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Perhaps you have looked at the damp or dank parts of your house or apartment and noticed a rather unusually colored area growing. Mold is far from uncommon in any area that receives enough moisture, but unlike a normal light green colorization, black mold can be hazardous or even deadly to homeowners. This is because black mold will create spores that easily spread through the air and into your respiration system. While most mold creates similar spores – mold is a living matter after all and has to grow – they pose no health hazards and can be left well enough alone. Indeed, you may be breathing in these spores as we speak, for they are common in nearly any building atmosphere. Black mold health effects, on the other hand, make them a priority for any homeowner to eradicate if detected.

Nearly all toxic black mold health risks center around the inhalation problems that will occur with a buildup of the toxins. Just like smoking a single cigarette will not cause lung cancer, coming in contact with black mold in one occasion will not pose health concerns. When there are multiple sources, however, or if someone comes into contact for an extensive period of time, the buildup of spores in the lungs can have serious effects.

Short term exposure to these spores, from staying the night in a leaky apartment or hotel, will likely not cause much more than watery eyes, sneezing, throat irritation, and perhaps slight nausea. Your system will purge these spores quickly and most people will feel better as soon as they take a breath of fresh air. With more and more inhalation of the mold, the health effects of black mold grow more serious. By affecting the mucus in your mouth, in can cause difficulty breathing, hoarseness, loss of taste, and chronic coughing.

The greatest black mold health effects come from allergies and young children. An allergic reaction to black mold can be fatal, with bleeding in the lungs. A young child exposed to the mold may not have the antibodies necessary to fight off infection and could develop life long breathing problems from exposure.

Black mold can affect several places in a house, such as roof, tiles walls, and carpeting. If these places are often wet, then this fungal infection will find a good environment to live and reproduce. If you treat the affected areas, then you can avoid the mold from spreading.

But what if the infection is already there? If you do not make an accurate diagnosis of the situation, then you may be jeopardizing your family health. Typically you can do a visual inspection and check the most suspect areas – places subject to leakage, plus water and flood damages. You can find several black mold testing kits in the market to help you with that. Each of them works in a different way.

The first way is to swab suspect substances, and then swabbing the kit. After that, you will send this test to the laboratory you bought the kit from, and they will conduct further analysis. If there is mold in the kit during the next 3 to 7 days, then you will need to treat that area.

Another way to test for black mold is a special adhesive tape that captures the mold. This special tape is also sent back to the laboratory for proper testing. These test kits are provided free of charge by some companies, however you may need to pay shipping and handling costs.

The third method is through air testing. It will determine the infestation, as well as how to remove and treat your home. Here you will place sample kits outside your home, and one kit in each room you want to check, open the lids on the kits and wait one hour. After that, you close the lids and send the test to the laboratory. The laboratory will compare the results of the outdoor and the indoor kits. If the indoor kits return with more mold than the outdoor ones, then you have an infestation.

After conducting these tests, the most important thing is to take action and treat your home. If you fail to do that, then it is just a waste of time, energy and efforts. It will also be harder to remove the black mold later on, since it will continue to breed.