How To Clean Car Leather Seats
Mold is not only unsightly and smelly, but can also be dangerous to breath in the spores due to allergies or other reactions, so knowing how to remove mold from car seats, carpets and the interior as soon as possible is a must do on your priorities list, but which way is the best to remove it? To understand what is happening when there is mold starting to grow in your car seats, steering wheel or other parts of the inside of your car, it is important to understand exactly what mold is and what is required to remove it properly. Mold grows quickly on Car Seats and InteriorThere are different types of mold, some of them are less concerning, however some, like the black mold, is dangerous to people and just breathing in the spores that float in the air can cause severe allergic reactions and even death in some cases!Mold only needs a few simple environmental elements to grow, they include warmth, moisture and especially they like organic mater to feed on. This is the reason you will often find mold starting and growing quickly on everything from books, belts, shoes, clothes and even the ceiling in your home.It only takes a small amount of moisture to start the growth process of mold on your car seats or carpets and they provide the perfect breeding ground for mold to grow, especially if your car has been closed up for an extended period of time or after being wet from damp clothes or even a leak during rain.Mold can damage car seat material and affect the health of passengers, not to mention the bad odor it creates.
This along with the fact that it spread very quickly, cleaning and disinfecting the mold on car seats, carpets and interior is important. How To Remove Mold From Car Seats, Carpets or InteriorThere are a number of chemical ways to remove mold from car seats and most people would jump for the bleach or ammonia based products to kill it and clean the area, however this will not work!First of all, those type of products will stain or bleach your car seats, carpet and interior. They also do not work well on hard or porous surfaces and will damage the color of your car’s interior.Second, they will not kill the mold! They will change its color and may kill some of the surface mold initially, however, mold spores will still survive and even worse, mold will actually thrive and grow on ammonia, so it will get worse than when you started!So what to do to remove mold from car seats and carpets? Luckily, mother nature has provided us with some natural, powerful and effective tools to kill mold on car seats, carpets and all interior, plus you can use the same for anywhere in your home.The following are three way to remove mold from car seats, carpets and interior.
Remove Mold From Car Seats with White Vinegar. Vinegar Kills Mold On Car Seats and CarpetsOne of the best ways to get rid of mold on car seats, car carpet, interior or anywhere that mold grows in your home, is to use white vinegar or alcohol.
- In this guide, we’ll go over the different types of leathers used in cars, causes of leather wear, the best ways to clean leather car seats, and how to condition leather seats and then go over some tips on how you can maintain your leather. It gets better We’ve included our best kept secrets to clean leather seats.
- Leather car seats are a comfortable and luxurious addition to any vehicle, but it can be hard to keep them looking showroom perfect without regular cleaning. Fortunately, this handy guide on how to clean leather car seats provides three different methods with easy-to-follow steps to help you keep dirt at bay!
Use Oil of Clove to Remove Mold from Car Seats and keep it from coming backAnother natural, but powerful, alternative, is to use Oil of Cloves to remove mold from your car seats, carpets or interior.Cloves are a powerful and effective antiseptic that not only kills mold, but also inhibits its spores from growing, by attacking and killing them too. This is important as just killing the mold will not stop the infestation from growing back on your car seats, carpet or other places on the interior.
First, clean the seats thoroughly using either a foam upholstery cleaner for cloth seats or a leather cleaner or leather degreaser for leather seats. A cleaning is needed to remove as much of the skunk oil as possible. After cleaning the seats, pour a good amount of vanilla extract on a cloth and set the cloth on a plate.
You must stop the spores as well.Oil of Cloves is relatively cheap and readily available from pharmacies or health food shops. It is known as an analgesic, stimulant, antiseptic and expectorant.Oil of Cloves is very effective on hard surfaces and can also be used on soft surfaces as well.
It is known that Oil of Cloves can irritate the skin, especially of young children or babies, so ensure you dilute the concentration to less than 1% when you use it. This includes using it on baby car seat covers and anywhere skin can make direct contact.What you will need to remove mold with Oil of Cloves:. Oil of Cloves, you only need a 1/4 teaspoon, so a small bottle is ok.
1 Quart (1 Litre) of tap water. A clean spray bottle. An old toothbrush. A clean cloth. Optional: Bicarbonate of Soda and White Vinegar.For hard surfaces, if possible, first clean the area with a mixture of 4 Quarts hot water, 1/2 a cup of white vinegar and 1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda. Then create a paste of a couple of drops of oil of clove, bicarbonate of soda and the white vinegar. Use the toothbrush to rub the paste on to the area and leave to dry, then wipe off.
