Mold question

[Miss M]

I posted this question in the chatbox the other day, and RJS answered me, but I'm looking for a little more guidance.

Saturday evening, I drained the dregs of a bag of rabbit chow into my feed bucket, and opened the other bag. I had bought the two at the same time.

As the bag opened, the smell of the pellets hit me as a little different. But I wasn't sure if it was just in my head (literally... been having lots of allergy problems lately, and things don't always smell the way they should :roll: ), or if the difference was real. I stuck my head in the bag and sniffed a couple of times, looking for something to smell like mold, but it didn't smell like mold. It just didn't smell green like pellets. I tried to look at the pellets, but it wasn't very light in the shed at that time of day.

So for the moment, I chalked it up to my sinuses, and scooped some pellets out into my bucket. They were very, very dusty. I thought maybe the dust had settled at the top of the bag, but quickly realized that I hadn't stored the bag that way -- it had been laying flat. So I took the bucket outside to look at the pellets. That's when I saw they were very moldy.

I took the bucket back in the shed, and dumped the contents back into the bag. That's when a mold cloud arose from the bag, into my face and into the shed.

I took a shower almost immediately, but I had breathed in some of the mold. Thankfully, other than a sore throat and a little chest tightness, I had no ill effects.

So this is my problem, as I wrote it in the chatbox: "But I'm wondering... how contaminated is my hay, which is stacked about 6 feet away? Do I have to decontaminate my shed?"

RJS answered, "You probably should. At least clear everything out into the open air and set up a fan. I hope you feel better soon!"

I did not have the opportunity to do anything about it yesterday, but I've been looking at it now and then, and have realized that this would be no easy task.

The shed is 16' x 32', and contains many things I cannot move... and my husband is having an exhausting week, and I can't ask him to do it when he gets home. My kids and my mom all have asthma, so I don't know that I should get them to help me move stuff, as that would disturb any settled mold. They have all been in and out of the shed since then, though.

I described it as a "huge mold cloud" in the chatbox, but I really can't say how much or how little it was. In the light I had, I can't say how far (or not) it traveled.

In the immediate area of the bag, within 6 feet, I have a stack of bags of fertilizer and lime, chicken feed, bales of shavings, a bag of pine pellets, and some empty feed bags. Beyond that, I have a chest of drawers with a scale and other stuff on it, shelving with stuff on it, garden tools, and a stack of about 6 bales of hay. One is burst, and is just loose on top of the others. The hay is probably 6 - 8' from the moldy bag.

In the other direction are a couple of islands with power tools attached to them, and then workbenches and toolboxes and such. And I've described only the front half of the shed now.

Exactly how big is my problem?

My apologies to RJS -- it's not that I didn't listen to you... I'm just a bit overwhelmed about how I'm going to accomplish this.

 

[dayna]

Do you have or can you rent an ozone machine? That's what I've used many times to kill mold. Living in SouthEast Alaska and now Hawaii I'm no stranger to mold!

 

[Miss M]

An ozone machine? I have never heard of such a thing! Would you get one at a rent-a-center type place? Gong to look...

 

[dayna]

Ozone machines are used to kill mold and fungus. Ozone is a gas that is present in the air. When you use an ozone machine it makes a very concentrated gas. They use them a lot after floods and stuff to kill black mold and other molds in carpets and walls to make dwellings safe.

You don't want to breath it though. I've used it to sterilize various items that can't really be cleaned/sterilized any other way.

__________ Mon Sep 30, 2013 7:21 am __________

This is the one I have, but I've heard you can rent them.

http://www.amazon.com/Sylvan-Ozone-Gene ... ne+machine<br /><br />__________ Mon Sep 30, 2013 7:22 am __________<br /><br />PS not for use around animals that can breathe it. I know it can kill parrots (I removed my parrots from the room while using it) so I assume it can kill buns as well.

 

[Cottie]

No worries, Miss M. :lol:

I could tell tales...my parents' house had a mold problem. The roof was in pretty poor repair and there were leaks everywhere. Like I told you in the CB, my mom had horrific lungs so I was always on mold eradication duty. That once meant putting on a surgical mask and ripping out a ceiling. :x

Problem is, if the mold you have was growing on the feed, it will take hold in low-moisture conditions - the hay, any unsealed bags of not-totally-dry items, etc. I've had that kind before, and thought it was no big deal, only to find a few spores had taken hold somewhere else. I don't leave anything in the bag it came in anymore because I lost a lot of flour/rice/oatmeal to it one year.

