63: Q&A - Can renters have a mold inspection? / Removing every mold spore...

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. Happy Friday. I have a secret for you. I actually thought today was Thursday. When I woke up and I was planning on recording this episode yesterday, I was like, oh, cool, it's Thursday. It's the morning. I've got some free time where I could do one of these. And then I look at my calendar and it's Friday. I'm like, what is going on?

But nonetheless, we're here, and I want to do. This is going to be an entire Q and A episode from questions submitted directly via text to me on the mold phone. All right, so I know I've talked about the mold phone. You've probably seen posts about the mold phone on my Instagram.

And maybe you're asking yourself, like, oh, yeah, this is cool. Maybe Brian just wants my phone number so he can text me and annoy me. It's not really the case. I mean, I haven't really sent too many texts out that aren't responses. I've done a couple, and it seems like everyone has found a lot of value from them. So that's not the point. I'm not trying to, like, hit you up and blow your phone up all the time. Right. I definitely understand that you don't want your phone getting blown up from people that you don't want texting you. However, if you're interested in what I have to say every now and then, and maybe you have a question or a comment or something, then you go and you text me. And that's how it goes.

This episode. I'm just going to read through questions that I had and then the answers that I gave, and then that's kind of what we're going to do here on this one. All right, so here is the first one. And real quick, I just want to say, I know in the last couple episodes.

I. I've talked about sending me, like, a picture of your dog or. I don't care, whatever you send me. I've gotten so many cute pictures of dogs that have come in here. It's actually pretty fantastic. One, it lets me know that you guys are listening, which is really cool. And two, I'm looking At this dog right now. He looks like.

I want to say, like maybe a black lab would be kind of my guess. But he's wearing a white bow tie. Are you kidding? He's like up on his hind legs and he's like smiling at the camera. It's hilarious. Anyway, so this gives me a kick, guys. I think it's fun. The dog picks. Oh, one quick thing before we get into the question. I don't know if any of you have seen, but we did. We've been working on this. I've been talking about this little thing that was happening for a while. We did an entire rebranding of all of the different things that we offer and actually have rolled out new things that we offer that didn't exist before. All in an effort to achieve my goal of helping 100,000 people find hidden mold. So we've been planning out these different things that we want to do to get to that goal. Right? And on top of it, I want to give a shout out to Kyle, who we brought on and is helping me with so many things behind the scenes now that I was having to do by myself. So I want to say thank you to Kyle for all the help that he's been giving me. And you can see some of the much more cool looking things that are getting popped up on the Instagram account. And that is all thanks to Kyle being able to do those cool things. So shout out to him. Anyways.

The big thing about it is that those of you who have followed me on Instagram, you may have known me as Mold Masterclass for a long time, ever since I started that account. I started the account when I launched my first training program that was called Mold Masterclass Shocker. However, things have changed since then.

There's more that I'm wanting to do for you guys. I didn't really want the Instagram to be focused on one particular thing and for it to seem like there's something that it's being sold on that thing. And I wanted it to be more about a community and about a place where all of us can gather, where I can share information for free with you guys that, that you hopefully find valuable. We can interact in that space and where you could find other people throughout the threads that are kind of working on the same things that you are and really kind of build it that way. At the end of the day, guys, this thing, it's not about me. I could come on here and I love helping people and explaining things, but at the end of the day, that's not about me, that's about you guys. Right. And when we re looked at kind of what everything looked like, the way that it was all framed, it kind of felt like it was about me. And we didn't want that. Right. So we changed the name. So our, the Instagram account is now oldfinders Easy Simple. And it's about you guys. Right? It's not about me, it's about everybody. So it's oldfinders. And then a few of the new things that we have put out. Obviously this podcast has been out for a hot minute now, but this has been something I've been working on for a while. That was one of the things.