This is a good maintenance choice to do as well.For hard and soft surfaces like car seats and carpets, start by mixing 1/4 teaspoon of oil of cloves in the quart of water and mix in the spray bottle. Make sure you cover not only the visible areas of the mold, but up to 1 or 2 feet circular around it. It is important to kill the mold spores, that you can not see, so they don’t grow back. Soak the area well.Leave the mixture to dry for a minimum of 20 minutes, check if it is dry and if not, leave it longer. You can leave it on overnight, the longer it is left on there, the more it will kill the mold, so longer is better.Once it is dry, wipe off the dead mold particles with the clean cloth and throw the cloth away as it has mold spores on it. You can also vacuum the area if you have a wet-dry vacuum, or a vacuum that you can throw the vacuum bag away with, as you do not want to then go and blow the mold spores all around your home next time you vacuum.Repeat the steps again by spraying on the oil of cloves mix and leaving to dry.
This time, leave it for 1 or 2 days to let the oil of clove kill the mold and spores and remove the mold from car seats, carpets or interior and the mold will will dry and drop off. My car sat with the window down for atleast four years. Now my husband and i are wanting to get it out and drive it but the smell and mold look horrible. The heat and a/c when you turn them on smell like they are blowing mold in your face and wr had to park it because of the problems it was causing to my husband and I.
Would it be best to remove everything and replace it with used but unmolded seats and carpet or just get rid of the car? Or will i be able to get rid of this smell and look that the mold has done to my car? HELP please!! My car got completely soaked but a few days later it was really sunny and hot out and it seemed like the car had dried.
A few months later we found out one seat in the back was still soaked through and was only wet when someone sat on it. If you push down hard enough a bit of moisture still comes out. There definitely has to be mold in that seat but I don’t know about the rest of the car, I don’t smell any foul odors. I want to try your White Vinegar method but how do I clean inside the seat, not just the surface? The water’s in there pretty deep.Thanks!
That sounds like a bad situation! Recommended Resource:Mold Warriors: Fighting America’s Hidden Health Threat, by Ritchie C. ShoemakerBiologically produced toxins make many of us chronically ill, steal the life-savings of many victims, prevent our children from achieving their academic potential and our health care system is largely blind to diagnosis and treatmentMold Warriors is the first book that teaches you how to use the Biotoxin Pathway, a magnificent scientific and medical breakthrough, to both recognize and treat exposure to biotoxin-forming indoor molds and mold illness, in a step-by-step treatment protocol, published in high level, peer-reviewed, academic journals. Hi Tammy, that does not sound good at all! If you can smell the mold, you can be sure there are mold spores floating around the air in your car, which means you are breathing them in. That is very dangerous for your health.Before you set out to clean the mold out of your car, make sure you get a proper particle mask to protect you from breathing in the mold spores. I often get asked which type of mask I use, I recommend the or the as they both include active carbon filters.
Make sure you get one like this, with active carbon filters, as the low quality masks do not filter small enough for mold spores.A mask is probably one of the most important things you can do to protect your health from mold, especially while you are trying to kill it and get rid of it, as breathing in the spores can be deadly.Absolutely try using the Vinegar method to kill the mold, rather than using a wetvac to suck it up though, I would be inclined to take the seats and carpet out and leave them in the sun until totally dry. I would probably also recommend trying the Oil of Cloves method or one of the professional mold killers as mentioned in above comments – or all of them!You can’t be too careful or over cautious when it comes to mold in the car.I would definitely be getting that leak fixed too, if you get rid of the mold in the car seats and carpet but don’t get the cause fixed, it will just come back again. Hi Kira, I know exactly what you mean, after removing the mold, it can sometimes leave behind a kind of stain or darkened mark where it was once living. If you have a light colored interior, it is going to show more for sure.I don’t know any natural remedies to effectively remove mold stains, however there are some commercial ones available that will do the job well.The best choices would be mold stain removers that do not contain any chlorine so it does not discolor the area. Hello, I’ve known about the mold in my new (used) car and ive been treating it little by little with mold & mildew killer while trying to air it out as much as possible while I’m not driving it. I’ve been doing this for about two months and I can still smell that awful damp fungus smell that comes with the mold. Not only is the mold consistent throughout my, what I thought was thorough cleaning, but I’ve recently been getting sicker and sicker with what I thought was my anxiety again.
But I’m starting to associate it with the mold now, as I find it difficult to breathe more often than not, and I feel very out of body most of the day and fatigued. The doctors in my town are very ignorant to my concerns, as they immediately deem it as anxiety but it’s never felt this physically tolling. I’ve decided my car is now unsafe to drive, so I suppose my question to you is does it sound like the mold could be poisoning my body and making me sick? Paranoia definitely doesn’t help the feeling. Thanks a ton. Hi Mike, My friend Bobbi & I have been plagued w a continuing onslaught of mold spores in our apartment ( had 2 move out of our home because of mold ).
