I can't cope anymore

[MrsACB1984]

I don't really know what i'm expecting from this. I've not really joined a forum before but when I was googling, this site came up. I'm aware you're not all experts in this issue i'm having. I guess i'm just after some support, ideas, someone just to help me. Maybe someones been in the same boat. Its taken me a lot of strength to write this all down. Its going to be a long one. Feel free to ignore even, I think just writing it down may help. I'm really struggling at the minute, its like i've fallen into this big black hole that I just can't get out of. The walls are closing in and i'm suffocating. I've had mild anxiety issues for as long as I can remember but i've been able to control them without any support or medical intervention. If I felt anxious or had a mild anxiety attack it soon passed and I forgot about it and got on with my life. It was a rare occurence. However since October its taken over my life, and the trigger was mould & mildew. Now in our house we've previously had the odd shoe, bag, item of clothing go mouldy. I washed them hot, or wiped with vinegar, dried thoroughly, put back away and forgot about it. However in October I was cleaning my daughters bedroom and happened to pull the drawer unit out. The whole of the back had gone mouldly. I then thought about the other furnature so pulled that out. Sure enough that had too. Then thats when it started, everything I seemed to pick up in the house had a bit of mould on, toys, books, ornaments, backs of photo frames etc. Now we've no mould on the house fabric itself, so no mould on walls, floors etc - its just on stuff. Now I clean what I can, vinegar is my new best friend. I buy so much vinegar that the Sainsburys app decided to tell me I was the best buyer of vinegar in our town last year. How helpful. I've attempted to get people out to look but they just say its a ventilation and condensation issue and won't come. They say to pull the furnature away from walls, run a dehumidifuer, open windows and don't dry washing indoors. I do all this and i'm still finding it. So what next? Now I know all houses will have mould & mildew, some people just chose to ignore it or wipe it up when they see it (sorry if i've set you all off looking for it now), but its just consuming my life. I've lost a few things to it, some not worth bothering about, but some sentimental items have been damaged. Its got so bad I don't even like getting clothes out of wardrobes or drawers in case I find something mouldy. I don't want to clean as everytime I clean I find more stuff. However, I make myself clean the house as obviouly if I clean, dust won't build up and maybe mould is less likely to grow. Its causing me to have really bad anxiety attacks, i'm irritable, I have to patience. I shout, cry all the time. I don't want to do anything with anyone, i'm not interested in anything. I can function at work luckily as i'm away from the house then. My husband doesn't seen bothered with the mould. He is however concerned with how its affecting me at least. I think he is just happy to ignore it unless its really bad and I think he's getting a bit sick of me going on about it. So its just left to me to clean everything. After her book case was mouldy he did clean it for me and check the books - said they wern't mouldy. However i've checked them since and a few have started to get mildew on so I imagine he just looked quickly and missed it, so that wasn't a great help. He doesn't help me look for or clean the mould up because he says his days off he likes to spend time with our daughter. Thats great but meanwhile my days off are spent looking for mould, cleaning and trying to save our belingings. Its never going to end i'm i'm just going to be finding mould and mildew everywhere forever. I am constantly ratching through stuff in our house looking for mould and mildew. I proper inspect the items, with a torch even! Its become an obsession. If I can find and clean stuff up, it stops it spreading and getting worse and I can maybe save something from getting ruined. My complete fear is that something really sentimental has to go in the bin. I don't want to live like this anymore. I've spoke to my gp and i'm on the waiting list to speak to someone. The gp was good but he told me it how I felt had nothing to do with the mould. But it does. It doesn't matter how much the therapist learns me to "cope" with it, the mould is still there so i'm still going to be continually finding it on our belongings - they can't fix that.

Last year was a very bad year for mould due to the very wet but warm autumn we had. Combine that with people using less heating (either to cut back or because it felt too warm to need it) and bam mould. For the first time ever I had some issues myself with it and it caused me to go a bit nuts too. I ended up ripping up carpets that were smelling horrible and throwing them out (they had mould spots on back of carpet). I think it is the idea of this "hidden uncontrollable growing fungus" which triggers anxiety. My house smelt awful for first time ever. I was very stressed out. How I solved it

First buy a hygrometer. Amazon has them. You can get them from under £10.
Buy a few and place round your house. Now you need your humidity to be between 30 and 60. If it is over 60 for any length of time mould will start growing.

You will be amazed at what you learn from these small items. Play about with your heating and opening windows. What I've found is if you put your heating on, humidity goes down. After a while open your windows and the humidity goes down further as the warm wet air goes out. When the humidity starts to go up again, close your windows and put your heating back on.

I'm assuming your are going to find the humidity in your house is too high so you can do

1. wet weather outside, use the heating and windows method as above or
2. Make life easier for yourself and buy dehumidifiers (I got 2 meaco ones of the dessicant type) and they will control the humidity in your house
3. If it's dry outside you can turn the dehumidifiers off and just open all the windows and watch the humidity in house fall that way.

Now that humidity is in the right range the mould will stop growing. Now you can wipe the visible mould away using white vinegar or one of the mould sprays you can buy. A bit of it may come back whilst the dehumidifiers/other methods are bringing the humidity under control but you will be winning the battle by then. Just keep your humidity at right range and you will find the cleaning will get less and less till there is none.