I'd throw out all the hay. We give any of our potentially tainted hay to the pigs for bedding, so maybe you could lay it down for the chickens. Or put it on the garden. I definitely wouldn't feed it to the rabbits, though.

The chicken feed should be fine if the bag is sealed. Obviously the lime and fertilizer are OK. I'd assume the shavings would be, as well, since they're bone dry. Not sure on the pine pellets - depending on what you use them for, they're so cheap I'd probably just discard them.

If it were me, I'd take out everything in the morning. Lay the tools on a tarp in the sun to air out. Once the shed is cleared, go through and spray it down with a bleach dilute solution, set up a fan, and put everything back in the evening. If the floor is concrete, I'd just dump a 1:4 bleach solution on it to kill anything living there.

---

Never heard of an ozone machine, but it does sound like a good option!

 

[phillinley]

We use our ionic pro in the house and it works to get rid of mold quite well. But it just gets rid of mold spores in the air, if you have active mold breakouts, dayna's solution is much more effective. The advantage to an air ionizer product is it doesn't harm anything in the room through prolonged use.

 

[Miss M]

Ooooo, nuts... a mold remediation expert says that ozone can destroy seals and such. I can't chance it with all of my husband's tools.

An ozone generator company says, "Your generator will become damaged, your warrantee voided, and the ozone output lessened if immersed in water or operated when humidity (moisture in the air) is above 60%." The humidity is not projected to be that low for long enough anytime in the foreseeable future. The shed is not air-conditioned.

 

[dayna]

Well bummer! I use my ozone machine in 90+% humidity here in Hawaii! lol So far no ill effects.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Why don't you just spray everything down with bleach and water and monitor the hay?

 

[Miss M]

Why don't you just spray everything down with bleach and water and monitor the hay?

:shock: You know... it's really weird. Mold in the house, and I wouldn't have hesitated to do the bleach thing. This happens, and for some reason, the bleach doesn't even enter my brain.

I think I will do this, and let it dry, and then maybe wipe down a lot of stuff.

By "monitor the hay", do you mean look at it and smell it now and then for mold?

This sounds so... manageable. Doable. I would have had to move everything by myself, since my husband's at work, and the other three members of the family have asthma. I can't imagine being able to move everything... especially the tools and workbenches and all. And I'm certain I'd break something. And I wouldn't be able to get it back into the shed.

Dayna, I looked up the ozone generator again, at a local rental place, and it said "It is recommended to use this generator in vehicles for no more than 10 minutes at a time, as ozone can degrade plastics quickly!" I'm not using it in a car, but I read that you have to use it for a good while to get a concentration that will kill mold... and I could destroy a lot of stuff in that shed with the ozone, apparently.

 

[dragonladyleanne]

Ooooo, nuts... a mold remediation expert says that ozone can destroy seals and such. I can't chance it with all of my husband's tools.

An ozone generator company says, "Your generator will become damaged, your warrantee voided, and the ozone output lessened if immersed in water or operated when humidity (moisture in the air) is above 60%." The humidity is not projected to be that low for long enough anytime in the foreseeable future. The shed is not air-conditioned.

Darn, and just when I was considering investing in one of those machines! Seems weird it'd void the warranty, since most mold problems exist due to humidity. Here on the Florida Gulf Coast, anything less than 80% humidity is considered a nice dry day!

 

[Miss M]

Ooooo, nuts... a mold remediation expert says that ozone can destroy seals and such. I can't chance it with all of my husband's tools.

An ozone generator company says, "Your generator will become damaged, your warrantee voided, and the ozone output lessened if immersed in water or operated when humidity (moisture in the air) is above 60%." The humidity is not projected to be that low for long enough anytime in the foreseeable future. The shed is not air-conditioned.

Darn, and just when I was considering investing in one of those machines! Seems weird it'd void the warranty, since most mold problems exist due to humidity. Here on the Florida Gulf Coast, anything less than 80% humidity is considered a nice dry day!

Yes, I know... I well remember, and it is not much different here. I don't know... maybe it is not the same for all machines. I would suggest seeing if you can download the manual of the one you're interested in, or contacting the company. But the bit about it damaging plastics would be a deal-breaker for me -- I just can't take chances with my husband's tools.