168: Finding Hope in Your Journey Through Mold

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, everybody, how we doing? You know, today is not so much a how to or a, you know, steps to do X, Y or Z kind of thing. A lot of. A lot of what I talk about is pretty tactical, but today I wanted to talk about something a little different. Just because I've been seeing a lot of activity on different social profiles through DMs. Different, like, just like a lot of different people, I've been seeing this vibe out there. And so I want to try to do something to help, help with that. And that is this. This idea around, you know, people just kind of needing some hope, needing some words of encouragement. You know, I know a lot of times through this mold journey, which includes figuring out that molds, even the issue that's causing you to be sick, to then trying to figure out how to find the issues in your house, and then trying to figure out how to handle all that, that could be something that takes a long time. Uh, you know, it could take you a few years sometimes to even get through that whole thing. And through that, there are times where you're feeling a little better, more confident that you're on the right track, like these types of things that'll be happening. And then there are times where, you know, it doesn't feel like that. It feels like you're taking steps backwards. It feels like there's no way to get out of this. It feels like, you know, you're doing all this and spending money on certain things, and it's never going to get better. And so, you know, a lot of times people hit these sort of valleys in that journey, and it's so important to continue to push through that valley, to get back up to the next peak and to kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel, right? When you get in these valleys, if you think of it like you're walking, you know, on a horizontal, you know, on land, right? Think of it like a 2D video game in your mind, right? And, like, either the hill goes up, and if you go up to the top of the hill, you could see more in front of you. You can see maybe the sunset in front of you, right? But then if the, if the hill goes down and you go below kind of ground level and you have a valley that you go into, your view is cut off completely because the next hill is blocking off the sunset that's in the few in the distance. Right? And that's where I feel like some of this goes. And so when you get up to the top of a peak, all of a sudden you see things, right? You're like, oh, I get it, I see this. It's working. And when you get into a valley, your vision is kind of cut off. It's very short term, it's very short sighted. It's very focused on the problems that you're seeing in your valley as opposed to getting to the top of a hill and seeing this expansive, you know, landscape in front of you that creates more of a positive feeling when something like that happens. And so what I thought I would do today is just share some stories of some people that I've worked with over the years. They're all different and I think that's kind of important with this. So like, you know, not everybody is the same. And, you know, I kind of hoping by sharing some of these stories that have really stuck with me that maybe you'll, you know, find something that could stick with you too. So that's what we're going to do. So throughout this episode, I'm going to talk about five different people and sort of what was going on and we'll get through it that way. So the first person I want to talk about is actually the very first person that told me that I saved their life when. And it was actually the very first client that I worked with after I had been, you know, training with my mentor, my father in law, Mark, and after I'd been with him for a while and I was, you know, in, in the field with him and I was kind of shadowing him and learning everything I could learn. There was a time when you said, okay, you're ready to go do this. I fully trust you to go do this on your own without me there, right. And so this was the very first client that I had after that, which I almost now think in retrospect was very, I don't know, the universe kind of putting this situation in front of me just to like really validate this investment that I had made in myself. And this thing that I thought was really important. And then my very first client was just like almost the epitome of the importance. And I think that kind of gave me that that drive even to now, like it's the first person I talk about right now when I bring this up. Okay, so this person's name was Nick. This was in la. So when I first started, I was, you know, in la, Right. So a lot of these are, are in that area, although there's a couple in, in some other areas. So Nick had a, a mold exposure about a decade before I started working with him. And he had SIRS as well. And so he had the genetic predisposition for that to cause a problem. And as a result, that kind of triggered just several ongoing chronic health issues that he had. Mcs, insomnia, anxiety, memory problems. When I say mcs, I mean multiple chemical sensitivity. So when I met Nick, he actually was wearing a mask at all times, except when he was in his, in his home, ideally. Right. And so I'd worked with him on a couple of properties.

