Many Kinds of Mold

4/29/2018 (Permalink)

Photo of mold growing inside a home in the Green Bay area

Mold remediation is one of the most common jobs we help our clients with.

Because of that we’ve focused some recent blog posts on mold: where it’s likely to grow in your home, what to expect if you call us for help with remediation.

But did you know there are many kinds of mold that can affect your property?

We do know there are more than 100,000 species of mold that exist in the world. Not all of these can or will affect your home or office, but there are five main kinds you’re likely to encounter:

• Alternaria – is a genus of mold, meaning there are several species that are contained within it. Alternaria tends to grow in thick green, gray or black colonies. According to health experts it can affect a person's health.
• Aspergillus – is a genus of mold. One of the species is a main component of mildew. Health experts say some species of Aspergillus can affect a person's health.
• Cladosporium – Is another mold genus. The species within Cladosporium grow in olive-green, brown or black colonies. Cladosporium is rarely known to have adverse health effects on people.
• Penicillium – This mold genus contains over 300 species, some of which are used to make the medicine Penicillin, some of which are used to make cheese. However, some of those species can be commonly found growing in blue or blue-green colonies on plywood, carpet and inside walls. 
• Stachybotrys chartarum – is the mold species the CDC considers ‘black mold,’ which you’ve likely heard of as ‘toxic mold.’ This species grows in greenish-black colonies and is actually NOT toxic. The CDC CAN have an effect on people's health, particularly those with weakened immune systems. (We wrote a full blog on this mold a few weeks back)

So now that we’ve told you a little bit about some of the different kinds of molds are out there, let us remind you that we can help clean up and mitigate ALL of them. So, if you’ve found mold growing in your home or business, reach out to SERVPRO of West Brown County at 920-434-8224.