The new program that one of the new programs that we put out is actually geared towards the doctors and the practitioners out there. Right. So again, thinking about how can we help 100,000 people, it's not just about me doing it, it's about getting information in the right people's hands so they can help people too and empowering them to help people and then empowering you to do things on your own. Right. Like it's all about empowerment and sharing this information. So we created another is called the Mold Finders Practitioner Program. And it's basically.

A very in depth training course on mold and mycotoxins and how they move through the house and how you interpret things and how they can help identify if their patients homes may be a problem instead of having to guess. Right. And so that entire program is geared directly toward.

You know, kind of the health providers. So whether it's a doctor or a health coach or whatever it is, that's what that program is geared toward. And then we did come out with the new webinar that I've done a couple times now, I've done it twice, is how to find the hidden mold that's making you sick in just one day without having to hire get scammed by a mold inspector. That came out too. It's called Mold Finders Method. That's the other thing that we've rolled out recently. And that's all about me teaching you exactly how I go through a house and how I inspect it. So if you, you want to know how I go through a house and you're like, ah man, how would Brian go through my house? Go to that webinar, go enroll in it and watch it because it'll tell you exactly how I would do it. And it's free. The webinar is free. So you know, we've really went back to what is our goal what are we trying to do? How can we do that? Who is this about? And how do we empower everybody? And that is the thought and really the driving force behind a lot of the changes that you may have seen be. Be made, but maybe have not known the full depth of what was behind all of it. All right, so. So that's everything that's going on. I'm really excited about all of it. I mean, the. The interaction and the feedback and everything we're getting is amazing. Oh, and I forgot, obviously, the last part of that is the mold phone to try to get a more direct access to me as well. So we're doing everything we can for you. All right, I'm trying to do everything I can for you guys, and I hope that. That you all appreciate it, and if you found any of those things beneficial, I would love for you to hit me up and text me and tell me about it. All right, It's. My number is 949-528-8704. It's 949-528-8704. Remember, this is a phone that I bought that is just for you guys, right? So I pick it up. I typically interact for about 30 minutes a day, and it's direct line into me. I'm seeing everything. All right, so even if I'm not responding right away, it's on the list. I know that it's there, and it will either talk about it here on the show or I'll respond to you right away. But up until this point, I have responded to every single text that has come in. Okay, so just like, if you're thinking about, you know, should I ask Brian something? Like, is he gonna answer me? I don't know. Listen, guys, as it is now, this thing has been out there for a few weeks. There's a lot of people in here now already, and I've responded to every single text. Some of them take me a couple days, but I' still done it. And it seems like people are appreciating that. So that is the big update on what's happening.

With me and with us and. And with what we're trying to do. So remember, olefinders on Instagram make it easy. Okay, so that is what's happening. So let's get back to what I talked about. Right, so we've got black lab, white tie on his hind legs, smiling at me. Super, super cute. All right, so that's the first thing in this text. This text is from Marlene, by the way. And then, so I'm just Going to read kind of what she has here, and I'll read my response, and then.

I don't know, maybe I'll go into it a little more. So here we go. I just listened to your Building a Sampling Plan podcast, which I think was one or two episodes ago, guys. So that's the one that she's talking about. She says. So informative and helpful with an exclamation point. Exciting and empowering, too. Thank you. Here's a picture of my dog. And then there's the dog. Cool. And then I would like to get our apartment spot tested for mold, but I'm getting pushback from local inspectors saying they need permission from the landlord first. Should I try to get permission or are there alternatives? And. And then I'm just going to read you my response and I'll dive a little more. A little deeper into it first. Yay. I'm glad you liked that podcast. And I'm super happy that you sent me a picture of your dog. That's the first response. Okay. And then I've done this multiple times for people without permission. Like, I've gone into renters homes. Oh, let me finish reading it. I started riffing already. I'm gonna finish reading my response. Then I'll. Then I'll expand. I've done this for people a bunch of times without permission. It's never been a problem. These inspectors are just afraid to do it for some reason. But someone will, though. I just wouldn't mention that you're renting. Like, just call it your condo instead of your apartment. Then they shouldn't ask questions. Right. And then I put a little disclaimer. You know, it says, I can only speak from my own experience. Obviously, I'm not sure what the laws are in your area, so please don't go, like, breaking any laws or anything, but I've never heard this be a problem, so. And then she's like, oh, thanks, I appreciate it. And there you go. So this is an interaction, right? She had a question, I answered her question. And now for you guys, I'm going to go a little more into it. All right? So I've, I've worked with so many renters. Like, as a renter, you are allowed to. And again, I'm not an attorney, so don't, like, hold me to this. Right. But as a renter, you're allowed to bring people in your house to do stuff, right? Like, we hired a, a pest control company to come to the house that we're renting and do stuff on a, on a I think every two months, they come and do some. Use some natural sort of spray that's really only outdoors or whatever. Like, I'm not huge on pesticide, but at the same time, I don't want that gigantic spider problem that I described a while ago happening again, either. So.

