16: Q&A Day - Mold in Cars / Remediation Topics

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, guys. So today is Q A Day. Yesterday, if you didn't see on my Instagram, I posted a story asking for questions that I would be answering today. And I might even tap into some of these in another episode this week, too. I got a bunch of submissions, and so I spent the morning trying to go through them and see which ones I thought would kind of be more relatable to more people. So that's how I'm going to go through these and we're just going to dive into this stuff. So number one is from C. Wickhouse, who is actually one of my clients, and we helped her out with her place and very cool that she's still looking at stuff. So.

Her question is, how can a vehicle be cleaned if mold is suspected from cross contamination? There's no visible mold. Okay. So this is pretty common if you think about it. You know, a lot of us are so worried about cross contamination when we think about our stuff, right? And we're worried about, can I clean this? Can I take this? You know, should I get rid of this, whatever it is. We're always kind of thinking about the next house, like, can I bring one place into the. Or one thing into the next house. But the car is where all that stuff goes into in order to transport in the first place. Right. So a lot of times cars get cross contaminated. The other thing is that, you know, we live in a toxic world. It's the truth of it. You know, you walk into the grocery store, you walk into a restaurant, you walk into the gas station, there's most likely going to be mold problems in those buildings. Next time you guys walk in a grocery store, walk in and just put your head straight up and just look at the ceiling and you're going to see a lot of black stuff coming out of air conditioning vents and you're going to see probably water damage on some of the ceiling tiles. It's just something that happens. And if you do that and you do that from now on, I'm really sorry that I. That I told you to do that, but it's really just to illustrate the point that it's not just our homes, right. It's everywhere. And so cars are going to get the brunt of that. You know, every time we go in somewhere, we're going to bring something back. So. So it's not uncommon being on top of your car and your cleanliness and your maintenance is a big part of it. Now the challenge with cars, the things that's difficult, is that these particles will wedge into the fibers of the carpeting. And if you have fabric seats, they'll kind of get into there too. That's the tough part. Perfect world, we have a car with leather seats and it kind of limits some of the cushion problem that, that, you know, is going to exist with particles getting in there. But regardless, you know, I, I rarely tell people they have to throw their car out. Right. If we're really concerned about it, we can actually test the car. We could do an ermie in a car. We could do mycotoxin testing, we could do endotoxin testing in a car. And I've done it a lot because the houses that these people were in were in really bad shape. And so that was a concern.

However, if we're just kind of talking like basics, you know, how do we clean a car? Well, the first thing, like I said, is the, is the carpeting and the fabric in there. And so, you know, the best thing that we can do with that is a really, like, really deep detailing of the car. Okay. So this is going to be a quick like 101 on how particles travel and how they impact us. So basically what happens is that these particles get constantly redispersed up into the air, into our breathing zone from just our normal activity, whether it's in a house, just walking around, sitting on a couch, whatever, or in a car, which is sitting in the car, opening the doors, you know, putting stuff in the trunk, like all that stuff. So that's going to basically create these like little explosions that pop particles up into the air, and then that's how we can breathe them in. So if we know that that's going to happen, then what we want to try to do is limit the amount of dirt and particle that's in the car. See, the particles attach to the dirt and the dust that's in the car, and that's part of how they move around. So if we can continuously be cleaning that and get rid of those reservoirs where they create or where they congregate, then we're going to start to help to limit to our exposure. So that's one thing. So the very first thing I would say is really good detailing of the car, right. Take it in somewhere. They're going to clean this thing like crazy. You want to be able, when you get in the car to like, wipe your finger across stuff. And there's no dirt or dust anywhere. Okay? So that's one thing.

Okay. So the next thing to consider is what's going on with the air conditioning system, right? So the same in houses, air conditioning systems can become compromised in your car. And so one thing is one, the air filters that you have, swap those out, right? So you have an air filter for your car. You want to get those swapped out. You can actually buy HEPA filters for your car.

I did a search actually for mine a while back on. It wasn't on Amazon. I was just doing like a regular search. I was looking for HEPA filters, and they're out there, right? And so you can find them. So I would swap out your regular filter. I would replace that with a HEPA filter. That's one thing I would do. Just kind of moving forward. And then you can actually take your car into the dealership and they can clean the coils and the duct runs of the air conditioning system. So this just like in your house, there's a. There's a cooling coil that the air goes by. And you know, that same thing is going to have the ability to, you know, it creates moisture. So there could be issues that accumulate in the cleaning coil or in the. Excuse me, in the cooling coil as well. So you could actually take that in. They could clean the coil for you. And then your ducts that run into your car, they're solid duct lines, right. They're not flex duct or anything like in a house. So they could actually go up in there and clean up in there, too. So now you're kind of addressing your air conditioning system. You're addressing the floor and the carpeting and all that other stuff. The only other thing that you could really do that you could consider is that you could actually do a fogging in your car. Now, again, the point of the fogging isn't to kill everything, right? Because a lot of the particle that's there isn't even like living stuff. It's just particle that's in there. But the fogging brings.

