If you’re trying to figure out how to clean mold in a bedroom, you’ll quickly discover that you can find endless advice about it on the internet. But can you trust that that anonymous person on Reddit knows what they’re talking about? What about a house and garden publication? Or a hardware store? Unfortunately, we’re here to tell you that we’ve seen all of those sources and many more give straight-up inaccurate advice on dealing with mold!
Why should you trust us? We’re Cleaner Guys, and we’re an actual professional mold removal company with more than 20 years of experience! We’re some of the most highly trained people out there on mold, and we deal with cleaning it every day. Today, we’re here to spill the beans on what actually works on mold in a bedroom — from real in-the-field experience.
Table of Contents
- What Exactly Is Mold?
- Is Mold In a Bedroom Dangerous?
- What Causes Mold Growth In a Bedroom?
- How to Clean Mold in a Bedroom
- How to Prevent Mold in a Bedroom in the Future
- More Resources
What Exactly Is Mold?
Mold is a kind of fungi that can grow just about anywhere there is moisture, warmth, and a food source. It loves to feed on organic materials like wood, drywall, and textiles.
Mold spores are floating around in the air all the time, both inside and outside, just like dust. But they can’t grow just anywhere. Wherever mold spores find excess moisture, like from a leak or condensation from high humidity, that’s where they can land and begin to root and grow — often within 24-48 hours!
Mold looks like clusters of dark spots, which can be large or small. The image below shows just a few of the many different presentations of mold. It can be black, grey, green, brown, and even yellow. It can look and feel fuzzy, grainy, or slimy, depending on the strain of mold.
WARNING: Do not touch mold to learn its texture! Touching mold can stir its spores into the air, which can cause mold sickness and irritate your skin. Learn more about this here.
Is Mold In a Bedroom Dangerous?
Yes, mold in a bedroom can be dangerous, or at the very least, bad for your health! All mold releases microscopic mold spores into the air. It’s how it spreads and propagates. But increased levels of mold spores in the air mean you inhale more mold spores, and mold causes mold sickness in most people.
For most people, mold sickness is a nuisance, but not a true danger. Common symptoms include persistent congestion or runny nose, persistent coughing, persistent headaches, sleeplessness, and skin and eye irritation.
However, for people with serious respiratory illnesses (such as asthma) or who are immunocompromised (such as infants, the elderly, and those undergoing cancer treatment), mold can be very dangerous. If any such person resides in a home with mold, they should be removed immediately and not returned until the mold is completely gone!
Toxic Mold vs “Regular” Mold
Additionally, there are a few species of mold that produce mycotoxins: an airborne toxin specific to mold. Mycotoxins and the molds that produce them are extremely dangerous for everyone! By far the most common toxic mold is “toxic black mold” — officially named Stachybotrys Chartarum. Prolonged exposure to Stachybotrys can cause internal hemorrhaging, lung damage that causes coughing up blood, neurological damage, vomiting, and more.
The problem is, toxic molds like Stachybotrys are almost impossible to tell apart from other types of mold that don’t produce mycotoxins. This is why we strongly advise against trying to clean up large amounts of mold by yourself. Trying to wipe or scrub mold away will agitate the mold, causing it to release more spores. This can make you much sicker and cause the mold to spread elsewhere in the home!
For the sake of your safety and health, and the safety and health of anyone else living in the home, most mold removal should only be handled by trained professionals in mold remediation.
What Causes Mold Growth In a Bedroom?
The short answer: Mold is essentially always caused by an excess moisture problem in the home. Mold does not grow without moisture, so if there is mold in your bedroom, there is too much water coming from somewhere.
The most common sources of excess moisture that cause mold include:
- Leaking plumbing inside a wall or ceiling cavity
- High humidity, which causes excess moisture in the air and creates condensation on the walls
- An appliance like a toilet or washing machine leaking water from the other side of a wall
Not sure what else might count as water damage? Wondering if water damage will resolve itself and go away if you leave it alone? Find out the answers to those questions and more by opening this article all about water damage
How to Clean Mold In a Bedroom
The most important thing to know about how to clean mold in a bedroom is that size matters. If the mold has not spread very far (think 1 square foot or less), you have a chance of successfully cleaning it yourself. However, if the mold covers more than about 1 square foot of surface area, it is almost certainly too advanced for you to clean by yourself.
