54: Q&A - How to prove mold is in your home / Does staining mean mold? / Contaminated mattresses

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. So, like I promised, we're doing more Q and A's. I'm still going through the same. The same comment thread that I had put out earlier in the week. I know it's Saturday. I really wanted to get stuff done, another one of these done for you during the actual week. But I'm working super, super hard on getting a new training program ready for you guys. And I got a deadline I gotta hit, so I'm working on it. And that means that the weekend is time to put out another episode for you. So the first question is gonna be from. I think this is Angel Lucente. You know, it'd be so much easier if I. If I was getting questions in a way where it was just actually your name instead of an Instagram handle with like weird underscores and words getting next to each other. But anyways, hopefully that was close. All right, so here's the question.

We have an ERMI result of 25. Some don't believe in this test. Is there another way to prove existence of mold in a house? And is there a test to prove the mold is affecting our bodies? This is a really good question. There's a few things on this. So one, just because people don't believe the test doesn't mean that it's not a real thing, right? It's interesting because when. So a little background on ermi and I won't get too deep into it because Corey and I break it down a lot. And in episode 44, when we really dive into Ermi. But initially, Ermi it is. It was a study that was done by the EPA. It was done across 1100 homes across the country. They were trying to create some score to scoring system that you can compare your house to. The problem is that light bulb, most houses have mold problems. And all of a sudden the results in all these tests are bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And so the EPA had to backstep on on it. And so then they came out and said, well, this test is only for research purposes and that's it. Like, it shouldn't be used to make determinations or decisions or something. And this is a question that gets posed to us in court all the time when we're expert witnessing. Because the other side will take that statement from the EPA and basically throw it in our face and say that this test doesn't mean anything. And I have a couple answers. One, isn't every test you do for anything for research purposes? Like, of course it's for research purposes. So is any other test you do on your body or any other test you do in the house. It's for research purposes. Like, we get that. So cool. They went out and they tried to cover themselves with that doesn't mean anything. The second thing is the score you mentioned, your score is 25. Listen, it's probably bad if it's a 25, but the reality is, is that the scoring system is not the true strength of the test. It's the number of molds that are getting picked up and the levels of each of those molds. But a really quick way. And again, listen Back to episode 44. We totally break down how we go through an entire ermi result. All right, so it's like a much more deep dive, but it's how many mold types are there? Right? So when you're talking about. Can you.

