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Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
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Prevention
By Mayo Clinic staffYou can take steps to reduce mold growth in your home. Consider these tips:
- Eliminate sources of dampness in basements, such as pipe leaks or groundwater seepage.
- Use a dehumidifier in any area of your home that smells musty or damp. Remember to clean the collection bucket and condensation coils regularly.
- Use an air conditioner, and consider installing central air conditioning with a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter attachment. The HEPA filter can trap mold spores from outdoor air before they're circulated inside your home.
- Keep humidity levels below 50 percent.
- Change furnace and air conditioning filters regularly.
- Be sure all bathrooms are properly ventilated, and run the ventilation fan for 30 minutes following a shower or bath to dry the air.
- Clean bathroom and basement wall surfaces regularly with a bleach solution.
- Promote groundwater drainage away from your house by removing leaves and vegetation from around the foundation and cleaning out rain gutters frequently.
- Keep organic plant containers, such as those made of straw, wicker or hemp, clean and dry.
