The four letter word - - - - MOLD

[isiahfan]

Leon please move if needed but I thought this might be a good spot for this and helpful to others.

I recently moved (a few years ago) and the items I had in storage for about a year recently started to show signs of mold. Mostly couches (leather/pleather), but it soon spread to other things (shoes/clothes/suitcases/bags/etc.) and even to some of the binders. It is in a couple of rooms in the house....but not awful. It is also not black mold. My concern, other than any health issues, is will it attack my cards....as it has already gotten the better of a couple of binders. I have not seen any issues so far and I try to circulate air and get sunlight into the 2-3 rooms that house most of my collection.

Almost all of my stuff is in Binders/toploaders in showboxes/sealed sets/boxes in plastic storage bins. When you have 1 million+ cards they are not going to all be sealed as such. So my questions are:

Has anyone ever dealt with this before?

What did you do to get rid of it (I do clean with alcohol and other bacteria killing cleaner at first sight) and did it work?

Has anyone every had cards that were affected?

Moving all of this isn't an options so looking for alternative suggestions.

Thanks

[raulus]

I've never dealt with it before. But I'm curious if you could give us a little more color here. Where do you live? Is it an area that is particularly moist/humid? Did you have any water that got into your storage area, like from a leaky roof?

It's certainly something that I'm a bit paranoid about. Since I live in Portland, OR, it's certainly a possibility, and something I want to make sure to avoid.

[bnorth]

Keeping them in a humid area can ruin cards even if still in sealed boxes. A few years ago a member sold several sealed boxes he had had for 25+ years. He never noticed it but when several of us received those boxes they reeked of stale mold. Of course the seller felt bad and refunded all of us.

I tried a few things but what worked best was to lay them out in the sunlight on my picnic table for a few days. Then after putting them back in the box I left them outside in the sun for several more days. Nothing else worked for me.

[isiahfan]

Originally Posted by raulus

I've never dealt with it before. But I'm curious if you could give us a little more color here. Where do you live? Is it an area that is particularly moist/humid? Did you have any water that got into your storage area, like from a leaky roof?

It's certainly something that I'm a bit paranoid about. Since I live in Portland, OR, it's certainly a possibility, and something I want to make sure to avoid.

Live on the San Diego coast....so about as perfect weather as you can get. Pretty much between 60-80 all year. Entire house has new HVAC and was re-built from the studs about 2.5 years ago.

Had three ways I moved stuff from my old place to the new place:

1 - 2 large PODS containers (mostly household goods) which I can imagine after 18 months caused most of the damage to the furniture

2 - Large temperaature controlled storage unit (15Lx12Wx12H) which is where most of the cards were held for 18 months and anything of considerable value was in storage bins

3 - Remaining clothes/household stuff/cards were with me in temporary housing

Noticed the mold about a year after moving in and started with shoes and couches ...then binders...some clothes. The furniture that was in the PODS was all that was affected...and I am guessing the super spreader of the problem. Also as might be expected the rooms that got the least amount of sun/activity got hit the worst. I don't want to paint an awful picture....but it was enough to be slightly concerned. that and even after deep cleans I'll see a hint in some of the same rooms months later.

For the record...have not seen any issues with cards and have no water or moisture issues in the house ....at all.

Have mostly seen it affect clothes and leather-ish type materials.

[atx840]

I used a q-tip on a mouldy T206, pretty straight forward to get rid of it, only time trying.

[Directly]

What's the humidity in these areas? High or low?--average temperature ?

[Exhibitman]

By the coast in Cali, high moisture, so high and corrosive that there are special construction guidelines for things like flashings and waterproofing materials. What the OP should do (we all should) is get some commercial silica dessicant packets and seed them throughout storage bins and boxes. That should help mitigate moisture in the boxes especially. Thankfully, I more or less live in a freakin' desert, so I've never had an issue, but I still keep dessicant packets in my safe deposit box and other storage. Cedar blocks too, to ward off any moths or other pests.

[Leon]

That's really good. I have never tried getting mold off of a card. Did you use the Q-tip dry?

Originally Posted by atx840

I used a q-tip on a mouldy T206, pretty straight forward to get rid of it, only time trying.

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