And he was looking at this additional properties. So he was, he was so sensitive. So the mole had triggered a chemical sensitivity, which is a, which is a pretty common, like secondary trigger for health reactions. A chemical sensitivity. And so he couldn't go out in the world without wearing a mask because of the different chemicals that were around. It really affected him that poorly. This is way before COVID This is like when somebody wearing a mask around was like really weird. Right? Like that's what this was. And so anyways, that's kind of, that's kind of where he was. And he, he was a real estate investor and he was looking at this property in Marina Del Rey that was in like this tower. Marina Del Rey is a kind of a, a west, like a west side little area in la. It's like right on the marina, right on the ocean coast. Basically there's a marina off the coast. And so he was looking at this condo unit in this building and he was really wanting to buy this, this unit. He was going to live in it. But he also looked at it as an investment property. Like, so he had his reasons. He was like really, really invested in this thing. And so he had me coming and said, hey, Brian, I need you to come look at this place. Because, you know, I'm, I'm planning on living here. So if there's any problems, like I need to know what's going on. So go through the house. I will, I'll try to keep these stories, stories tighter. Cause I'm going to tell a few of them instead of telling every exact thing that happened throughout this inspection. But the summary of this is that there was no disclosures of water issues. There's nothing going on. There was no major problems that you could see anywhere. He wasn't able to spend a lot of time in the unit, so he wasn't able to feel how his body was going to react in the unit. And so he wanted me to come in and look at it. And as I'm looking around, I'm seeing, like, on most of the baseboards in the house, I'm seeing, like, bubbling in the paint at the very bottom of the baseboard for the baseboard meets the floor. And I'm looking around like, this is weird. Like, I'm still pretty early on. This was maybe the second or third place I did for him when I was out on my own. And it was all within a kind of the initial time period of working with him. So it was really, really early on when Mark kind of let me loose. And. And so I'm looking around, and I see this, like, little bubbling on the bottom of, like, all these baseboards in the house. It wasn't just one. It was, like, all over the place. And so in my mind, before I even say anything, I'm like, how could this have happened? Like, what happened here? I'm like. Like, either this place had a massive flood, or, like, the house cleaners are using, you know, liquid to clean all the floors, and they're just using a lot of it. Those are the two scenarios that I came up with of. Of what could explain kind of a widespread, minor water damage issue at the bottom of all these baseboards. And so I think a lot of people would've just assumed the cleaner thing, right? But I just, like. As I was doing it, I'm like, this is really weird. I go to Nick. I'm like, hey, Nick, man. I. I feel like there might have been a flood here. And he's, like, shocked, right? I'm like. And I show him all these things, you know, And. And then we asked the realtor, and she's like, oh, no, there's been nothing. Of course. Of course they're gonna say that right now. Did she say it on purpose? Who knows? I don't know. So we're like, okay. And then I tell Nick. I'm like, I still don't buy it, you know? And in a building like this, there's the maintenance manager, right? There's that person who's not involved in transactions. I was like, hey. Because he had another unit in a different building that was tied to the same company. I was like, hey, can you get the maintenance guy on the Phone. He's like, yeah, we, we go out in the hallway, we call the maintenance guy and I explain like the unit what's going on. And the maintenance guy's like, oh yeah. He's like that unit had an elderly man in it and he turned on the tub for a bath and then forgot that he turned it on and it basically flooded a huge chunk of the unit. And it was actually really crazy. And so, you know, at that point, basically I'm like, hey, you shouldn't be in this unit. I'll kind of end the story there. This is one example of one place that I looked at for him. We also looked at a couple of other places, you know, his place he was living initially and then he kind of did some things. The point of this story is, you know, Nick was so sensitive that he wasn't able to kind of function in everyday life. Right? And I mean, imagine that for yourself. Imagine that like you can't walk out of your house without a mask on because if you catch a whiff of somebody's hair product or their deodorant or their perfume, or the air freshener that's in the grocery store or all of the other the off, gassing from your chairs, in your car, like just anything, it all was triggering for him. And over time, you know, cuz he was, you know, he was in a pretty bad way with that. If you think of that as like your everyday problem, right? That was his pain that he was trying to figure out. And it got so much better over time. And you know, we looked at the first place he was living in, we looked at the secondary place, we looked at his office, we looked at different things and we were able to figure out what was happening in these different places. And he was able to make conscious changes on either leaving a place or fixing a few things in terms of remediation or adding air filtration units in certain places to help counteract what was going on. And the process allowed him to be able to live a bit more of a normal life. You know, wasn't a hundred percent cured by the time that I, you know, kind of got through looking at all of his places with him. But the improvement over the several months that I had been working with him was like very noticeable and.

