Cleaning red mold in the shower – our everest

Roxaaaanee, you don’t have to live with the red mold, those days are over, you don’t have to stay that dirty anymore. So, yes, yesterday we spent the day cleaning red mold in the shower and we've got some before and after pictures to motivate you to clean up! We did this after our workout, so we basically did two workouts yesterday – a lot of squatting and testing our grip strength. And now we're doing math. Still got it!

Cleaning that red mold from the shower was our Everest and we climbed it like it was nothing. As if we're one of the millions of people lining up like ants to go to the top of a mountain, where they cannot breathe without support. Yay, let’s go to Mars next, it seems flourishing. Are there any ticks?

Before you judge us, that is not our bathroom and we know it’s not solid, but it’s good enough for us. We gave a room with this bathroom in our house to our dad, who occasionally stays here, so he can go to the beach and because he likes to do things in the garden. And it’s more convenient for him when he has his things here.

So, we said to myself last year, when the house was ready – we're not going to clean this bathroom. We don’t care what happens in there, we don’t want to see it.

Well, the lesson is – don’t trust (most) men with a bathroom.

Although to be honest, we don’t think it was actually our dad’s fault. He’s here only a few times a year and we guess the water doesn’t drain as fast as it should and that probably builds the mold in the bathroom. When you don’t clean it regularly, well, that’s what happens.

Now, when we saw it a few days ago, we thought: “we don’t like red in this bathroom”.

So, challenge accepted.

We're Eastern European and if there’s one thing we know, it’s how to clean.

At least, these are the words us and our Polish friend used when we were poor students in Germany to motivate each other.

We're not afraid of bleach. We drink bleach for breakfast. But spoiler, bleach didn’t do anything to the red mold. Here are the things that happened yesterday.

Side note: if you try this – keep the windows open, as you don’t want to breathe all of these in.

1. Round: Rub and Soak in Bleach

Did NADA. No change at all. The red mold said: “we drink bleach for breakfast.”.

We guess it’s also Eastern European.

the before photo is after a few rounds of bleach – did NADA

2. Round: Bath Spray and Vinegar

So, the day before we started climbing red mold Everest, our cousin told us she’s always making a cleaning solution she saw on tick tok. It was something with liquid soap, water and vinegar and we guess we messed it up, because it got too soapy.

However, for this expert mission, we upped the vinegar and tried it to clean the moldy shower. With some rubbing, it did clean some of the mold.

after rubbing everything with vinegar and the cleaning solution – we now put some baking soda

3. Round: Rubbing With Baking Soda

Now this is how we usually clean our bathroom and it works amazingly well.

The tiles need to be a little bit wet, then sprinkle the baking soda generously all over and start rubbing with a scrub brush or any other type of cleaning brush. You should start seeing things getting cleaner already.

This is usually enough for the bathroom we always use and clean every week. It gets rid of everything.

after the baking soda only – almost everything is removed

Here it helped, but to our surprise and the disappointment of our fingers that were already getting arthritis, it didn’t get rid of all the dirt and mold. Especially the yellow shade on the tiles.

4. Round: Baking Soda and Peroxide

The reason we studied biochemistry was because we loved chemistry when we were in school. COH, H2O, NO – all our things. But, we have no idea what the chemical reaction is here. However, this method did the job and cleaned everything (almost) perfectly. There was one stain we couldn’t figure out. But we guess when we repeat it, it will go away. We hope so.

the entire experience took us 2 hours

So here’s what you do:

• take an old container that you won’t feel sad about (we used an old plastic container for mascarpone, yum baking soda peroxide mascarpone)
• mix baking soda and peroxide in there to make a paste (we used about 2:1 baking soda to peroxide)
• rub it in with a brush – we used an old toothbrush and the other brush to spread the paste this time
• let sit for 10 minutes
• scrub while washing off

This did the job, although there was one stain we couldn’t get rid of. Good enough for our, at this point, crooked fingers.

after the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda mixture – still some dark spots left, but it’s a huge upgrade

And last but important:

Use a shower squeegee

We had no idea this wiper was called this, but it works well at removing the moisture after you’ve cleaned or showered. This will prevent water from staying in the shower for a long time, thus preventing the red mold.

remove the water after every shower to prevent mold and bacteria

Just grab it and scrape the water toward the shower drain until the tiles look almost dry to the naked eye.

You can do this after every shower – it takes 1 minute for us and makes cleaning later so much easier.

Feel Notable

And now, here we are, sitting and watching this bathroom like a proud mom.

Honestly, we've never liked cleaning, but we do enjoy it lately. It keeps us active and it keeps our house and our head clean. Like what? We can’t spend 20-30 minutes a day to do it? Walking into a clean room and having things a bit more organized and clean – it’s such an upgrade.

We highly recommend it. If you’re feeling stuck and confused and all over the place, you might just need to clean up. So put on some music and clean one room. You’ll see how good you feel about this accomplishment.