Getting Rid of Black Mold could you do it Yourself?
Black mold, to most people, apparently sounds something like "The Black plague". Translation: they're scared of it. Getting rid of black mold isn't as straightforward a thing as you might imagine. The thing is, you can't just take black mold literally and think that it refers to any mold that is black. Life happens to be a bit more complicated than that.
The real black mold that can be a health threat, usually isn't confined to a small area of coverage that you spy sometimes. Usually, it's far more spread out than you can see and you need a professional to come in. You can't risk the health of your family by doing a less than thorough job.
But you don't need to panic the moment you catch mold that looks black. You need to call a professional in to take a look at it to see if it is the kind that's toxic -- called Stachybotrys. So basically, before getting rid of black mold, you first have to know if it really is what you think it is. That's what you need to learn.
Whatever grows in your home, you'll never know what it is for sure until you call in a fungal expert (there, there's a job you didn't know existed). However, you can teach yourself to make reasonably educated guesses. For instance, you could tell from where it chooses to grow, what it is likely to be. The toxic molds only grow in places that are exposed to wetness, long-term. And those places need to have some access to cellulose -- paper, cardboard, wood or any of those things. If you do find anything wood-related in the place you catch the black mold in, you should probably call a professional. If it seems to be nothing but brick and plaster for instance, you could probably do a cleaning job yourself and save yourself some money.
As long as you're not getting rid of black mold yourself, the DIY approach could be a reasonably straightforward job. However, you want to take some precautions. Even the non-toxic types of mold can be somewhat harmful if you inhale their spores. If the object you're looking at (an area of carpeting or an old upholstered chair, for instance) is very heavily covered, you'd probably be better off just throwing the thing away. If it's on a tiled wall on a bathroom though, cleaning it would be fine. You probably want to use bleach diluted in water to clean the area.
Wherever you can, try to see if you can take the moldy thing outside to clean. It should keep you safe during the cleaning process.
