is there a possibility that cleaning these mess could be dangerous to their health? Can they handle it? Should they call in a hazmat team? It's really quite a large mess. I have never seen so much mold in my life.

How serious should I be taking the black mold that is growing in my Pacific Northwest apartment?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 07:57:22 -0800

How seriously should I be taking the black mold that is growing in my Pacific Northwest apartment? I moved into a rental apartment in September 2012, in Portland, Oregon. The property manager, when she was showing me around when I signed the lease, told me to keep an eye on one of the walls in the bedroom because it had gotten wet in past years due to an exterior leak, but that they fixed that leak last year and didn't think it would be a problem.

A few weeks ago, I noticed the wall in question was wet, and I sent her an email. The wall was damp all over. The next morning, I woke up and there was black fuzz growing all over two of the walls. I assume this was mold. I of course told her, she asked me a bunch of stuff about the temperature of the room and wanted to heat it, removing a bunch of other irrelevant details here I cleaned the walls with TSP. A couple of days later, the mold came back and I cleaned it with bleach. I've since heard mixed things about cleaning mold with bleach. Now I've got dehumidifier running in there which pulls astonishing amounts of water from the air. But I just saw there's more black mold growing in the bathroom.

The building was built in 1914. The outside is stucco and the inside walls appear to be lath and plaster. The apartment does not appear to have proper ventilation: there is a hole through the cabinets that's been repaired that looks like it was the exhaust hood for the stove, but now it's closed up and the stove is moved (no hood, but there is a window nearby). There is no vent or fan in the bathroom, but again, there is a window.

The walls on which the mold grows are the exterior walls of the apartment. With the (forced hot air from a gas furnace in the unit) heat on, these walls are consistently around 10 degrees F cooler than the interior walls (i check them with an infrared pyrometer), and they are covered with semigloss paint (although the paint was apparently formulated with some sort of fungicide).

In short, I think the apartment is nearly airtight, but poorly insulated. So I believe that all sorts of water vapor from general living like breathing, sweating, taking showers, cooking, etc. builds up and has no where to go, and then it encounters the poorly insulated exterior wall surface and condenses there, creating a perfect mold-growing environment.

So my mitigation strategy is "reduce the humidity" so that it drops below the level required to condense on the wall at the temperature it is likely to stay. The only other possibility I can think of is raising the temperature of the wall above the dew point, and that seems either impractical (wall heater?) or expensive and wasteful (heating the air in the room more so that it heats the wall more and makes up for the lackluster insulation).

Now, I just moved to the Pacific Northwest. The property manager gave me some sort of mold disclosure form or something, I don't really remember, but when I saw this mold I figured, "hey, it's the Pacific Northwest. It's wet and dark all the time here. Mold is just going to be part of the deal, like flying cockroaches in the South or bed bugs in New York." I mean, most of the year, it is insanely humid, and it's relatively cool, so everything is wet, always, but it's not so cold that mold can't grow. How are you not going to have mold everywhere? I figure millions of people have lived in the Pacific Northwest since forever, quite happily, and they seem to have done just fine with their mold.

However, other people I have mentioned this to are like "OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO MOVE! YOU HAVE TO MOVE IMMEDIATELY! TOXIC MOLD YOU ARE GOING TO GET MOLD POISONING!" When I tell people I've cleaned the mold up, they say that I've only cleaned the surface mold and there is actually mold living everywhere and I can never remove it, and that it's going to start growing in my sinuses and it's going to produce mycotoxins and so on. They also say, "Even if it's only a 10% chance, you don't own the place, just break your lease and move it's not worth the risk!" I tend to think that everyone up there who says this has mold in their dwelling and just doesn't know it, and that they are overreacting. I just don't see how you could completely eradicate mold in this environment.

Mold seems to be one of those things it's tough to read about on the internet. There are a lot of paranoiac-seeming sites and I don't know enough about the subject to distinguish the reasonable from the insane. A lot of people are selling mold-related services.

