Mould cleaning hacks: Your DIY mould spray could be the reason the fungi keeps coming back

There are lots of popular homemade solutions for tackling mould and while some work, other recipes could actually be making the problem worse.

A common spray shared on social media that claims to remove and prevent mould typically contains vinegar and tea tree oil. Other DIY sprays are a mix of clove oil and water or clove oil and vinegar.

While tea tree and cloves can be effective against mould, an expert says the oil from them won’t kill the fungi.

READ MORE: The $29 Kmart home buy savings shoppers thousands

”You don’t want anything oily because that’s an additional food source [for the mould],” Dr Heike Neumeister-Kemp, the principal mycologist at Mycolab and one of Australia’s top mould experts tells 9honey Living.

“Anything that has the word ‘oil’ at the end leaves an oily residue; clove oil, tea tree oil, whatever oil. The substance is great, don’t put it with the oil,” she explains. 

“There’s products on the market, like San-air. They use tea tree oil, clove oil, whatever oil from Australian hardwood timber [but] they extract the oil out of it, and then they have just the plant sap – that is the best stuff, and it helps, and in the long term protects.”

READ MORE: Clothing item expert says you should only be washing once a year

There are effective DIY options you can use instead though, including vinegar and water – as long as it’s at the right ratio.

If your mix is 70 per cent vinegar and 30 per cent water you will effectively kill the mould in the area you’re cleaning.

Dr Neumeister-Kemp says that amount will trick the fungi by making it think the vinegar mix is food.

“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,” she explains.

The best bathroom cleaning hacks that actually work

Another homemade option is to use vodka and water at the ratio of 80 per cent vodka to 20 per cent water.

“Why not 100 per cent [vodka]? Because 100 per cent alcohol pickles, then the mould is there forever so, again, what we’re trying to achieve is in an 80/20 [ratio] so that we have the right osmotic pressure to enter the [cell structure of fungi],” Dr Neumeister-Kemp says.

Other alcohol types, including ethanol, can also kill mould if it’s at 80 per cent.

For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here.

To use your mould cleaner of choice, we’re advised to vacuum first using a vacuum with a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter and a horse hair nozzle.

“It’s very important that the vacuum has a HEPA 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.”

Once that’s been done then you can spray your cleaner on the surface or dampen a cloth with it and then wipe it.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.