Nobody wants to have to remove the mold from their home, but if you live in an older house, then you may have to go through this eventually. Even newly built homes can have mold growing in them in certain areas if bad techniques were used or just poor quality materials. As long as the building codes in your area were followed by the contractor of your new house, there is nothing that you can do, even if the poor quality materials are the reason that mold exists. If the job was done “by the book”, then you cannot obtain any legal compensation. When having a home built for you, make sure you know that the contractor you hired to do it will do the job with good quality building materials and get references before even letting them start.
But, what do you do if you already have mold in the house? Well, you can probably clean up a lot of it yourself if you have a smaller mold problem. If you have experience in interior remodeling work, then you can tackle even a larger scale mold removal project on your own. Your insurance may even cover it, if it is due to another kind of damage that your homeowner’s insurance covers, like water leaks.
There is a certain amount of equipment that you will need if you are going to do this job on your own, though. Having a respirator is something that you will really need, especially if you are going to open up any walls. You can get a basic respirator from a hardware store, but if you are going to open up any walls, you will probably want a respirator that has a HEPA filter attached to it.
You will also want a few heavy duty trash bags to toss the debris in.
As far as some protective equipment that you can wear, heavy duty rubber gloves might also be helpful depending on what you are handling. If you are just scrubbing floors or walls, then you could probably get away with some lighter latex gloves. Some plastic disposable coveralls and covers for your shoes will help keep mold spores from getting on your clothes. Safety glasses might also be necessary.
As with your respirator, the cleanup job after all the debris is gone should be done with a vacuum that has a HEPA filter on it. This will release clean, filtered air back into your home instead of releasing the dust and mold spores like a normal vacuum would.
Showing posts with label fruits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fruits. Show all posts
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Keeping a Clean Fridge
The refrigerator is an appliance that most people make use of at least once a day, whether it is for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or just a snack. It is in the central room of the house, since the kitchen is the room that the family tends to gather in the most and we tend to realize that this is the room that needs to be kept clean the most. The food that is prepared here is meant to make and keep us healthy and a dirty refrigerator contaminated with mold and bacteria is definitely something that is unwanted.
Keeping an eye on the condition of your food in the refrigerator is important to make sure that your family stays healthy and while most of us lead fairly full and busy lives these days, it still needs to be done by someone. Take the time to clean out your refrigerator at least once every few months and take an inventory of what you need to replace often. Outdated items like jams and jellies, even if they have not started showing mold yet, should be thrown away if they have had the seal broken. Most items will be fine even if they are outdated as long as the seals on the jars have not been broken.
Fruits and vegetables that have become molded need to be thrown away before they can contaminate anything other fruits or vegetables nearby. Removing them from the plastic bags that you put them in then you purchased them at the store is also a good idea, since condensation from the bags can actually help mold start to grow.
Dense items that have little moisture in them are not good candidates for mold growth and if mold does grow on these items, like blocks of cheese or hard salami, you can cut around the molded areas and throw them away instead of throwing away the whole item. This cannot be done with slices of cheese, tubs of sour cream, jellies, jams, mayonnaise, and other heavily moist foods.
Cleaning out the inside of the refrigerator with the cleaning solution of your choosing is something you need to do regularly. Spills of liquid and food happen in it all the time and bacteria will feed on this. Take everything out and throw away everything outdated and those items that you no longer need. Clean off the bottoms of anything that you want to put back if they have anything on them, as well. You should also remove all the racks and shelves that you can and clean them in the sink before you put them back.
Keeping an eye on the condition of your food in the refrigerator is important to make sure that your family stays healthy and while most of us lead fairly full and busy lives these days, it still needs to be done by someone. Take the time to clean out your refrigerator at least once every few months and take an inventory of what you need to replace often. Outdated items like jams and jellies, even if they have not started showing mold yet, should be thrown away if they have had the seal broken. Most items will be fine even if they are outdated as long as the seals on the jars have not been broken.
Fruits and vegetables that have become molded need to be thrown away before they can contaminate anything other fruits or vegetables nearby. Removing them from the plastic bags that you put them in then you purchased them at the store is also a good idea, since condensation from the bags can actually help mold start to grow.
Dense items that have little moisture in them are not good candidates for mold growth and if mold does grow on these items, like blocks of cheese or hard salami, you can cut around the molded areas and throw them away instead of throwing away the whole item. This cannot be done with slices of cheese, tubs of sour cream, jellies, jams, mayonnaise, and other heavily moist foods.
Cleaning out the inside of the refrigerator with the cleaning solution of your choosing is something you need to do regularly. Spills of liquid and food happen in it all the time and bacteria will feed on this. Take everything out and throw away everything outdated and those items that you no longer need. Clean off the bottoms of anything that you want to put back if they have anything on them, as well. You should also remove all the racks and shelves that you can and clean them in the sink before you put them back.
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