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Fall Decorating and Mold

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Decorating your home with pumpkins and gourds is a great way to welcome in the fall season.
While these autumn fruits are a staple in fall decorating, they also present an opportunity to introduce mold into your home.

Find out what you can do to prevent a mold problem from ruining your fall decorating displays.

How Fall Decorating is a Mold Threat

As you bring those fall fruits into your home, they will begin to rot.

Pumpkins and gourds rot quickly because they are exposed to all the outdoor moisture, bacteria and dirt needed for them to grow. Additionally, trace amounts of mold are already on the pumpkins and gourds out there in the field.

Without some kind of treatment, the fresh fruits will decay and when that happens, it gives mold an opportunity to grow. Your fruit may no longer be ripe, but the conditions for mold are.
The problem with active mold is that it contains and releases tiny particles known as mycotoxins and spores, which easily become airborne and spread throughout your home.

The best course of defense against decay and mold growth in this situation is to remove as much of that dirt, bacteria, and moisture as possible from the fruit before decorating.

Preventing Seasonal Mold

Before carving those jack-o-lanterns or putting pumpkins or gourds on display, treat them with a simple solution to delay rotting and mold.

Treating fall fruit is easy and you probably already have all of the ingredients for the cleaning mixture at home.

Cleaning Mixture for Treating Fall Fruits

The mixture is a combination of one gallon water, two tablespoons of bleach and a drop of liquid dish soap. Mix together in the kitchen sink or a bucket.

Soak gourds and pumpkins in the mixture for 30 minutes. Note that pumpkins and gourds don’t need to be completely soaked and submerged, just thoroughly cleaned, including the stem.

Periodically roll pumpkins around to evenly coat the fruit.

After cleaning, rinse the gourds and pumpkins well and dry completely.

For an extra layer of protection, lightly spray with a clear protective sealant and let dry completely.

Eliminating Mold from Fall Decorating

The best way to combat mold is to try to prevent it. If it’s too late for that, treat the mold with vinegar or a mixture of bleach and water.

While bleach is typically the go to mold killer and disinfectant, vinegar usually works better to clean mold from porous surfaces such as tables, shelves, or countertops.

Bleach

Combine 1 cup of bleach with 1 cup of water. Mix well, pour into a spray bottle. Saturate mold with mixture, let soak for 30 minutes. Rinse and dry well. Repeat as needed.

Vinegar

Use undiluted white distilled vinegar in a spray bottle and saturate moldy areas. Let soak, rinse thoroughly and let air dry.

Always protect yourself with gloves and a mask when treating mold.

If areas affected by mold exceed 10 square feet, call a mold remediation company to safely treat and eliminate the mold.

Conclusion

While decorating is fun and gets you into the autumn spirit, it also comes with risks for mold contamination.

In Sonoma County, call the go-to mold remediation specialists at RCS. No matter how it makes its way into your home, RCS is here to resolve all of your mold issues.

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Is It Safe to Use Bleach to Clean Mold?

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For years now, bleach has been used to kill germs, disinfect and clean many surfaces in the home. But when you’re dealing with mold, is it the best option for cleaning?

Read on to find out why bleach may not be your best or safest option to clean and kill mold.

Cleaning Mold

Mold is that nasty little fungus that grows in spaces where there’s darkness, dampness and moisture.

Mold is not only unattractive, but if left untreated, it grows, spreads, stains and causes damage by eating away at structural components and furnishings in your home. It also worsens breathing and other pre-existing health conditions.

Obviously, you want to clean up mold before it quickly begins on its destructive path.

While many people immediately reach for the bleach to clean, disinfect and remove stains left behind by mold, you may want to think twice about bleach as your go-to cleaning option.

Using Bleach to Kill Mold

Bleach works really well to clean up mold on non-porous surface like sinks, tubs or tile. This is because the roots or mold membrane can’t penetrate non-porous surfaces and it’s fairly easy to remove, clean and disinfect the area.

But when mold gets into porous surfaces like fabric, drywall or wood, the roots can and will spread deeper into the material to feed its growth.

While you think that cleaning mold on the surface of porous surfaces has resolved your mold problem, all you’ve done is to wipe away what you can see on the surface.

Bleach doesn’t kill off the deeper, spreading spores and mold roots that penetrate into porous materials like the structural components of your home. This explains why even though you’ve cleaned the visible surface mold with bleach, it can and will grow back with a vengeance because the roots are still alive and spreading.

The Health Risks of Bleach

If you’ve ever been in a confined space after cleaning with bleach, you know how strong and overpowering it smells.

Inhaling bleach fumes causes irritation to your eyes and mucus membranes, while exposing sensitive skin to bleach can irritate and burn.

Accidentally mixing bleach with other cleansers or ammonia-based products creates toxic chlorine gas which is what causes that burning or stinging sensation you may have experienced in your skin, nose, eyes and throat.

For those with compromised immune or lung conditions, chlorine gas negatively affects breathing and lung function.

Why Bleach may not be the Best Option for Cleaning Mold

Some other concerns about using bleach to clean mold is that bleach is comprised primarily of about 5% sodium hypochlorite and water.

Since water is what you want to eliminate to further prevent the spread of mold, spraying bleach on porous surfaces allows the water in bleach to absorb into porous materials. The porous materials soak up the water and feeds it to the mold root, which actually helps mold spread.

Another concern is that since bleach removes color from fabrics, you cannot use bleach on furniture, draperies, clothing or cloth shower curtains. Bleach can also damage or discolor wood, drywall or other structural components due to its corrosive nature.

Effective Alternatives to Bleach

Before using bleach to clean, disinfect and most importantly kill mold at its root, reach instead for white vinegar or tea tree oil. These more natural and non-corrosive cleaners disinfect, kill mold and are safe, healthy alternatives to bleach.

Conclusion

When unsightly, unhealthy and recurring mold is a problem, call in the mold remediation experts at RCS. Serving Sonoma County since 1975, we can help identify, eliminate and most importantly, give you back your safe, healthy and mold-free home.