Groundhog
08-13-2003, 10:14 PM
The whole first floor of our house smells like a ... well ... like a ... place with a whole lot of mildew.
We live in an old farmhouse. We have just had to have our one-story kitchen/bathroom/laundry area unexpectedly demolished (!!) because of a falling-down back wall and MOLD invasion. It's been gone a week but now I'm noticing the rest of the downstairs smells awful. It's always damp this time of year (Maryland in August) but I don't remember it being this bad. (Of course, last year we had a major drought)
We don't have A/C so we rely on the windows being open most of the time. We have carpet, unfortunately, so that picks up a lot of moisture. Maybe less air circulation now that the kitchen's gone? Upstairs isn't nearly as bad, but it gets pretty hot up there during the day (think of your Grandma's attic in July).
It's gotten so bad that dd noticed this evening that the furniture in her dollhouse is turning GREEN!
"Mommy!! Something bad is happening in my dollhouse!!"
"Oh, sweetie, that's just a fungus growing on the bathtub."
"But Mommy! It's GREEN! And ... and... FURRY!!"
And I won't even get into the health issues that are worrying me (though we all seem healthy, thankfully)
So ... any sage advice from other sufferers of the late summer mildew curse? Namely: How do I get rid of the mildew from carpet and unfinished wood without using toxic chemicals? and How do I get rid of the smell before dd's new teacher comes for a home visit? (as if the temporarily displaced toilet on the front porch isn't bad enough)
Thanking you through the haze of mold spores that cloud my vision!
We live in an old farmhouse. We have just had to have our one-story kitchen/bathroom/laundry area unexpectedly demolished (!!) because of a falling-down back wall and MOLD invasion. It's been gone a week but now I'm noticing the rest of the downstairs smells awful. It's always damp this time of year (Maryland in August) but I don't remember it being this bad. (Of course, last year we had a major drought)
We don't have A/C so we rely on the windows being open most of the time. We have carpet, unfortunately, so that picks up a lot of moisture. Maybe less air circulation now that the kitchen's gone? Upstairs isn't nearly as bad, but it gets pretty hot up there during the day (think of your Grandma's attic in July).
It's gotten so bad that dd noticed this evening that the furniture in her dollhouse is turning GREEN!
"Mommy!! Something bad is happening in my dollhouse!!"
"Oh, sweetie, that's just a fungus growing on the bathtub."
"But Mommy! It's GREEN! And ... and... FURRY!!"
And I won't even get into the health issues that are worrying me (though we all seem healthy, thankfully)
So ... any sage advice from other sufferers of the late summer mildew curse? Namely: How do I get rid of the mildew from carpet and unfinished wood without using toxic chemicals? and How do I get rid of the smell before dd's new teacher comes for a home visit? (as if the temporarily displaced toilet on the front porch isn't bad enough)
Thanking you through the haze of mold spores that cloud my vision!