117: What It's Like To Work With Me w/ Kelly Bluth

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Hey, everyone, what's going on? Today is a really fun episode. These are, you know, I have these conversations behind the scenes a lot. And so it was nice to say, hey, let's like, put one of these front and center so everyone can kind of understand that you're not out there by yourself. And a lot of people are going through this and, and just hear like a real life situation, as opposed to me just describing, like, fictional people that are, that, I'm mean, they're not fictional, but like people that you don't know. So anyway, so I wanted to introduce. Guys, everybody, this is Kelly Bluth. She is one of our clients. And we're going to kind of talk through where she came from, where she's going, how she kind of got into this world and how the process has been going and her struggles and her wins and like, all that stuff. So, Kelly. Hey, what's going on?

Hey, thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me on. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and to share, you know what, what I can with your audience as well. So thanks for having me.

Yeah, of course, of course. I'm super excited for this.

So let's kind of start at the top. Like, what, what were you struggling with before you found us, before we met, before we got here? Let's kind of talk.

Yeah, yeah. The reason why I came to you guys was because I have had for the past two years, two plus years, I've had some really, really hard to deal with gut issues that persist and won't go away no matter what I do in terms of nutrition.

My exercise routine, doing all the right things, making sure that I'm not taxing my body too much with fitness, and like I said, eating right. And just nothing, nothing was, was changing. I was just severely bloated, lots of brain fog, fatigue. I also started to develop, like a drippy nose, like, you know, kind of cold symptoms.

And I was just like, there, there is something else going on. So I ended up working with a naturopath and they suggested that I get a mold test done, you know, the urine test. And that came back, sure enough, with mold, I have high Levels of aspergillus in my body as indicated by the urine test. And I know there are things I've heard on your podcast. You just recently released one with the doctor who mentioned urine test versus blood tests. I know there could be some discrepancy in there, but there's definitely. I mean, without question, there's definitely a mold issue in our home. And so, yeah, I started going down this path of like, okay, how do I fix it? How do I remediate it? And read books, researched online. I decided to try and take some shortcuts and I did air sampling test in our home and that came back, sure enough, showing aspergillus, but still didn't know where the root cause of this was coming from. Ended up having three different companies come out giving us three different estimates ranging from like two grand all the way to $2,000 to remediate. And long story short, none of those have been anywhere near what we've been starting to realize or what we've started to find from your company coming in and looking at our situation. And yeah, I guess the.

Can we stop right there? So you have.

Yeah.

The three remediation companies came in and gave bids to give bids. They gave the bids off of just air tests. Is that what they did?

No, they didn't. That's. That's even more ironic. They. No, no air test. Just from their eyesight. What they, you know, quote unquote saw.

Got it. So, like.

Yep.

What was. What was like the bulk of what they. Because I think this is important because people will have remediators come in. Oh, we've been doing this a long time. Blah, blah, blah. You know, I just pictured. I just. The image I just pictured in my head was like this weird cartoon character.

And it'll be like, oh, you just need to do X, Y and Z. Can you walk us through it? Like some, like, just like a, like top line. A couple of things are like that maybe now that you've learned is like, not what should have been done or maybe something they met or something. Yeah, just. Just kind of like talk through that conversation a little. Because I do feel like, sure, I'll just get the remediator to come in. They know what they're doing. They like that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah. We had. I mean, in terms of what we were told could fix the situation, so to speak. We had people come in that said, just do a fogging treatment and that'll take care of it. We had a group that came in and said, you know, we could do fogging and we'll clean, like, the. We have a basement that's unfinished, so we'll come down and we'll. We'll clean the. The boards of the ceiling. Right. The.

Subfloor. That's what I was thinking of.

And then we had someone all the way up to the $20,000 range that said we needed an additional sump pump and they were going to bust out all of our walls and rework the drainage piping that was leading to the basement. So, I mean, no one came in and said the exact same thing as someone else. It was completely. Three completely different thoughts on our situation.

