Dealing with Mold

Remember two weeks ago when we had the “Poo Fest” around here? Well… immediately we took care of the water, sanitizing, and damaged stuff, and then we stopped there. Here are a few pics of the bathroom before the sewer fiasco. It was never very nice, but it was at least functional, and when you’ve got a 4 year old who can’t “hold it” a second potty is VITAL!

We knew there was more damage than what met the eye, hence the title of this post, “The Mold Fest”. This last weekend we decided to tackle the hidden disaster: the NASTY sewage mold behind ALL the walls. We definitely made a mistake by not tackling this immediately because I think it had spread in the past two weeks. I’ll spare you most of the mold pictures, but this is what ALL the walls around the bathroom looked like! There was SO much mold that we’re afraid this probably happened before we lived here too.

We realized that it would cost $20 to take the toilet to the dump, but if it could fit in our trash can it was free, so Matt got busy destroying it so we could put it in the can.

 While he was having fun destroying the toilet I was NOT having fun wearing my mask destroying moldy drywall.

After we had torn out all the moldy drywall and tackstrip that still left me with mold growing up the 2×4’s. I spent most of Sunday scrubbing them with a bleach spray but thankfully I was able to get the wood totally clean!

 Now we’ve got a clean slate and it’s time to hang drywall, tape and mud, paint, lay new tile, new carpet, and install all new bathroom fixtures. THANKFULLY our homeowners insurance covered the damage so this is turning out to be a painful and stinky, but productive way to update our basement.