The Creeping Coastal Horror!

Mold is serious business. A long time ago I met a cavalier young person who declared that mold was a harmless cosmetic issue, used by selfish California renters to avoid paying rent for perfectly good buildings. He was the son of a wealthy family that owned an apartment building. Gee, I wonder where he got his opinion from.

At the time, I was also young, and not assertive enough to do what I should have: Slapped him silly for spreading lies. Mold is serious business. Specifically, exposure to it aggravates asthma symptoms, and chronic exposure to it slowly degrades your immune system and your lungs. Chronic exposure is like a constant low-grade infection that your body never finishes clearing. Picture it: A moving cloud of spores, floating up from that patch on the baseboard near your bed, and going into your body, all night long every night. Your immune system cleans it up as it comes in, but the front lines - the alveoli of the lungs - never fully clear.

Here's a handy yardstick: If there's enough mold on something that you can stand across the room and still see it, you need to get rid of that mold. And possibly that thing it's on, too!

( Last winter during the brief rainy season I was horrified to see this forming on my wall: )