My best friend Dani recently moved into a new flat and saw that there was some black around the extractor fans in some of the rooms. She was concerned that it might be mould and knowing how toxic mould can be, she asked for my help. I went round and we did some very basic mould testing (before spending 00s of £’s, we thought we’d start with a simple test!).
We placed the mould testing kits as per the instructions (you can buy a similar one here) and left them for an hour. We then covered and stored them in a dry, dark place for a few days to allow the mould to cultivate.
Then we checked the number of colonies. Luckily for Dani, there were very few colonies (even though it looked gross!) which indicates a low risk of mould. We did however wonder about why there was black by the extractor fans….see what it was below….
It turned out that Dani had an air filtration system that there were no instructions for! So it was no surprise when I asked if she had checked the filters. She hadn’t been in the flat for long so I thought the filters would have collected a bit of dirt and pollution….I pulled out the filter and it was so dirty that we both felt ill just looking at it….needless to say she ordered replacement filters immediately. It certainly would explain why there was a build up of dirt by the extractors. It’s amazing to have filters but we do need to maintain them!
If you have any suspicion of mould, then I definitely recommend mould testing!