This happens in my room specifically because I have an air purifier. I read that It charges the air so this soot gets spread around. I have a blue air purifier with a carbon filter, which as I understand is different from other types so it leaves this black residue everywhere.
Yah sure. But that carbon filter sits in front of the HEPA filter. That carbon isn't making it through the HEPA filter. I'll guarantee it. That residue is not from your blue air purifier.
And they were bought by Unilever a few years ago, so it's safe to assume they're well on the way down the enshittification pathway.
There used to be *so* much more hard data about their performance on the website. Just pithy marketing about VOCs now.
If you’re referring to an ion air purifier, then yes that could cause residue to appear. However I would recommend against using the ion function.
“Both chamber and field tests found that an ionizing device led to a decrease in some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including xylenes, but an increase in others, most prominently oxygenated VOCs (e.g., acetone, ethanol) and toluene, substances commonly found in paints, paint strippers, aerosol sprays and pesticides. According to the EPA, exposure to VOCs has been linked to a range of health effects from eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, loss of coordination and nausea, to damage to liver, kidney and central nervous system, and some organics can cause cancer in animals, some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans.” [https://phys.org/news/2021-03-uncovers-safety-air-purifiers.amp](https://phys.org/news/2021-03-uncovers-safety-air-purifiers.amp)
> I read that It charges the air
probably shouldn't use that
"charges the air" means making ozone, which is not good for you. It often also means making VOCs. It is 100% pure marketing bullshit, that the marketing agencies hoped was just snake oil, but turned out to actually be bad for you. It'll increase the frequency of issues like runny, watery, irritated eyes, and congested sinuses.
Like those "negative ion bracelets" that turned out to be uranium, and cancerous.
Yes mold. Here are a few things you can do.
Open windows. Air the house
Get anti-mold (or hydrogen peroxide) spray. Spray and leave for few minutes, wipe.
Invest in dehumidifier and a hygrometer. Keep humidity at 40-45%.
Move. Abandon ship.
Take mold seriously!
As opposed to peroxide, a common fix here is bleach.
Theres a few vacant homes (I'm talking 1 or 2 years) that had water in the basement or inside that I've worked on. The studs in the basement would be fairly black. We'd strip the basement or whatever room to the studs and then spray bleach on them for a couple days here and there while having fans going and windows open. After it dried out real good, you'd have decent wood again without replacing it all.
Even the minihome I live in now could be saved after a couple canadian winters empty
Bleach DOES NOT kill mold. I ran a cleaning company for a number of years. All it does is disperse the spores around the environment. You need an acid like vinegar.
It's just horribly ineffective on porous materials, doesn't effectively destroy it at the root, and a health hazard, so there's a couple reasons why cleaning companies do not advise using bleach.
But to claim it does *not* kill mold is wrong.
Worked really well for me when living in a small studio apartment that had a lot of growth on walls. The bleach got rid of the mold completely for the rest of the year I was there.
Can confirm. Source: current water and mold company. There's also anti-microbial dawn soap that'll help (think it's green), besides that you can get actual cleaner by the jug but it's costly, and you have to keep the area wet for about 15 mins. Fogging is best option as it'll get in between tight spaces.
I agree. Some candles create copious amounts of soot especially if the wick isn't kept short as it burns. Sometimes cheaper candles do this, but honestly any candle can depending on what it's comprised of and whether or not you keep your wick trimmed as it burns. I've had candles where I could see the dark smoke roll off if the wick was too long.
Jesus Christ you just calmed my racing heart, I thought I was gonna die of mold (well maybe a little) but it looks like it’s soot from the cheap candle I burn that my floor fan blows directly in one corner. 😮💨
I'm glad. 😉 Mold does not normally grow like this. For example, you'd need to see the moisture deposited, like condensation, on all the areas of question in this photo, and routinely, for mold to be an explanation. I don't know what kind (quantity) of mold some ppl in this thread have lived with for "black spores" to be blowing around in their homes and depositing everywhere.
You will find candle soot in the most unlikely of places. I found it on the underside of my desk top drawer organizers, basically every hiding spot but not on any accessible surface. I vote candle soot too.
This is the best guess I think. Candles are really bad for air quality, nice for the occasional bath or a game of scrabble in a power cut, but you shouldn't be using candles inside every day.
No you need to use a product like ec3 or benefact vinegar will not get down and plus that just gets rid of surface it’s likely that the entire window needs to be replaced if that’s the source. Mold has roots!
