Don’t Mess with Mold – Get It Checked!
You find some mold on your wall, and scrub it with some borax and a sponge. All good? No! If you can see the mold, it’s already been growing in your floors and drywall for ages..
Have it checked out – healthy people die from poisonous mold. Contact ERS today.
Don’t Mess with Mold – Get It Checked!
You find some mold on your wall, and scrub it with some borax and a sponge. All good? No! If you can see the mold, it’s already been growing in your floors and drywall for ages..
Have it checked out – healthy people die from poisonous mold. Contact ERS today.
Mold: A Threat The Needs To Be Removed
When people think about emergencies for a home or workplace that require an emergency response, usually the thoughts go to big, visible catastrophes, like a fire or a flood. But there is one risk to buildings that can occur slowly and invisibly. Unfortunately, once it takes hold, it can run a considerable health risk for those who spend time inside the building.
The threat is mold, and the only reliable way to get rid of it is through the use of an experienced mold remediation team. Here’s why you need to be careful.
What Is Mold?
Mold is a unique lifeform on our planet that combines characteristics of both plants and animals. It is so unique that there is a fungus kingdom distinct from the plant and animal kingdoms in terms of classifying life in this category.
Mold is an extremely hardy organism that lives in colonies. All it needs to gain a foothold anywhere in the right conditions of light, temperature, and moisture.
Different molds have different requirements for this. Bread mold, for example, just needs dry bread that’s been left out too long. Other forms of mold look for fruit, such as oranges, from which we get penicillin. Still others need dark, cool, moist areas, such as a wet log, or, in the case of buildings, a damp basement or attic.
Why Is Mold A Threat?
Mold presents a significant risk to people because it can cause severe biological reactions when it reproduces. In actuality, mold is always in the air, around us, like dust that is too small to see. This is how bread mold occurs; for example, the spores or “seeds” of mold float in the air. Once a suitable environment is found, they settle down and create mold colonies that rapidly reproduce and send even more spores into the air.
This becomes a health hazard to people when they breathe in large amounts of spores for extended periods. Depending on the type of mold that is infesting a building, the symptoms of spore inhalation run the spectrum from mild to severe, including:
- Headaches
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Respiratory conditions like difficulty breathing
- Memory impairment
- Trouble focusing on tasks at hand
- Neuromuscular impairment such as difficulty picking up and manipulating objects or walking
- Heart conditions like myocarditis
For people who already have a preexisting respiratory condition, such as asthma, this creates even more vulnerability toward mold symptoms. This is also true for people undergoing medical treatment that leaves them immunocompromised, such as chemotherapy patients.
What To Do About Removing Mold
Unfortunately, getting rid of mold is not as easy as breaking out some soap and water and mopping or scrubbing an area down. Mold is extremely hardy and requires a lot of effort to not only get rid of it visibly but prevent surviving spores from reproducing again.
Failing to remove mold can not only threaten health but can also lower the value of a property for those thinking of selling.
Experienced professionals reliably remove mold. If you have such an issue, Emergency Restoration Specialists, Inc. has over 30 years of experience serving Southeastern Wisconsin and the Milwaukee area. Contact us for a prompt, professional response.