We also have transferred them into our now, second used car. Bobbi is severely allergic 2 even the smallest amount of spores. We have had the car detailed 3 times & the detailers said that they cleaned out the ventilation system.
Needless 2 say, they did NOT clean the system because when we turned the air on, all hell broke loose once again & we are faced with the same hellish nightmare. Bobbi cannot even get back into her car.
We have no more money 2 keep trading in vehicles & purchasing another. Our question is, after spraying Permormacide into the car’s ac-heating system, what must we do 2 circulate the product throughout the ventilation system so as 2 hopefully cover every nook & cranny? Bobbi now has developed Toxic Mold Syndrome & is very ill. Please help & thank u 4 caring about us suffering folks. Bless you Mike. Respectfully, Ron & Bobbi. Hi Ron, both of your situations sounds terrible!
As you have found out, it is so easy for the mold spores to not only come back where they are growing, if you don’t kill them properly the first time, but you can easily transfer them to other areas from your clothes and body, including your bathroom, laundry, kitchen and worst of all, your bed and bedroom!I completely understand about your toxic mold syndrome and the illness it creates, I too suffered the same problems and didn’t know where to turn to find some help. It seems many doctors and health practitioners don’t really understand or even take into consideration that some serious conditions are caused by mold and mildew, if it gets into the body. It can even become fatal in some situations! Scary!I researched a lot and tested many things to both kill the mold and get myself healthy. Hi Mike,I am so glad I found your site. I’ve been looking for weeks. I have a sports car with very tight access to the back window which unfortunately is where I just realized mold has developed underneath the convertible top cover that I can’t removeand all around the window.I developed a severe cough 2+ years ago (called cobblestone throat) due to an allergyMoldand a slew of other conditions that have manifested.
I never thought about it being mold in my car b/c it started with a moldy a/c at a former job. Grrrr.In any casemy car is a Z4 BMW convertible and the top won’t go down anymore. I found the mold growth around my back window when I decided to pull off the worn tint. I freaked!!I I peaked behind the interior top cover and yeplots of growth Everywhere! Soft tops are Extremely expensive as is the repairand Cleaning Mold?! I can’t imagine.Considering the top won’t go downI have minimal access to the back window and the mold is up and behind and under where I can’t reach so I can’t quite see where the mold all is let alone access it to clean it off.I did have the interior filter changed a month agowhich I learned it had via google.
I have no doubt mold and spores are in the a/c ducts too.Yesterday I sprayed Lysol Natura Air in the exterior a/c vent and in the back window area but don’t think it did much good. It’s not very warm yet here in Venice, CA.There’s a Mold Fogger called Mold Bomb that you use like a bug bomb.
Are you familiar with it? Would it work?Can I spray any of your suggestions throughout the car? How would you recommend I tackle it?I do prefer the organic methods over chemicals and I do like the Oil of Clove methodbut againgetting it where it needs to be applied is the problem.Plus a seam in the driver seat has also ripped open so no doubt the foam is also infected.
Jeez.This cough is making me hate life and buying a new car isn’t an optionplus this one’s paid for. Maybe a salvage yard for a replacement top? Righta totaled BMW Z4 rarely exists.Mike, thank you in advance for your organic alternatives and wise suggestions and taking the time to read my too-long message.In kindness. Hi LJ, that cough and cobblestone throat sounds terrible! I’m a delivery driver and I often transport shakes with my deliveries and I usually set them on the floor of my passenger seat in a drink carrier but one day I was looping around in a round-about and sure enough they toppled over.
How To Clean Car Leather Seats Reddit
I had strawberry shake all over the carpet in my car. I did a quick clean up job cause I was on the road and finished it up after my shift was over.However, it’s been about a month and I didn’t realize until I vaccuumed out my car for spring cleaning that some of the shake had been untouched underneath the mat on my floorboard. I discovered white and black mold growing underneath and never smelt it until I lifted up the mat.Now I’m trying to get rid of the smell and stain- if I use the alcohol or vinegar solution will it make my grey/blue carpet a different color and because I haven’t noticed this mold in about a month will this treatment work just as well? Hi Grace, strawberry shakes sound great! Hi Brandon, yes the vinegar method can work, depending how bad the infestation is. I haven’t ever heard of vinegar affecting any interior materials, including leather, however you might want to test it on a small hidden area, like under the seat first, just to be sure in your situation.Personally, I would recommend trying the Oil of Cloves method as a preference to the vinegar, as it is a more effective mold destroying cleaner. There are also some commercial, non-toxic mold eliminators that I have linked to in above comments, if you are looking for something a bit more clean and go style.Whatever you end up doing, make sure to wear a particle mask to protect yourself from breathing in the spores while you clean and get a mold test kit to check the interior, after you have cleaned and before you start using the car again (masks and test kits also linked to in previous comments).Good luck and let us know how you go!