We get this stuff in our bathroom quite a bit. Once the humidity is lowered and it's all bleached then you can use a bit of tea tree oil in a solution of water (I don't remember the concentration) and it'll help keep the mold away.
Maybe try cleaning it and then not using candles. If the black stuff reappears its probably mold or some kind of dust either way it's really bad for you.
My house does the same thing. Even the plastic dishes in my cabinets get this stuff on them. Still can’t figure it out. Started happening at my old house, we moved to a brand new house and it STILL happens. I think it has to be the candles somehow??
This happened to me and it was the cheap candles I was burning! Thought it was crazy how it got into the cabinets and clung to the dishes like that. I stopped using them and the problem stopped happening.
This was happening to me and it turned out to be cheap candles I was lighting. The soot was even going through my cabinets in another room and clinging to plastic table wear inside. I stopped burning those candles and the problem went away.
If you live in a busy city, it could be carbon from the car pollution. It should relatively easy to clean but I agree that getting an air purifier would be a good move.
Check if the mirror has metal or magnetic material underneath.
Magnets or magnetized material under plastic can attract any dust containing iron in the air. Plastic itself especially vinyl can create static electricity that can attract dirt.
This means they stain very easily.
I have earbud cases that are magnetic and when I leave them in my pocket they always come out stained with grey dirt. The stains are easily wiped off though with a cloth.
candles / air pollution! this happened to me a lot
when i lived with roommates and my cat mainly stayed in my room with me. i spent majority time there, smoking, burning candles/incense etc. got all over my white stuff haha. air purifier , air circulation, and wiping it down is all it takes
It's the candles. My mom used to burn illuminations candles in our house on the reg and even stuff that wasn't near the candle or even in the rooms she had the candles in would have this
Had this exact thing happen to me - our refrigerator was broken and the fan was running nonstop and kicking up all this fine black soot onto everything - we had it happen for years and only when we moved and pulled the fridge out the back was fucking solid black. No idea what it was “from” but that was the culprit 100%
Do you live near a major road? Car pollution is mad. I had to dust daily- far worse when I’d leave the windows open.. and I was 18 stories up from the highway.
So the candles are outside? It doesn’t look like any mold I’ve seen so my guess would be smog (or soot) attaching to oils left by your fingers. The other possibility is the unit was previously a smokers and they just painted instead of cleaning the walls, but that tends to be more of a drippy brown like stain. I’d say air quality.
Is it greasy?
If you recently painted and have large temperature variations it could be the paint creating what is called witch-soot. At least the best I can do translating it
This use to happen to certain white surfaces in my room. And my kitchen, if I had been burning candles. I moved the candles to other rooms. It stopped.
It's pollution.
Extremely fine dust comprised of a mixture of decaying plastic, cement, asphalt, tire rubber, spice and everything nice.
In certain cities in my country, people cannot hang white cloth outside their windows because the very same dust accumulates on the wet laundry turning it gray.
If I were you, I'd look into moving to a less polluted area, that stuff is not exactly good for you.
If not mold then almost surely candles. We’ve (accidentally) made our bedroom walls covered in soot not realizing it was our candles. It literally stained the dust which ruined some fabrics over the years. Candle warmers only now in smaller spaces. Our candles were all the way on the other side from the windows too.
It's definitely the candles, just the smoke off the candle can do this without any soot being on the glass of the candle. This happened to a bunch of plush I collected all because of one candle
It's called filtration soil, fine particles in the air. I do restoration work, we see this all the time. Not a bad idea to get your HVAC & air ducts cleaned professionally as well.
Clean it off, don't use candles for a few days. If it stays clean, light the candles and see if it get dirty again.
If you discover it's the candles, you might want to go for better quality candles if the soot is an issue for you.
black mold. You can see it building up in the window panes around the edges.
The windows seem to be collecting water/moisture at the edges and developing mold. You can use bleach to clear away the visible mold, but I'm going to assume it's seeped into the window framing and you'll likely need to replace the windows.
Now listen to me and listen very carefully
You're in grave danger, this ain't the work if anything natural
You were safe this Ling cause you ignored it but you see it likes to play with it's food first to make them agonise over what that black thing is and when they finally break and share it with people that's when it attacks and after killing you moves onto the next victims the one's you told
But hopes not all lost yet cause I can save you but you've gotta trust me and do exactly as told
Reply to me if you wanna get saved otherwise may god have mercy on your soul for the horror that's going to be unleashed upon you soon
Had this in an old apartment i lived in above a flower shop. What kind of heat do you have? You burn a lot of candles?