That'S one example, right? We've hired somebody like that to come out, right? We have had somebody come and clean our ducts, our H vac ducts, right when we moved in, we just did that, right? Like, there was. There's no problem. They didn't ask, like, do you rent or do you own? They come and they do it. Honestly, for them, the less they know, the better, right? Then it's not their fault. Let's say there is some massive problem with you bringing somebody into your own place that you live in to do some little maintenance work or something. Well, if they don't know that you don't own the place, then. Then they're off the hook. It's like, my wife and I are re watching Scandal right now. I don't know if you guys have ever watched that show Olivia Pope and. And the fixing and the government, like, it's the awesome show anyways. It's. It's the idea of, like, the less you tell the president, the more bad things that the president can do, and then he has plausible deniability, right? Like, that's this, right? Like, just don't tell them that you're renting. You know, say, hey, I've got my place. I'm concerned about some issues. Here you go. Right? Now we go in and we ask if they're renting, because for us, it changes what our approach would be for sampling, right? Like, we specifically have an approach for people that are renting. Like, if you're renting, you don't need to sample every single thing in the world, right? I mean, it depends on your goal, right? I mean, if you're trying to stay in your rental and you want everything remediated properly, then, yeah, I mean, you would want to. You would want to sample the areas that seem like that they're problematic. But if you're renting and. And you just want to leave because, you know the home is. It has some issues, and you feel like it's making you sick, then why would you need to sample every problem that you're seeing? All you need to do is validate a couple areas that prove that there's a problem and start opening that dialogue with the landlord. And honestly, guys, most times, the landlord is not going to want to deal with you and they'll let you out. And if they don't, then you know, there's other things that you can do to kind of force their hand. I've talked about that more on multiple occasions. But anyways, that's the thing, right? Like I, I think that those, those inspectors, they're afraid to come in. Like, I don't really understand why they would be afraid to come in and do that. But at the end of the day, my comp, you know, our company, we, and not just in one place like all over the country, have done this, right? We've in, there's been east coast, west coast, like Florida. I mean it's, it's been done everywhere that, that I know of. So unless there's law or something where you are that does not allow you to bring anyone into your house without the landlord approving it, which I've never heard of, but unless that is in play, then it really shouldn't be an issue. So for any of you folks out there that are kind of dealing with a similar situation or concern or maybe you're afraid about, about kind of going down that road. That's my experience with that. So hopefully that helps.

