Can you post pictures?

what pot media did you use ... i see you tried various types ....

did you sterilize it and all the pots first???

https://tipnut.com/sterilize-soil/

i would also recommend using 10% bleach to clean all the pots before use.. plus all tools .. etc ...

other than your reaction.. did it have any noticeable effect on the plants themselves??? .. and if not.. i would not have throw out the plants ...

you might want to take a baggie of the stuff to your local AG/extension office.. and ask them to ID it ... and see what they suggest ...

ken

im also wondering if its a mold as compared to a fungus ... and thats why i suggest an ID ...

ken

It rained last night and the stuff was already the same color as the soil. Now it's impossible to tell what's what. And after going through all my old photos, the only ones I have close enough to the soil are ones with it covered in cinnamon. I'm not finding a whole lot online to compare it too either. I'd say Chocolate-Tube Slime is the closest thing I've seen so far but it never bothered attaching to any of my orchid wood-chip mix or the pallet wood I made some planters out of. it's also not particularly tall and grows in fuzzy moss-like patches.

The best I can do is wait for the soil to re-dry and hope it even shows up in a photo.

To add:

The drainage had no baring on if it would show up or not. I have some pots that had admittedly horrid draining(because I was growing tomatoes in them and they suck up all the water in less than a day anyway), and a Sarracenia straight up in a constantly sopping wet moss ball of peet, perilite, and sphagnum. The fungus/mold never touches those. Other planters, one of which is made of pallet wood with wide separations between each board, and carbon mesh to hold in the dirt, dries out completely within a couple hours of being watered and I watered it whenever the vining plants in it started to wilt(every 2-3 days) still saw this stuff showing up in the dirt but not on the wood. My various pots are made of wood, terra cota, clay, plastic, carbon mesh, plastic seed starter trays, and green solo cup.

I did bleach the pots before I used them, and the ones I emptied and refilled.

I did not sterilize the soil, but I used different brands and even got it from different dealers. It didn't seem to matter.

The original soil was MiracleGro potting mix and the cactus mix was MiracleGro grow as well.

Star-Green perlite.

Better Grow Orchid Mix.

I think the other potting soil I tried was Jobe's but I don't remember exactly.

Also Jiffy Seed Start Mix

I store the soil inside my house in a tupper-ware bucket and some of it is even still damp, but nothing inside the bags seems to have this growing on or in it and smells clean.

While I can't be entirely sure that it is directly the culprit, because I had frustrating pest problems as well (that I could trace to the environment outside my patio) and my watering regimen being torturous, many of my plants did struggle and die. I eventually wasn't watering until they still were wilted at night. None of my herbs except for a couple of the nearly 2 dozen basil plants I tried to grow would take, even when I wasn't starving them of water. None of the lettuce survived. The tomatoes grew like crazy but the fruit rotted, and many of my flowers either died or constantly had sickly looking leaves. When I'd give up on ones that weren't completely dead I found the stems rotting or weak root growth even when they had been extremely strong as seedlings before I potted them.

I'm at the point of thinking it's environmental for my apartment complex and just hoping there's something I can do to keep it out of my garden. Also a bit worried if it could be affecting our health.

It is really not possible to offer any useful help without pictures. You seem to have a lot of different problems affecting a lot of different plants in a lot of different conditions and we have no idea what this mould/fungus looks like.

Have you ever added grit or even pebbles or shingles on the top of the soil? Adding a bit of perlite / grit / sharp sand to the compost might help. What are the air circulation and humidity of your rooms like please? Photos might help.

I believe you have some kind of spores that are breeding in your soil! My suggestion would be remove all soil and plants and start a bleach solution and wipe down everything! Let set for a week or so and start over with top quality soil with good drainage and aeration!