Toxic Black Mould - Homepage
This website has been created by to inform the allergy sufferers about detail information about toxic black mould exposure risks.
Mould spores and fractured mould particles naturally occur in the indoor and outdoor environment. It is practically impossible to make any building mould free. Most mould remediation efforts therefore aim to restore "normal" fungal conditions inside of affected properties. Mould spore and fungal fragment levels can vary greatly between area or regions - some days they may be high and some days they are low or close to zero. Mould spore concentration in a particular area is influence by many interconnected factors but the most significant are the time of year, wind direction, outside temperature, time of day and other less significant environmental conditions.
When you open your door or windows , you naturally let some mould spores in. Presence of mould spores in the indoor environment is normal and does not represent a problem. Moulds will naturally settle on all surfaces in the house but in most cases will not germinate and develop into mould contamination. If however, the micro environmental conditions in the house are such as to allow mould spores to germinate they will spread and cause significant damage to the health of the occupants and the building structure.
Moulds are a type of fungus, which need moisture to grow; as such they are found in damp and poorly ventilated areas. Most frequent sources of moisture in the buildings are defects such as leaking roof and wall structure deterioration, leaking services such as pipes and utilities and floods. Vast majority of moulds gain nutrients from decomposing moist organic matter such as cooked or raw food, paper, wood, fabric, dust, plant soil. They can also colonise seemingly sterile surfaces such as glass or metal but in these cases they obtain nutrients from microscopic layer of dust. Moulds spread by releasing millions of microscopic spores into the air and these spores are a source of indoor air pollution, which lead to mould allergy.
Fungi, Mould and Mildew
Fungi are a separate class of organisms which are neither plants nor animals. Fungi, unlike plants get the energy for life from chemical decomposition of materials they are growing on. In most cases they thrive of dead plant matter but will readily colonise other materials if conditions are right. The kingdom fungi include mushrooms, rusts, smuts, puffballs, truffles, morels, moulds, and yeasts, and thousands of other organisms and microorganisms. They range from microscopic single-celled organisms, such as yeast, to large mushrooms.
Mildew and mould are generally considered to mean the same, a fungal growth on various surfaces. In the scientific the phrase mildew is often used to describe a specific group of fungal plant pathogens. It is caused by many different species of fungi in the order Erysiphales. Most mildew species are closely linked to a very narrow range of host plants.
Moulds are a relative small group of ubiquitous organisms from the larger fungi kingdom. Moulds are fungi that can be found both indoors and outdoors. It is believed that there are somewhere between ten thousand and hundred thousand individual species of moulds. They thrive best in warm, damp, and humid environments, and spread and reproduce by making spores. Black mould spores can survive harsh environmental conditions, such as draught or exposure to mild chemicals.
