Mold Intelligence

Mold knows why it was put here. If it's organic, dead, and wet, mold knows to eat it. Organic means it is a material that was once living, such as wood. Mold sends out its spores everywhere, which can lay dormant for many years. So when something is organic, dead and wet, mold grows on it and eats it. When we say "mold", we mean any mold or other fungi, of which there are many thousands of varieties.

Since mold spores are everywhere, and our building materials and contents of our homes (furniture, boxes, clothes, etc.) are made from organic materials, this factor cannot be controlled. The only one that we can control in our homes is the moisture.

Mold needs 70% Relative Humidity (RH) to grow; however this is a loose number. Some molds can grow at less RH.  In many cases, like in a crawl space, the RH of the surrounding air, and the RH of the surfaces are two different things because of temperature differences between air and surfaces.