What to Do About Mold and Mildew

Cathy Pelekakis
First off there is a difference between Mold and Mildew. There are over 100,000 different species of molds on Earth. A Mold defines as a microscopic organism that digest organic matter, and sending out spores to recreate itself. Molds are a type of fungi. Now a mold can help break down leaves, wood and other plant debris. Certain molds are necessary, however when they creep into our homes they can and will cause problems. Molds are remarkable things, they can grow on almost anything from wook, paint, tiles and insulation, they can hide anywhere. Mold can grow when there is lots of moisture from a leaky roof, high humidity, or flood. Mildew fungi is a thin, usually black, sometimes white, growth produced on many surfaces by molds. Now the problem that many are faced with is how to get rid of the mold and mildew.

Get rid of mildew by caulking around the tub or shower place and rubbing the area down with alcohol. To keep soap and mildew from building uo on the tub or shower glass doors, or even on your shower curtain, yo can mix a couple cups of warm water, an half cup of alcohol and i tablespoon of liquid laudry detergent, put these all into a spray bottle, spritz away at the cutrains, tubs and shower liners and just rinse away. If you find mildew behind your wall paper and you are going to replace your wallpaper, before you put your new wallpaper up, add some antispetic mouthwash to the pasted side and it will reduce the chance for mildew to regrow or to grow at all.

If you have a favorite piece of shirt or blouse or towel that has attracted mildew, you don't have to through it away, take the piece and in a bucket add some water and some buttermilk, put the garment into the solution, and let it sit overnight, then the next day was and dry the material just like any other piece of laundry. My great uncle used have a beach house in Atlantic City, New Jersey and when we would go down there to open the house for the season we yould find a musky and mildew scent in house, my uncle would put out a box of kitty litter in each room to eliminate the scent, it always worked. He would also look through the books that he kept in the library and would open the books up and sprinkle some corstarch through the pages, he said that is what they used to do at home, he would wait a few hours and then just brush off the dried cornstarch and the mildew would normally disappear.

I do loads of laundry, and sometimes I get just too busy to put the clothes from the washing machine directly into the dryer, there have been times when these nasty little spots show up because the laundry has sat too long in hot weather. I would use a past of lemon juice, and salt, rub it into the spots and then rewash the shirt or towel, the garment would come out of the laundry looking fresh.

I have even found mildew on my flowers outside, not often but it happens, to protect my flowers I found that I could mix one tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide, 1 tablespoon of baby shampoo, 1 teaspoon of instant tea and 2 cups of water, I put them all into a container, mixed them together and just put it into a spray bottle and sprayed the leaves of my flowers it helped to keep the mildew from forming and continuing.

Published by Cathy Pelekakis

Retiree from the Department of the Army, Procurement Analyst. Mother of one terrific son. Love to go to the movies, read books, work on the computer, gardening, my pets Samantha and Missy. I have been publ...  View profile

19 Comments

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  • Sheri Fresonke Harper6/23/2008

    Well told article :) Sheri

  • Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez5/21/2008

    Here in the moist and humid state of Florida, this is particularly important to read! Thanks!

  • Linda M. McCloud5/20/2008

    Great tips.

  • R. Elizabeth C. Kitchen5/20/2008

    Excellent artlce

  • marindavid5/20/2008

    Great functional tips! Thanks. David

  • Kristi Patrice Carter5/20/2008

    Excellent tips about what to do about mold and mildew. Thanks for sharing.

  • Marilyn K. Smith5/19/2008

    Great! These are really good tips to know and use. Thanks!

  • Tiffany B.5/19/2008

    Really good information.

  • Nikki5/19/2008

    very informative and helpful!

  • cheryl brown5/19/2008

    These tips are great.....thanks

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