There is one complicating factor that is making me take my friends' arguments more seriously: I have what seems to be a cold I cannot get rid of. I got one a few weeks after I moved in, and it never really seemed to totally go away, and then last week it came back with a vengeance and now I can't kick it. I was thinking this was just bad luck, or something in the weather of the region wasn't agreeing with me since even before I got this apartment I got sick a lot (I had strep throat in July, for instance). I am not normally a person who gets sick frequently.
Now I'm worried that this black mold was just the first mold I can see, and that somehow this mold is making me sick, or perhaps I am allergic to it (I don't have any allergies that I know of). I have gotten sick with insane frequency in the six or so months I've been here, but some of that predates this specific apartment.

So, long story short: is my apartment going to poison me with it's insidious ineradicable toxic mold? Do I really have to move? Or is mold just something everyone has to stay on top of in a climate where it is sort of drizzly basically all the time?

Help me figure out how to dispose of moldy papers I shouldn't just throw out.

Linda_Holmes — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 13:46:38 -0800

I have papers that I would normally shred or burn, but now they got wet and are somewhat moldy. What do I do with them now? I had an apartment flood a few weeks ago, and while the flood cleanup guys did okay with most things, there were some egregious mistakes made, one of which was that they stuffed a couple of canvas bags full of papers I was planning to shred or burn (identifying info, etc.) into a garbage bag and closed it up for two weeks without telling me it was there. I'd forgotten all about that stuff, and I just came across it today in one of the last bags I unpacked. (They also helpfully stuffed three hardcover library books in there that I hadn't been able to find, along with my roll of stamps, so they could hardly have gotten mold on more inconvenient items if they'd tried, BUT WHATEVER.)

So all this stuff is moldy. Some of it can just go to recycling. But some of it needs to be shredded or burned. It's really too much stuff for me to shred myself in a personal shredder -- it's about a big garbage bag full. One of my friends burns junk mail in his fireplace (and has for years), so my plan before the flood was to go over there periodically and burn it up a little at a time.

But now I feel like (1) I don't know if I can burn stuff with mold on it, and (2) I really feel like I'm in a hurry to get it out of my apartment, but I can't throw it out or put it in the recycling, because this is all the shred stuff, like stuff with my bank account info and so forth.

I'm completely stumped by how to get rid of it relatively quickly; I don't even like having it in the house, as I said, now that I know it has mold on it.

If anyone has any brilliant ideas, I would really appreciate it.

Can moldy books saved from flood be put in my freezer?

ebesan — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:04:36 -0800

Can moldy books saved from flood be put in my freezer? I saved 2 books from Hurricane Sandy; everything else was too far gone. Thoroughly soaked, smelly, I actually put them under water to remove whatever other gunk may have been in the water. then double-bagged ziplocs, and a trash bag (but could not quite seal them) and put in freezer. They are now heavy bricks. Is this safe to my frozen food? how can I someday rescue these books?

Winter Damp Solutions?

mary8nne — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:26:12 -0800

Damp Mouldy London Flats: Cheap simple solutions? We moved in to a new flat in May and now that the could winter is coming the flat seems to be getting rather damp and there are some mould (mold) issues. What do we do? Does anyone have experience with any of the following:
- Electrical Dehumidifiers; How do they work? are they very effective?
- buckets of dessicant / moisture absorbing substance?
- turning up / turning on the radiators?

In the mornings the windows are usually covered with condensation (whereas none of the neighbours flats are).

We don't really use the radiators much as the flat is not double glazed so it seems wasteful. So most days lately the ambient temperature inside is around 18C - 19C inside. I know this will result in a higher relative humidity. What temperature to people usually maintain indoors in winter?

Due to the damp / condensation there seems to be a bit of dark mould starting to grow in the corners of the sash windows, would treating those areas with anti-bacterial type stuff kill off the mould?

Hot air heater for a cold damp bathroom?

thankyoumuchly — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 11:18:21 -0800

Can anyone recommend a sub $100 heater for a bathroom?
My primary "need" for this heater is to warm up the bathroom.

My secondary need for this heater is to blow hot air at / dry my towel after I get out of the shower to prevent my towel from getting moldy (happens after about a week, unless I put it in the dryer after each shower, which is inconvenient).

I would like if the heater has an auto-shut off timer so I can turn it on when I get out of the shower, leave the bathroom, and not have to worry about checking that it's off before I leave the house.

I have a standard 120v plug (with a built in bathroom fuse (aka Test and Reset buttons on it) available to plug in the heater).

I don't have windows in this room (not sure if that matters).

