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Many people consider mold an inconvenience in a wet basement
or poorly ventilated bathroom. But molds can be much more than
just an inconvenience - they can affect the health of you and
your house. Molds are microscopic fungi. If there is a moist
environment and other proper conditions, molds can attack
materials in a house such as fiberboard, drywall, carpet
backing, paper, dust, wood, or exposed soils in crawlspaces.
Once established in a home, molds can spread and can be hard
to get rid of.
Molds use tiny spores to reproduce. Spores that become
airborne are hard to filter out and can stay suspended in the
air for long periods of time. The spores can then be inhaled,
causing headaches, fever, coughing, wheezing, runny nose, sinus
problems, ongoing flu-like symptoms, skin rashes, pneumonitis,
and asthma. A few mold species are capable of producing toxins
if a proper food source is available. People vary in their
sensitivity to the concentration of spores in the air. The
elderly, children, and people with compromised immune systems
are most vulnerable to the effects of spores, but even healthy
people may react.
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