So that's. That's interesting. So, okay, so you have three people coming because, I mean, you know this, and other people know what we like when we come in and look at a house, what we're looking at is not the same as anyone else either. Right. It's, like, very different. So was there. Was there something across, like, these three companies where you were. Like, something doesn't feel right. Like, was there something where you just felt like that wasn't the answer? Like, what had you keep going after this?

Yeah, Yeah. I just. I. I didn't feel comfortable. Like, none of them, the way that they, you know, the way they share the information, felt like they really knew what. What was going on. And just the. The huge discrepancy between 2.2grand to 20,000, it was just like, okay, somebody doesn't have it, right? Like, clearly there's more to this than just what meets the eye, right? And like you said, I mean, no testing was done. They just literally looked. Looked at our house, primarily the basement. Looked at our basement, and that was it. And I just. I was like, no, this can't be it.

Yeah, it's funny. The basement's, like, exposed, so it's the easiest thing to look at. It's like, oh, well, look, this has to be the problem. Everything else is covered. It's so funny. Like, process.

All right, so. So I cut you off. So I'm sorry. So you had these companies come in. It didn't sit right with you. So you had. You mentioned before that you did some air samples. So you had a local company or something come in, a couple air tests. Is that what happened?

Yeah, we did. We. We did that twice. And. And again, both times came back with Aspergillus. But.

Still, that. That didn't give us the root of the situation. Like, where is this coming from? So, I mean, that's ultimately what we need to find out. And, you know, in Hindsight, I would have gone immediately to you guys. But I think oftentimes we, you know, we think, oh, well, it's not going to be, you know, as big of an issue or we're going to be able to find it right away and treat it and everything will be good. And, you know, I think part of me thought we did have someone come out in fog. I think part of me thought, okay, we're going to do that and everything will be good. Like, everything will go back to normal. And that wasn't the case. That did absolutely nothing because then we did another air sample afterwards, immediately afterwards, and no change. Exact same levels, like, still, you know, very high levels of aspergillus. So, yeah, so that's. That's basically what led us to you.

So how long. See, I got issues for a couple years. So the health stuff was a couple years. And then how long was this process between the different inspections and the different remediators coming out? Like, how long did that take?

Yeah, so I ended up. So Last December of 2021, I got my. My own urine sample test done, and then I. We started calling people out in the spring. That spring.

And then all summer we kind of have gone back and forth in terms of we did the fogging and air sampling. And then, you know, just here recently, in the last month or so, we came to you guys.

Got it. Got it. Yeah. It sucks that, like, a big chunk of the time is just figuring out that, like, you should even look at mold in the first place. Like, that last once you figured it out, it was basically nine months till you got to us with a couple speed bumps along the way. But then it was the two years before of trying all these other things. Were you working with a naturopath at that time, or did you find that person after some time?

Yeah, I was. I was. So, yeah, during the time in which I had that mycotoxin test done, the urine test, I was working with a naturopath, and they suggested that was something I had not had done, and they wanted to potentially roll that out, but then come to find out that was a key, key factor into some of the issues that I was experiencing on a daily basis and quite honestly still am, because we haven't treated the situation. So I'm looking forward to getting our home remediated so that I can finally get back to feeling better.

Yeah, and that's actually a good question because different people have different goals. Right. So I'm sure Joe asked you this upfront, what your goal was. I'm sure. Whether you talk to David or Nina, like whoever it was. So, so the goal, it was for you to stay, figure it out, remediate and kind of be there, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's our, that's our plan. And you know, I didn't mention this earlier, but I think it's important to, to mention to your listeners as well that our house, you know, we built our house. And so it's, it's just shy of three years old. And so I, you know, I think a lot of times, at least for me, the common misconception is that like, oh, you know, mold issues are only in older houses. Well, this is like a fresh young house and we still have, you know, mold issues.

