Musty smelling carpet is caused by mold and mold spores in and on your carpet even if you can not see the mold growing.
Washing the carpet in most cases only makes the problem worse. The same goes for dehumidifying the area of the musty smelling carpet.
The way we have found to eliminate the musty odor is to kill the mold and spores that are causing the odor and vacuum up the resulting dust.
Killing mold and spores is a bit more difficult than you might think or hope. Basically there are 2 products that will actually kill both mold and spores: ozone and chlorine dioxide.
Ozone gas is poison. The US EPA has not published a safe level of ozone because (my opinion) there isn’t one. The fact that Canada has banned the import of products that produce ozone even as a byproduct says volumes. The other issue is that you need fairly high levels of ozone to do the job. Levels high enough to cause fabric bleaching, and plastics to become hard and brittle to say nothing of what it can do to your eyes, skin and lungs.
Chlorine dioxide (CLO2) gas at levels above 10 parts per million (PPM) can be toxic if you are exposed for longer than a few minutes at a time. However, CLO2 is very effective at much lower levels. From .003 to .01 ppm which the EPA has indicated is safe for 24/7 exposure. And the fact that you need no electric to produce CLO2 using the OdorXit CLO2 product makes it really easy to use in any closed space. Yes, a fan will improve it performance, but the fan is not necessary for many applications including musty carpeting
After treating moldy musty carpet with CLO2 and killing all the mold and spores, there will be a nasty dust left in and on the carpet. This dust is the residue of the dead mold and spores that contains a product called mycotoxin that can be very toxic to humans and pets. Follow the link to find out much more about what they are and how dangerous they can be. Suffice to say, you need to vacuum the dust up with a very low dust vacuum cleaner. Breathing dust containing mycotoxins can and will make you sick given the chance.
OdorXit CLO2 is available at the OdorXit website.
Recent Comments