This ‘bizarre’ discovery in an Aussie woman's home will give you the creeps!
- Replies 1
Here at the Seniors Discount Club, it sure feels like we’ve seen it all.
From the weird and wacky to the downright terrifying; there's always a new and peculiar occurrence happening Down Under.
But as always, there’s always that one discovery that upends everything else, like a chilling discovery made by an Australian woman in her home.
The woman shocked social media with photos of an odd orange growth on her windowsill and asked for advice on its removal, receiving varied responses.
‘I was going around cleaning all windows and window sills and came across this,’ she said.
‘I've never seen this before.’
Naturally, some offered their guesses as to what the mysterious growth was.
‘It's “The Upside Down”,’ one user quipped, referencing the parallel dimension in Netflix's hit series Stranger Things.
‘It's what I thought too when I first saw it...But please not in my house,’ the author replied with a laughing emoji.
While some expressed being ‘creeped out’ by the discovery, others provided more practical feedback.
One user commented: ‘I had this recently, it means water has got in, and the wood is rotting basically.’
‘My whole window frame had to get replaced—the glass was nearly falling out when the builder checked it because you could push your finger right through the wood. It was that bad.’
Experts weigh in
Karl Coppen, MouldMen Special Projects Operational Manager, believes the odd orange growth might be a fungal species, possibly present in the timber from the time the building was constructed.
‘When we see these kinds of growths, it's generally when there is a good chance of moisture,’ he told Yahoo News Australia.
‘The higher the moisture, the quicker something can spore like this.’
He pointed out that fungal toxicity varies across a ‘spectrum’, noting that there is a lot of noise about black mould being particularly toxic, and some of the dark moulds are more of a health risk.
However, given the 135,000 distinct mould varieties, he stressed the challenge of identifying the risk without expert lab analysis.
Mr Coppen suggested that condensation on the glass might have caused moisture to drip onto the windowsill, or there could be a breach in the window's silicon seal, or moisture might have risen from the ground level.
‘We would want a solution, not a prescription so we would want to identify the moisture source,’ he added.
He further advised Australians to keep their homes dry, well-ventilated, and sunlit to stop mould from growing.
Dr Michael Whitehead, a biologist from the University of Melbourne, told Yahoo News Australia: ‘That is quite a remarkable growth! I've not seen anything quite like it.’
‘In general, fungi need some moisture to grow, so I would think there might be some humidity in those walls. The colour and form look like a fruiting body and fungi generally fruit when exposed to light and oxygen.
‘As only a small growth, there wouldn't be many spores released into the room, so I wouldn't worry about health risks. But it is true that where one fungus grows, others are likely, so it would be worth checking for black moulds which can have some harmful health effects if in high abundance.’
Members, if you were the renter, would an orange mould on your windowsill strike you as something out of the ordinary? Also, do you think there's another world like ours out there? Share your thoughts below!
From the weird and wacky to the downright terrifying; there's always a new and peculiar occurrence happening Down Under.
But as always, there’s always that one discovery that upends everything else, like a chilling discovery made by an Australian woman in her home.
The woman shocked social media with photos of an odd orange growth on her windowsill and asked for advice on its removal, receiving varied responses.
‘I was going around cleaning all windows and window sills and came across this,’ she said.
‘I've never seen this before.’
Naturally, some offered their guesses as to what the mysterious growth was.
‘It's “The Upside Down”,’ one user quipped, referencing the parallel dimension in Netflix's hit series Stranger Things.
The internet was taken aback by the odd discovery in an Aussie woman's house. Image source: Facebook
‘It's what I thought too when I first saw it...But please not in my house,’ the author replied with a laughing emoji.
While some expressed being ‘creeped out’ by the discovery, others provided more practical feedback.
One user commented: ‘I had this recently, it means water has got in, and the wood is rotting basically.’
‘My whole window frame had to get replaced—the glass was nearly falling out when the builder checked it because you could push your finger right through the wood. It was that bad.’
Experts weigh in
Karl Coppen, MouldMen Special Projects Operational Manager, believes the odd orange growth might be a fungal species, possibly present in the timber from the time the building was constructed.
‘When we see these kinds of growths, it's generally when there is a good chance of moisture,’ he told Yahoo News Australia.
‘The higher the moisture, the quicker something can spore like this.’
He pointed out that fungal toxicity varies across a ‘spectrum’, noting that there is a lot of noise about black mould being particularly toxic, and some of the dark moulds are more of a health risk.
However, given the 135,000 distinct mould varieties, he stressed the challenge of identifying the risk without expert lab analysis.
Mr Coppen suggested that condensation on the glass might have caused moisture to drip onto the windowsill, or there could be a breach in the window's silicon seal, or moisture might have risen from the ground level.
‘We would want a solution, not a prescription so we would want to identify the moisture source,’ he added.
He further advised Australians to keep their homes dry, well-ventilated, and sunlit to stop mould from growing.
Cautionary tale
Dr Michael Whitehead, a biologist from the University of Melbourne, told Yahoo News Australia: ‘That is quite a remarkable growth! I've not seen anything quite like it.’
‘In general, fungi need some moisture to grow, so I would think there might be some humidity in those walls. The colour and form look like a fruiting body and fungi generally fruit when exposed to light and oxygen.
‘As only a small growth, there wouldn't be many spores released into the room, so I wouldn't worry about health risks. But it is true that where one fungus grows, others are likely, so it would be worth checking for black moulds which can have some harmful health effects if in high abundance.’
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