How to deal with water damage caused by insurance-less neighbor?

davidvanb — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 08:22:50 -0800

Friend lives in a Philadelphia row home. His neighbor's house was sealed by the DA. Neighbor broke back in & flooded the basement intentionally. The water also flooded my friend's basement and he is now concerned about potential mold problems. Neighbor does not have insurance. How should he proceed so as to both deal with potential mold & mildew before they become a problem and not cause his own homeowner's insurance to increase.

De-stinkify canvas

at the crossroads — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:59:02 -0800

How can I de-stink these canvases? I found three canvases in the dumpster. They are two-color silkscreen prints on canvas ~ 24" x 30". From the looks of the art, the style, I am guessing they are from late 1960s to mid 1970s.

The art on them now is mediocre at best and I am planning on painting over them. [Don't worry! I can assure you that these paintings in their current state have no monetary or cultural value. Here is a link of one. See for yourself. They are three in a series, knock-off prints of a Matisse or Modigliani drawing style.]

Anyway, back to the original question: How can I get rid of the smell? The stretchers are well-made and the canvas is in decent condition, but they are awful stinky. Like they were in someone's basement for 20 years. A musty stench emanates from them and it is a very strong and very unpleasant.

I have let them sit in the sun for several days and I sprayed them with a dilute vinegar-water solution. This did not fix the problem.

Please do not suggest Febreeze or any other masking fragrance. I would prefer to leave the canvas on the stretchers, but if this problem cannot be fixed, I will replace the canvas. Thanks!

Apartment hunting with a mold allergy (Chicago)

randomname25 — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:03:54 -0800

I have a rather serious mold allergy. How should I go about finding a mold-free (or almost mold-free) apartment in Chicago? My allergy is bad enough that levels of mold that might be tolerable to other people make me cough, sneeze, wheeze, get itchy eyes, itchy throat, etc. after 30-60 minutes. Unfortunately, this is not so immediate that I can just detect whether a place is livable from a 10 minute viewing.

I suspect that telling prospective landlords about my allergy in initial Craigslist emails may be scaring them off/making them believe I'm a pain in the ass, even if the advertised apartment doesn't have any mold issues. Should I wait for a phone call? Or maybe the actual viewing, because they've already invested some time, and it's harder to lie to someone if you're looking them in the eye? (Man, these mental games...)

Everywhere I've ever lived has had air conditioning, with the exception of my college dorms (but for some reason they were all fine). Is A/C something I need to make essential in my search? (I'd rather not, but I guess that's life.) Should I be searching for newer buildings, and if so, how? Craigslist postings almost never list the age of the building.

If it matters, I'm looking to live on the North side of Chicago, along the red line (or brown or blue). Before I realized this truly is a dealbreaker, I was mostly looking at places in the $550-$700 range in Rogers Park, Edgewater, and comparable nearby neighborhoods. Is that budget unrealistic if you really can't deal with mold? $850 is my ABSOLUTE max including heat, and I'd really rather not pay that much. But maybe that's unavoidable? Are there other neighborhoods I should consider? Keep in mind that I'm female and small so safety's a major concern.

Finally: would using any of these apartment services be a reasonable solution?

For those of you who saw my previous question, yes, the apartment had hidden mold, but luckily the manager let me out of the lease.

Just how bad is this water damage?

BlueJae — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 17:40:01 -0800

Just how bad is this water damage a roofing contractor caused to my house? And what should I do about it? When hired to replaced my hail-damaged (but note: NOT LEAKING) roof, the contractor replaced all of the shingles but failed to replace 4 of the 6 vents on my roof.

The shingles and all of the vents were significantly damaged by the storm. My home insurance company had agreed to pay me to replace 4 vents (claiming the damage to the other 2 was cosmetic and would not affect function). The work order I'd signed with the roofing company said that they would replace those 4 that the insurance company had approved and also anything else on the roof that turned out to be more damaged than the initial insurance inspection had revealed. Verbally I was told by the business manager that all six of the vents would be replaced, and that they would argue with the insurance company to try to get payment for the other two (which pretty clearly also needed to go).