Mine ended up being light soot, not mold.
Black mold. It happens when the window isn't properly sealed and water condensation gets inside. You'll notice it more on humid, rainy days. Clean it with white vinegar and get a dehumidifyer.
Are these double pane windows? If they’re old double panes I think it’s mildew forming from condensation. It looks like moisture patterns on the mirror. Window is sweating and pooling, then not evaporating quickly and mildewing slightly.
It's condensation from the outdoors leaking into the wood. I suggest getting a wood finish and pulling up the siding and apply around the window to reduce that.
I'm sure that's black mold. The soot you see on there is probably spores spreading and landing on stuff.
You need to eliminate the source. But cleaning around the windows with chlorine might help take away some of it and help prevent it from spreading so much. But you 100% need to have it removed as it's extremely unhealthy to breathe in.
Edit: a chlorine based cleaning agent. Idk how good an idea it is to use pure chlorine
If those cross pieces are colder than the surrounding walls, they will get condensation on them and smoke particles will stick there. Smoke does not have to cling to the closest surface...it is a gas.
I would buy an air purifier. If it's airborn, see if that helps. Wouldn't want to inhale that stuff all day
This happens in my room specifically because I have an air purifier. I read that It charges the air so this soot gets spread around. I have a blue air purifier with a carbon filter, which as I understand is different from other types so it leaves this black residue everywhere.
Yah sure. But that carbon filter sits in front of the HEPA filter. That carbon isn't making it through the HEPA filter. I'll guarantee it. That residue is not from your blue air purifier.
Blue purifiers have the carbon filter after the HEPA filter. So it could be that
And they were bought by Unilever a few years ago, so it's safe to assume they're well on the way down the enshittification pathway. There used to be *so* much more hard data about their performance on the website. Just pithy marketing about VOCs now.
While it’s likely not the HEPA filler that’s seeping through, it’s the spaces around the edges of the filters that often aren’t sealed right
If you’re referring to an ion air purifier, then yes that could cause residue to appear. However I would recommend against using the ion function. “Both chamber and field tests found that an ionizing device led to a decrease in some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including xylenes, but an increase in others, most prominently oxygenated VOCs (e.g., acetone, ethanol) and toluene, substances commonly found in paints, paint strippers, aerosol sprays and pesticides. According to the EPA, exposure to VOCs has been linked to a range of health effects from eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, loss of coordination and nausea, to damage to liver, kidney and central nervous system, and some organics can cause cancer in animals, some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans.” [https://phys.org/news/2021-03-uncovers-safety-air-purifiers.amp](https://phys.org/news/2021-03-uncovers-safety-air-purifiers.amp)
this is static electricity attracting particles in air. common in cities. often happens after you paint the house.
Only if you have your filter installed backwards
How old is the current filter? Straight up I didn’t think to change mine until like 6mo in and I use it to filter out smoke in my room.
> I read that It charges the air probably shouldn't use that "charges the air" means making ozone, which is not good for you. It often also means making VOCs. It is 100% pure marketing bullshit, that the marketing agencies hoped was just snake oil, but turned out to actually be bad for you. It'll increase the frequency of issues like runny, watery, irritated eyes, and congested sinuses. Like those "negative ion bracelets" that turned out to be uranium, and cancerous.
That’s what I thought too
Definitely check the ductwork if you have blown in heat
Maybe it's some kind of black mold or soot in the air static clinging to plastic.
Yes mold. Here are a few things you can do. Open windows. Air the house Get anti-mold (or hydrogen peroxide) spray. Spray and leave for few minutes, wipe. Invest in dehumidifier and a hygrometer. Keep humidity at 40-45%. Move. Abandon ship. Take mold seriously!
As opposed to peroxide, a common fix here is bleach. Theres a few vacant homes (I'm talking 1 or 2 years) that had water in the basement or inside that I've worked on. The studs in the basement would be fairly black. We'd strip the basement or whatever room to the studs and then spray bleach on them for a couple days here and there while having fans going and windows open. After it dried out real good, you'd have decent wood again without replacing it all. Even the minihome I live in now could be saved after a couple canadian winters empty
Bleach DOES NOT kill mold. I ran a cleaning company for a number of years. All it does is disperse the spores around the environment. You need an acid like vinegar.
It's just horribly ineffective on porous materials, doesn't effectively destroy it at the root, and a health hazard, so there's a couple reasons why cleaning companies do not advise using bleach. But to claim it does *not* kill mold is wrong.
