Mold problem question – HELP

Hi Igloo, CR doesn’t really have a mold “problem” per se, but because it is a tropical country, the high humidity levels and high biodiversity indices can create mold problem situations in your home if you’re not careful and will probably expose you to organisms that you have not been exposed to before. I was one of those post writers that you refer to. This may or may not cause you and your family to have an allergic reaction and it doesn’t need to limit your possibilities of living if you take the necessary precautions. Any mold or mildew will reproduce via small spores which are invisible to us and come into our homes from the outside air and only grow when they’ve landed on moist surfaces inside your home. The mold in the air is inevitable in most places of the globe, but what is NOT inevitable is that it will grow into a problem if you take some necessary precautions. As a tropical biologist I can tell you:

*The general advice is to reduce the humidity within your home to below 50% in your home, that may NOT be possible in CR so there what you must do is to keep it aired out (open windows regularly and create good ventilation patterns) and use fans if needed, don’t close up rooms for any long period of time, air out closets & cabinets from time to time, use bathroom fans and if you’re really worried about an area of your home being TOO humid, then use a dehumidifier there (but typically, not necessary…).

*Avoid stagnant water anywhere in the home or near the home caused by dripping or condensation build up from leaky pipes, clogged drains, a/c units (typically a/c is not necessary in most of CR), leaky roofs or clogged gutters, etc.

*Keep your home clean, furniture not totally against the walls (leave some air room), and clean up any mold or mildew as soon as you see it. If it smells moldy, look for it and clean it up with environmentally friendly substances to prevent any further allergic reaction in your family by using very toxic and usually unnecessary cleaning materials (vinegar & water, eco-friendlier detergents and worst case scenario then use bleach sparingly and NEVER mix it with anything else, specially not with something that contains ammonia since this will produce toxic fumes). Mold doesn’t become a problem overnight.

*Use anti-fungal paints on your interior and exterior walls and make sure those surfaces are free of mold (repaint as needed).

*I would highly suggest that you do NOT use wall to wall carpeting in CR as this could become a real mold problem that you may not see and can affect any person with allergies. Area rugs can easily be aired out and cleaned so they do not seem to be such a problem.

*If you do find mold growing on a porous surface in your home (ceiling tiles, carpeting, etc.) remove it and replace it, these CANNOT easily (if ever) be made free of the mold once it has started to grow there…

As a mom and someone that was not at first prepared to deal with this situation in CR and did develop asthma, keep your kids eating healthily to promote their immune system and they should be okay. The allergic reaction, if it does arise, should pass if their immune system is healthy. My 3 1/2 year old daughter never developed any allergic reactions, but I must say that I was much more careful with her nutrition than with my own. Something that I have since corrected and no longer suffer from asthma… Pura Vida!

I’ve had my dehumidifier running 24/7 for over a year, and it JUST got down to 60% humidity! The first year concrete walls will typically sweat until they are completely dried out. When we left the end of March this year, my husband insisted (over my protestations) that we close all the bedroom doors. I knew this was a rotten idea and when I came back down in July, the rooms that had been closed smelled musty, and my duvet covers were mottled with mildew. Clothes I had thrown into the washer (with the lid left open) when I left were so mildewed they had to be soaked in boiling vinegar water for nearly a whole day to remove the smell and the stains. When I left in August, I left the closet doors open, the bedroom doors open, and centrally positioned the dehumidifier so that it would draw moisture from the back and front of the house. I had a friend check things for me in late October and he said everything was fine, humidity was down, the bedrooms didn’t smell. Air circulation is really important in Costa Rica. When I come down in 4 weeks, I plan to install ceiling fans in the living room and the bedrooms. I have good cross-ventiliation in my house, but don’t have screens on all my windows yet, so when I open them all the bugs fly in, so I open them in short spurts to air out the house. I don’t think I could live without a dehumidifier — it provides a host of advantages, one of them being when I put it in my pila and close the door, I can hang laundry in there and it will be dry in less than two hours (I don’t have a clothes dryer yet), at less cost than running a dryer. Viva la dehumidifier!

Igloo, As I was getting ready for school and putting on some moisturizing skin lotion I remembered that not everything is negative for us humans that Costa Rica has such high humidity levels…As a matter of fact, your skin will think it’s marvelous and thank you by feeling soft, replenished and supple…something I miss when I’m not there and have to use lotions instead (but the feeling is not the same…) so don’t go overboard in trying to remove humidity, just keep the conditions mostly inhospitable for mold growth and you and your family should be fine…

Necessity if the mother of invention, eh? When my down pillows got all soggy I put them in the pila with the dehumidifier, et voila, in a half hour the down was all fluffy again, so I decided if it worked for that, then en principe, it should work for drying clothes on a particularly drizzly, damp day in the cloud forest! Now I’ve gotten so used to doing things like this that I wonder if I even need to both with getting a power-sucking dryer.

My dehumidifier has a 50-foot hose that goes directly into the floor drain, and I can also program it to shut off when it reaches a certain percentage of humidity. My neighbor who is an engineer did the calculations for me and basically the dehumidifier uses as much juice as a 50 watt bulb, which is a lot less than the dryer. You’d be very surprised how quickly I can dry a small batch of damp laundry with my crazy method! It seems that the biggest problem, even when drying clothes outside, is that they are never really really dry, so a half hour in the pila and the problem is solved. Coming from Colorado where we have an average of 25% humidity, it takes some time to get used to things always feeling damp, so the only method I found to solve that problem was moving the dehumidifier to various rooms, shutting the door and letting things dry out to about 45%.

Has anyone tried the golden rod dehumidifers? I read some info awhile ago on them. They are made for use in mostly boats. I did a search on them and Boaters World sells them in 3 different lengths. They seem like they may be a good idea for closets and rooms with electronics. If anyone has heard of them or used them, I would like to know if you think they would work.

They have a similar product in Costa Rica — I can’t remember the name of it, but I think you can buy those heating rods at the Ferreteria. My neighbors have them in their closets.