Instead, the roofers replaced two vents, pulled the rest of the hail-damaged vents off, painted them, and put them back under the new shingles. I noticed this problem immediately upon looking at the newly "finished" roof and asked the business manager about it the same day the roof was done, and he said, and I quote, "When the crew got up there they looked at your vents and decided they were not really in bad shape. And we need to save ourselves money wherever we can in a business like this. Anyway you're better off with old vents like yours -- they don't make them like they used to."

As you might imagine I was less than satisfied with his response. But since the rest of the roof looked all right, I didn't feel like getting into a huge fight over it. My husband and I decided that we would tell the insurance company the vents had not been replaced, either replace the remaining vents ourselves hire someone else to replace them, and take the cost for replacing the non-replaced vents out of the amount we still owed the contractor.

Then, a couple of weeks later, before we had done anything about the vents, it rained, hard.

And my brand new roof leaked, HARD. Cups of water cascading over my kitchen cabinets and onto my stove. Water staining across several feet of my kitchen ceiling. Water raining down from my bathroom fan and pooling on the floor.

I will not tell you the whole sordid saga of me calling this company again and again for weeks, and having them come out again and again (late every time, sometimes by several hours, once without a ladder or a flashlight or a tarp) and putter around with caulk, and say that the problem had been fixed, only for me to discover that it had not, in fact, been fixed, the very next time it rained. Suffice to say that the problem was eventually traced to not just one but two leaks -- coming from the flashing around two of the non-replaced vents.

The vents, I repeat, had NOT been leaking, at all, after the initial hail storm damage. In fact the roof has never leaked at all in the five years we have owned this home -- and we did of course check carefully for leaks after the hail storm. The leaks only started after the contractor touched my roof.

So now the contractor has finally fully replaced one of the newly-leaking old vents, and replaced key parts of the other. After our latest heavy rain this week, I think the roof leak is finally fixed.

But I'm left with this water damage to the ceiling in my bathroom and my kitchen.

The damage in my bathroom was significant enough that my bathroom fan rusted and started sinking through the drywall. We finally just took it down, and now have a gaping hole where the fan once was, with crumbling drywall around it.

The damage to my kitchen that I can see does not look as bad. There are watermarks along about 8 feet of soffit and 10 feet of ceiling that abuts the soffit, and a few small dimpled cracks elsewhere in the ceiling a few feet away from the main stains. Of course, I cannot see what's hidden by the (solid wood) cabinets that I discovered water flowing over. But in the damaged ceiling parts I can see, the drywall at least still feels pretty solid -- not crumbly or warped despite the staining.

The contractor has said that he will "make it right" by painting over the visible damage in the kitchen with stainblock white paint and installing a new fan (which I had already bought, so he's not even paying for that) in the bathroom, and spackling / painting around it, possibly replacing some of the drywall immediately around the hole (but not the whole ceiling).

I told him I was even more concerned about non-visible damage -- to the back side of the drywall, to the tops of my cabinets, to my fiberglass attic insulation, etc. My attic is unfinished and the insulation likely received a fair soaking given how far the water had to travel from the source of the leaks to come out where it did in the kitchen. I'm worried about potential mold problems, and think that perhaps the insulation may need to be replaced.

The roof leaked visibly during every heavy rain for a month -- three major storms, including one (Hurricane Isaac's remnants) that lasted most of Labor Day weekend. The holes the leaks were coming from were small but we have recently gotten A LOT of rain.

The roofer claims the leaks had not been going on long enough to do significant damage or cause a mold problem. I don't believe him, because he's already proven himself to be a corner-cutter, and he has no financial incentive to be honest with me. Who is right?

(YANMHandyperson. I do, of course, plan to spend the next week getting estimates from actual construction contractors who are NOT this tool who broke my pretty house, but given my luck with contractors recently I thought I would try the green for general advice, too.)

I suspect there is hidden mold in my new apartment. What now?

randomname25 — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:10:42 -0800

I suspect there is hidden mold in my new apartment. How do I know for sure, and what do I do to remove it/get the manager to remove it? I'm allergic so letting it be is not an option. I just leased an apartment. It looked fine when I saw it except for some mold in the bathroom. The building manager agreed that this was unacceptable and agreed to "paint" before I moved in. I was an idiot and I guess I just assumed this meant that he get the mold removed and then have it painted.

In any case, I think there's probably painted-over mold in other places, because after 15 minutes in the place I start sneezing like crazy and my throat itches. Or maybe it's under the carpet. I have barely moved any stuff in at all at this point and my lease formally kicks in tomorrow.

