How to clean mould: Popular pantry staple for killing mould only works if you get this one detail right

The most well-known and popular home solution for removing and killing mould has to be vinegar for its effectiveness, affordability and ease of use.

But unless you get an important detail right when you’re using it, the fungi will come back.

One of Australia’s top mould experts, Dr Heike Neumeister-Kemp, the principal mycologist at Mycolab, says the ratio of vinegar to water matters.

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“Vinegar in the right percentage as 70 per cent vinegar to 30 per cent water works very well because then vinegar is seen as a food source [by the fungi] and the fungi simply overeats on it and it literally explodes via osmotic pressure,” she tells 9honey.

Getting the upper hand on fungi by making it think its eating something is necessary because it is so hard to get rid of.

“The fungi really needs to be tricked into [eating] a food source because fungi have triple membrane and they don’t just let anything in, they’re very well protected organism so if you trick it into, ‘Oh, this is food’ then it overfeeds and explodes.”

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Before you start spraying or wiping vinegar all over a patch of mould, Dr Neumeister-Kemp advises removing items that can’t be cleaned and then vacuuming.

“It’s very important that the vacuum has a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter, otherwise you just spread [the mould] around,” she explains.

“The nozzle with your vacuum should be horse hair because if you have a plastic nozzle, the plastic just distributes the spores to the side while horse hair is electrostatic and brings it in,” she adds. 

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“So the horse hair brushes are round and in a circular motion you go around and then you can actually vacuum most of the contaminants off; it doesn’t matter [what it is] clothes, surfaces, and so on.”

Once you’ve removed the fungi spores then you can use your chosen cleaning product, for example, vinegar and water, by spraying it directly on the surface or onto your cloth first and finish by wiping off.

How to use vinegar to clean your home

Dr Neumeister-Kemp encouraged Aussies to prevent mould by ventilating their homes more, citing the example of Bali as a location with 90 per cent relative humidity and no mould problem.

“Why? Because everything is open and there’s always a light wind,” she explains.

“The biggest mistake people do is that there’s not enough ventilation. So if it is very hot and very humid, you need to have ceiling fans on or you need to have air con on, not to cool the house – the house should never be under 20 degrees – but to dry it via air conditioning.”

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She added that airing out sweaty exercise clothes instead of dumping on the floor, not leaving wet sponges in the sink and opening the curtains for sunlight also help prevent mould in the home.

“It’s the more sunlight, the more air, and the less clutter, less dirt and dust there is the less food [for fungi to eat and the less mould you’ll have].”

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