Excuse me. It brings the particles down to the surface, and then you can wipe it away, Right? Right. So, you know, it really kind of depends on the order and how you want to do this. Just keep in mind, if you fog something and the particles are bringing down onto fabric, they're going to get into the fabric again and you're not going to be able to wipe them away. So you could either fog first, get everything to settle down into the fabric and then take it in and get, and get detailed like right away and try to catch as much of it while it's still down as you can. Or you could clean it first and then kind of line the car with plastic sheets feeding like the floors and, you know, the seats and kind of all these places and fog it afterwards. And then you'd be wiping the plastic when you were done after the fogging happened. It's gonna be hard to kind of COVID everything with plastic in the car if you're going to do it that way. But it's up to you on, on, on how you go about doing that. But that's basically it. It's, it's kind of stay on top of the cleanliness of the car, you know, get it detailed regularly. You could go take the car and get the H vac or the, excuse me, the air conditioning stuff cleaned. The ductwork, the coils. You can swap out your filter for HEPA filter. And then the last thing that I have done in my car, I actually got the IQ Air makes a car filter that you can attach mine attaches to the back of my headrest on the driver's side. And it's a filter that filters down to 0.007 size particle, which if you listen back to a few episodes before where I talk about our treatment technology, that is, you know, the goal of where we're trying to get to actually this one might filter to 0.003. I forget off the top of my head, but either way it filters down really low. And so I run this whenever I'm in the car. And so now I'm getting kind of a filtration piece right by my head that is pulling a lot of that stuff out. And then it actually sends out, I believe, air, like clean air kind of to the driver's breathing zone too. So, like the air that it cleaned, it kind of pops into your area too. So that's, that's a cool option too. So, yeah, hopefully all that makes some sense for you. Thanks so much for the question.

All right, so the next question here is from Diller crew. The question is we remediated the main floor and the basement of our house. Do we have to do the attic too?

This is a very like, general question because I don't really know everything that's going on. Well, let's just talk General, you know, kind of airflow and how stuff moves through the house. Your airflow is going to move bottom to top. So in your house you have a basement. So that's where the, the airflow is going to start. If you have problems down there, what happens is that the air pushes that upward, right? And then that gets into the main floor and then ultimately it can get into the attic as well.

The second thing is you did the main floor too. Hopefully you got all the sources when you're, when we're talking about doing this remediation. So hopefully you figured out where all the actual hidden mold sources were and you got all that figured out. Here's the deal with the attic. So the attic is filled with exposed insulation. And so what happens is as the airflow moves up into the attic, it's going to kind of circulate and come back down and you create this almost kind of like wheel, the circular flow of air. That happens a lot. And so the particles that are in the house are going to move up there and then they oftentimes they settle in the insulation. And in those cases, it's not even that you're going to see like mold growing in the insulation, because that's not always the case, because again, these particles are not actual mold growth. It's just the, excuse me, it's just the byproducts of the colonies that have broken off. So. So there is the possibility that there might still be an accumulation of contamination up there in the insulation. The other thing is, oftentimes there is mold that is growing on the framing and the decking and the joists and everything up in the attic too. So that's important too. And I don't know if that's going on. If that is happening up there, then the attic absolutely should be part of the plan. One way that you can help decide if it's something that you feel like you need to do is that you could do an ERMI test in the house, and then you could do a separate URMI test in the attic, and then you can compare the two. And if you look at both of them and the attic is much worse than what the main house is, then it's telling you that there's an accumulation that's happened up there because basically the cleaning that you would have done would have handled the main space in the basement. So you kind of be looking almost at like a pony post remediation ERMI test for that point of view. But when you do the one in the attic, since you didn't touch it, you're going to take a look at that. And if that looks significantly off, then you know that this particle is settling down into the insulation up there. So real quick question, like, how do you. How do you collect an ermie in an attic? Right? Because, you know, it's not something that you. That's really shown how to do. Basically, it's the same thing as dust collection. You do not want to get a lot of wood shavings or anything like that on the. On the Swiffer pad. Doing that is going to actually cause a problem in the analysis of the ermi. So you have to avoid that. It messes with, like, the chemical compounds. So really, you really just need to try to find areas that have dirt and not get a whole bunch of, like, wood fragments and shaves and stuff on there. If your ductwork runs through your attic is the perfect, perfect place to collect an ermie in the attic, because you get dust and dirt that settles on top of the duct lines. So all you do is go up there and wipe on top of the duct lines. If you have a mechanical air conditioning unit up there, you could actually wipe the top of the air handler units because it's a horizontal space where dust is going to settle. Right. Horizontal spaces are the best place to go. You could look at some of the joists and the beams that are sitting up higher, and hopefully they don't have a lot of wood shavings on them. You could try to get that stuff, too, too. Also, drywall dust is going to mess up ermine samples, too. So if you're up in the attic and there's been, like, work up there, and there's drywall dust, like that white powdery stuff up there, that's going to mess with the results too. So you want to try to avoid that. But, you know, it's a relatively inexpensive way for you to get a feel of what the attic looks like. So instead of, you know, me guessing, I would tell you to maybe do that, Compare the living space to the attic, see what it looks like. And if you see that it's not in great shape than and is significantly worse than the living space, then I would look into remediating the attic. Yeah.

