Is this something I should worry about (because I very much am)

[woeriedmum12]

Moved into a new home recently. I am separated from my ex and DD’s dad, she’s only 3 and spends a lot of time on the floor with toys etc.

I don’t have much money since the separation and found this house just in budget but near a good school. It was filthy when we moved in. One major thing was there was transparent white coloured mushrooms/fungus in the bathroom. It was like small wavy cups in isolation, around ten of them. This was apparently because of how wet the room had got and hadn’t been cleaned in a while. There were two bathrooms so I gave that one a brief clean and thought we would use the other one until I had time to seek clean the bigger one.

Anyway… the issue. The carpets were also filthy so today someone came out to do them. I didn’t realise he had been into the bathroom (the mushroom one) to use the toilet then carried on with the carpet cleaning. He’s obviously touched the toilet and the door (mushrooms had been on both) and his shoes which he kept on have now also been throughout my house. I am so worried that the spores or fungus is now trodden and passed into my carpets? Can I even let dd go on the carpet? Should I get it re cleaned? I feel sick with stress as it is and his has just tipped me over the edge. I saved up for several weeks to get this done and it’s all gone wrong.

Hopeful bump

I suspect it will be fine, even if there were spores they won't grow because they are no longer in their nice damp bathroom. Just vacuum through, if you have a vacuum with a fine filter all the better. I assume neither of you had a reaction to the fungus in the bathroom which would have been much more concentrated than any tiny amount moved through the house by the carpet cleaner.

@FeatherBoas ok thanks. I removed the visible fungus, think it was cup fungus? But didn’t fully clean it as I haven’t had time. I was going to use bleach but not sure if that’s best

I would try not to panic.
Hoover the carpets.
Set yourself a rigorous cleaning schedule for the next couple of weeks.
Air out the place as much as you can.
Bleach is fine for bathroom cleaning. Don’t get it near the carpets though!

Don't worry OP, there are fungal spores all around us, especially if you walk in the woods. Just going outside will mean fungal spores are brought into the house, as they have been since houses were first built. These tiny amounts won't cause any problems for your little one. Leave the mouldy bathroom door shut (and window open if possible) until you can deal with it. But the carpet should be fine once it's vacuumed. Make sure your house is well aired (and heated in winter) to avoid further fungal growth.

You sound extremely anxious about something other people would find it easy to dismiss without a second thought. I know exactly how you feel, I once spent an entire day worried I hadn't wiped the anti bac off the high chair enough before serving my baby. It's miserable having anxiety to this level, I'm working on mine but it not easy. But in answer to your question it will be fine. You'll hoover up any spores if they exist which more than likely they don't.

I personally would advise you use white vinegar instead of bleach the fumes will be better with a child in the house. Open the windows and try and get air blowing through the room if you can to really dry it out, you might benefit from a dehumidifier.

as for the rest of the house, while down anywhere you think relevant with a vinegar solution and vac the carpet well, then keep everywhere as aired as you can to get rid of the damp and vinegar fumes

Vinegar won’t kill the spores, it’s a myth. Bleach is better and perfectly safe when used correctly.

There are a few things to think about here:

The original mushrooms in the bathroom are a worry from a structural pov. The mushrooms themselves might look small and localised but they are only the fruiting body of the organism. Think of the mushrooms as like the apples on a tree, the ‘tree’ for mushrooms is the mycelium. You can’t see it, but it will be living in the wood or (preferably but less likely) the soft furnishings. Anything which is inhabited by the mycelium is unsalvagable and will need to be replaced (eg a beam, the floorboards, a carpet or whatever). You can’t clean the mycelium away. Fungus killer isn’t very effective and even where it works the integrity of the thing that was infected can’t be fixed by it.

the good news though - only some fungal spores (such as black mould) are dangerous to humans. We breathe in millions of fungal spores with every breath we take. You can even breath in death cap spores with no ill effects.

also - fungus is fussy about what it eats. So it’s unlikely that the rest of the house would be infected by the initial infection spreading via spores moving around the house unless the wood, level of damp, acidity etc is the same in other places.