I hope that helps.

There are lots of threads on about mould, damp and condensation problems and reading them can help you feel less alone.

p.s. some people do say that 30 to 50 is a better range to keep your house at and I have set my dehumidifiers to 40. This way my house usually sits in the 40 to 50 range. If you aim for this you will keep well away from the 60 humidity that triggers mould growth

sorry - I have see you have tried some of the things I suggested but you don't mention the hygrometer. Please buy some and check the humidity in your house.

If your house really isn't the problem and the humidity levels are 30 to 50 then have you moved recently? Could the items have grown the mould at your last house and you have only just discovered it? In other words it's not actually growing now because conditions are too favourable (humidity in right range) but because you keep finding items that you haven't cleaned yet it seems like it is spreading?

I wish you luck. Anxiety is horrible and mould certainly triggered mine this year.

Thanks for your input. We have just bought some of those hygrometer things. The humidity ranges from between 50% to 70% each day. Its higher at night than during the day. We've been leaving the windows on the catch at night and running a dehumidifier through night but sometimes theres still condensation on the windows. I mean this could have been going on years because I've not been looking for it. But now I actively look for it and proper inspect items for it. I mean there isn't a damp or mould smell in our house so had I not been actively looking for it, it wouldn't be noticed. I cannot settle in the house at all. I can't even stop for 5 minutes. I just keep thinking I need to be checking something so i'l go pull a random book off the shelf, tip the tv unit over to check the bottom or even take her dolls house to bits to look. A lot of the time you cannot see anything with the naked eye so to most people that would be good enough, but no, not me. I go get the torch out and hold the item and different angles to get the light to bounce off at different angles so I can be doubly sure. I know this is getting ridiculous but a lot of the time I find mould when using the torch, so its like I've been rewarded and keep doing it. Last night I decided to look at the underneath of the bookcase shelves. Could I see anything with just my eyes? No. So I get the torch out. Low & behold I see a white dusty smear under one of the shelves. It could well just have been dust. But dust can't collect on the underneath of an item can it so therefore it must be mould. My mind just cannot stop.

Also, what kind of smell did your carpet give iff to make you think it was mouldy. This is something I have not checked.

Just reading your updates and I would have to say don't run your dehumidifiers with the windows open. This doesn't work and your humidity will stay high. Windows shut with dehumidifiers on and you will see your humidity drop.

Carpet smelt awful. Like a rotten, cabbage, dirt kind of smell. I kept walking into my house going "what is that smell?" I couldn't understand it and tried shampooing it twice before I ripped it up and threw it out. I thought I had solved the problem but of course the damp/mould had just started and the carpet had been affected first. It did take me quite a few weeks to work out what was going on and I did indeed become obsessed and paranoid.

I was shocked at how quickly my house went from fine to problematic.

My advice is windows shut, dehumidifiers set to 40.
Air house each day (longer if dry outside), bare minimum if wet outside. Turn your dehumidifiers off when you do this. Clean obvious mould away but try not to obsess. Remember if you keep your house at the right humidity of 30-60 existing mould will stop growing and new mould will not start. Sounds like the fact your house is regularly getting up to 70 will be allowing mould to keep growing. You really want it to be in the 40 to 50 range at most times I would say. I hope this helps a wee bit.

I think the condensation on your windows will stop when you run your dehumidifiers with the windows shut. My windows are old but there is never condensation of them now with the dehumidifiers. There was lots prior to buying them.

If your dehumidifier is a basic model or one of these mini ones you probably need to upgrade to one or two bigger dehumidifiers of a premium brand ie meaco. I live in a 3 bed newbuild and have 2 meaco dehumidifiers. One on each floor now.

We too have this problem with mould and condensation. Can you just clarify that it's only mostly in your daughters room? Ours was bad in our bedroom because I frequently spilled glasses of water or juice and despite cleaning or getting the majority of it soaked up, we ended up with mould behind our bed up the wall and I only noticed when it's started spreading where I could see it. It spreads so quickly too. We ripped off half the wallpaper and scrubbed everywhere. I've noticed a small patch in another room and a pair of my trainers had signs of mildew so were soaked in vinegar. Nothing else, as far as we can see in the wardrobe has any signs but I will also get the torch out.
I think you are going to have to start with one room, with a piece of furniture at time removing all clothes and washing or getting rid of any not worn. Clean absolutely everything with vinegar and ventilate each room. Do each room and with your additional purchase mentioned in a previous post hopefully you will be rid of it. Hugs x

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. No, its not just confined to her bedroom, however it was by far the worst in there. I do wonder if its got so bad since covid as he works from home now and I only do part time. So we're both in the house more, therefore producing more moisture. I need to stop 'obssessing' over it. I mean if you cannot see it with the naked eye then what does it matter? I bet everyone had tons of mould/mildew in their houses but because they can't see it then they assume the don't have it. My issue is that I can't see it on an item so I get a torch out to thoroughly inspect it. Anyone else would look at it, see no mould and say its not mouldy! E.g I check backs of photoframes each time I clean and thy look pristine. However I get my torch out and I can see mould! Take the torch away and look in normal light or daylight, and you absolutely cannot see any mould. I also now cannot differenciate between mildew, muck and dust. So therefore everything dusty or mucky must be mouldy.