All right, so the next one that we have here is from Choosing More with Nicole. And the question is, we found dry mold under our flooring, sprayed it with a mold killer, and then painted it with kills. Is that good? I will tell you that that's not at all how we recommend to do it. Again, I'm not going to tell you if it worked or not because I can't, I can't see it. Right. So I don't really know what's going on. But here's the deal. When mold dries out, it's not that it's less of a problem. A lot of times, it's actually more of a problem because it spreads around more easily. So just the fact that it was dry doesn't mean that it's not something that needs to be handled the way that a regular mold situation would need to be handled. That said, spraying mold with a mole killer is not going to get rid of the mold, right? I know we have this idea that if you kill something, it's no longer there, right. If it's person gets killed, they're like you bury them or whatever they're under. They're no longer here, Right. That's kind of like, I think, what we think when we hear kill, but think of it more like killing a weed. Right? So if you spray a weed with weed killer, the weed doesn't disappear. It just lays there. And it's dead now. Right. But it's there and it's not going anywhere. So when mole colonies are dried out or when they're dead, it's kind of the same, the same thing. The, the particle that was created from like that, they can break that. Excuse me. The particle that can break off of those colonies and still move around is still there, right. It's, it's not like this thing that just disintegrates it and turns it into water vapor or something like the, the issue is still there. And so the, the key thing about remediation is source removal, right? So even if you're not removing the flooring, you may not have to remove the subfloor, right? It might, it might not be to that point, but you really do need to sand and wire brush the mold growth out of the subfloor and get all of that stuff out and have a vacuum it and wipe it. There's a lot of other things that go with that. So I don't want you to do exactly that because there's containment issues and things. You know, you have to make sure that you do. But.

It'S important that you're removing the actual source of the growth. So just by spraying it, you're not really doing that. And then painting it with kills, which I believe is a, is an encapsulate type of paint.

I mean, that kind of covers it a little bit, right? But you know, those paints don't last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Okay. Like, I, I really want to, like, hone that in because, because we think that about so many things. We're like, oh, we're going to do this once and it's going to last forever. Right. But it's not true. Like, like there. There's maintenance that needs to be done. There's products that start to deteriorate over time. It just happens, you know, and so by just spraying an encapsulate over something without actually removing the source that's under it first over time. And I'm not gonna tell you when because I don't know when. Right. But over time, it's. It's gonna start kind of deteriorating and there's gonna be, you know, ways for some of the stuff that's behind these encapsulates to break out. You know, it's kind of similar for, like with a grout in a. In a shower. Now, obviously, water is deteriorating that. That grout at a faster rate, but when you grout something, it doesn't stay sealed forever, you know, it starts to deteriorate and break apart. And then you can actually see mold growing in the grout of a shower. And it's because there's these, like, little pinholes, breaches that have been created from the deteriorating. And so, you know, I. The safest, the best way is always source removal. Yes. You can try to, you know, spray stuff on things and maybe it'll be suitable for you. And if it is, that's great. It's just not the way that we do it. It's not the way that we found success in terms of post testing and making sure that everything comes back clear. So I would look into, you know, having this done, you know, depending on how far down the road you are, if you've laid floor on top of it already, then maybe you're not going to. But, you know, if there was like a significant amount of mole growth that was there, it really does need to be handled the right way. And this type of thing, this isn't something that's kind of like, you know, out of left field. And, you know, Brian is super extreme because he only works with sensitive people. And all this stuff, I mean, this is like in the actual, like, industry guidebook. So this is. This is like the mainstream stuff. Right. If there is a mold source somewhere, and here's the thing is that, and I won't get too technical on the lingo and stuff, but if there's dry mold somewhere, it's actually called a condition two mold condition. There's three conditions and mold conditions, 1, 2, 3. One is normal, three is an active growth that's happening. Two is basically a growth that is the result of similar active growth or a contamination that is the result of previously active growth. That's what a 2 is. If you have dry mold, it's the result of a previously active growth. That's why it's there. It's dry. It's not active right now, but it's a problem. The books, the IICRCS 520, which is the kind of the remediation standard that everybody uses, specifically says everything needs to be returned to condition one. Right. Condition two needs to be brought back to one. Condition three needs to be brought back to one. And so by actually removing the growth and remediating it properly, that's how you bring it back to one. So this isn't just something that I'm kind of throwing out there as the. The guy who sometimes is overboard and only works with really sick people. It is partially that, but it is also just. I mean, this is literally the industry standard for this stuff. So anyways, I hope that information was helpful for you. Thank you so much for submitting that question.

