I open everything in the morning and wife closes windows before leaving to work (around 4) closing windows before night falls seems essential
Another issue I had was on the ground floor, the tiles would be significantly colder than the air during the day and this meant condensation would form - so I now keep the ground floor closed up and run a good 24L dehumidifer on timer for 2-5 hours at night depending on humidity
I will try the coal trick as well since we currently use disposable dehumidifiers in cupboards
[quote=“itakitez”]Oh, and Icon, where did you get your wet/dry vacuum from, I am thinking of getting one as well since mopping is too painful
I admit I have only checked 3C - but nothing there, also, roughly how much are they and can you carry one upstairs without breaking your back?[/quote]
I got mine at Costco. They have a different brand now, which is lighter than the one I have. It won’t break a disk but featherlight it ain’t. It works better on ceramic and wood floors, though, mine is vinyl. :s
The other gadget I like best is the steam cleaner. That one I got on TV shopping channel, really good and works on the sofa, too. Really light.
Oooh, I want a steam cleaner. Something that I can clean carpets and cloth sofas. Powerful enough to really suck out the moisture. A fetish for carpets is not a good marriage for a house of many animals.
Icon, I have one of those dish dryer things. You are welcome to it if you have space for it. Let me know if you want the dimensions.
My shop vac is quite light - a bit wide to use on stairs, but no problem to carry it up stairs (assuming I had stairs).
I just got back from a month away, apparently it rained almost the whole time I was gone, and my house if full of mold. I made an effort to leave it really (I thought) clean when I left, so I was dismayed at the places it grew. I thought my armchair was vinyl, but apparently it is leather, as it is covered with mold.
I repainted a room that had all those little green mold monsters growing everywhere…and it just came back. Im going to buy some of those little fans you put it the windows to get more air into the room. Also, I have a 4 level house and I don’t use 3 levels…maybe if I actually lived in them it could help. I do put on the dehumidifier in there often. I don’t want to keep anything like fans or dehumidifiers running…too scared of fires and my 6 dogs are my life!
Battle against mold is almost as hard as that against the weather. That said, 24/7 dehumidifier use in the rainy months is a good idea.
Other then that keep windows open as much as possible or keep several heaters going on in the house. They remove moisture in the house. Do not have closed closets and do not pack your clothes tight. And anything leather has to hang by itself in the open.
Even so its a tough battle in many places. Our wooden danish furniture would mold no matter what.
I leave my comuter on 24/7 downloading overnight etc. A nice by-product is that it gives out a small but significant amount of heat which keeps everything dry - warm even.
ahh… mold. I learned a tough lesson putting my clothes in a wooden closet. Now, I regularly empty it out for inspection and use diluted bleach to wipe the greenies.
I use a dehumidifier in the wettest months usually when I’m in the house only and seldom on timer. However, what also seemed to help a lot as visually the mold count did seem to go down:
a HEPA-filter vacuum. my guess is that it sucked up a lot of spores (as well as dust) making for a cleaner environment. I dunno how much the HEPA makes a difference, but it wasn’t that much more in price, so I got it. I’m pretty sure it sucked up a lot of insect eggs too cuz there’s less things running around on the ground.
… Now if I can just figure out where this massive amount of dust is coming from. Never lived in an apt with so much dust.
I’ve been pretty successful in keeping mold away in my 37" apartment in humid Xizhi. I use humidity meters all over the apartment. From what I’ve read, mold usually starts to form above 75% humidity. The humidity meters have at times reached 96%. As soon as it goes above 75 I turn on the dehumidifier (yep, only 1) or the the dehumidifying function on the aircon. All closets have boxes with those dehumidifying pellet thingies. Have to change them monthly(!) so I may experiment with coal in socks as someone suggested on this thread.
I also let air circulate a lot, but in the summer I do the opposite of what someone else suggested here. I close the place up in the hot daytime to keep the heat outside, and I open all the windows at night to let the cool air flow in. As long as you leave the apartment to open air for extended periods of the day, I don’t think it matters if it’s in the daytime or night time. I prefer the night as I don’t want to be at home in the daytime without an aircon.
Gosh, summer brings the colonie sback with a vengance. I was coughing every time I went in the bathroom and I finally found that in a wall rack, there was a Reader’s Digest practically black and oozing syrupy black nastiness -and it was not the content! Dunno how that could happen.
There is something in my room somewhere that is killing me, I’m telling you. Those nasties spread all over the place.
You lose … mold 1 you 0 … or you need to install an expensive air/environment control system (ventilation, dehumidifying) or run your aircon all day, all year …
I’m dying too…I cant see any mold in my bedroom, I’m starting to think it’s time to change my mattress. I’m ok when I go to bed…stuffy and yucky when I wake up. Sick of this. I want to move but have no idea where I can find a place that will allow me to keep 6 dogs. Usually all those places are in the mountains and I want to get away from mountains.
I just moved to a new apartment, and in 2 weeks, my coughing had significantly decreased… very obvious.
I had guessed the mold was somewhere in the bedroom because I would only cough there at night, but not, say, if I fell asleep outside in the living room. But I could not find any visible mold, but I suspected there was something in the wall, because the adjacent room is the bathroom and the common wall houses the shower water in/out. It could have been the mattress too I suppose, but again nothing visually apparent.
now in the new apt., nothing. makes for a easier workday.
my friend also suggested my bookcase may have contributed (at least dustwise) as that could make me cough as well. Now in my new apt, the bookcase (full of books) is in the living room.
I just moved to a new apartment, and in 2 weeks, my coughing had significantly decreased… very obvious.
I had guessed the mold was somewhere in the bedroom because I would only cough there at night, but not, say, if I fell asleep outside in the living room. But I could not find any visible mold, but I suspected there was something in the wall, because the adjacent room is the bathroom and the common wall houses the shower water in/out. It could have been the mattress too I suppose, but again nothing visually apparent.
now in the new apt., nothing. makes for a easier workday.
my friend also suggested my bookcase may have contributed (at least dustwise) as that could make me cough as well. Now in my new apt, the bookcase (full of books) is in the living room.[/quote]
The “standard” domestic allergy back home is to house mites. Specifically to their shed exoskeletons and droppings I think, which form an allergenic dust. IIRC they live inside mattresses, on your shed, dead, skin. They are too small to see with the naked eye.
I use those stiff foam “jigsaw” tiles as a sleeping mat, on a plywood bed-base. Various sizes and thicknesses are available, they don’t offer much habitat for mites and are easily transported and washed, especially the smaller ones.
I also took the doors off my built-in cupboard because they are an obstruction when open and encourage mould when closed.
