Help with mold under house?

Question

When the Terminix guy came out for the annual termite inspection, he showed me where a small amount of black mold and white mold are beginning to develop on the floor joists beneath my house (I didn't crawl all under the crawl space, just saw the joist near the access door).

He recommended a treatment I think he called "boric salts" (not sure on name/spelling). Have you had any experience with this??

P.S. We have lots of screened, slotted vents around the bottom of the exterior wall of the house. We have gutters and french drains, but notice they could use some work.

Any info you could share would be appreciated. :)

Answer 1

For mold and mildew to appear in any area of the house there has to be moisture consistently getting to that area. So I would repair the gutters and inspect the area to make sure water is not coming for any place else. This is the most important thing to do because if you remove the water source the fungi will die on its own eventually. If you don't remove the water source it will come back. It always does.

He probably meant borate salts, which is derived from boric acid. It is used to combat fungi and insects.

What I would do, and have done on areas like floor joists, is just use a solution of bleach and water, at a 1 to 8 ratio. First I repair the area and stop the source of water.Then I soak the area thoroughly with the bleach solution. This is enough to kill the fungi. I also usually sand down the area after I kill the fungi to remove the stain of the fungus.