Let me reread what you had here? People don't believe. Is there a way to prove that the mold is affecting our own bodies? Well, this is what. I actually just mentioned this previously too on the Doing it different podcast, which is actually getting released on October 13, I heard, which is this upcoming Tuesday. So if you haven't checked that podcast out, go listen to it. But I have actually do two episodes with Carly on this podcast. One is coming out October 13th. The other one is going to be in mid November where we do an hour long Q and A because she got so many questions from all of her followers after the start of our. After the first conversation that we had. So anyways, with this, I talked about this concept. We use it in court, right, when we're trying to prepare a sampling strategy when we know there's going to be a legal issue. But it's the same thing if you're dealing with your landlord or whatever. You have to prove that not only is there a mole problem in your house, but that it is. And when I say in your house, I mean actually like growing in your house. Like the source of it is in your house. Not that you open the windows and it came in from the outside, but the source of the growth is from inside. So that's step one. Step two is to then show that that source that is hidden most times has actually worked its way into the living spaces where you're breathing it in. And then step three is to show that the mold that's in the home is actually impacting your body. Those are the three steps. So I call it cause, effect, effect. That's, that's the flow. So you know the, the types of tests that you do to prove there's existence of mold in a house. Right. I would be okay with you doing an ERMI to show that there's something going on, but the reality is the ERMI doesn't show where it's coming from. And so if you're trying to prove that the ERMI is not going to do the trick, you have to find where the problem is. This is where a thorough inspection comes into play. And the types of testing that you do are very targeted. Source level testing. This isn't an air test in the middle of a room. Right. This is if there's water damage or staining on a wall, you actually do what's called a wall cavity sample. You put a little hole in the wall. It's about the size of a Sharpie pen. Stick a tube through the hole, connect it to an air sampling pump, and you're taking air from behind the wall where the water damage is. Right. You're identifying the hidden source of where the problem is. Or if there's something visual that looks suspect, like it could be mold growth, and you could do a surface test of that. And again, you're identifying source location. So that's the first piece. That's cause. The second effect is what you did. And ERMI is going to show that. Right. It's going to show what's moving through the house. And then you could also start looking at correlations between the sources and the ermi. Right. So if in the sources you're finding high levels of Aspergillus and penicillium, and then in the ERMI test you have multiple species of Aspergillus or Penicillium. Well, hello, there's a correlation there. Right. So now you're connecting the dots. Right. And then the third piece is how you prove that it's affecting you. And you know, I know very little about this. I'm not a doctor, obviously. I would actually refer you to go check out everything that Dr. Jill Christa is putting together. She has a membership program that she just launched, I think like a week ago that has forums for people that are going through all this stuff she does live Q and A'S it's really, you're getting direct access to like one of the best, you know, one of the best mold practitioners that there are out there. And you're doing it in a way where you could also interact with others that are going through the same thing. And she's giving you a wealth of information. So what I would recommend is go check out that program, get into it, into her membership group and you know, that private group, and then you can ask these types of questions about the health sides that they things. Right? Because I think, I think you're gonna be able to get a lot of answers in there because that's what the whole thing is geared for. Right? But a couple, like one, one thing I know for sure, or a couple things I know for sure that have been done, there is a urine test that you can do for mycotoxins to see if mold toxins are in your body. So that's something that you can do. There's, you know, there's kind of pros and cons with that because as I learned from Dr. Christa, that if your body is accumulating too many toxins and your body hasn't actually switched to detoxing, then it's possible that you might not even show mycotoxins in your urine, even though they're all soaked up in your fat stores, because your body just can't get any of them out to process. Which is a really interesting concept. Again, why you should check out this membership group. There's so much great information in there. Another type of test that we were just talking about, Corey and I presented along with Dr. Christa in the Washington association of Naturopathic Physicians Annual conference. It just happened a couple days ago. We had a three hour mold section that the three of us did together. And one of the things I learned in that was a little bit more about the neuroquant, which is an MRI basically of your brain. But apparently, and I'm just taking this from what I heard in the program, apparently there's been some success in using that information in legal cases to help prove that there's been impact for mold to the body of the occupant in there. So it's a very long winded answer, but I hope that you find some of that helpful. So about the ermi, go back, listen to episode 44. You'll get more broken down on that about proving that there's mold in the home. You really have to understand, you know, you have to have an inspection and figure it out. Spoiler alert. The program that I'm working on is actually going to teach you exactly how to look through your house, where to look for it, and what to look for. It's basically as if I'm walking through your house with you. So I'm really, really excited to put that out. Should be out in a few weeks. Cross your fingers. And the third piece for how mold is impacting your body, I would like. I said I would check out Dr. Christa's membership program, because I think you'll get a lot of information out of that.

All right, so the next question is from Coors 3, and it reads, does water damage also mean mold? Even if it's been checked, but you can't see any mold. Should I have it checked by a mold professional? There is visible water damage, but we don't see visible signs of mold. What I have to open up the walls to see this is the biggest problem in the inspection industry is what you just said here. Okay. Most inspectors think that if there's no visible mold and there isn't any moisture in the wall at that moment. Right. Because I think you said a wall. You didn't. Let's assume you said a wall or anywhere and there's no moisture in the area right now, that is not a problem, and that cannot be further from the truth. So I wanted to prove this. And so what I did is I looked back at the last two months of inspections that I did and the number of samples, which is a lot of samples, and looked at the ones that we call source area samples. So when we are going through a home, we do source testing. So I just mentioned in the previous question, how do you prove that there's a mold problem in your house that's actually sourced there? You have to do an inspection. You have to figure that out. Right. And then once you're doing the inspection, part of what you're looking for are visible signs of water damage. So you've identified some of that here. Okay, so the next step is, well, how do we know if something is hidden? You actually have to do testing that's specific to that area. So if you do, like, an air test in the middle of the room, it's not gonna work. What you need to do is you need to get right in to that space, basically. And the same thing I just talked about. So if you had staining in a wall, you do what we call a cavity sample. And again, small hole in the wall. Put a tube through the hole, connect it to an air sampling pump, and now you are collecting Air from behind the wall, you are now finding hidden mold, Right? That's the key. So, you know your question. Does water damage also mean mold? So what I was getting to and I got a little sidetracked is so for the last two months, we went through every source identification test. That air sample test that we did, whether it's in a wall cavity or in, like, an enclosed cabinet or something like that. 75% of them came back, and there was a mold problem there. Okay, so this is every spot, and this is a few hundred samples. Okay. So it was a smaller sample set. And I'm going to keep kind of adding to this because I think it's interesting, but it was a few hundred samples, and 75% of those there was hidden mold behind areas where there was just a stain or a crack in the paint or these five things that we look for continuously in every room that we go for. So does it mean that there's mold? Not always, but probably. That's my answer, right? Not always, but probably.

