7 Warning Signs for Mold Contamination

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How Can You Tell if Mold is Growing in Your Home?

Sometimes mold can be very sneaky.

Generally though, not including physical ailments, mold gives obvious warning signs in your home, to if and where it is growing.

Vicki Lankarge, in her book “What Every Home Owner Needs to Know About Mold & What to Do About It”, gives us 7 warning signs for mold contamination.

7 Warning Signs

  • Sunken areas in baseboards or trim. These indentations appear when mold has consumed the wood behind the paint. The paint itself is often cracked and peeling.
  • Separation of the baseboard from the wall or floor
  • Whitish mats under carpet, linoleum, in cabinets, or even behind furniture.
  • “Fruiting bodies,” or mushroomlike growths on rotten wood on the underside of flooring or a cabinet. Fruiting bodies are flat, up to a half-inch thick, and a pale olive, gray, brown, or black.
  • Staining, swelling, or crumbling of plaster or sheetrock.
  • Discoloration (blackish staining) around air conditioning vents.
  • Vinelike branches from the soil to the foundation, framing, or underside of flooring. Vines are typically white, brown, or black and are called rhizomorphs. The fungus forms these vines that connect the soil to the wood.

Further Recommended Reading :

Joslyn from the MoldBlogger Team

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7 comments

Book Review: “What Every Home Owner Needs to Know About Mold..” - The Mold Blog March 30, 2008 - 6:18 pm
[...] 7 Warning Signs for Mold Contamination [...]
lorraine decristoforo October 19, 2009 - 2:31 pm
Hi people, It has been aong time since we spoke. If you need some of my pictures of the molds and fungal growths. I have not see the later ever. God Bless Lexis. Take care, Lorraine
Jonathan October 29, 2009 - 6:01 pm
Lorraine, Thanks for stopping by! We'd love to have some pictures. Please feel free to send them to brian@moldblogger.com. With your permission, we'll add them as a reference on the site. Jonathan Wold MoldBlogger
katie January 2, 2010 - 7:46 pm
i moved into an older apartment about 2 months ago. i have a 18 month old daughter who has been sick with "sinus" like symptoms for about a month. She has been on antibiotics in the last 2 weeks for this and no improvement. I have also been sick. I went to the doctor about 2 weeks ago got antibiotics and an inhaler because the Doc thought I had minor brochitis. I improved for a day but i am again feeling like i need an inhaler. I have never had asthma but i do have bad enviromental allergies. i know the apartment was built in the earlt 1900's it has been rehabed but our bedroom is connected to an attic that looks like it was not rehabed at all. I think this is all a sign from old-right?
Scott March 28, 2010 - 9:07 pm
I have a yellow fungus growing on my roof shingles , just spots of very small to about the size of a quarter. Also ther is an algea like green film growing in areas that are mostly shaded from the sunlight. I wish to remove it because it looks bad. Need to know if this is a problem that will get worse or will cause health problems. Any comments are well appreciated. Thank you.
Anna November 24, 2011 - 7:57 pm
Hi, Does anyone knows if cotton like grey growth that is round but more ecliptical in shape that seems to hang from the ceiling is associated with mold problems? I noticed such growth on the ceiling of a stairway. I can also supply a photo.
caroline June 6, 2012 - 11:04 am
I was breathing mold into my apt from another tenants apt but I did not knoe what I was breathing until I saw it was mold
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