This is the crucial truth that basically every other publication and chat forum on the internet misses about cleaning mold. They all essentially say, “You can clean mold easily with [insert cleaning solution]!” (usually vinegar or bleach). But in our decades of experience as a professional mold remediation company, we can tell you that that’s simply not usually true. Most of the time, if the mold is any more than a tiny, tiny patch, it needs to be carefully removed by trained professionals.
What Doesn’t Work
Most publications and people on the internet advise removing mold with vinegar or bleach, because those cleaners do make the mold appear to be gone! Unfortunately, what they don’t know (because they are not mold removal professionals) is that most of the time, the mold is not really gone.
Mold likes to root and spread deep into whatever it’s growing on, such as drywall. However, topical cleaning solutions like vinegar and bleach only penetrate the surface of drywall. Cleaning mold off the surface of drywall with vinegar or bleach is about as effective as plucking the leaves off a weed, but not pulling it up by the root. Since you didn’t kill the roots that are buried deep, it’s just going to grow back eventually!
Now, the one instance where a topical cleaner like vinegar can sometimes be effective is if the patch of mold is extremely small (less than 1 square foot). Then there’s a chance that the mold infestation is still very small and surface-level, and has not spread very far or deep yet.
However, we strongly caution against using bleach to clean any amount of mold. It is so harsh, it usually causes ugly permanent cosmetic damage, and it’s not even strong enough to penetrate deeply enough to kill all the mold! Furthermore, it emits harsh and toxic chemical fumes that are not good for you to breathe in. Choose a different mold cleaner!
What Actually Works
In instances where the mold growth is extremely small (less than 1 square foot of area), you may be able to successfully kill it down to the root with a topical surface cleaner. Undiluted vinegar can be effective, but the cleaning solutions we would most highly recommend as professionals are hydrogen peroxide or a good fungicide.
If the mold you’re dealing with is an extremely small patch like this, you may attempt to clean it yourself. Visit this article for an in-depth explanation of how to safely use one of the cleaning solutions recommended above to clean a small patch of mold yourself.
However, if the mold in this bedroom covers more than 1 square foot of area, we strongly advise against trying to clean it yourself. It is most likely rooted too deeply to kill it successfully with just a surface cleaner. The only completely foolproof way to 100% get rid of large amounts of mold is to remove the very material it’s on (drywall, wood, carpet, etc), and replace the material entirely.
This should not be attempted by anyone but trained mold removal professionals, because they are trained to know how to deal with large amounts of potentially dangerous mold safely and effectively. In our experience as professionals, most of the time when an untrained layperson tries to remove the mold themselves, they end up having to hire professionals later anyway, because they didn’t remove all of the mold well enough.
Does Anti-Mold Paint Kill Mold?
In our experience as professional mold removers, anti-mold paint or “mold-killing paint” can help prevent mold… but if you try to use it to just paint over existing mold, it will not work. Anti-paint mold is not strong enough to kill already-existing mold down to the root, and the mold will come back and just grow through the new coat of paint. These paints and primers are useful only as a preventative, after any existing mold has already been thoroughly removed.
How to Prevent Mold In a Bedroom In the Future
Preventing mold in a bedroom essentially comes down to keeping the space clean and dry. A dry bedroom environment cannot grow mold. Keeping your bedroom dry means keeping the humidity less than 50%, increasing ventilation and air movement, doing what you can to prevent pipe leaks and other sources of water intrusion.
To learn how to decrease humidity, increase ventilation, and prevent plumbing and appliance leaks, check out our companion article to this one, “How to Prevent Mold in a Bedroom“!
More Resources
Looking for even more information on dealing with mold or water damage? Check out our full blog archive, where you’ll find hundreds of articles full of useful professional insider information on mold, water damage, and more! Or, you can jump straight to one of our other popular articles on mold through one of the links below!
How to deal with mold in an APARTMENT – The Ultimate Guide ➜
Can mold grow behind wallpaper? The ugly truth… and what to do about it ➜
Top signs of water damage hidden in your walls ➜
If you need a mold removal company or water damage restoration company in Western Washington state, Cleaner Guys is one of the best options around! We’re the only mold removal company around that boasts award-winning customer service, and a price-match guarantee! Call or message us today through the menu at the top of your screen.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. No part of this article is medical or legal advice, and may not be used as such. For all serious medical matters, consult your doctor. For all serious legal matters, consult your legal advisor. This article contains Cleaner Guys’ experience and opinions only.