Should I have it checked by a mold professional? Yeah, you should have it tested. Right? I mean, that's definitely a big piece of this. Okay. You don't want to rip things open because your last question is here. Would I have to open up the walls to see it? You don't want to do that. You don't want to do that if you don't know what's back there. Okay. If there is a problem back there and you open up the wall, you're now cross contaminating into the house, and you're creating a much bigger problem than there already was. So you don't want to just open a wall when you think you see water damage. And I see this all the time. And I did a post a while ago where I'd somehow I was like, flipping through YouTube and. Or some YouTube thing popped up on my. I don't know, whatever. And I was like, Everybody's done a YouTube deep dive at some point. Next thing you know, I'm in some sort of do it yourself, fix the cabinet water damage, cabinet video. I'm like, why am I even watching this? Because I know what this guy is doing you shouldn't be doing. And I start watching it. The cabinet's completely water damaged. It's buckled, it's peeling, it's cracking. Like, there's clearly been a pretty big leak from the sink under there. The guy just starts ripping out the cabinet bottom, just starts ripping it out. And as I'm watching, I'm like, no, no, don't do this? No, because he's not wearing gloves. He's not wearing a mask. He's not wearing anything. The area is not contained. This dude basically just stuck his face in the middle of an atomic mold explosion, and now it's moving throughout the house, and he has no idea. Right. And so many people do this. You can't do this, because if you do, you're exposing yourself and you're going to make the problem much worse throughout the house because it's going to spread everywhere. Okay. So you don't want to be doing that. And you know what's funny is that as I started kept. I just kept watching the videos, like watching a train wreck happen. And after he ripped everything out, I looked down at the bottom of the cabinet that was left. You could see mold on the cabinet, right? And the guy was like, okay, now just put the new thing on and it's fine. And I mean, this is a whole nother problem. This is why renovated houses are the worst things ever, because this is what happens in them. Water damage. Rip it out, cross contaminate the house, cover up the leftover remnants, and then you never know it was there. Then you walk in the house and you get sick. But that's a conversation for another day.

I hope that this is helpful for you. Okay, so just to recap, does water damage also mean mold?

Not always, but probably. Okay. Should you have it checked by a mold professional? You should absolutely have it tested before you do anything. And if there's visible signs of water damage where we don't see mold, is that a problem? The answer is yes. So, okay, I think I got this one for you. Thank you for the question.

All right, our last question for today is from Curtis. For him, it's about mattresses. So he says, we're remediating our house. The Ermi dust cloth tested 5.88 because I've been ill. And mold inspectors found mold mostly in the basement and one room on the lower level through the tests and visual. Through air tests and visual inspections. So let's just stop there. Okay, first, there's a couple things unpack here. Your dust score was 5.8. So, Curtis, I don't know what that means. And the reason I don't know what that means is because you could have a score that's 5.8 that is really bad. And you can have a score that's 5.8 that isn't nearly as bad. And it's because of how the math is done. And again, I keep referencing this. Go. Listen to episode 44, where we really dive into Ermi. But basically, they're subtracting group two from group one in that result. So, like, for example, if your group two molds number was five and your group two or and your group one was ten, what they're going to say is ten minus five, and that equals five. Okay, well, you could do the same exact thing, and you could say group 2 is 95 and group 1 is 100 and 100 minus 95 is 5. The total is the same. The amount of mold in the house is incredibly, incredibly different in that scenario. Okay. So that's why you can't just look at the score. That's why you have to look at the number of molds that are there and what the significance is. So let's just assume that it's not good. We'll just kind of put a blanket. It's not good. The ERMI was not good. We'll just say that. Okay, so next, mold inspectors found mostly in the basement and one room on the lower level through air tests and a visual inspection. So here's the next thing. If they're just doing air samples around the house, that's not indicative of what's going on, because 80% of the time, that air sample is going to give you a false negative. So we still don't actually really know what's going on. Right. So we've kind of assumed the ERMI is not good. Right. Also not sure where the ERMI was collected from. Right. So did you just do it in the basement? Did you do it on different levels of the house? Did you do the whole house together? And the reason I asked this is because then next you say, our mattress is always in the upstairs during the four months that we lived here, and it's always almost been covered with bedding, and it's only four years old, and we want to keep it. So the thing is, it's really hard to understand specific items and how they've been impacted. You could do an Ermie specifically on your mattress. Right. You could take all your bedding off, and you could basically kind of like tap on the mattress and kind of pound it a little bit and then try to wipe the surfaces of the mattress and try to get a feel for what is in and on the mattress. The challenge with mattresses, and this goes with for anything that's cushioned couch cushions, pillows, down, comforters, is that the particles they wedge into the cushion, it's not just sitting on the surface. So you say further here, I'm Thinking about doing a very thorough HEPA vacuuming of the mattress and then wrapping it in a mattress cover. So HEPA vacuum is only getting the surface. Right. But if the stuff is embedded into the cushions, that means that every time you sit or lay on the mattress, you're going to kind of open the pores of those cushions and those particles are going to come out, and. And so you'll still be exposed to it, whatever might be there. You know what I mean? And that's. That's kind of the challenge is we don't really know what's there. And from the information that I have here, I don't totally, really know what's happening in the house either. Right. So there's a couple things that you could think to do here. Right.