Hi Jaide, mold is very sneaky and at the same time, very dangerous, so it is good that you have found it now.It is very important that you do not go in your car without a proper mask to protect yourself from the mold spores that will be floating around the air inside your car. Hi Casey, it sounds like you got more than you bargained for! Going by your comment about your child, especially with respiratory issues, I wouldn’t waste any time in getting rid of the mold and its spores as quick as possible. In my opinion, I wouldn’t be taking your child for any rides in the car until you get rid of the mold off the car seats and interior. Mold is dangerous to healthy adults, children, especially if they already have some ailments, can get very sick from exposure to mold and mold spores.As for mixing the vinegar and oil of cloves methods together, I haven’t done that myself and not sure how they would go as vinegar is acidic and may counteract the oil of cloves, meaning it might stop both from working at all.I would recommend doing both separately, it only takes a few hours in the sun to air and dry out after you have used either to kill the mold. Don’t forget, mold likes to get under the seat, on the car carpet, over the dash, in the air conditioner, pretty much anywhere air can go, the mold spores can go too, so make sure you thoroughly soak and clean everywhere.After you have finished killing the mold, I always recommend using a mold test kit to check and make sure that you got it all.
I have recommended a above to a few others and they are relatively low cost and give you peace of mind that you got it all.The problem with mold is that if you miss the mold spores, they can spread again and start growing all over again, so best to make sure.Good luck with it and I hope it all works out for you. Hi Bethany, it doesn’t sound good at all, especially black mold, which is the worst kind and on a child stroller, that could be quite serious with a child involved.I would recommend first of all getting it away from your child and out in the direct sunlight. Then if you want to go with a DIY mix at home solution, go with the oil of cloves as I believe it is the most powerful.If you prefer a commercial mold and fungus killer, there are a couple I have recommended above, the Performacide branded one is good, it is non-toxic, which is obviously important for a child stroller. That one also kills many other types of viruses, bacteria, algae and all the different types of mold, white mold, black mold, green mold, etc. I recommend getting the Gallon pack of that one as you get 3 separate satchels you can mix up, as well as a spray nozzle and bottle included, which is better value.As it is a child stroller, I would be using the mold killer all over, every part, nook and cranny and then I would do it 2 or 3 times to be absolutely sure (completely drying in the sun between cleaning each time), then using a mold test kit to make sure it has gone before I would let your child back in it again.Good luck and let us know how you go. Recommended Resource:When Traditional Medicine Fails, Your Guide to Mold Toxins, by James SchallerThe latest medical science shows 1 in 4 children are sensitive to low levels of mold toxins.
Is your child one of these?In 2004, the EPA warned physicians to be on the lookout for both respiratory and neurological symptoms from mold contamination. This book explains how even small amounts of hidden indoor mold-produced biotoxins can subtly impact behavior, emotions, health and learning and offers solutions based on the latest medical and scientific research that work for both bodies, buildings and vehicles. I left my car unused for about a week and molds started to grow in the interior trims and on my leather seats. At first I failed to recognize the white spots as molds so I wiped them off with a clean cloth and sprayed the interior with a leather cleaner afterwards. But after some days the white spots reappeared and after wiping them off i couldn’t get any satisfactory results. My car seats are new.
I don’t want these to be spoiled by such fungal infestations. What should i do?? Which method should i follow? Hi, mikeI have an 05 mustang convertible that the front window seal is not good and allows water to come pouring in my car behind the glove box when it rains really hard.
It seems that the floor on the passages side of my car never gets dry completely before it rains again. I have a severe mild allergy. I get horrible headaches that make me sick at my stomach. This time it’s really bad. I thought it was something different then it hit me that my car smelled of mildew.
So my question is with the water coming in behind my glove bock would I need to spray all my wires and space under there as well as the vents and the floors. The top doesn’t leak at all and has no signs of moisture. What would be your recommendation on where to treat? Also what do you know about treating with the essential oil of cloves and vinegar together as a spray to kill the mold. Mind you the mold is not visible as of yet but I’m fine till I get in my car and then I’m sick all night till the next day. Thank you in advance for your advice.Many thanks and blessings!!
Hi Sharena, the situation you mentioned with the constant dampness and wet areas sounds like the perfect breeding ground for mold and mildew and it is most definitely possible that it is, potentially seriously, affecting your health.