If the problem's really bad, I assume the carpet will need to be removed and/or the walls will need to be stripped. If it's not, maybe just wiping stuff down with Lysol or vinegar and/or steam-cleaning the carpet would work. But how do I assess the problem, or determine if it's actually another allergen that's bugging me?

And is this the landlord's responsibility? I signed off on the apartment as being OK aside from the bathroom being "unpainted" because I wasn't in there long enough seeing it for my allergic reaction to kick in. What are my next steps?

Do I need a mold specialist, a window guy, a general contractor, or all three?

Slack-a-gogo — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:00:09 -0800

I have to replace a rotted out bathroom window by the shower, but I'm pretty confident that there's a bad mold problem in the shower wall beneath the window. Who should the first call be made to to resolve this? A few months ago we cut out a mold spore that appeared in one of the cracks in the window sill and this morning what appears to be a clover (?!?) sprouted out of another crack. We've put off addressing this for far too long and now I'm not sure where to start the process.

Our townhouse is about 12 years old and I now question if the window was ever treated properly to be in a shower. We haven't noticed any health issues, but it's something that will only get worse and should have been taken care of years ago before it got this bad. Should the first call be a window guy, a mold specialist, a general contractor, or someone entirely different? Ideally there would be one contractor to evaluate, take care of the mold, rebuild the wall, and put in the window - but I have a bad feeling that's unrealistic.

Google searches seem to favor scare tactic sites and paid search partners rather than advice from people that resolved similar experiences. Where do I even start this process? Is this an all-in-one problem or should I plan on needing to bring in multiple contractors for each issue?

Is my landlord right about air circulation & mold prevention?

rhiannonstone — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:09:52 -0800

Landlord is very insistent that if we don't open our bathroom window a particular way, the air will not circulate and the mold will take over and also there will be doom. Does he know what he's talking about? Our bathroom: a small room with no ventilation fan and a single average-sized double-hung window with a thin plastic shade. After showers we generally raise the shade, open the top part of the window, and leave the (frosted) bottom part of the window closed, which I've always thought allowed us the privacy to be naked in our bathroom post-shower while still providing enough ventilation for the bathroom to dry out. The landlord insists that we absolutely must open both the top and bottom parts of the window, otherwise the air won't circulate. I'm not entirely sure that a) that's how air circulation actually works or b) the air needs to "circulate" in order to prevent mold.

Full disclosure: I'm also a little annoyed that following his instructions means that anyone walking by the bathroom window will be able to clearly see us in the bathroom, and I really don't want to have to put clothes on immediately post-shower or try to find somewhere else besides the bathroom in our tiny apartment to get ready. But if he's right I'm willing to make the sacrifice, because there is a minor shower scum/mold? problem that we keep under control with scrubbing, and I don't want it to get worse.

So, AskMe physicists and bathroom mold experts, is our landlord right? Will opening both parts of the window help the air circulate and thus better prevent mold?

How to thoroughly remove mold from a fridge?

kitcat — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:02:32 -0800

My fridge smells strongly of mold, even after removing the offending produce, visible mold, and giving it a cursory wipedown. Where is the rest of it hiding? We just returned from vacation, during which there was a lot of high heat and possibly power outages. There was a lot of condensation in the fridge, moldy food, and mold in the rubber bits around the door. There's still a strong moldy smell, but I can't figure out where it's coming from. I'm guessing there is still mold somewhere in an internal part of the fridge. How do I find and clean the rest of the mold?

How can I get rid of mold on my bonsai?

23 — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 06:16:59 -0800

What can I do about mold on the soil of my plum bonsai? Do I need to worry about it? I bought a plum bonsai from the local grocery store a little over a month ago. It bloomed just fine and grew leaves; about half of them turned yellow and fell off, but the ones left look green and healthy and there's a lot of them. However, since around the time it grew leaves, the surface of the soil will grow a layer of soft, gray fuzz. If I churn the surface soil a bit it breaks up the mold very easily, but it grows back in a few days.

I water the plant maybe twice a week and I put it in a room with a large, sunny North-facing window with beveled glass. I've never had plants until recently, so I'm not really sure what to do with this. I live in Tokyo.

