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When the mold is reaaallllyyy bad...

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  • #1

    When the mold is reaaallllyyy bad...

    So this is a bit embarrassing to admit, but I have a couple saddles and bridles that I have pretty much thrown in the corner of the tack room and not looked at for about 2-3 months, and when I was doing some tack cleaning yesterday/cleaning out my tack trunk I thought, "Oh, I should probably clean those..." Went to look at them... they are DISGUSTING. There are colonies growing on them. Multi-colored colonies. Yellow, brown, green, black. I started to try and clean them but I could smell the mold and see it coming off into the air and thought it couldn't possibly be good for me to breathe in. What the heck do I do? Unfortunately it's been such a damp summer that even the tack I do clean regularly sprouts mini-colonies between cleanings. Should I buy some of those paper masks so I'm not breathing it in? This seems like a good solution. How do I get the mold in hard to clean sections of the saddle? Ugh!!! After this, the tack I don't use regularly is coming home to my dehumidified basement...
    Gentleman J - "Junior" - My been-there, done-that jumper

    Send Your Love - "Serena" - Aug 10th 2009, Rest in Peace
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  • #2
    Definitely move the tack to your home. Another alternative for storage is a sealed tack trunk filled with moisture absorbing materials such as silica gel. When cleaning these mountains of microscopic nuisances, ALWAYS wear a face mask, so you don't inhale the nasty buggers.
    Thus do we growl that our big toes have, at this moment, been thrown up from below!

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    • #3
      You probably are doing this, but when you do clean tack, haul it out into the sun. Sit in the shade, but only if you must. Spread the undone and just-done tack in the sun. It will help.

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      • #4
        Put the saddles over a fence in bright sunlight. Get one of those things you can put on your hose for spraying fertilizer on your lawn, the jars with an aspirating tube to mix with the stream from the hose. Put some clorox in the jar, set to a pretty weak dilution, and turn the hose on the pieces of tack--so you're hosing with a dilute solution of clorox. With a fairly high-pressure stream of water, you have less risk of water soaking into the innards, but you will wash off much of the really nasty stuff, without having to breathe it. You do want to be careful that the flocking material doesn't get wet. You could mix a dilute solution in a bucket and wash with a sponge or rag, but that gets you closer to the mold and at risk for inhaling the dust/mold as you disturb it.

        If you are able to get most of the mold off with the hose, then leave the saddles to dry in the sun. Then, you will have to *very thoroughly* saddle soap and condition them.

        Two alternatives to bleach are ammonia or vinegar *BUT DO NOT MIX THEM!!!*, just pick one of the three to use. Ammonia and clorox should *NEVER* be mixed or used in conjunction with each other. I have use all three at different times and can't say one is more or less harmful than the other.

        This is pretty drastic, but it will get rid of the mold. I wouldn't do it with a really expensive saddle, but then, I wouldn't let a really good saddle get that bad in the first place.
        "One person's cowboy is another person's blooming idiot" -- katarine

        Spay and neuter. Please.

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        • #5
          You are not alone!

          Mold seemd to grow on my tack overnight this month. Yet another reason for getting rid of August!

          If you are sensitive to mold get a mask. We had only 1 colony growing and it seemed to be alright to just use vinegar (cheap & effective) to wipe it right off. Them I cleaned and conditioned as usual. But we sat outside and comuned with nature while we cleaned. Great bonding time.

          Good excuse to clean everything, no?
          “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Peter Drucker

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          • #6
            Diluted bleach with a sponge, outdoors.

            PSA: Do you know why you never mix bleach and ammonia? You create CHLORINE GAS. I almost gassed myself into a coma in the basement by using bleach to clean out a litter box one time.
            I realize that I'm generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care. ~ Dave Barry

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            • #7
              My local leather worker says to use listerine on my saddles.

              Humidity hits 80 -90% here easily. Saddles mold while you watch. Sprayed eveything down with listerine and walla- no more mold! Except for the part I missed.... it was covered again.

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              • #8
                I'm having the same problem... sold a horse, figured my fancy devoucoux saddle would be fine for a little while in the tack room... MISTAKE. It's a really nice saddle and I usually take great care of it, so I'm panicking a little bit. I don't want to use vinegar or bleach or ammonia because I'm scared they're too harsh. If I simply wipe the mold off and then clean and condition my saddle and store it in a low humidity area will the mold come right back?! Please help!

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                • #9
                  Do you know that they changed the formulation of Listerine recently? It now has flavoring in it, and it's sticky. Yuck. Esp for putting in tails as tick repellent. Sigh.

                  I thought ammonia + clorox = hydrochloric acid, which is almost worse that straight chlorine gas. In any event, don't mix them.

                  And if you use any of the three--chlorox, ammonia, or vinegar--dilute is the key. Any of them is harsh for the leather, but you gotta kill those little mold spores somehow.
                  "One person's cowboy is another person's blooming idiot" -- katarine

                  Spay and neuter. Please.

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                  • #10
                    As much as it terrified me I used a mild mix of ammonia and water on my custom dressage saddle. It did the job nicely.
                    "Adulthood? You're playing with ponies. That is, like, every 9 year old girl's dream. Adulthood?? You're rocking the HELL out of grade 6, girl."

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                    • #11
                      I should not confess to this, but I will. Only to demonstrate that leather goods are tougher than we think.

                      I have had a western saddle since 1969. My parents bought it for me, and I rode it all over the place, and lovingly cared for it. It is a huge piece of my riding history, and part of my fondest memories. It's been at my parents home in the Arizona desert, in the tack room, covered in dust for, well, decades.

                      Fast forward to 2006. I'm living in Washington State, and bought a horse. I'm learning dressage, but my ever-helpful mother shipped me the Western saddle. I used it a couple of times, put into the tack room here, under a saddle cover. It started to sprout mold.

                      I brought it home and put it in the garage on a sawhorse. Out of sight, out of mind. My patient, long-suffering DH, who is allergic to horses, dust and mold, mentioned to me a couple of times that the mold was expanding. I thought I'd wait until summer, or at least a sunny day, and haul it out and clean it.

                      A couple of months passed. DH mentions again that the saddle is really moldy and sure enough, it was flat reeking grossly terrible. Wow. I did not know what to do. I bought some Leather Wash products and waited for a sunny day.

                      One day DH got tired of waiting for me to do anything, mixed a bleach solution, AND PRESSURE WASHED IT! Yep, top and sheepskin bottom. OMGiH I about died! I was so angry I couldn't think, let alone talk to him. My cherished childhood saddle. Pressure washed. Even the fleece part. But really, I was angry at myself for letting it get to that condition.

                      Yep, it was wet, but not soaked. The pressure washing removed the mold. The bleach killed it. We put a boat heater under it and gently dried it. I cleaned it with the Leather Wash products. It looks great, for a 40 yo saddle. I think once mold spores move in, they're hard to eradicate. Vigilance is required.

                      Anyway, good luck.

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