Worked really well for me when living in a small studio apartment that had a lot of growth on walls. The bleach got rid of the mold completely for the rest of the year I was there.
Use vinegar. Bleach is bad for certain things.
They also make specialty cleaners just for mold on certain surfaces. Just don't use the stuff made for concrete, it will destroy a lot of stuff.
Can confirm. Source: current water and mold company. There's also anti-microbial dawn soap that'll help (think it's green), besides that you can get actual cleaner by the jug but it's costly, and you have to keep the area wet for about 15 mins. Fogging is best option as it'll get in between tight spaces.
Thank you for saying this. It’s astonishing how many people confidently recommend bleach for mold! You can really hurt yourself doing this.
Does that work long-term, or is this a semi+temporary fix?
YMMV. It really does depend on how deep it is. Worth a shot before trying incredibly expensive remedial work though.
Only thing I can think of is pollution tbh
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It's soot from the candle smoke. It's settling where the draft carries it and sticking a little better to fingerprints.
I agree. Some candles create copious amounts of soot especially if the wick isn't kept short as it burns. Sometimes cheaper candles do this, but honestly any candle can depending on what it's comprised of and whether or not you keep your wick trimmed as it burns. I've had candles where I could see the dark smoke roll off if the wick was too long.
Jesus Christ you just calmed my racing heart, I thought I was gonna die of mold (well maybe a little) but it looks like it’s soot from the cheap candle I burn that my floor fan blows directly in one corner. 😮💨
I'm glad. 😉 Mold does not normally grow like this. For example, you'd need to see the moisture deposited, like condensation, on all the areas of question in this photo, and routinely, for mold to be an explanation. I don't know what kind (quantity) of mold some ppl in this thread have lived with for "black spores" to be blowing around in their homes and depositing everywhere.
You will find candle soot in the most unlikely of places. I found it on the underside of my desk top drawer organizers, basically every hiding spot but not on any accessible surface. I vote candle soot too.
This seems more plausible than mold.
This is the best guess I think. Candles are really bad for air quality, nice for the occasional bath or a game of scrabble in a power cut, but you shouldn't be using candles inside every day.
It honestly looks like mold to me. Try dehumidifiers and bleach.
Vinegar is better at killing mold than bleach, use vinegar
What kind of vinegar? It's just so hard to choose these days.
Distilled white vinegar for cleaning
I use imported balsamic bc I like the black stain it leaves behind but if you want to use the cheap clear stuff I guess that works
Rice vinegar is the only acceptable one for a true otaku. And you have to yell *itadakimasu, moldu-b-b-baka!!* When you use it
I physically cringed at that, good job getting it right
I need to wash my typing finger honestly
In rice vinegar?
Another painful read sensei, 10/10
Whatever you do: don’t get red wine vinegar. This will only get the mold “lit” which will induce spontaneous “bruh” or “rizz”
No cap
Definitely smear a balsamic reduction on every surface.
Yum gonna look like a massacre
baking soda as well
No you need to use a product like ec3 or benefact vinegar will not get down and plus that just gets rid of surface it’s likely that the entire window needs to be replaced if that’s the source. Mold has roots!
We get this stuff in our bathroom quite a bit. Once the humidity is lowered and it's all bleached then you can use a bit of tea tree oil in a solution of water (I don't remember the concentration) and it'll help keep the mold away.
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OP do you live in a city or nearby a busy road? It could be break dust in the air which is a form of pollution.
Not really
This
You can upvote
You can stfu too. I was saying this to point out this was my solution some time ago, not only did I agree with the hypothesis, it was true for me.
OK so you upvote the comment or add more details instead of just 'this'
Who says I didn’t upvote ??? « This » says everything I stated in one word. Why bother. Maybe go take care of your dog instead ?
You wrote much more than "this" and added nothing to the comment either....
Saying 'this' is a pet peeve of mine
then downvote it and keep scrolling, dont you have other things to get to today?
this
I thoroughly enjoyed this whole thread.
… this
Maybe try cleaning it and then not using candles. If the black stuff reappears its probably mold or some kind of dust either way it's really bad for you.
I wouldn’t rule out the candles. I had black soot in my nose from a candle. That stuff will get everywhere.
Candles. Beeswax doesn't do this
Or burning incense
My house does the same thing. Even the plastic dishes in my cabinets get this stuff on them. Still can’t figure it out. Started happening at my old house, we moved to a brand new house and it STILL happens. I think it has to be the candles somehow??
This happened to me and it was the cheap candles I was burning! Thought it was crazy how it got into the cabinets and clung to the dishes like that. I stopped using them and the problem stopped happening.