To the point where, I mean, he literally sent me Christmas gifts for the next five years. Like that was the impact that we had on his life in about a six month timeframe of going through the areas where he spent the most time and making like targeted changes, slash avoiding Big problems like this place that he was gonna get himself into that would have set him back a long way. And so I want to share this particular story because this is a long, ongoing, chronic thing that manifested in like multiple symptoms that was very, very easily triggered. And all of that within a six month time span had a really significant reduction. Right? And so this, this is kind of what I want to do with a couple of these stories is sort of explain like, yes, there you, you aren't in this spot forever, right? There are going to be checkpoints along the way, there's going to be improvement along the way. And each improvement is like getting to of that peak that we talked about. And every time you get to the top of a peak, you can see a little more of the beautiful view and the sunset in the distance and all of that stuff. And then that gives you more hope and that fuels your motivation, right? And in doing that, that then gives you the strength to continue to push on and continue to make the steps and the changes and the things that you need to do in order to continually hitting higher and higher peaks. And that's what Nick was able to do, right? So this was, this was one of the most sensitive people that I ever worked with. And within a six month timeframe that level of sensitivity really decreased significantly. So I wanted to share his story as one, to start this off, just also because of what it meant to me at the beginning of my, my time and, and you know, how I felt and, and, and sort of, I think what shaped my desire to be doing this long term. So the next person I want to talk about is Jessica. So Jessica is literally one of my favorite clients I've ever had. Um, she also had s. She had Lyme disease and she had brain cancer. Um, very, very severe situation, right? I'm giving you guys like some severe situations so you can see like what can happen, right? Cuz if you could sit here and say to yourself, well, I don't have brain cancer. And this person ended up getting better. Like this is very cool, right? And so symptom wise for her, her vision was compromised, her brain was swollen, she had high levels of mycotoxins in her body. Like this is sort of where she had a home in Orange county.

And we went, you know, to her space and found a lot of things in her home, right? And so what she did is that she did like a phased in approach on how she did remediation in her space. So basically I helped her kind of prioritize the areas that were most Significant, which is a method we still use today. Now I call it internally our RPM method, which is our remediation, prior priority method. Um, and it really takes into account a couple of things. It takes into account the individual, it takes kind of what the, you know, their, the severity of their health issues, what their goals are. Um, and then it also looks at the information from the house that we get from the inspection, the testing, and we kind of like, you know, overlay that on top of each other to really pinpoint the areas that we think somebody should be addressing first and the benefit that that has. Just to add a little more hope onto the hope train here, which is off of the Jessica thing. But a big part of this a lot of time is financial, where your, your hope and your motivation is driven because of this burden of, you know, this financial burden that someone might be feeling is either coming or has already came. And there's a big stress around that. By overlaying the RPM on top of this, we're able to really help somebody target like what they should be remediating in their house to get the most value out of the least amount of dollar of spend to ultimately reduce their exposure as significantly as possible based on that. So in other words, think of like the 8020 concept, right? In the 8020 concept, you focus on the few areas that are bulk of your problem and you reduce that exposure by 80%. And if you do that, you're not remediating everything, you're remediating a small portion of things, but you're reducing the highest exposure concentrations from those things. And you're able to get the benefit now without having to spend all the money to remediate an entire house. Right? And so that's what the RPM is. That's part of what we include in every report that goes out has an actual like RPM document that comes with it. That's like the COVID letter of the whole thing and helps guide that. And just to wrap that up before I get back to Jessica, most of our clients, just so you guys know, to kind of, you know, help with this financial, you know, anxiety that comes. Most of our clients don't remediate every single thing that we find. We find stuff. Like our job is to go in and literally find everything that's humanly possible, or at least that's what we strive for. And you know, we might find 20 things in a house. It