How to remove mold properly

Mold. Not your friend.

So mold spores are these microbial bits that are around us every day- we breathe them every time we go outside, and in general they're perfectly harmless. Until they colonize inside your home, like the picture shown above. Then it becomes a problem.

When you get an area of your home with that much mold, it can cause respiratory problems, inflammation, allergic reactions, eye irritations, etc. It can make you pretty sick. There are quite a few different types of mold, none of which you want colonizing inside your home, but the one that is the most dangerous to people (especially infants and the elderly) is a variety of black mold called stachybotrys chartarum.

I've done many mold remediation jobs and I can tell you with some authority that the most common sources of mold colonization is leaks either in the dishwasher or refrigerator supply lines. It makes sense when you think about it: there's a slow drip, drip, drip style leak behind your refrigerator that takes months to notice. By the time you pull out the refrigerator, mold spores have had a long time to grow.

So what do you do? Orange hoopty-do to the rescue!

Step one- don't panic. Yes, it looks bad. And yes, it is bad. But there are far worse things that can happen to you than mold growth. These things happen. Try to find the source of the leak if you can. If its a dishwasher supply line, just turn off the water and disconnect your dishwasher.

Step two- call your insurance company. Explain to your adjuster what's going on. They'll send someone out to document everything and file a report to determine weather or not you're covered. In the mean time, don't touch anything.

Step three A)- Your insurance will cover you! Great! Get out of the way and let the pros do their thing. Step three B) Your insurance company tells you to pound sand. This happens all the time. "Sorry, that leak behind your refrigerator was a long-term issue and we're not going to cover you." Bastards! Now its on you. Because of course it is.

At this point, you have two options. If you have the money, you can hire the aforementioned pros to come in and take care of it out of pocket. Here's what you're paying for:

If you don't have the cash, you can do this yourself. You just have to go slow and be careful.

The most important thing I can say here is do not use bleach. Its a common misconception, and people do it all the time. But I'm telling you, bleach is bad stuff. Yes, it kills everything- including people- but it also really damages the surface you apply it to. Drywall, for instance. And, to make it worse, you're only killing the mold growth you can see... Let me explain that, if I may. If you see mold growing an a wall and you spray it down with bleach, you're only killing the mold on the side of the wall that you can see, not the mold behind the wall. So you've damaged the drywall and haven't really solved the problem.

So here's what you do. Or, more to the point, this is what I would do in my own house. Seal off the room as good as you can, close doors, tape over vents, try to isolate the affected area as much as possible. Keep your pets and family out of the affected area while you're working. Wear a mask and protective clothing if you have it. If not, at least get a basic respirator (they don't cost that much, I promise).

You'll need trash bags, duct tape, a vacuum cleaner (preferably a hepa vac, not a shop vac. Don't use a shop vac because they blow air out the back. Your Hoover you use on the carpets is a better choice), a utility knife, tape measure, hammer, small pry bar, wire brush and if you've got one, an orbital sander. Also, and this is important- we need to map the quickest route to the outdoors. If you have a window, great. We don't want to be schlepping mold spores through the rest of the house.

Remove all the contents around the affected area (drawers, appliances, etc.) and move them to a clean area. This is a pain in the butt. Basically, you want to get it so that nothing is going to get contaminated by mold spores.

Once you're satisfied that you've got a clean shot between you and the mold, you're ready to get that crap out of your house and out of your life. Let's say you've got mold in a closet (almost never happens, but its an easy example). You'll start by using your vacuum and the wire brush. Brush the mold with the wire brush while your vacuum's hose attachment is right next to it. Mold behaves exactly like dust, so the wire brush loosens it and the vacuum hose sucks it up and traps it. Once that is done, we'll be removing the baseboards where the wall meets the floor. This is easily done by scoring the joint with a utility knife between the top of the baseboard and the wall, then using your small prybar and a hammer, tapping it out until it's loose enough to pull off the wall. Does that make sense? Here's a picture of scoring with a utility knife:

You really want to go nice and slow. What we're trying to avoid is lots of dust that can spread spores around. Luckily, we've got a respirator on, so we're okay. Next, we'll measure about six inches up the wall past where we can see the top of the mold growth. We'll mark that, and if we have a chalk line, we'll mark where we want to make the cut. Say the mold growth goes up 3'6". We'll make a line 4' up the wall horizontally. Try to make a nice, straight line on the wall. This will make life easier later.

