If I could do it again
- Risty
- Sep 8, 2017
- 4 min read
If I had the chance to do it again.
One should be extremely careful when you toss out this phrase.
I wrote in a previous blog, that we would do things different if we were doing it again.
Well, we are. We found black mold in our second home.
We lost our farm house to black mold. We cleaned it all wrong, you can read about that in my post "how to clean mold" and my husband post called "Fuzzy's testimony."
We sent the spores air born, causing them to land on all of our belongings and contaminating everything that we owned.
This post will explain what things we are doing differently this time around. Hopefully, we have learned something from our past mistakes.
We learned a few things during that original endeavor, things we wished we had done differently. It’s not every day that life grants you a do-over, a chance to do it differently. I guess I should consider us lucky! Well…maybe not. I don’t consider black mold lucky or good. It makes me very sick. You can read about how it poisons your body on the post called "mycotoxins" and causes a myriad of symptoms that you can read about on the post called "Is mold making you sick."
We were investigating a weird shelf in our sunroom. We wanted to know what was inside of it, so we decided to see if we could see from the back side of the wall, since it was already halfway torn out. As I lifted up the insulation for my husband we found the black mold you can see in this photo. While this is bad enough, I wish that was all that we found.
This time, we are following the biblical instructions for removing mold stated in Leviticus 14:33-45, which are the same instructions professional mold abatement teams recommend.
1. We turned off the heat/ac unit to our home to keep spores from moving throughout the house.
2. We sprayed the moldy spot with ammonia. This kills the spores. However you will still react to a dead spore just as much as you will with a live spore. The difference is that if a spore does go air-born, it should not be able to create a new colony somewhere else in the house because it is dead. These dead spores will still make you sick.
3. We taped off that room from all the other rooms in the house. Make sure you especially cover the air vents.
4. We removed everything from our home. Yes everything. We completely moved out. This way if the spores go air-born, we will not lose all of our belongings this time.
5. We ripped up the carpet in the adjacent rooms and moved it elsewhere, in hopes of saving the carpet. If we had left it, the spores could have settled into the fibers, contaminating it.
After we moved out of our home and back in with my in-laws (for the second time in two years, they are so gracious to us) my husband took out the rest of the insulation in the room, spraying ammonia on any mold that he uncovered as he went.
*Make sure as you do this, you are wearing a mask and all of your skin is covered. You will absorb mold spores in through your skin and through your nose. Once inside they will feed on you, slowly poisoning you to death.
As he got to the corner he found all of the mold in this photo. This is where the tub and the shower sat. Heart-breaking.
6. My husband spray painted the moldy spots with Zinsser’s mold killing paint primer that had an antifungal included. This hopefully will make the spores stick to the wood and will help them not to go air born when the carpenter begins to rip it out. UPDATE: I was told by a professional that you should not spray paint but gently roll the paint over the mold.
7. The carpenter will have to rip out the exterior wall of our home, replacing every piece of wood with clean materials. In the middle of winter, with a snow storm forecasted. I pray our water lines do not bust, in a house with no heat.
*We will not scrub or attempt to clean the mold in any way. This sends the spores air-born. The infected materials will carefully and completely be removed without disturbing the mold.
8. After the carpenter is finished, I plan to hire a cleaner to come and wipe down every surface in our home with an anitfungal: the walls, ceiling, fans, lights, trim, windows, doors, everything.
9. Next, I will paint every wall with Zinsser’s mold killing primer that has antifungal inside it.
10. I will purchase and run an air purifier with a HEPA filter, to capture spores in the air. I will also run a diffuser with Thieves Oil. Thieves Oil is a microbial, allowing the mist to penetrate all areas of the house.
11. I will paint the kitchen cabinets with Zinsser’s mold killing primer as well because it is next to the room with the mold. No matter how hard we try, I am sure a few renegade spores will escape.
Only time will tell, if these efforts are enough to save our second house. Only time will tell if we can go back home or if we will be house searching again.
Editors Note: See Disclaimer
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