Ok, so, turns out our terrible cave of a former apartment infested much of our vintage with (white) mold. We're now at our new place and are hatching a strategy... 1. I assume white vinegar and water, applied to the spots we can see, is the preferred method here? 2. Is there any equivalent to fumigation for mold? We have a LOT of garments and would love to put them all in a small room and do this to knock out the spores broadly. Obviously we will be spot-treating them but this would be amazing if possible. Thanks all!
Your subject line made me cringe! Particularly if you have allergies or have significant amounts of mold and mildew to remove, take the clothing outside and brush off as much as you can. Living mold spores can continue to grow, so it’s best to let them do so outside of your home! If you have living mold and mildew in washable clothing, you have several options for its removal: One-half cup of borax which has been completely dissolved in hot water can be poured into your wash water to kill mold effectively. Vinegar is another choice, killing most of the mold species that are likely to be found on clothes. You can soak clothing with half water/half vinegar, then rinse out the vinegar and wash the garment, or use vinegar in your wash water. Vinegar can leave its own odor behind (although it certainly beats the moldy smell it helps remove), so thoroughly wash and rinse. Use 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide 3%, and 1 teaspoon of oxygen-based bleach to sponge the mold and mildew before thoroughly rinsing and washing. You can use diluted chlorine bleach to kill the mold and remove its staining, but only on sturdy white cotton fabric. For non-washable: Dry cleaning will kill mold, but in the case of vintage mold stains, success is certainly not guaranteed. Mold very slowly eats away at fabric, so you may end up with tiny holes even if you can get the mold spores and stains out completely. If you live somewhere sunny, you could hang your clothes outside and allow the UV light to attack the mold. If you know of a dry cleaner that offers ozone treatment, you could take all your clothing in for this—you can find dry cleaners with a room for this sort of treatment. Good luck! I feel for you.
Ok, so seems like ozone is the only broad method that will work (?) In the meantime, until we can hang everything properly outside, do you recommend sequestering it all in: A) A small sunny room with all ventilation closed, maybe to raise the temperature enough to kill it? B) A small sunny room with ventilation to the outside to let it all breathe? C) Not putting it all in one confined space at all? I don't know if it's better to have this stuff in one closed space to minimize spread, or if that will just concentrate it all too much in one place and we should leave it out in the open in the new, much larger space. Gah!
I would choose B) Leave everything in a room, spread out as much as possible. Heat alone (at least house temperature heat) wouldn't kill the mold.
Thank you! As dry cleaning will be nearly impossible (cost and time- there were scores and scores and scores of affected garments,) which cleaning method do you think is best for the non-washables? Vinegar in general has worked well for us in the past, but I'm concerned about its acidity with the clothes. Is it safe if diluted properly? Should we take a different tact altogether?
If you mean for spot cleaning, that is a one-by-one decision. Some fabrics could be damaged by even water I'm sorry to say. But you could try 50/50 vinegar/water on anything sturdy.
I went through the same situation and I had to, unfortunately, throw away most of my pieces. I could not afford to dry clean and the delicate fabrics were not going to take laundering. For hats and handbags, I was able to use Lysol wipes and then a dilution of tea tree oil and water to spray the items. The vinegar and borox did not work on items that would spot. I did not use a mold remediation company because it was out of my budget. Good luck.
Just to be super certain here- you’re talking starting with the normal store 5% concentration and diluting to 2.5%, right? Thanks again!
Good luck with this. I had this problem a number of years ago from items that were inside an old trunk in my other home. Water came in after heavy rains and got to some of the items. I managed to salvage a few but unfortunately some items were a loss.
Out of curiosity, I know that vodka is prescribed for eliminating BO in vintage- does vodka also kill mold? I believe it leaves virtually nothing behind so could be a good option in this case. Maybe
I remember washing items over and over again and drying them out in the air and sun. It did help some of my items. I don't remember using the vodka spray for this only for BO.