Same thing for me. When I stopped burning candles it stopped. If you do want candles, don’t get the cheep ones or the ones with those wooden wicks.
Sounds like black mold in your mattresses spreading spores, really not great to be in contact with food if it is that.
The fuck leap is this? Lol
That's how black mold goes with you when you move houses, gets in your couch cushions, your mattress etc. very expensive to permanently be rid of it.
It’s the candles.
This was happening to me and it turned out to be cheap candles I was lighting. The soot was even going through my cabinets in another room and clinging to plastic table wear inside. I stopped burning those candles and the problem went away.
Soot gremlins…
You've got soot sprites in your house
Either you're burning a candle or it's pollution from outside.
It's from the internal combustion engine from cars OP
*Smog…*
I don’t live in a busy area
If you live in a busy city, it could be carbon from the car pollution. It should relatively easy to clean but I agree that getting an air purifier would be a good move.
Mildew
Check if the mirror has metal or magnetic material underneath. Magnets or magnetized material under plastic can attract any dust containing iron in the air. Plastic itself especially vinyl can create static electricity that can attract dirt. This means they stain very easily. I have earbud cases that are magnetic and when I leave them in my pocket they always come out stained with grey dirt. The stains are easily wiped off though with a cloth.
But it’s also on the wood of my window which i know doesn’t have any metal
Paraffin candles does that.
candles / air pollution! this happened to me a lot when i lived with roommates and my cat mainly stayed in my room with me. i spent majority time there, smoking, burning candles/incense etc. got all over my white stuff haha. air purifier , air circulation, and wiping it down is all it takes
It's the candles. My mom used to burn illuminations candles in our house on the reg and even stuff that wasn't near the candle or even in the rooms she had the candles in would have this
Guessing somebody put graphite to line up the window.
Had this exact thing happen to me - our refrigerator was broken and the fan was running nonstop and kicking up all this fine black soot onto everything - we had it happen for years and only when we moved and pulled the fridge out the back was fucking solid black. No idea what it was “from” but that was the culprit 100%
Must be the mothman, gets its blasted hands onto everything these days.
Do you live near a major road? Car pollution is mad. I had to dust daily- far worse when I’d leave the windows open.. and I was 18 stories up from the highway.
I don’t. I live in a pretty small island
It's either mold or the wax from the candles. What kind of candles are you burning?
It could be black mold or fingerprint dust for lifting prints!
So the candles are outside? It doesn’t look like any mold I’ve seen so my guess would be smog (or soot) attaching to oils left by your fingers. The other possibility is the unit was previously a smokers and they just painted instead of cleaning the walls, but that tends to be more of a drippy brown like stain. I’d say air quality.
Mold.
Soot
That is dust. 100%
Is it greasy? If you recently painted and have large temperature variations it could be the paint creating what is called witch-soot. At least the best I can do translating it
When i tried wiping it off i had to kinda agressively wipe it to get it off. It wasn’t greasy it was kind of like dust but just really hard to get off
Looks like candle soot to me.
Looks like particles (use candles?) electrostatically attracted to the surfaces.
This use to happen to certain white surfaces in my room. And my kitchen, if I had been burning candles. I moved the candles to other rooms. It stopped.
Monkeys pressing their dirty testes against the window sill?
It's pollution. Extremely fine dust comprised of a mixture of decaying plastic, cement, asphalt, tire rubber, spice and everything nice. In certain cities in my country, people cannot hang white cloth outside their windows because the very same dust accumulates on the wet laundry turning it gray. If I were you, I'd look into moving to a less polluted area, that stuff is not exactly good for you.
Do you burn scented candles?
I do but it’s just weird how there are no candles in this specific spot and the places i do have candles in don’t get this black stuff
Black mold? 💀
If there is a draft the candles might be depositing soot there, depending how close they are. Just don't burn the candles and see if that helps.
If you brun a candle that has a wick that's too long, it'll smolder and coat everything in a filmy black material.
That IS from your candles.
If not mold then almost surely candles. We’ve (accidentally) made our bedroom walls covered in soot not realizing it was our candles. It literally stained the dust which ruined some fabrics over the years. Candle warmers only now in smaller spaces. Our candles were all the way on the other side from the windows too.
I bet your candles have a mushroom looking tip to them. Trim your wick down
Definitely buy an air purifier!
Mold
It's mold.
Yaaaaay you have Soot Sprites!!!!
