Help with mold in cellar style basement
We have a century home and our basement has concrete foundation walls with a concrete floor. Sometimes water comes in through the cracks of the foundation/and or floor if there is heavy rainfall. I believe this is somewhat normal due to hydrostatic pressure. It doesn’t flood, but there is certainly water that sort of collects around the edges of the basement and absorbs into the concrete in the middle of the floor for a little bit and then usually goes away.
The problem is that the previous owner sprayed insulation on the walls in the basement…I think it’s probably more of a hinderance than a help in general and I have no idea why they chose to do this. The worst part is that the outer coating of the insulation is some sort of fuzzy soft material. The inside is yellow foam.
As you can see by my photos, the soft fuzzy material absorbs water, and this allows mold to develop.
I believe this is probably bad mold 😩😩 not that any mold is good… but this one looks particularly concerning.
*this corner looks really dirty because we had shelving in front that we moved
Obviously, I am not going to be able to do anything about the fact that some water comes in sometimes due to hydrostatic pressure, given the age of the home. I am not sure if they sprayed this insulation on the foundation to hide something. It is not a finished basement and if it were just concrete, it would not concern me greatly. However, obviously, the presence of this insulation and mold IS concerning.
What do I do about this? I do not feel comfortable or experienced enough to remove all of the insulation… I thought maybe I could remove the bottom half but that still sounds really daunting. Obviously something needs to be done. Just any advice regarding the insulation, the mold and the situation is welcome. If you are knowledgable on the insulation or why they would have done this, that would help too.