How long has mold been around?

Mold has been around for a very long time. In fact, the very first recorded mention of mold is in the Bible: Leviticus 13 and 14. If someone told the priest that they had seen something that  looked   like mildew, the priest would act like a modern day home inspector and order the house to be emptied and then examine the walls. If mildew was found, he ordered the contaminated stones to be torn out and the inside walls were scraped clean. The old stones were replaced with new ones, the house re-plastered and monitored for re-growth: not extremely different from the process today.

Interestingly, mold may also have been responsible for other historic events such as the Salem witch trials, the Irish potato famine, and the curse of the mummy's tombs.