Round 2: Mold

The warnings are right on your RV instructions; there is no air exchange. RVs collect moisture. Spend as much time out of them as possible.

Well, we did a lot of that. Outside is nicer, after all. We don't want to spend time cooped up if we don't have to.

The nearly universal recommendation that we got for full time living was to get some Eva-Drys. Every single last Glitz and Glammer and blog we read told us that this would be enough. They absorb moisture, then you plug them in outside for a few hours before putting them back inside. Sounds great, doesn't it? And in the prairies, it worked just fine! We only had one as we were on a tight budget, so we would just air out the RV from time to time to help it along. The general recommendation was to have three Eva-Drys, but that would be all you would need.

Well, then we hit BC. British Columbia isn't quite as dry as the prairies. And the closer to the coast you go, the worse it gets.

Our humidity monitor kept ticking up. Little by little, it went higher and higher. We hit Vancouver Island on September 11th, 2019. The Island was still warm and they'd had a dry year, so it wasn't too bad just yet. Still, we were getting more and more humidity problems as time went on. Finally, we bit the bullet and bought a mini dehumidifier. That helped a great deal.

Then came the Island's winter.

The temperature differential caused humidity to become moisture. Moisture began building up everywhere. It started with the windows. We had to clean them multiple times per day. It was uncomfortable to be inside. The humidity monitor went over 90%.

We put plastic on the outside to create a barrier between the metal frames and the air; that was more for the cold, but it helped with the moisture around the windows as well.

Then, we started to find the mold.

As it turns out, Lysol wipes do not kill mold. We tried. Use bleach.

We pulled apart the dinette seating and the mold had also grown in between the two sheets of veneer. Thank God, it didn't infest the wall behind it. But it grew on the walls by our bed. It grew in one of our cupboards. It grew under our daughter's bed.

It even infested our Ketubah.

We bleached everything that had even the slightest hint of mold. The house smelled like bleach for days. The last of the dinette had to be torn out and a lot of food discarded. It was a nightmare.

We were out of options. Despite the space it would take up, we needed a larger dehumidifier. We looked at a lot of different models. Thirty-pint models just took up too much space. But given the alternative, we were planning on biting the bullet. But thankfully, we found a slightly smaller model with almost as much punch as a 30-pint.

Our new dehumidifier that we ordered off Amazon. Click here.

That dehumidifier saved our skins. It has a much smaller footprint than the larger dehumidifiers. It keeps the humidity below 50% even on extremely humid days and can get it below 40% on drier days. You actually don't want to go much below 40%, as otherwise you can get dry rot in your wood. A further bonus is that it also had washable air filters, an ionizer, and a UV light. We not only no longer have mold, but our air is far cleaner and we have fewer dust and allergy problems. You can also set it to turn off after hitting a certain humidity percentage (minimum of 40%), so it won't be overkill when it isn't so humid or in other provinces. The only thing I don't like about it is that it has a small reservoir that I usually empty twice per day on the humid days. It does come with a drain if you want to just have it drain outside, though. I just haven't figured out how I'm going to do that, yet.

Still, the mold had already done its damage. The lost food hit our wallets and we no longer had a comfortable place to sit. Our Ketubah will have to be redone.

Couch replacement.

Thankfully, we found that sectional piece on sale for only $50, as it was off colour and the wrong side of the sectional it was intended for (normal price: $1150). I think we paid about $160 for the two ottomans; they double as storage and the tops can be flipped to use as tables.

Round 2 went to Nature.