On 2015-03-09 5:45 PM, micky wrote:


I had a flooded basement that started to smell of mold, so I bought a 50
pound bag of salt of some sort, at a janitorial supply store. I took a
plastic bucket and some of that brown masonite-like stfuff with the
filligree holes in it, that was hot stuff in the '50's, and I cut a
piece to divide the bucket vertically. I put the salt in one side of
the bucket and I put the bucket where I smelled mold. The next day
there was an inch of water in the bottom, probably on both sides, but I
could see it and when it was fuller, puur it out from the side that was
otherwise empty.

Strangely, the smell disappeared only where hte bucket was. I actually
noticed the smell more when I was walking up the basment steps, so I put
the bucket on a step. In a day or two, the smell was gone from that
step, but I could still smell it on the others. I had to put the bucket
on each step in turn. What's stranger is that my nose was about 5
feet higher than the bucket, but it still worked this way. I poured
out a lot of water, maybe put in salt a second time. Eventually I got
rid of all the smell and I gave most of the bag to a gas station I
thought might need it. A 50 pound bag was still a lot cheaper than a
whole bunch of 4 oz. bags.

I don't understand how this is working. The Road Salt is absorbing the
water? The mold dies because there is no water?