What is Vinegar?
Vinegar is a marvellous all-purpose item to keep in the home.
Vinegar is a natural acid. It’s non-toxic and harmless to the environment. It’s also can kill up to 82% of mould species, including black mould, on porous and non-porous surfaces, such as glass, tiles and other smooth surfaces. You can use it safely on most surfaces pouring undiluted white vinegar into a spray bottle.
Vinegar also happens to be very cheap. You can also use vinegar undiluted or mix it with other cleaners such as baking soda.
Cleaning Mould with Vinegar
Washing clothes in vinegar can be an effective method for removing the mould but it’s best if you can leave items soaking in the vinegar for 60 minutes or so.
But if you are trying to remove mould from furnishings or carpets you run the risk of staining the material especially if you leave the area damp or have to rub vigorously to remove mould markings.
A classic vinegar cleaning recipe is 2 parts baking soda to 1 part of white vinegar. However, do not mix vinegar with bleach: it produces chlorine gas, which is extremely dangerous and potentially fatal.
One of the disadvantages of vinegar is that you have to use a lot of elbow grease because it lacks the more potent (and more toxic) effects of other cleaning materials.
When you have to do lots of scrubbing you can very easily damage or scratch surfaces and remove paint. These scratches also provide safe havens for mould spores to hideout in and to repopulate the area.
To sum up:
Vinegar is a great home remedy for light mould infestations but you really need the experts to test whether there is a more serious hidden water problem and deal with the mould spores that will cause the mould problems to reappear. Vinegar simply cannot clean up a serious mould problem.
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