We get it: some household problems are easy to ignore. Out of sight is out of mind, after all, which is why you can turn a blind eye to a drafty window, clogged gutters, or the musty smell from your laundry room.
Get ready to swallow a bitter pill: that musty smell isn’t coming from dirty socks!
When black mold takes root in your home, it can create foul smells that linger in the air. It may be tempting to just grab the air freshener, but it won’t treat the root issue. Worse, ignoring a black mold odor can put your health and home at serious risk.
If you’re not sold on the idea that immediate treatment is a must, let’s take a look at a few ways black mold can wreak havoc on your household.
Unpleasant Black Mold Odor
One of the most obvious side effects of mold is the smell itself.
A black mold smell may seem musty, earthy, or even meaty. You might compare it to the smell of wet clothes or rotting wood.
It’s an unpleasant and unforgettable odor, and it can spread fast throughout a home. The longer you leave your mold untreated, the more difficult it will be to remove the smell from your home.
This can be a source of embarrassment when you have guests over, especially if you’ve grown nose-blind to the scent and haven’t noticed it. Get help fast if a visitor brings it up!
Stained Belongings
As mold spreads, it can do serious damage to your belongings.
Depending on the strain of black mold in your house, you may notice dark brown, greenish-brown, or deep black growth. In its earliest stages, black mold may be lighter in color and even white around the edges.
On the surface, black mold may look fuzzy, wet, powdery, shiny, or slimy. It often forms in patches that look like small dots, though these dots will grow over time.
These unsightly stains can creep across your possessions, from window treatments to furniture to clothing. As mold takes root, it can be hard to displace. For precious items like expensive fabric or antique furniture, getting rid of mold may even damage the item.
Damage to Your Home
Beyond your belongings, mold can cause damage to your home’s structures as well.
Mold goes hand in hand with moisture. If you’ve noticed the smell of mold, you likely also have a leak, water damage, or other moisture issues that are wreaking havoc on your property.
Common examples of damage include peeling wallpaper, cracked molding, or dark stains in your carpets. Mold can also creep into the walls and ceilings of your home, causing dark discoloration that keeps growing back even after you’ve scrubbed it away. Even repainting or refinishing a wall or floor won’t keep mold at bay.
Mold and moisture can lead to warping or rotting wood, which can be a major issue for hardwood floors and your attic’s structure. Moisture also spells bad news for your foundations and can corrode your plumbing.
Altogether, these issues can cause huge structural issues that lower the value of your home. Resale values can drop by a whopping 20-37% with black mold!
Allergies and Medical Issues
Fast mold removal isn’t just good for your home and belongings; it’s also crucial for your health. If you notice the smell of mold, ignoring it and allowing it to spread can put you at a greater risk of worrying medical symptoms.
Respiratory problems are among the most common symptoms mold can cause. As you breathe in more and more mold spores, you may notice coughing, sneezing, wheezing, shortness of breath, congestion, and increased allergy symptoms. These problems are worse in people with respiratory conditions like asthma.
As exposure continues, your symptoms may worsen. Headaches, fatigue, fever, brain fog, and muscle aches can result. At-risk populations like the elderly, young children, and people with chronic conditions may struggle even more with these symptoms.
Black mold can’t kill you, but the symptoms can become severe and frustrating if left unchecked.
More Expensive Treatment
For your wallet, one of the biggest dangers of mold is delayed treatment.
The longer you ignore the smell of mold, the more it has the chance to spread. As it grows, it produces even more spores, which in turn spread further throughout your home.
Black mold only grows at a rate of around an inch per day, which is easy to address when you’re dealing with a small patch of it. If you let those patches climb across the entire wall under your bathroom sink, that inch a day in all directions means you’ll see pretty fast growth!
In the worst-case scenario, ignoring mold may give it a chance to take root in your HVAC system. It may do this when its spores get trapped in your AC filter and find enough organic particles to continue growing. The humidity and dust levels inside your AC can help mold thrive.
As this happens, it can spread more and more spores everywhere in your home when your AC circulates air. As you might expect, the result may be patches of mold in multiple places in your home.
When mold spreads, mold remediation gets more expensive. The more time and effort technicians have to put into removing its growth and cleaning your home, the more you’ll have to pay. Factor in the costs of replacing any belongings and structures the mold has infected, and you’ll have an even higher price tag for treatment!
Treat Your Black Mold Now
It’s tempting to ignore a black mold odor and hope the problem disappears. However, mold is never an issue you should take lightly. Because black mold is usually a sign of moisture issues, can damage your home if left untreated, and will harm your household’s health, fast remediation is a must.
If you’re looking for expert help with your odor removal, contact our state-licensed team today. At Big Easy Restoration, we’re proud to offer customized mold removal plans for property owners throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Protect your home from further damage by calling (813)-313-9801 or filling out our online form.