So. Yeah, you know, I'm glad that you said that. Actually, I didn't, I hadn't looked at the age of the house. I was just looking through some of the pictures of things before we jumped on and there's definitely like some areas that seem like that there's especially like for where some of the surface samples were taken specifically. Like, you know, there's some things are there and this stuff, like it doesn't take long. It's, it's, it's actually so funny. I don't know if it's funny, but just the fact that you brought that up, it's like when you ask somebody like, how old is, you know, are you in an old house, your new house? Like, oh, it's, it's a newer house. Like, oh, when was it built? 10 years ago? Like, okay, so I know in the grand scheme of things like a 10 year old house, as opposed to like living on the east coast where they're all like 100 years old. Like, yeah, that's like a newer house, but like it only takes a couple days, a couple weeks for something to turn into a problem. Right. So like one of the things I think that sometimes we have to wrap our heads around is this concept of time and that something can't happen in a period of time because you're relating it to something else that isn't at all connected to it. Right. So like 10 years versus 80 years. Oh, 10 years is a really young house. But like 10 years is still a long time and three years is a very young house. But three years is also time for things to happen. Right? I know we're looking. There's like the master bathroom. There's some stuff in the shower. There's stuff around a kitchen dishwasher. These things are not things that happen in like you needed a Whole super old house to happen. If a dishwasher leaks, you have a problem under it. If there's something with a kitchen sink, a problem under it. If there's something with a shower, they have a problem. And so I like that you brought that up because I think sometimes we don't think of it that way, you know?

Absolutely, yeah.

What, what was your sort of reaction, I guess when, when we started walking you through what we found. Obviously we don't have the results yet for you, but, like, when we started showing you kind of what. What everything looked like, what were your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, there were definitely, like some of the things you just mentioned because we. We kind of knew in advance that there was probably going to be some issues with. With some of those things. So, like the dishwasher area, we knew that moving in there had been an issue.

They had not tightened up the pipes within the dishwasher. And so the first time we ran a cycle, the pipe burst. And so we had, I mean, day one, you know, we had an issue there.

Shower. You know, we've noticed that there's something going on there for quite some time. And so, yeah, some of that stuff was not super shocking. But, you know, I think what's going to be really revealing and what I'm really curious, really curious. Curious how bad it is is related to the H VAC unit. I never realized how problematic those can be and how they can harbor mold as well. And then, you know, you're constantly breathing that in because that's getting circulated through the vents. So like you said, we don't have the results back of those tests. But just hearing how that is so common makes sense now. But in hindsight, I had no clue that that could be. Could be something.

Yeah. I mean, just looking at the H vac, like the pictures that we have.

I'd be surprised at the sample. Like we did. I know we did more. But like, the swab sample specifically, like, I feel like I'd be surprised if it came back and there was no problem, you know, so we'll. We'll see. But it kind of feels like that there's probably like a source thing in there. And honestly, it doesn't look terrible. I know he's listening. So me talking about pictures, he's helping. But, like, it doesn't look like absolutely terrible. I've definitely seen a lot worse. But you could definitely see in the photos and, you know, when you do the review, you know, when Joe walks you through the review and everything kind of blow that I'm showing to you. But, like, you know, I think one of the things that H VAC Systems is, is we kind of look at it and it's like, oh, it's dirty. It happens. Like, you know, and you almost like, dismiss it kind of. And, you know, I almost wonder. I feel like we dismiss things because we don't, because they're not an easy fix for it. So then we just like, dismiss it. This happens. It's an easy, you know, whatever. It's fun, you know, instead of like. Like the fix might not be easy, but if there's a source issue in there and there's other things going on, you know, it might have to be a not easy fix in order to address that properly.

Right.

What's. What would you.

In a nutshell, just so. Just so people kind of understand the difference again, I beat this drum a lot, but I don't want to be the one saying it. Like, I'd like people to hear this from someone else. What would you say is the biggest difference between kind of how like, the local companies came through versus the way that we came through the house?

Yeah, I mean, well, for starters, there's actually data that's going to back up claims as to what you guys feel needs to be remediated. Right. I mean, you took samples, which none of the three companies that came out did.

It was extensive. I mean, these other companies that came out were here in and out in an hour maybe, tops. But, you know, this whole process of collecting samples took three or four hours. You know, our. Our home is a ranch home, so it's a little bit smaller. And.

From. From the inspection, I was told by Daniel and then Joe, you know, reiterated that there weren't as many things for them to sample, which is a good thing for us. You know, fingers crossed. They didn't take as many samples as they typically do. I was told usually 35 to 40 is on average. And we had about 16 or 17 samples taken total.