First.

I think you need to get a better understanding of what's actually happening in the house, because it sounds to me, if you just did some air samples, listen, it's super easy to walk into a basement and say the basement has a mole problem, because spoiler alert, most basements have mold problems. So, you know, the mold inspector is not like the greatest inspector that's walked the earth. If they walk in your basement and say your basement has a mold problem. So if they say that, oh, yeah, it's mostly in the basement. And then we did air tests everywhere else and a visual inspection everywhere else, which I'd be curious what the visual inspection looks like. But if that's all that you're looking at, you might have more going on than just in your basement. What's happening in your heating and air conditioning system? Does your system. Does your air handler unit for your H vac system, does it live in your basement? If it lives in your basement, there's a higher likelihood that it's contaminated just because it could pull in air from the surrounding area.

You know, are there other sources of issues throughout the house? Because, again, those air samples are not going to show a really true picture of what's happening throughout the house. We did a different internal study where for a year, every time, one time in every house that we were in, in a place where I felt really confident there was going to be a hidden mold problem, like behind a wall or in a cabinet. And I did a source test to figure that out, like I described in the previous questions. I also took an air sampling pump, and I set it up like three or four feet away, and I just took an air sample in the middle of the room, just like normal inspectors do. And guess what? 80% of the time that Sample gave you a false negative. So if we're just doing air tests around the house, it's not showing us what's going on. So the truth is, I don't really know the answer for you. So let's just talk about it conceptually. Okay?

Mattresses are impossible to fully clean. Okay? So if there is a significant problem in the house and it's working its way up there, it's going to settle on the mattress. It's going to get into the pores when you sit and lay on it, and it's going to be there, and it's never going to go away. So that's just kind of the reality of it. Can you try to wrap it up in a mattress cover? And it sounds like you've done some research and think you found a good one. I mean, you could try, you know, is it going to be totally effective? I don't know. The answer is, I really don't know.

The most effective way to reduce your exposure to spores and things like that is.

Oh, my gosh, guys, I'm looking at the biggest spider. That's. Holy crap. I'm sorry. I just got so sidetracked because I just saw this ridiculous size spider growing this massive web on one of my plants in my backyard. I'm so sorry. Like, scared the crap out of me. I gotta wrap this up so I can take care of this. But what I was getting at is, you know, you could try to encapsulate. That's what that would be. It would be like encapsulating your mattress.

Is that going to fix the problem? I don't know. I. I would lean more towards no. To me, it's the same concept as encapsulating or covering up mold in your house. Right. Instead of removing drywall or cleaning surfaces, we're just going to spray some sort of encapsulate spray on it that's supposed to seal it in. Does that work? I know for a fact that doesn't work. So if that doesn't work, then why would it work in a mattress? And I don't have any research to really prove that. So that's just, you know, it's a theory, but it seems to hold true with kind of other things that we see. So, you know, best case, if you really want to avoid it, you know, it would be get rid of the mattress. That would be the best way. Now, something else you could try to do is, if you're not sure, take the mattress. You could wrap it up, put it in storage for a little bit and let your body heal. Because if you're reacting and you're having issues, your body just might not be able to handle that right now. But one thing that you could do with contents, it's not just mattresses. It's anything is the things that are, like, either really valuable or have sentimental value.

You can try to work on those later. You know what I mean? You could put them in storage, let your body heal, get some of that toxic load out and then see if you can handle it. Here's the thing, though, is that you're never going to be able to fully clean that mattress, regardless of whatever's going on there, right? So you just have to keep that in mind. I know it's not a direct answer saying yes or no. I think your mattress is going to be fine. There's just a lot of variables. So I just want to walk you through what all the variables look like and then you can make your decision from there. So thanks so much for the question, Curtis.

So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment and subscribe. Give a rating wherever you get your podcasts. It'll help spread the word to those who really need it the most.