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All kinds of things in your home can be affected by mold, but you can do quite a few things to protect them and restore them if you do a little research.  A lot of molded items can be cleaned and saved, but there are a few that just have to be thrown away. 

If mold gets on anything made of real leather it cannot be restored.  Leather is a piece of porous organic material and mold decomposes items like this pretty quickly.  It will discolor the leather and this discoloration cannot be repaired in 99 percent of cases.

Baby bottles come in strange shapes these days and are very often difficult to get completely dry.  Water bottles and other beverage containers that we may have in our cabinets come in shapes just as strange and if you do not have a dishwasher with a dry cycle, it can be pretty hard to get these dry without a good amount of effort.  The solution to this problem is to place these bottles in the freezer until you are ready to use them again.  This prevents mold from growing on it, since mold does not grow in freezing temperatures. 

Something else that causes mold to grow on your belongings, especially clothes, is the simple act of throwing wet clothing on the floor or into the back of the closet and forgetting about them.  Most people do not wash wet clothes immediately; we tend to just throw them on the floor and then throw dry clothes on top of them.  This usually causes the dry clothes to become moldy if we leave them there more than a day or two.  Not only does it cause the clothes on top of them to become moldy, but if the wet items were thrown directly onto carpet, the carpet can become just as moldy.  Once carpet is molded, it usually needs to be taken up and replaced, but the padding underneath always needs to be removed because it cannot be cleaned.

If you have a lot of clothes in your closet, maybe you need to make sure that you do not pack them into the closet so tight that the air cannot circulate.  The clothes insulate each other and create warmth in the closet where mold can start growing after just a few days.  Some closets come with vents installed to prevent this problem, but if yours does not, you should probably find another way to store your clothes or get rid of the ones that you do not use.

Commercial Water Restoration

A good meal and a good bath is something that most Americans enjoy thoroughly, but how can you enjoy either one when you’re in a room full of ugly water damage stains on the walls, floors, and ceilings?  Many of these rooms often have the brown stains on the ceiling that are typical of water damage and while most people just paint over them, often the stains just keep coming back because the underlying problem has not been fixed yet.  It is probably due to a leaky roof, but what about the steam that comes off of your bath water or off of the stove when you cook dinner?  These every day tasks can be just as much of a cause of water damage as a leaking roof can be, if not more so because they happen every day.  At least, a bath a day comes recommended, anyway.  Installing a steam vent in your bathroom for under $100 and a day’s work could possibly be one of the best investments that you can make to help safeguard the appearance and structural integrity of your kitchen and bathroom.

Make sure that you do not allow your bath tub or your kitchen sink to overflow.  Sometimes we turn on the bath water and get stuck talking to a relative or a co-worker on the phone, all the while unaware that the water you wanted in your tub is pouring all over your floor.  The same thing can happen when you are cooking in the kitchen or washing dishes.  This can land quite a lot of water in your floor before you realize it and can do quite a bit of damage to your floor if you let it happen often. 

An overflowing toilet is also a hazard, not only because of the water damage that can occur, but also due to the possible sewage content of the water when you go to flush it.  If not cleaned up properly, mold can start to grow around the base of the toilet, especially if you have carpet in your bathroom.  Carpet in the bathroom is a no-no.

Also avoid throwing wet dirty clothes into your bathroom floor or closet, especially if you happen to have a carpeted bathroom.  You will probably forget that these wet clothes are there and throw dry ones on top of it.  This results in water damage and mold growth more often than not when the closet is not cleaned out.  The best thing to do is to wash wet clothes and towels as soon as possible so they are not forgotten about or at the very least stored separately from dry dirty clothes.

Wet Carpet