So.

But regardless, I mean, 16 or 17 samples versus no samples from local companies. So I think that right there just says it all. I mean, there's no evidence to back up what they were, what they were claiming.

Yeah. And it's so important too, because the sampling piece, you know, when somebody hears that, they're like, oh, that's way too many. Like, but. But you don't know until you see and you kind of understand, like. Like, hopefully the thing, and I feel like I probably did. The thing that gets explained when the review is happening is like, why a sample is being collected and essentially what drives a decision down the road and what the purpose of it is and if there's ways that we can combine them or ways that we can like pull something out and use data from something else to kind of COVID that and what a remediation plan would look like. Because we know as we're going through how we're sort of mapping out what we think has to happen. But there has to be the validation there and not only to like write it up, but honestly to then have a conversation down the road where when the results come back, let's say there were 16 samples, I don't know, let's say 12 of them are bad, Right. Well, are you going to remediate all 12 of them or are you not able to? And that you don't have to answer that question. But different people, it's different things, right? There's financial implications and other stuff that goes on. And so then another reason that you really need to be doing the testing is so you can look through and prioritize. Like if I only have X amount of money for remediation, but I have these areas, it's better to knock out 75% of the problem than it is to not. Right. So are there six or seven areas that are the biggest contributors to what's going on and other things you can get to later and will that be enough for you? And you know, in terms of healing those, you know, that's obviously something I don't know, but it's to be able to have that conversation. So it's not all like all or nothing, you know, my way or the highway kind of deal. It's. Yeah, it's about getting direction so you can make decisions, you know.

Yeah, I think just too, you know, the knowledge, Right. That you all have is extensive. I mean you've seen so many situations like you mentioned and yeah, the in depth, you know, we had a pre inspection meeting then we, you know, I was able to ask questions during the inspection and right after Daniel finished and then we had a, you know, post inspection meeting and then we'll have another meeting once we get the results back. So I mean you don't get any of that with a local company. It's like I said, it's in and out usually in under an hour and there's, there's no follow up there. It's just, you know, here's, here's our proposed plan. Here's you know, how much it costs and let us know if you want to move forward with it. And it's. Yeah, it's definitely, like I said, in hindsight it would. Would not ever go down that path again. But I think sometimes, you know, we.

Have to go through these things to learn from them.

Yeah, it's. You're 100. Right. Which I'm really glad why we're talking, because hopefully somebody can maybe take something from that. You know, I feel like the reason a lot of those companies do that is because they look at these, like, construction jobs, you know, and so, like, when you're bidding a construction job, you don't typically need all these conversations like, what's your history? What's happened to House? What's your health history? What's all of this stuff? Like? We actually modeled our process after what a doctor process looks like. You go into the doctor's office, you have an onboarding form, the super extensive onboarding form, asking you anything that's ever happened with you and your parents and all that stuff. You have that you have your first sit down, right. And then you. And then you come back and you have a more formal one where maybe the tests and the different things happen. Then you have follow up. So we modeled our process really around that philosophy because you need to understand and kind of stair step through all those things to really, like, service somebody the right way. Understanding that what we're. The end goal here is not the angle. Here's health. It's not like the house. At the end of the day, the only reason you're doing the health is because of the health. Right. So, like.

Right.

That's the end goal. And the house is like a portion of a treatment plan in reality. Right.

So I'm glad that that stood out for you. And like, the difference was, you know, was significant there because it's. There's a lot of thought went into how that was all put together. So.

Yeah.

What would you say was the most surprising thing that came out of all of this for you?

Oh.

I just think, gosh, in terms of the most surprising thing, I'm not sure I was surprised other than, like I said, maybe the, you know, the whole. How the H VAC plays into things. Because like I said, I kind of knew where issues were. I just, you know, and we're still obviously waiting. I just didn't and still don't know yet how bad those things are. And you know, what. What that. What that process will look like to remediate it. So, yeah, I think, I guess maybe that's a good thing is that there wasn't anything super surprising because Your team led me through all the way really easily in terms of knowing what was to come, how things were going to run. And so really took a lot of the fear and the anxiety related to it away because I knew what was going to happen.

