Why you should never use bleach to remove mould

If neglected, mould can get out of control – quickly. While prevention is the best solution, and there are some great mould removal products to add to cart, there’s one cleaning product you shouldn’t use as mould buster - and that's bleach.

What not to use to remove mould

It’s been proven that harsh chemicals such as bleach and ammonia aren’t effective in removing mould. The problem with bleach is it does nothing to remove the mould. Instead it bleaches the colour of the mould, giving the illusion of a mould-free surface.

"The fungi contain melanin, and the bleach just takes the colour out, but the fungi are still there, you are just masking it," Mycologist Heike Neumeister-Kemp told the ABC.

"Six weeks later it appears to come back, but it was never gone."

Heike recommends a vinegar solution to break down the fungi.

"The vinegar attacks the fungi mechanically," she said, "so it actually, via osmosis, penetrates into the structure and explodes it, so you actually kill the fungi."

How to remove mould

Start by sorting mouldy items into non-porous (hard plastics, wood, steel), semi-porous (walls and surfaces) and super-porous (clothes, carpet, paper, furniture).

Throw out anything that is super-porous and covered in mould – it’ll be hard to restore it, unless you have your carpet professionally cleaned.

Next, create the vinegar solution:

Steps

Pour a concentration of 80% vinegar to 20% water into three buckets
Grab a microfibre cloth, dip it into the first bucket and clean a patch of mould
Rinse the cloth in the second bucket, and rinse again in the third
Repeat until all mould is cleaned off
Wipe areas with dry microfibre cloth when finished