Old Gold VHS Mold: the Fungus Amungus

Looks like we have fungus growing on a couple of our Betamax tapes. You can see it above on the Goldfinger tape. Kinda eats into the tape like the opening title sequence of John Carpenter’s The Thing. We are gonna have to get a headcleaner for the Betamax and do a full inventory check given this can spread communicatively through the machine! What’s more, we will have to do a fairly thorough inventory check for mold. Mold is pervasive and it ruins both the VCR and any tapes you play through it. I love this description from a forum post I found, this is no joke!

It is not safe!!!

What will happen is the mold will spew all over the inside of the VCR, ruining it, as well as infecting any future videotape put into it. Mold spores are pervasive, and often toxic. They will leech outside the deck, through every vent hole, and get everywhere in your home.

The only DIY method to mold cleaning is to take the VCR outside, and don’t be downwind of it. Wear a face mask. Realize this VCR will be trashed afterwards, and only usable for mold removal. Never again to be used inside, never again for playing tapes.

We are gonna try and avoid the “nevermore, nevermore” scenario above and be sure to check all VHS and Betamax tapes given this is one of the scourges of the trade. It would be a good, fun 80s horror, b-movie, no? The VHS mold that feeds off the customers viz-a-viz the machines? “Get Stevie King on the line, I want to talk a script treatment.” Lunchmeat’s Spare Parts provides a good guide for removing mold, and it is a fairly intense process that would take a while, I am pretty sure from the looks of it that that the mold on the Goldfinger tape is too far gone for repair, but I’m open to being wrong on that.

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7 Responses to Old Gold VHS Mold: the Fungus Amungus

  1. Pat says:

    The mold slowly takes on elements of the movies it’s infected, till it becomes strong enough to bring humans into a mind altered spliced movie reality where the mold creates perfect living spaces for humans to live in while slowly killing them.

    Not saying that’s stranger things 3 sorted….

  2. Dimitris Tzouris says:

    I say you leave the mold in the VCR and confine it in a separate, isolated room. See what happens. Meanwhile, re-watch David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.

  3. Michael Berman says:

    as my ninth-grade biology text said – “We cannot escape the fungi.”

  4. iamTalkyTina says:

    Mouldfinger.
    He’s the man, the man with the mouldy touch.
    A fun guy’s touch
    Such an old player
    Reckons you’ll be putting your good tapes in …
    Don’t put them in!!!

    Mouldy bits he will put in your tapes
    Make them mouldy and slimy with paste
    An old 80’s hipster, will be looking for lister (ine)
    It’s a dirty mess from

    Mister Mouldfinger
    Beta Max beware of this tape of mould
    This tape is old.

    Mouldy bits he will put in your tapes
    Make them mouldy and slimy with paste
    An old 80’s hipster, will be looking for lister (ine)
    It’s a dirty mess from

    Mister Mouldfinger
    Beta Max beware of this tape of mould
    This tape is old.

    It loves only mould
    Only mould.
    It loves mould.
    Only mould.
    It loves mould.

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