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You may have already read our article about how to clean bathrooms. However, some things may need a little extra care and attention due to the nature of a bathroom. One of those things is mold.  Mold can quickly feel at home in your shower, so you need to know about cleaning mold from a shower. While it may look harmless, mold or mildew can pose a substantial threat to the household. Apart from the nasty smell mold gives off, it can also prove problematic. It can cause allergies for some, breathing problems for others. It may even be carcinogenic as far as studies on them have claimed. The damage can also very quickly widen from your personal space to a broader, more palpable setting as they can be detrimental to structures by weakening them and eventually causing their degradation.

How To Clean Mold In The Shower

So before one can go about cleaning the shower of mold and preventing a complete mildew takeover, it is essential to understand first the conditions in which they thrive to prevent their future recurrence.

What Makes For A Nurturing Place For Mold?

Molds happily live in areas where no sunlight could reach them. They prefer the warmth of high humidity instead, with very minimal air circulation. They thrive in darkness and enjoy continuous moisture in a small, secluded environment. If left unchecked, they can show off their full glory to you in various colors ranging from black to brown to pink.

How Do You Suppress Or Address Mold In The Shower?

Understanding what makes molds appear helps suppress it before it even occurs. Alternatively, you can address it if it is already there. Keep in mind that before resorting to eliminating manifestations, see first if you could manage them naturally by making the environment in which they had formed is no longer conducive to their growth. Here are some ways you could go about cleaning mold from a shower, the natural way:

Increase Air Circulation

Turn on the fan for increased ventilation. Mold doesn’t like good air circulation, and bathroom fans prove to be effective in sucking out the moisture and hot air locked inside this relatively small space. That is especially useful given that steam is a regular occurrence in a place where hot baths or hot showers happen. Even with cold showers, there is the added release of body heat into the environment. Alternatively, you could opt to open the bathroom window (if you cannot afford to shower with the bathroom door open). That lets in air, eliminating humidity and mold, thus preventing them from getting too cozy in your shower.

Let Light In

Here’s a bright idea, if you can’t make the sun enter your shower, try turning on the lights. Leaving the bathroom lights on longer or more frequently suppresses mold growth. Shed some light into your shower. Giving molds a dark, dank place to hang out in will make them eventually overstay their welcome.

Even though there are natural ways of ridding your shower of mold, it is still important to regularly clean your shower. Mold or not, you should always remove the dirt and grime that accumulates, not only for primary hygienic purposes but primarily because these make for a ready invitation for mold to move in.

How to Remove Mold in the Shower

One thing every person must realize when cleaning the shower is that dealing with mold and mildew need not result in the use of harsh chemicals. Given the advent of increased awareness of health and environmental preservation, the use of bleach and chlorine (or chlorine-based cleaners) is something many would go against. That’s because these are not only harmful to the human body, but to bodies of water as well when they go down as waste. So in the light of lessening our carbon footprint while reducing the monuments of mold in our shower, here are some things you might want to prepare before you start cleaning:

• Gloves
• Vinegar or Lemon juice
• Baking soda
• Spray bottle
• A robust, rough cleaning pad

Three Steps to Remove Mold in the Shower

Having put your cleaning gloves on, fill the empty spray bottle with undiluted vinegar or lemon juice. Choosing between the two rests solely on your preference. That is because the smell of vinegar repulses some while some find lemon juice to be extra work. Either way, both not only get rid of surface mold but deodorize the area as well. Spray the mold and let it sit for an hour or so to allow the solution to penetrate. That will buy them ample time to break down the mold for easier cleaning of the shower. Alternatively, lemon wedges would be more potent as you can rub the affected surface with them and wait for only 15-20 minutes before scrubbing the surface and washing it off.

As soon as the vinegar or lemon juice has penetrated, take the cleaning pad, dampen it with warm water and sprinkle baking soda on the scrubbing surface. Then spray the area one last time before proceeding to scrub it until all the molds come off.

Wash away the scrubbed off mold by dousing the shower area with warm water. To finish, you may spray all surfaces with the remaining vinegar or lemon juice.

Regularly cleaning the shower prevents the build-up of scum and molds. It is also advisable to spray the bath or shower surface with vinegar or lemon juice once a week to prevent their growth and to deodorize the shower. Remember, man and mold need not co-exist, especially now that you know how to clean mold in the shower.

Conclusion

Everyone will experience mold in their bathrooms at some point or another. However, if you follow the advice provided in this article, cleaning mold from the shower is easy. You will also find that the amount that you see that it will become less and less. If you have any specific requirements for cleaning and would like to hire a cleaning expert in the New York area, please do not hesitate to contact us.