I'm glad. I'm glad that that's one of the biggest hurdles that comes up is the thinking, the worst case and the anxiety and all that stuff that happens down the road.

Especially when we're showing you everything for the first time. We're in that fight, that review call period where we're showing you everything and kind of talking through what it looks like is. It's, you know, it's a lot to take in. Those calls are usually an hour to an hour and a half, right? So, like, go through everything.

And it's a lot to take in. And so like, the anxiety and all that stuff can happen. And it's just, you know, it's important. It's important to just try to like, look at it almost like step by step, because the further in the future you get. I was literally just talking about this in my consulting group today is I was giving the story about trying to like, deal with anxiety and like, kind of overwhelm and stuff like that. And I give this example whenever I. Not whenever, but like, if you've ever had to like, call like the cable company or the phone company or whatever because they build. You weren't. They weren't supposed to, or something happened and then you're on hold forever, right, because you can't get on the phone with them. And so the whole time you're kind of like ramping yourself up. I'm going to say this, and I'm going to say this, and I have all these points that are going to improve. And in the meantime, like, if there was some sort of meter, it'd probably be like going higher and higher and higher that you're stressed and you're ramped up and like, all this stuff goes on, right? And you're in like kind of this, like, battle, war state. By the time that. At least me anyways, by the time that I get on the phone with somebody, like, I'm ready to go and like, oh, hey, I saw this problem. This is cool. We'll just cover that off and take. Take care of it. And that was it. And the call's over and I'm like, why did I just work myself up this much? And. And it's such, like, it's. It's not the same example as like somebody who's like, you know, with health and house and all this stuff. But, like, the concept is the same almost. It's like, wait till you talk to the person, and then if you need to get ramped up, you can get ramped up. But all of that I didn't have to do. Right. And so.

Right.

Thinking about how big of this project going to be, how much money is it going to cost, where am I going to live while this is happening? Like, all these questions that come up. Yes, you can think about them. Like, I want to tell people not to think about them, but it's. It's trying to sort of understand, like, yes, those are things that are on the radar for down the road. Like, I understand I'll have to put some thought into that later, but right now I might not need to think about one of these things potentially. So let's just, like, understand it. Let's wait till I get the next piece of information that then allows me to go on to the next thing and think about it. And yeah, it's. It's. I mean, for me personally, it's helpful. I don't know how it is for everyone else, but, like, I get stressed out just like everybody else does, so it's just different things.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

All right, so what would you say to somebody who's, like, on the fence about going down.

Let's do it two ways about even opening the door of investigating their house? I know a lot of people are just, like, they don't even want to do that. So let's. Let's start with there, and then I'll add a secondary piece to that.

Yeah, I think that's a great question. Yeah. I mean, someone who's hesitating.

I would say. I know this sounds crazy, but I would say, why? Why are you hesitating? Because if your health is important to you, don't you want to get to the root of the issue? I mean, that's ultimately why I'm doing this, is because I want to feel better. And I know by doing this, I'm going to find out exactly what I need to do to fix my home and get it back to a livable state for myself so that I don't have to feel the way that I feel on a daily basis so they can get back to living the life that I deserve to live. So I think if your health matters enough to you and you want to live a great life again, free of these symptoms, you owe it to yourself to do this.

100%. Totally agree with you.

Okay, so now, the second piece of that, what would you say to somebody who's just like, ah, we inspect. They're this national company, they're not local. Like, I don't know if they're the right fit for me, like, that sort of thing. Like, what would you say to that person?

Yeah, I would. I mean, I would share it with them. My example. Right. Like, I went local, you know, before I even knew about you and your company. And.

I, you know, I paid the price because it took longer for me to get to you guys to find you guys. And I didn't get to the root of it like it was. I didn't get what I wanted out of it. So, you know, I would say save yourself the time, the frustration.

And just, you know, reach out to Brian and to his company because they know what they're doing and.

You'Ll get what you want a lot faster, which is a plan of action so that you can move forward.

Awesome.