How to pay for mold clean up for low income family?

previously — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:47:02 -0800

Have a serious mold problem. Do mold removal companies do payment plans? What guidelines does the government follow to declare a home too hazardous to live in? Our hot water tank spewed hot water for a week before we discovered it. I feel like such an idiot for not realizing it sooner. This was shortly after we had flooding in our basement. Needless to say it's a huge mess down there. All the water is gone, but there is visible mold on the walls and ceiling tiles.

There is way too much for me to clean on my own, nevermind that my asthma doesn't like it down there. Unfortunately, the insurance won't cover the cost of the clean up.

I did some preliminary research and some websites say it can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to clean up this kind of mess. I don't have thousands, not even on any credit cards.

I don't know what to do. We cannot leave it like it is, even I know that. It all has to be cleaned or torn out. Is it unheard of for companies that do mold removal to work out payment plans? Or somehow help low income families?

As if I didn't already have enough problems, my plumbing is all screwed up. Something is wrong and has put our shower and one toilet out of commission. My neighbor has snaked it and it's still not flowing. We need to call a plumber. I'm afraid that if we bring one over and he sees the basement, he's going to call the police or CDC or whomever.. they're going to see the state it's in and take our home from us. This house was built by my grandparents.. but more importantly it's the only place for me and my family to live. We own it outright, no mortgage. I've looked around and between my family health problems (unrelated to the mold, chronic illnesses), personal debt, and my income, I can't afford rent anywhere else. what's the chances of the government swooping in and kicking us out if a plumber calls them? Do they take possession of everything in the house as well? Will we be left with just the clothes on our backs?

This problem is causing me huge amounts of anxiety. I don't know what to do and feel very much in over my head. I've not been sleeping well and I'm seriously concerned for my family members and my pets.

What should I do?

(If it matters, I live in southeastern Michigan)

Where's the water coming from?

zvs — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:18:01 -0800

How to identify, fix, and clean up after a water leak without destroying my walls and ceilings (any more than I have to)? I have a 3-story house, and I recently noticed that there are 3 seemingly water-related problems, and each one is above the other. I'm thinking water leak.

On the first floor, there's peeling finish plaster all around one corner of the plaster ceiling. I removed some of the loose plaster and did not like what I saw.

On the second floor, there's peeling paint up and down the wall at the same spot.

On the third floor, there's no peeling paint, but there's a very small amount of mold. (Toothbrush included for size comparison.) I sort of absent-mindedly painted over it a couple weeks ago, and noticed that it grew back.

The roof above this spot is pitched, with asphalt shingles. I see a patch of roofing tar near this spot, but I'm not sure if it's directly overhead.

How can I figure out if water is still entering without tearing up the wall? I can cut away a piece of plaster on the third floor to check for moisture, but since there's mold growing I'm a little paranoid about it. Help!

Lease Termination/Medical Question

Debaser626 — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:11:21 -0800

If I sign an agreement of early lease termination, am I barred from being able to seek further legal action against the landlord for medical issues my 20-month old daughter might encounter as a result of our living there? Until last Saturday, my girlfriend, her 20-month old daughter, and I were living in an apartment where there was a intermittent leak which had been occurring since July 2011. Each time, the carpets were dried and cleaned and the problem would seem to go away for 3-4 weeks and then pop back up. Finally last week, the problem developed into a serious leak, and the carpeting was pulled, mold was discovered, and then two rooms in the house flooded. At that point we left immediately and sought termination of lease under Florida Statute 83.63 Casualty Damage.

The Property Management company and myself went back and forth for several days about the legality of this. Ultimately, they have not officially recognized this specific reason for lease termination, but they did offer a termination of lease agreement in which we can leave our stuff there until the 12th free of charge, and they will process our Security Deposit at that point. The issue is, there was mold found, and our 20-month old daughter has had several ear and sinus infections recently. This could be normal, or it could be something more serious, I just don't know yet. Due to this, I find this section troubling:

