How to Kill Black Mold In Your Home

Hey, everybody. I'm Lyme and mold expert. I'm Dr. Diane Mueller. And in this video, we're going to talk about how to kill mold. Now, this is such an important topic because one of the things that most people do that I do not want you to do is see black mold. Get a bunch of bleach and throw it on there. This will make the problem worse. And in this video, we are going to talk about why that is so black mold. You have to understand that black mold from a standpoint of being problematic to the human body, not all black mold is toxic to the human body. There are lots of different species of mold that are the color black, but the black mold that is actually toxic to the human body is called stachybotrys. So we don't know for sure. Just because it's the color black, it. If it's causing health problems. If it's stybotry, there is a very large chance that it could be because we see that stachybotry, this type of black mold can inflame the neurological system, can cause brain fog, dementia, fibromyalgia, and so much more. The reason why I caution you against taking bleach or vinegar or something like this and just throwing it on mold is because what happens when you take bleach or vinegar and throw it on mold, it's almost like this kind of spraying of the spores that will wind up happening. And if you think about it, mold is an organism that has the same desire as every organized organism on the planet, which is to survive. And so what happens when we throw bleach or vinegar on it? It allows those spores to disseminate and they will spread. It will cause this massive spreading of the spores. The way I've had it described to me by mold inspectors and remediators that I work with is it's almost like taking an egg and throwing it against the wall, right? It's not like you're going to see just this tiny little spot of the egg, right? It's like going to splatter all over the place and you're going to these micro droplets and of the egg yolk, of the egg white scattered throughout the wall, right? So that's essentially what's happening. So one of the first things you can do is you can figure out what type of mold it is. Now, if it is a non pathogenic mold and you're just removing it because of aesthetics in that scenario, using something like bleach, using something like vinegar actually can make sense. Sense. But if It's a pathogenic mold. You don't want to spread it around because it's just going to grow, it's going to make the problem worse. And there are so many health problems associated with it. So in working with killing black mold, the first step really is finding out what it is. I recommend a test called an ermi. Ermi. The ERMI test is going to look for about three dozen ish types of mold. And it's going to help you identify if it's a problematic mold or if it is not. Now if it comes up that, like I said that it's, it's a non problematic mold, it's not something that impacts health, then certainly just doing something like bleach or vinegar could be fine. But for many people in many homes, the black mold that you find is a problematic mold and you don't want to spread it and make it worse. So it's really important to identify it from there. And most of the the time people try to DIY mold and they actually can spread the problem and make it worse like I'm talking about. So it's really important to work with really good quality inspectors and remediators. And by good quality, I mean inspectors that are not just going to come in and compare indoor quality of the air to outdoor quality of the air. We want to work with inspectors that are going to take dust samples that are going to look at little places behind the drywall. They'll actually insert a hole and a tiny little speculum with a vacuum behind drywall and suck out some of the air back there to see if the mold is actually spread behind the drywall. And if you kill, if you try to kill the mold incorrectly and you spread it, it can get into the, you know, the H Vac, it can get into the air supply, it can end up in drywall, it can end up in insulation, all these different places. So like I said, you can really, really make the problem worse. So step one, run the ermi. Step two, hire a good inspector and remediator to actually take care of the problem. A good inspector and remediators are going to isolate the problem after it's identified. They're going to basically like create like a quarantine type of area using negative air pressure to essentially make sure the air is contained in that space where the mold is so that as they remediate, they're not spreading it throughout the house. They'll use fungicides. They have all sorts of different techniques that are way more advanced than just pouring bleach on something so it's really important to get the professionals in for this one. If you're having health problems at all, it could be coming from your house. If you have mold there and trying to DIY it without talking to a professional, you can make it worse. I see it all the time so sometimes this is intense to hear. I know this can be a lot to grapple with when there's so much expense associated with it, but the biggest thing is if you're experiencing health problems, this kind of information can literally change your life. So I encourage you to take it seriously if you want to work with us. At my clinic we work with people in these sorts of situations all the time that are having health related issues due to mold and and support them with the support they need to make sure their house is safe. You can find information about us by booking a discovery call which you can find in the show notes below. All right everybody, see you next time.