Cleaning up Black Mold in Your Home? Take These Precautions to Keep You Safe
Do you have black mold in your home that you will attempt to remove on your own? If so, know that there are precautions that you should take to keep yourself safe.
1. Get the Right Personal Protection Equipment
There are a few pieces of personal protection equipment that you need before you attempt to clean up the black mold. At the very least, you should have an N95 mask to prevent yourself from breathing in any of the dangerous mold spores. However, it is even better to have a proper respirator mask that will block even more small particles from being accidentally breathed in.
You'll also want to wear a protective suit to go over your clothes. These can be purchased from your local home improvement store, and are designed to be cheap and disposable. The goal is to prevent mold from getting on your clothes and then bringing that mold into your home. Safety goggles are also a necessity, which will prevent any mold spores from coming in contact with your eyes.
Safety gloves are also recommended so that the mold or cleaning solutions never come in contact with your skin. Make sure that you have long gloves that go up to your forearms and cover as much skin as possible, since small latex gloves will not give you the protection you need.
2. Keep the Space Well Ventilated
As you are cleaning up the black mold, all of those small particles are going to be floating in the air. You will need to keep the space well ventilated with an exhaust that is sucking the air out of the space that you are working in. This will result in there being less mold in the air that can potentially get past your personal protection equipment, which will make it an environment that is safer for you to work in.
3. Use HEPA Filters
When you are vacuuming up any debris left behind from removing the mold, you'll always want to use a vacuum that has a HEPA filter on it. These filters are going to offer you the most protection by catching those incredibly small mold particles that would otherwise find their way back into the air. The filter will help ensure that everything stays within the vacuum and doesn't recontaminate the space.
Reach out to a mold clean up company if you would rather leave this to an expert that knows exactly what they are doing.