Now we take our friend the utility knife and score along that line we just marked. Go over it two or three times just for good measure. So now we've cut into the wall above the mold. Now we're going to remove that section of the wall. With your vacuum handy, carefully tap your prybar into a section of the drywall below the cut until it goes through. Now open a section of the wall by yanking the prybar. Once you've got a hole opened up enough to get your hand in, you can just pull the drywall out.

Oh, and by small prybar, I mean something like this:

Okay, you've got a chunk of moldy drywall in your hands. Gross! Wear gloves! I guess I should have mentioned that earlier. But look at the back of it. Is there mold? If there is (and usually there is) you'll get a better sense of what you're up against. And check out the wall behind where that drywall came from. If you see mold back there, you're beginning to get an idea of the scope of the damage. The drywall chunk goes into the trash bag. As you remove more of the wall, you'll start to fill said trash bag. Don't make it too heavy, or life will suck. Instead, fill the trash bag with your moldy drywall to the point where you feel comfortable schlepping it out the window to the great outdoors. Duct tape the trash bag closed, sealing the opening. If you're going through another room of the house, double bag it, taping both bags shut. But get it out of the house.

So now we've demolished the wall to 4' and we're looking at studs and whatever else is behind the wall. There may be mold growth back there as well (very likely, in fact). If the mold continues past where we've removed the wall (in this case 4'), make another cut and keep going until you can't see mold. If it doesn't, we're ready for the next step.

We'll wire brush/orbital sand/vacuum the studs, sill plates (where the studs meet the floor) and whatever else we see mold growth on. Now we're almost done. If it's really, really super bad, you can paint it with an encapsulate. A quick internet search will tell you all you need to know about that, but in my experience, this is rarely necessary. Vacuum everything. Sweep with a broom. Vacuum again. Get every single piece of drywall below the cut out of there, even if it means chipping out the drywall between the wood/tile floor and the sill plates (again, a huge pain in the butt). Vacuum again.

Now we're to the final bit. All the trash has been removed and the work area is about as clean as we can make it, we're going to get a small bucket, some rags and some dish soap. We'll use a little bit of soap in the bucket, the rags in the bucket and fill the bucket with water. We'll wipe down the affected area, starting with the ceiling, and go all the way to the floor. Do not put the used rags back in the bucket. Toss them in a trash bag or something.

All the surfaces, the ceiling, the walls, the studs, counter tops, cabinets, the floor, whatever gets cleaned. You do one wipe down and take a break and let whatever dust is in the room settle, then you repeat the process. Wipe down, take a break, let everything settle, repeat. And you do this until the rag you're using is as clean as when you took it out of the bucket.

And when you have achieved that level of cleanliness, you are now mold free.

Cheers.

8:00 PM PT: Wow! The rec list! I'd like to thank the academy and my producer and my agent, and of course I couldn't have done it without the support of my staff...

But really, thank you, dKos! You guys are awesome. I hope this diary helps someone.

8:22 PM PT: Quick update, and an excellent catch by Ice Blue down in the comments section:

"BTW either I need another Ritalin or you forgot to mention asbestos. It is in most drywall installed before 1980. Shower and wash your clothes when you are done working."

Yes! Lead and asbestos! No bueno. If your house was built before 1986, there is a strong chance that both of those elements are present. One more reason to not make a lot of dust. But your insurance company should have it tested right away.

Showering and washing your clothes is a must. But kind of like when you work with fiberglass insulation, rinse yourself head-to-toe with cold water first. And the reason for that is to rinse of any contaminate particles from your skin without opening your pores. Make sense? Be safe!