Mold discovered in their room!

My DH and I were cleaning out the girls' room this morning after breakfast and found a significant amount of black and green mold in their windows and on the back on an old wooden bureau! I'm so horrified right now. The blinds barely ever get raised since thats where they nap throughout the day and I feel so bad for not seeing it sooner. We also have an old, old wooden bureau in front of one of the windows and saw it had green, fuzzy mold growing up the back of it. We decided to take the bureau out and put it in the basement for now and get the windows cleaned up with a bleach solution.

I'm so freaked out I'd like to get it tested to ensure it's not toxic mold. The reason why I'm so concerned is due to Maddie's recent diagnosis of Benign Myoclonic Epilepsy. There is no history of seizures on either side of our families and I read that toxic mold could cause seizures especially in young children.

Am I way off base here? Has anyone else gone through the process of testing mold? I see home kits where you have to send away to labs but that can take 3 weeks. I'm wondering how accurate they are too.

Any input is greatly appreciated

 

I think you should get professionals to come take care of it, we had the same problem back in Ireland and, like you, i would be bleaching it every week but it kept coming back. Eventually, i spoke to my dr and he said that bleaching doesn't get rid of it at all just the surface and he recommended some people to do the job. Once it was done DS2 who had been having reccurent bronchiolitis for his entire 1st year never had it again and my "allergies" disappeared.
I hope you get it sorted out soon, all the best.

 

:hug: what an unpleasant surprise! unfortunately, i don't have any advice to give. being the type of person that i am, i would probably get professionals to a) do the testing & b) do the clean up. then i would know it was done properly. have you asked their ped about the possible connection between mold & seizures?

 

I did a mold home kit that we got from Home Depot once, and I've also had a professional come for our house. what I found interesting was that the end result from both were from the same lab. The results were pretty quick, not 2-3 weeks from what I remember. I think I FEDEx the package to a Miami address, and then was able to get the results either faxed to me, or via email or logged into the internet, can't remember. I think the Home Depot kit was $30 or something pretty cheap.

I agree with getting a professional to clean it up, and not sure if you'd save any money (because the professional is pretty pricey - though worth it).... if you had the mold analyzed before the professional came.

good luck, hopefully you can get it all figured out.

 

I don't have any experience with this, but I think if I were in your shoes, I would have a professional come out and test and do the clean up. I'd also want to find out where the mold is coming from so it does not happen again. I am so sorry that you have to worry about this and I hope it can be cleared up quickly for you :hug:

 

I was unaware bleach didn't kill the mold entirely. That's really great to know and is really pushing me to have some professionals come out to the house to ensure it's completely gone. We are concerned with the cost since I've been laid off since the girls were three weeks old (yikes!). Our income is cut in half with two little extra mouths to feed :unsure: We're also concerned since we are renting the house and will more than likely get the landlord involved.

Oddly enough, we are the first people to live in the house we are renting since it was built a couple years ago. The main cause of the mold appears to be high humidity and lack of proper ventilation. There is no exterior vent for the hood above the stove and we do tons of cooking. It's pretty cold in the winters here in MA so it can be quite steamy if we don't crack a window. Also, we get a ton of condensation on every single window just from running the heat in the winter. I haven't been up in the attic but I'm guess the ventilation pipes for each bathroom isn't insulated which is causing mold to grow in each ceiling vent. These new houses are built too tight and don't allow for good air flow for proper humidity levels. Aside from being dilligent about wiping down all the windows every single day, I'm not sure what else I can do. Maybe the landlord will be willing to offer some assistance.

 

our main issue was in a rental we own.... an old home in Florida. the tenants when we had the issues were a couple with 3 teenage/young adult daughters living there. we will never allow that many people to live in the 2 bedroom house again. anyway, they used lots of water, and probably took lots of hot showers... once they moved out our mold issue subsided.

not sure where I'm going with our story, only to say that I think that water usage and ventilation is key to mold issues. I would think that the landlord would need to be involve. good luck.

 

if you're renting, would it not be the landlord's sole responsibility to fix that? at least, i'd be on my landlord's doorstep demanding he do something about it if i were in your shoes.

are landlord/tenant agreements different in the US than in Canada? i have no idea - anybody else?

 

I agree with pp – you should contact your landlord. I think this is mostly their responsibility to fix and fix properly – you may want to check your state landlord tenant laws. Not to be adversarial, but you want to make sure this isn’t part of a bigger problem that could cause major problems to the house down the road. Not to mention the potential health hazards. In the mean time you could get some of these – they really help pull the moisture out of the air they are pretty cheap too - s/b able to find them at Home Depot or some place like that.

 

We found the same thing and cleaned it with bleach, but it came back again. We have all new windows but for some reason that room gets a lot of condensation on the windows! What I realized was the last few years this did not happen and I believe it's because we put the plastic on the windows in the girls room to help with the cold (a friend from the mid-west told me about this product, they sell it at home depot). Apparently it was keeping it from getting moldy too.
Once you get it properly cleaned/analyzed you might want to look into putting up the plastic during the colder months. Also a dehumidifier might work too.