The spores getting trodden through will not have any effect on whether the infection spreads or not. The house will already be full of spores just by the original mushrooms releasing them, and if the mycelium spreads it will be through the substrate (the wood/carpets or whatever).

Do you own the house?

There are spores in their thousands, in all the air, everywhere, all the time.
Just stay clean and dry and there'll be no problem

@ToplessWordle thanks, I hadn’t thought of it like that. I have identified what it was, it was peziza domiciliana … I haven’t seen any more mushrooms since I removed them last week. I’m just worried the guy has now put spores on a wet carpet so they could grow in the damp?

@Amanitacae thanks. The mushrooms were peziza domiciliana and I haven’t seen more since I removed them. the bathroom was very very wet. I am just worried now that if he’s trodden spores in the carpets, they are now wet after cleaning so won’t they grow?!

I’ve just got it in my head now that they will grow in the carpets as the carpets are wet from the clean

I have nobody to talk about this with so feel very alone. Sorry I know I probably sound very over the top

Have you got a humidifier?

Hopefully the weather is warm and dry for a bit and you can have your windows open.

It grows on rotten wood, plaster, sand, coal dust, not carpet. Even if they grew they’d die as the carpets dried out.

can I ask how you identified the mushrooms OP? Mushroom ID apps are famously unreliable and with many thousands of mushroom species you can’t ID by typing a description into Google (Google will confidently come back with something but many species look similar so chances oc if coming back with the correct species are slim). If you haven’t done so already and you want an ID there are a number of mushroom ID Facebook groups where mycologists will be happy to help if you have photos (you need a photo of the top (cap), underside (gills/spores) and the stem (stipe) if there is one along with ideally a photo of the mushrooms in situ if possible.

The carpet cleaner trodding spores will have had no effect on whether the infection spreads. If it’s going to spread it will be via the mycelium, or via the millions of spores released by the mushrooms. But this isn’t likely to happen unless the conditions are the same in other places.

Equally the fact that you haven’t seen mushrooms since removing/drying out doesn’t mean the problem is fixed? Drying out might stop more mushrooms - they need weather to convert hyphae (the stuff that mycelium is made from) into mushrooms, however drying things out is unlikely to get rid of the mycelium.

if you don’t own the house it’s not really your problem though. You can safely live there unless the infection starts to damage the integrity of the house. I would just report to LL and carry on.

the carpets being wet from the clean won’t affect whether the infection spreads. Most likely the infection is in the wood in the bathroom and mycorrhizal (wood eating) mushrooms won’t also eat carpets. Mushrooms are fussy that way. If thd original infection was a ‘carpet eating’ mushroom then the heat from the carpet clean will have killed off the threat by sterilising any spores in there. The carpets would have to be damp for a long time to create a risk of fungal infection.

Sorry - I’m in the car (not driving) so there are some errors with mushroom terminology above, but hope you get the gist

I wouldn't worry about potential spores on the carpets in the rest of the house but if there's carpet in the bathroom I would rip that up and replace it with a more suitable flooring. Also, bleach isn't really effective to clean mould as it just bleaches it so you can't see it. It doesn't kill the mould. You should use a product that is specifically for that purpose. Astonish mould and mildew spray cleaner (or similar) is cheap and places like Home Bargains or B&M sell it.

I don't think anywhere else in the house will have the appropriate conditions for it to thrive. PP is right, it's the mycelium under the floor in the affected room that is a cause for concern but again that won't spread anywhere that isn't conducive for their growth.

We had these mushrooms in a terribly damp leaky bathroom of a terrible house once, I'm sure carpet doesn't help since it traps the damp. But they didn't spread and they didn't harm us. Sorry to say that eventually the ceiling fell in below it 😬but at least that motivated the landlord to get it fixed and to replace the bathroom carpet with tile. If I were you I would be proactive about getting them to take this seriously before it causes more damage.