Finding out you have a black mold infestation can be a very hard thing to discover. First of all, you find out usually after a long and painful spell of feeling sick, having really bad headaches, and likely getting in trouble at work due to all your absences that couldn’t be helped. Black mold is a powerful and deadly spore producing mold that literally attacks you from the air like dive bombers.
What happens is an area becomes saturated with water, usually below the sink or in the wall when a water pipe leaks or bursts. The damp and soaked walls become breeding grounds for black mold, named by the way it looks. Finding it is usually not something you stumble upon. Often it’s not until someone checks into a hospital for recurring sickness that someone at the hospital lets them know they may have a black mold infestation.
By that time it’s likely infested the entire home via the millions of spores this mold releases into the air. Every time you go into the cabinet near the mold (i.e. in the kitchen sink the mold may be behind the wall but the spores are filling the area under your sink until you open it and let them out- the wind carries them and likely you inhale a lot of them. They tend to get into your lungs and cause all sorts of havoc in your body.
Removing mold is not an easy process. Chances are the longer you’ve had it and didn’t know it the more spores were released. You may have to get rid of all of your cloth furniture if the infestation is too much. Spores generally land on material in the home and are kicked back into the air when you plop down on the sofa or chair. If you sit there and sweat this can give the mold new life!
The first thing you need to do is call a black mold removal specialist. They will come out and determine how bad the situation is using sensitive equipment and they won’t even enter the house without putting on what looks like a radiation suit! Once they determine the parts per million of spores in the air and all over the home, they try to find the highest concentration area which will be where the mold is likely to be hiding.
Removing the mold means tearing the wall open and removing any infected areas. The air has to be cleaned by a vacuuming process that takes days and even weeks. calling a specialist you’ll be able to remove the mold but it could be a very costly removal if it costs you your furniture and the renovation to get to the mold messes up the home (which needs to be repaired including the leaky pipes!).