Common Types of Mold You Can Find in Your Home

Mold grows best in a warm, damp environment. This means certain areas of your home, such as the bathroom and basement, are susceptible to mold growth. Furthermore, your entire home is at risk of mold growth after a severe storm, flash flood, hurricane, or another wet natural disaster. If you’re worried about mold and want to know how to identify it, here are common types of mold you can find in your home.

Understanding Mold

There are three categories of mold to know about: allergenic, pathogenic, and toxigenic. Allergic molds don’t have toxic properties but often trigger allergic reactions. Pathogenic mold trigger illnesses in people with weakened immune responses. Lastly, toxigenic mold is the most dangerous, as it creates toxins that can lead to serious and potentially lethal health problems. The dangers of mold in your home can range from mild allergenic symptoms to more severe reactions, so recognizing and treating mold is crucial.

Common Causes of Mold

While mold can grow anywhere in your home, it’s most common in basements, bathrooms, kitchens, cabinets, and pipes. Mold can grow in areas with persistent humidity, condensation buildup, or wet fabric. Furthermore, mold can grow in areas with poor airflow or leakage.

Types of Mold To Recognize

Learning the different types of mold can help you recognize and mitigate mold as soon as possible. Below are the most common types of mold you can find in your home.

Penicillium

Penicillium is an allergenic type of mold, often taking on a blue-green hue with fluffy outcroppings. This mold can grow in any moist area. Even though medicine uses Penicillium notatum as a life-saving antibiotic, household Penicillium mold releases spores that can trigger asthmatic reactions or heart inflammation.

Aspergillus

There are different Aspergillus species, and they usually reside in HVAC systems and the air in water-damaged buildings. While some Aspergillus species remain nontoxic to most people, they can still trigger allergic reactions, lung infections, respiratory irritations, and asthma.

However, other toxic Aspergillus species can result in cancer growth. Therefore, scientists consider this mold to be a pathogenic contaminant, causing potentially lethal infection among individuals with compromised immune systems.

Stachybotrys (Black Mold)

Stachybotrys chartarum and Stachybotrys chlorohalonata, also known as black mold, are some of the most dangerous molds that can grow in your home. They typically grow in ventilation systems and damp areas due to poor air quality and excess moisture. If you find black mold in your home, you should immediately call licensed remediation specialists to remove the mold and excess moisture.