I think this is really helpful for people, you know, to just kind of hear these stories. And, you know, not everybody relates to every story, but there's people pieces that you could pull out of it. So if you're listening to this, your story might not be exactly the same as Kelly's. Right. Maybe you're dealing with health issues longer. Maybe it hasn't been as long. Maybe you are. Or you're not working with a naturopath yet or an integrative doctor or functional doctor yet. Right.

But.

I'll tell you guys this. If there's some sort of thought process or knowledge or suspicion that there's an environmental water damage, mold, bacteria component, whatever it is, to whatever you're dealing with, the house, any doctor who knows what they're talking about is going to tell you have to fix the house. And by fix it means either actually fix it or fix your living situation by finding somewhere else that you're going to be able to go. So they're going to say, fix the exposure problem. Right. Because the exposure, it always wins. Even if you're on treatments. With the treatments, you might start feeling better for a little bit, and then you'll probably plateau and then eventually you'll come back down because the environment doesn't stop. It just keeps coming. And so that's the biggest thing that I, you know, that I would kind of tack on to that of like, if you're sitting on the fence and you're not sure if you want to go down the road. Yes, going down the road. Scary. It's not going to be incredibly Cheap. You know, there's. There might be work that has to be done in the house. You might be displaced for a little while while the work is happening. Like, it's not the easiest thing. It's not going to be the cheapest thing. But, you know, to Kelly's point, like. Like, if you're seeing a doctor, if you're running your own test, if you're doing these things, you're. You're not doing that for fun. You're doing it to try to figure out what's going on. And if any road points to environmental exposure, it has to get fixed. It has to get addressed. Otherwise, all that stuff is honestly a waste of money at that point. Once, you know, and then you don't do anything and you keep trying other, like, quick fixes with, like, diet and this and that and all these other things. At that point, you're just wasting time and money because it doesn't get fixed until the exposure gets fixed. So.

Yeah, well, and I would love to add on to that real quick, if you don't mind.

Yeah.

Just going through, you know, what I've gone through in the past two years or really, I guess, year and a half. You know, I can speak to that in terms of I did a mold protocol and saw no change. Right. Because what we were doing, the fogging, didn't. Didn't get the root of the cause. Right. Didn't remediate the way that we need to remediate our particular situation. And so I saw absolutely no change by doing binders and other supplements. I actually felt worse while doing the mold protocol. And so.

I think for me, at first, I was like, okay, well, we'll just maybe do these minor things on the side like the fogging, and then I'll do this mold protocol and then I'll be good to go. But that's not how it works. As you said, you have to treat the source, and once you can do that, then moving forward with a protocol, we'll be supportive. But until then, you know, you're just. You're spinning your wheels.

Yeah. It's something I've heard from all the docs that I talk to as well. Right. So listen, if we get nothing else out of this talk.

Get that piece of it, that if the goal is really to fix that and to get the health back and to do that, that root cause. Root causes become a phrase for a reason. Right. It's because there's something that's causing all this. And, you know, sometimes, like, when we think root cause, we think it's only inside the body, like the root causes of the body. Right. But ultimately that the. The initial cause in your body can still be stemming to something else that's triggering it. Right. So that's. It's just constantly peeling back and trying to figure out where the source is coming from. And then you start from there and start working step by step forward to start kind of clearing everything out, getting it to where it needs to be. So, yeah, I. I think that that will hopefully be something that will resonate with folks when they're listening to it, so. So, Kelly, thanks so much for chatting, for taking some time. Any final things that you'd want to say or you think we covered it all?

Yeah, I just, you know, I just want to thank you again for having me on, and I just want to just, you know, remind anyone who's listening who might be in the same boat that I am or, you know, on the fence in terms of moving forward with, you know, with going potentially with Brian's company. I would say do it because, like I said, you owe it to yourself, to your family, if your family's suffering as well. You owe it to all the people that are affected by the situation to figure out what's truly going on so that you all can start to feel better.

Awesome. Thanks, Kelly. I appreciate that. And I'm excited for us to get everything back to you and get you going down the next steps, the next path for you, too, so.

Awesome. Well, that'll wrap it up. So we'll, you know, we'll talk to everybody next time. See ya.

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