doesn't mean that every client that we have remediates 20 things in their house. It means now that we know what all the Things are, we can now prioritize them. We can tell you, hey, focus on these three or four things. And we think if you do that, you're going to reduce your exposure by more than half or whatever it's going to be. And you could see a benefit there. And so that's kind of what we did with Jessica. Going back to Jessica. So we kind of broke it out that way with her. And then she kind of did things in phases. And so what was cool about this process for her is that she was really targeted with her spend. She wasn't overspending on things that she didn't necessarily need to address. She was going to the areas that were the worst of the worst, starting there and then working her way down. And you know, it took a little time cause she phased it out, right? Like the, the, the benefit doing everything at once is you get it done faster, right. And you know, you're getting everything. The downside is it's way more expensive, right. So what she did is that we did kind of a phased approach on the remediation plan with her. A big piece of the issue with her was her H vac systems. They were loaded with mycotoxins, there was mold in them. Um, so that was a big piece of what got handled at the top. And then we also focused on her bedroom bathroom area. Cuz that's where she spends a lot of time. So her first phase in was H vac systems and her bathroom. Her bathroom ended up being fully gutted. Uh, by the end of it. There's a lot going on. The vanity cabinets, the shower, the tub, like all these things had issues going on in there. Um, and so that was a big thing. So you think about where she's sleeping and where she's spending, you know, eight to 10 hours of her day. It's basically in her bedroom where her bathroom was connected and then there's an air conditioning vent that blows in that room. Right. So you talk about 80, 20 concept like that is a big chunk of your exposure over the course of a day, right. If you're in there for eight to 10 hours, there's literally one third of your day is spent in there. But then the rest of it is your H vac system also supplies other areas of your home. So then you start increasing the percentage of your exposure when you address your H vac system along with one or two key areas in the house if you need to do it that way. And so, you know, that's what we ended up doing with her and her Improvement again was amazing. Right now what she did is that she had significant kind of improvement milestones. And then she was like, okay, I'm gonna do more now, because I don't want this to then re trigger some things that were going on. So, like, when you're dealing with, like, SIRS and Lyme, for example, like, it's a slippery slope. You get a mold hit, and then, you know, your immune immunity goes down a little bit, and then the Lyme disease starts to kind of, like, manifest up again. Right. And so it's like this balance of trying to do that. She didn't want to have that come back and hit her again. So what she was doing was, I'm going to reduce my first layer of symptoms. I'm going to start feeling better, I'm going to kind of recalibrate, I'm going to see how I'm doing. And I love this approach with her because she wasn't in a rush. She did a particular element. She basically followed every single thing we asked her to do, and she did it. She trusted it. She waited a period of time. She started noticing she was feeling better. Her symptoms started going away. Her brain swelling all started going away. Her vision was getting better. She actually went into remission on the brain cancer component, which was obviously tied, you know, to the brain swelling and stuff. Right. And so at the end, a lot of the initial primary symptoms started going down. She still had mycotoxins in her body. Mycotoxins are carcinogenic. They can create cancer. Right. And so very important for her that that isn't a thing. She just was battling cancer. Right. So it was a high priority for her. And so we continued to then chip away at other areas that had the mold types that could produce different toxins and stuff. We got really targeted with what we did. And over time, her, you know, her. Her improvement was incredible. We became really friendly afterwards. And, you know, she was so happy. And, you know, you think of somebody that's starting not only with SIRS and Lyme, which maybe some of you have that combination, maybe some of you are one or the other, but throw a layer of cancer on top of that and imagine, like, where your starting point is, like, how deep is that valley that that person is in at that point in time. And the journey that she made out was very, very inspiring. Right. And so I just wanted to share, like, her story with you guys as well, because, you know, it's. It's these types of, like, they stuck with me. Jessica stuck with me. Nick stuck with Me. There's other people that have stuck with me over time that were like some of these more severe cases where people are just like, I don't know, like, my life is going to be this