Jess Hardiman
A cleaning expert has issued an urgent warning about the pink mould in your bathroom – saying it’s not actually mould at all...
Find out what it really is below:
Bathrooms are notoriously one of the hardest places to keep clean, given how damp it can get in there.
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You can spend HOURS scrubbing, only to find it’s looking grimy again as soon as someone’s brushed their teeth.
But according to one professional cleaner, there’s one thing you need to be looking out for in particular.
‘Cleanfluencer’ Kacie Stephens posted a video on Instagram - where she often shares all kinds of tips and tricks – saying there’s one nasty type of mould that can easily cause infections, and it’s easy to spot because it’s bright pink.
And the reason why it’s so bad is because it’s not actually mould after all, despite what many people think.
Stephens, who is from Melbourne, explained in the video’s caption: “Pink mould is not actually mould at all, it’s bacteria.
“The build up of it on your shower can cause infections, so make sure you’re washing it away regularly.”
In the clip, she could be seen scrubbing away at pink-coloured slime in the shower.
“FACTS,” Stephens wrote, adding: “This pink mould? It’s not mould at all. It’s a bacteria called Serratia Marcescens.”
According to a 2013 paper published in the National Library of Medicine, Serratia Marcescens is an ‘opportunistic, gram negative, nosocomial pathogen’, which belongs to family, Enterobacteriaceae.
It was first discovered by Italian pharmacist Bartolomeo Bizio back in in 1819, when he identified it as a ‘cause of the bloody discolouration on cornmeal mush’.
Many people were stunned to find out what the pink marks were in their bathroom, having always assumed they were down to something else.
“I always thought it was soap scum,” one person said, with another adding: “I always thought it must be maybe makeup build up!!!!”
Someone else said: “Eww is this the pinky red s**t that builds up around sink drains.”
A fourth wrote: “Thank you for sharing this information! I noticed this pink liquid in my dehumidifier which totally puzzled me because it didn’t come from a water source. It was in the air. Regardless, I wasn’t comfortable with that and tried to rinse my dehumidifier frequently after emptying.”
Sharing their own advice on how to deal with it, another advised: “Serratia is an incredibly resilient bacteria and can grow in most any moist environment. Eradicating it totally is hard but a 10% bleach solution and keeping your shower as dry as possible between use helps.”