It doesn’t matter and you can’t tell. A mold spore is like a seed. You don’t know if it’s viable (capable of growing) until you water it. Mold can go into a resting stage. It might look dead – it’s dormant. Gardeners call it over-wintering. Even if a seed does not grow when watered, the pollen and seed may still be allergenic.
Some say sunlight and UV light neutralize mold. If that were so, non one would have allergies. Sunlight would have neutralized all the pollens and mold in the universe.
Does it matter? A pollen spore is allergenic regardless of its viability. It is similar with mold. All mold is allergenic, even dead (non-viable) spores. All molds have the potential to be toxigenic. Toxins don’t die.
In some ways dry mold growth might result in more of an exposure to occupants in terms of mold than wet mold. Wet mold is sticky and does not become air-borne as easily. As mold dries it desiccates into small pieces, becomes air-borne with the gentlest of disturbances, and may pass deeper into your lungs when you breathe the small particles. You might test for mold and think you don’t have any because the dead stuff fragmented into gazillions of nano-sized particles that no laboratory can detect. Meanwhile you have symptoms.
Save yourself the time and energy you might spend trying to kill or treat mold, and do what’s best and less risky for your health – remove the mold.