forever or I might die, slash, because I have brain cancer. Like, I mean, this is like the depths of where some of these people are in terms of their quality of life and what their future prospects look like. And being able to see the turnaround by addressing the environment in the way that we can understanding the impact that that had on their issues in their body. These are the things that keep me, like, keep me going when I'm doing this. Right. And is the motivation behind building what has turned into We Inspect? Right. At the time I was working with Jessica and Nick, you know, We Inspect didn't exist. I was working, you know, with my father in law at his company. We were just a couple people. We're going out, kind of doing our thing and yes, we were helping people and these are examples of that. But like, I always wanted to have like a more mass impact on what was going on. And that was like a big driving factor behind, you know, behind the creation of We Inspect. And so taking all of these things that we've learned, the processes, the philosophies, the strategies, like all that stuff, and being able to create systems and process around that across an entire company that can then be deployed across hundreds of clients over the course of months is pretty, pretty amazing. And, and yeah, so this is just a quick little short. Those are two examples of some people. I hope that that's helpful for you guys who are kind of in that headspace right now where you're sort of losing hope and you're like, what am I doing here? Is there any way out of this? I have so many other examples. I have a, a couple that moved out of their house and was living in their backyard and camping in their backyard because they couldn't live in their house. And then bam, at the end they're living in their house and everything is fine. I have another kid who was a nine year old that ended up in a wheelchair on a feeding tube because he had mold issues in his house. And then nine months later, all of a sudden he was healthy again, playing youth sports. I have another little girl that had basically like inflammation in her brain that was described by the neuroquant analyst as volcanoes going off in her br. Brain where people were not able to find the problem. And then ultimately we came in and found the problem that was literally right above her bed. That apparently, nobody thought to look like. It's crazy. There's so many. There's so many stories here of people that get better. And it starts with an understanding that it all doesn't happen at once. Right. We kind of have to wrap our head around that and then understanding that, like, you need the right people around you to help guide you to that point. Right. And I think, you know, some of the stories that I've had historically I've shared with you guys is, you know, I wasn't the first inspector for Nick. I wasn't the first inspector for Jessica. I definitely was not the first person that went in with the boy in the wheelchair or the girl with the volcano brain. Like. Like, we were not the first people to come in, but once we got in, that's where the hope kicks in. Right? It's like, I just need to get somebody who knows this in the way that is contextually relevant to me. Right. It's like the same as, like, if you're looking for a doctor or a surgeon, you don't just, like, settle for whoever happens to be where you live. If it's your kid who has some incredibly severe thing, your hope and your goal is to go find the best doctor or best surgeon at fixing that particular thing that you or your child is dealing with. Right. And now we have the ability to do that because. Welcome to 2024 with the Internet and with apps on your. All the things there's no need now to have to be stuck to, like your current Yelp profile in the city that you live in, in Iowa or Oklahoma or wherever you are. Right. It is now open. And we at. We inspect, which is a big part of why we wanted to make sure that we structurally built the business out with the footprint the way that we did. Can be anywhere in the country in a very short period of time, and you get the same level of, you know, consulting and eyes on what's going on and the same philosophies that I came up with. All of that stuff is just standard procedure now for us, and it makes it accessible to a lot of people. So, anyways, I hope that this was helpful for anybody who's in that headspace. If you like this, if this helped you at all, would love. You know, I don't do advertisements on this pod. I never have. I just want everyone, you know, to. To kind of get the tools and information they need to make the right decisions to start being healthier. So, you know, if nothing else, if you could take, you know, 10 seconds to do click the little five star review thing if you're not subscribed to the pod. Just if you could do that a little. Any of those things are super helpful to allow other people to see this and hear these types of messages and kind of give them the support they need. So thanks everyone, till next time. We'll talk to you later.

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