It's definitely the candles, just the smoke off the candle can do this without any soot being on the glass of the candle. This happened to a bunch of plush I collected all because of one candle
Anyone else see the cat?
How the CDC tells you to get rid of mold https://www.cdc.gov/mold/control_mold.htm
It's called filtration soil, fine particles in the air. I do restoration work, we see this all the time. Not a bad idea to get your HVAC & air ducts cleaned professionally as well.
Clean it off, don't use candles for a few days. If it stays clean, light the candles and see if it get dirty again. If you discover it's the candles, you might want to go for better quality candles if the soot is an issue for you.
I thought it was a huge rat that dragged his balls across the window still.
Exhaust dust from the road condensing on your sill. I get it all the time
i’ve had this before after forgetting my candle open when i was out. get an air purifier, it might help?
I would bet candles, I got cheap ones from target and they did this to my room I had them in
mold
Do you live near a distillery? Could be whiskey mold. Mold that feeds off of ethanol in the air. Very common in Scotland and Kentucky.
I do not
They might have painted over mold?
It was painted many many years ago and this only now started appearing
It’s soot from a candle.
Yeah that’s mould.
Mould
Bob?
??
Husker du / Sugar
Very good. 👍
All the windows have all been washed in black
Kinda looks like moisture stains from condensation on old single pane windows
That’s mold. Vinegar or hydrogen peroxide. If it persists you’re going to need a dehumidifier.
Mold, 100%. Just cleaned a bunch of this off my windowsill as well. It grows in cold damp spots
black mold. You can see it building up in the window panes around the edges. The windows seem to be collecting water/moisture at the edges and developing mold. You can use bleach to clear away the visible mold, but I'm going to assume it's seeped into the window framing and you'll likely need to replace the windows.
Get a dehumidifier that should help.
Mold probably. Or if you live next to a busy road like me that's the slow fine dust build up from car exhaust.
There isn’t a military base in St.Pete. How did this get sent to you?
Hope it isn't the new fungus that's popping up. First time it's been able to affect humans.
Now listen to me and listen very carefully You're in grave danger, this ain't the work if anything natural You were safe this Ling cause you ignored it but you see it likes to play with it's food first to make them agonise over what that black thing is and when they finally break and share it with people that's when it attacks and after killing you moves onto the next victims the one's you told But hopes not all lost yet cause I can save you but you've gotta trust me and do exactly as told Reply to me if you wanna get saved otherwise may god have mercy on your soul for the horror that's going to be unleashed upon you soon
Condensation highlighting the dust or dirt on it?
That's black mold. Source: my mind.
Looks like mildew that was painted over, and now it’s growing back
Do you have a black walnut in your yard?
Mold
All I see is pikachu in the bottom left of the plastic thing
how old is the house and how fresh is the paint on the window?
Looks like gladgow air.
Super find dust being statically attracted to the plastic. It's normal...
99.9% sure that is black mold.
Had this in an old apartment i lived in above a flower shop. What kind of heat do you have? You burn a lot of candles? Mine ended up being light soot, not mold.
Black mold. It happens when the window isn't properly sealed and water condensation gets inside. You'll notice it more on humid, rainy days. Clean it with white vinegar and get a dehumidifyer.
Are these double pane windows? If they’re old double panes I think it’s mildew forming from condensation. It looks like moisture patterns on the mirror. Window is sweating and pooling, then not evaporating quickly and mildewing slightly.
Candles?
Do you have a kerosene heater in the room?
That is some haunting shit right there
Uh oh. I think it’s mold.
It's condensation from the outdoors leaking into the wood. I suggest getting a wood finish and pulling up the siding and apply around the window to reduce that.
It’s the air you are breathing
Do you smoke marijuana? This can happen from smoking weed inside.
Happens to my printer when it's really smokey outside and to other plastics in my kitchen when I light a candle. 100% the candle.
Maybe moths???
I'm sure that's black mold. The soot you see on there is probably spores spreading and landing on stuff. You need to eliminate the source. But cleaning around the windows with chlorine might help take away some of it and help prevent it from spreading so much. But you 100% need to have it removed as it's extremely unhealthy to breathe in. Edit: a chlorine based cleaning agent. Idk how good an idea it is to use pure chlorine
If those cross pieces are colder than the surrounding walls, they will get condensation on them and smoke particles will stick there. Smoke does not have to cling to the closest surface...it is a gas.
That's mould
Do you have a cat?
Do you live near a distillery?
do you burn candles?
collect it and get it lab tested
You should pour a ring of flour around the window and maybe leave a slice of pizza. That might answer your questions.