All right, so last one that I want to do on the question front today is actually an accumulation of a lot of questions. I got a bunch of questions on how to actually remove mold from your body. Right on the. On like the clinical medical side of stuff. So, you know, guys, I'm not a doctor, and so to be honest with you, the real answer is I don't know. I know some of the basics that I'm doing. I know some of the things that I hear, but ultimately, like, I'm not the expert in that world, and I'm not really gonna pretend that I am. And hopefully you guys understand that what I will tell you what I'm doing for myself, and then I'll tell you somewhere that I think maybe you can look at. So for me, I have three mycotoxins in my body.

And I have otratoxin, a mycophenolic acid, and citronin. So that's what I have going on with myself. And it's just from me doing what I do every day and being in all these houses. And so I work with a. With a functional doctor locally, and she's got me on a pretty big plan.

First. So the highlights. So I'm doing a. I do a binder every day. It's like a charcoal slash, like bentonite clay kind of binder. I Do glutathione. I do phosphatidylcholine. I have a couple herbal supplements that she provides me as well in like, the form of, like, droppers, so that I would drop them into liquid and then drink them. So I have a couple of those that I'm doing. In addition to that, outside of the supplement and kind of internal stuff I'm doing, I also do infrared sauna. I'm currently, again, standing in front of my red light therapy machine. I do whole body vibration. So. So I try to do a good amount of stuff to kind of stay on top of it. So one piece of it is what you're doing.

Is the avoidance, right. And staying away from the issue. The other thing is how are you basically trying to get your body to detox better? Right? And that's. So that's a lot of what I'm doing, what I would tell you because truthfully, guys, I don't know that much about it, right? I know enough from some conversations, but the reality is that I'm not really the person to be asking. So one awesome resource that has a lot of good info in it is from Dr. Jill Christa. She wrote a book called Break the Mold. It's an awesome, awesome book. It talks about kind of start to finish, like why it's happening, what the symptoms look like, things you could do to help treat yourself. So I would read that book for. For sure. There's another book by Neil Nathan called Toxic. That's another good book that you can read. I would look into some of those.

And then, you know, another book that I actually like which isn't mold specific, but it's. It's a lot about kind of getting your body working the right way. And detoxing is a big part of that is Superhuman from Dave Asprey. That's actually where I found out about the red light devices and the whole body vibration and some of these other things. So there's like a lot of cool stuff in there. He even talks about different types of ozone drips that you could do in IVs. He talks about a lot of stuff in there. It's pretty interesting. So I enjoyed that book too. Not mold specific, but still a good, just kind of overall wellness book. And then all that said, I would definitely be seeking out a functional. A functional medicine doctor in your area. Right. Those are the people that you need to guide you because they're gonna be running certain types of tests. Everybody. Every person's body is completely different. So what's working for me Might not work for you. So, for example, the very first time I started taking phosphatidylcholine.

I got super sick for, like, three days afterwards. And it was because I had a pretty big load. I learned afterwards, and I took too much of it, and it caused me to detox too fast. And then it was kind of floating around in my system, and I got really sick. Right now I'm fine. I can take it consistently, and it's not a problem. Problem. But there are people that can't even take a binder, right? I've heard. I've heard stories from clients that they can't even take charcoal because it's too much for them, right? So what you do really has to be honed in for your body specifically, right? It's like this custom plan that's created for you. And there's no way that any Facebook group or any podcast or anybody who's not actually doing your own clinical testing and looking at your body is really going to be able to do that. So I caution you from taking advice from people, people in Facebook groups, because I see it all the time. You know, what are you using for this? What happens for this? You know, you may have a reaction to it, right? Because you just don't know. So educate yourself as much as you can. So those books that I mentioned would be a great start. And then try to get in with a functional medicine doctor in your area and see what they think when they run all the tests, right? And then they can give you a plan that's more specific. So I hope that helps you out.

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