Last September after some strange medical things in our family, we had a mold specialist check out our house. He found white mold in several places, black mold in the air con units and showed me a disturbing amount of white mold growing on our wood furniture (including our baby's crib!). We now know how to look for it with a LED flashlight and understand that it most commonly grows on the unfinished surfaces of wood furniture (the underside and back, which we never knew to check before). At the time he recommended a chemical clean of all air con units, 5 dehumidifiers and a professional clean of the house by his company. Some mold was on the ceiling in the bedrooms and kitchen wall, but otherwise limited to furniture. Having said that, we have some wood slatted flooring that could have mold growing beneath it and we have had leaking behind a false wall that could have issues as well (cant see unless it is pulled up). The owner of our house agreed to the chemical cleaning of the aircon and 2 dehumidifies. We also cleaned all of the furniture with vinegar and/or tea tree oil.
We just returned from a month away for the holidays and found that the mold has grown back on the furniture (even though our helper cleaned everything with tea tree oil again while we were away). Although it did not seem to grow as quickly in the rooms with the dehumidifiers. We asked the landlord back and he gave a half hearted look around. The owner has now agreed to give us 2 more dehumidifiers. Is this reasonable, or should we push to have the house professionally treated? At this point, we are unsure whether some of our furniture is a loss. Our coffee table in particular seems to be harboring a lot of spores and we don't want to bring mold into our next house!
We understand mold is a normal part of living in this climate, but also want to make sure we aren't ignoring a real problem. We can't say for sure if the health issues we have had are connected.
If anyone has any advice or experience with this we would greatly appreciate some wisdom!