Except as otherwise stated in this document, TENANT and OWNER HEREBY remises, releases, acquits,satisfies and forever discharge, each other, management, its owners, employees, agents and assigns, for and from all manner of action and actions, cause and causes of action, suits, debts, dues, sums of money, accounts,
reckonings, bonds, bills, specialties, covenants, contracts, controversies, agreements, promises, variances,trespasses, damages, judgments, executions, claims and demands whatsoever, in law or in equity, which any Party ever had, now have, or which any personal representative, successor, heir or assign of said Party hereafter can, shall or may have, upon or by reason of any matter, cause or thing whatsoever, from the beginning of the world to the day of these presents if the terms of this Agreement are met. OWNER and TENANT agree to hold MANAGEMENT and its employees, agents and representatives harmless from any claims, damages or expenses of any nature in any way relating to the tenancy or this Agreement, The PARTIES hereby release, acquit, and forever discharge each other and their past, present, and future shareholders, directors, officers, employees, principals, agents, servants, property managers, realtors, independent contractors, representatives, parent corporations, subsidiaries, affiliates, predecessors, successors, assigns, attorneys, and insurers from any and all actions, causes of action, claims, counterclaims, demands, damages, fines, penalties, assessments, costs, loss of services, expenses, interest, attorneys' fees and compensation whatsoever, in any way relating to or arising out of the tenancy, the Lease or this Agreement as long as this Agreement is complied with.

If, in the unlikely event our daughter develops asthma or some other worsening of health that they are able to trace back to a mold/mildew exposure, am I barring myself from seeking further action if I sign this document? Or is there some superseding federal or state (Florida) statute which would allow us to seek this in any case. I would consult a lawyer, but this sudden and unplanned move has already tapped my resources. Mind you, I'm not litigious, and at this point I could care less about my stuff, recouping moving costs, cost of new apt., or even my own health. It is specifically my daughter that I am worried about. Any input, "IANAL" or otherwise is sorely needed and appreciated. I have until tomorrow evening to sign this document, so I'm kind of in a bind.....

Mold? Mildew? Fungus? Pod Person?

julthumbscrew — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:29:29 -0800

Name That Infestation-Filter! What's growing on my in-laws' wall? My in-laws own a lil' vacation home an hour east of L.A. Their L.A. neighbor watches the house for them in their absence. Recently, L.A. Neighbor e-mailed them a photo of SOMETHING which had begun growing on the wall of their kitchen. Photo of the growth can be found here. Do YOU have any idea what it might be? Possibly relevant data:

- The growth is isolated to one patch of wall/carpet.
- The growth apparently crumbles into a powder/dust when touched.
- The growth occurred on a section of wall which covers a water pipe... however, my in-laws are adamant that the pipe in question hasn't been used in several decades.
- The growth happened after the house had been unoccupied for several months.
- The climate in that section of Cali (Riverside County) is pretty warm and arid most of the time.

Eww, mold/mildew in my shoes! Please help!

vegartanipla — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:34:49 -0800

Ewww, my summer sandals (technically a water shoe) have visible mildew or mold in them! Help me fix this. Plus, now I'm paranoid about all my shoes and I physically can't smell. Special snowflake details inside. This has never happened to me before as far as I'm aware.

I moved down to the South a year and a half ago. I am now in Baton Rouge, a very humid place. I just went to put on my favorite sandals (technically a water shoe, the now discontinued Merrell WaterPro Pandi) which I haven't worn since probably October/November. (We're having a warm/rainy spell right now.) And as I'm getting ready to put them on, I see the footbed is covered in small green circles of what appears to be mildew or mold. I grab a different colored pair of the same style, Merrell Waterpro Pandi, that I wear slightly less frequently and same thing. Upon examination, there is also visible mildew/mold on and near the heel on the actual shoe, too, so just removing and treating the soles isn't an option.

This is slightly complicated by the fact that I was born with congenital anosmia and so I'm only able to go off of visuals here. I'm now also a little freaked out that perhaps all my shoes smell even when I don't see the green stuff.

I don't particularly want to ask anyone to come over and smell all my shoes. I mean, I have friends, but that's something I'd only ask of a family member or multi-year-long friendship, and neither live nearby.

How do I treat the Merrell Waterpro Pandi shoes? How about the rest of my shoes? All my shoes are vegan, if that matters, so only man-made materials, but not all are water shoes. I saw this question, but 1) there's no sunshine right now, and it's always humid/rainy, and 2) I feel like perhaps the visible mildew may impact matters, and 3) I now need a routine so even though I can't smell, I'm not walking around with smelly, mildew/moldy shoes.