There is a lot to love about life in our island paradise. One thing that bothers HA, though, is the mold problem. She is sensitive to the smell of mold, and the mold is, indeed, everywhere. She cleans endlessly and wipes down surfaces with 30% vinegar. We have ceiling fans running 24/7. The worst room, her office, has a full-time dehumidifier running. Still, it’s musty and moldy and powdery mold coats the clothing (it’s our only hanging closet space) and shoes and furniture. Anything leather grows fuzz in a few days.
I don’t leave the compound often, but I went to a neighborhood get-together last Sunday. The neighbors are all wonderful people and it’s a testimony to my curmudgeonly nature that I don’t socialize more. I was having fascinating conversations, and at one point the subject turned to mold. A neighbor whom I knew from our GMRS radio group said he had great success with an ozone generator.
It seems too good to be true. They don’t cost much ($40), they don’t use consumable filters or chemicals, they don’t even use that much power (~70 watts). You seal the room, tag it out as uninhabitable, and run the generator for half an hour or so. The ozone it generates oxidizes many odor-causing molecules, and kills most living things including mold spores. You then open windows and ventilate it for a couple of hours before occupying it. The machine will supposedly handle 4,000 square feet, which is six times the size of our whole house, so if it works for the office…
You still have to clean. It doesn’t filter the air. It does, however, do a good job of eliminating the odor. Only time will tell if it kills enough mold spores to slow the recurrence of the problem. We’ve run it twice in the last week, and we’ll monitor going forward. Then we’ll seal up the whole house and take a beach day with Luna the Big Dog and see if we can’t slow the advance of the mold at scale.
—2p