How mold starts in a Tahoe car
Mold needs water and time. In a mountain town, a car gets plenty of both. Snow comes in on boots and melts into the carpet. Wet jackets, gloves and ski pants ride home in the back and sometimes stay there. Then the car sits closed up in a garage or under a snow-covered cover, and the damp never dries.
The most common causes we hear about up here:
- Snow melt soaking the carpet and the padding underneath
- Wet ski gear, towels or swimsuits left in the car
- Pine needles clogging sunroof drains or the cowl at the base of the windshield, sending water inside
- Snow piled against a door or window seal, then melting in
- A cabin car that sits for weeks with a small leak nobody noticed
Second homes and long stretches of sitting
A lot of Tahoe cars don’t get driven every day. A car at a vacation home might sit from one ski weekend to the next, or through the whole spring. If water got in during the last trip, nobody is there to notice the smell until it’s strong.
If you open the door after a few weeks away and smell something musty, or see white, green or dark fuzzy spots on the carpet, seats or seat belts, it’s worth dealing with soon. The longer it sits, the deeper it gets into the padding.
Spring thaw is a common time for it to show up. As the weather warms, a cabin that stayed damp but cold all winter starts to smell, and growth that was slow in the cold picks up.
You don’t need to be in town for us to look. Send photos and tell us where the car is, and we can plan the visit while you’re away.