Alright guys, so here is another one from the mold phone. This is from Christy. She says hi, Brian. You say that if you can remove 50% of mold in a home that the occupants will experience improvement. I have found this to be a big source of hope and inspiration. But it differs dramatically from something I have heard in a lot of the Facebook groups. Those folks say that people become more and more sensitized to mold. So sick people react more strongly to less and less mold. By their rationale, remediation is pointless as long as there is even a fragment of a spore left. I'm curious what you think of this and if you know any doctors who've talked about this. Thanks, Christy. Okay, so it's a really good question. There's some things I wanted to clarify right away and so I'm gonna get into my response. Okay, so here we go. I say, I quote, can. Or excuse me, I say that someone quote, can experience improvement. Right. I've had clients where this has happened. Others are more sensitive and they need to remove more of the load coming into their immune system funnel. All of that said, every person is different. Now imagine their immune system funnel can't keep up and it's slightly overflowing. Then less and less exposure could trigger responses because your funnel is so full. Right. I believe that people say that in Facebook groups, because they had poor remediation, they think they removed everything because that's what they're told. Then when they don't feel better, they say that remediation doesn't work. Then they think that one tiny spore may have triggered them, when in fact it's likely because the mold they tried to remove in the first place wasn't actually removed properly. And she responds back. You're an angel for writing back. Thank you so much. I think what you said makes a lot of sense. Thank you for all you do for the mole community. Okay, so let me. Let me break this down a little bit more, right? So I want to be really clear, right? I say that people can experience improvement in their health by limiting the amount of exposure they have, which is true. You can, Right. The problem is that every single person is different. So it's not about limiting it by a certain number. I don't know if that number is 50%. I don't know if it's 80%. I don't know if it'S 25%. Right? I don't know. And it's all about what your toxic load and what your immune system. And you heard me referring to the immune funnel there, which I've talked about that concept a couple times. But basically, like, if your immune system is like a funnel, if you're. If you pour water into a funnel too fast, it overflows, right? The same thing happens with your immune system. If you're exposed to too many things too quickly, your immune system can't handle all of it. And so it overflows and it goes haywire and it starts causing what, you know, a myriad of different health reactions. Right? And so the idea isn't that if you remove X amount of mold that you're going to feel better, right? That's not it. Like, no one. I obviously can't tell you that. I don't even know what your particular health situation is. Right? So it's not that specifically. The thing is, though, is that you don't. First off, for people to think you have to get every single tiny little thing out of your house to feel better. I hate to break it to everyone, but your house, when it was built, was built with moldy wood shocker, okay? So you are literally never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to remove every single thing that's in the house. It's impossible. My cousin who owns All American Restoration, his name is Mike, he and I actually did a presentation for the Indoor Air Quality association together in February of this year, which is the largest association for our industry. We were teaching people how to remediate homes for people who are mold sensitive. That's what our whole course was. It was an advanced level course. There's only five of those courses in an entire four day weekend program of like 50, 60 courses. This is one of the advanced level courses and this is what we taught at this conference. And he is having a home built right now in Florida and he's sending me pictures of the of. They basically have it all framed and like 80% of it is covered in mold. And he is having a hell of a time trying to get anything handled over there because it's like a track home that's getting built. So listen guys, like if you think that you, that you need to get every single tiny thing that's in your house, I hate to break it to you, but short of gutting your entire home and remediating the whole entire thing, you have other things that are in your house that you don't know about, right? So that philosophy doesn't line up, it doesn't work. The thing is, is that you have to, you have to get rid of as much as you can, right? And the way that we, that we know how to get rid of as much as you can is to understand water intrusion and how things, how we can find it in a house, how we can pinpoint it, right? I want to be able to say that I could go into every single home and find every single thing. And when I first started, that's what I really wanted to do. Like that was my goal. I'm a perfectionist. I wanted to walk in and be like, I'm going to find everything. And I think to an extent, I feel very confident that I do. But when, when I'm finding, quote, everything, it's finding what is able to be found, right? If they build with wood that has mold on it and it's covered up by walls and there's never been a leak in the house and there's never been any sort of water damage and there's never been any reason for anyone even using all the fancy tools and the moisture meters and the infrared cameras and anything that there might be something on this random 2x4 in the middle of your living room, then there's no way that anyone's ever going to identify that, right? It's just. It's just not going to happen. So if you're one of the people that think that you need to get rid of every single tiny spore that's ever existed in the world. I hate to break it to you, you can't live in this world because guess what? You're going to leave your house at some point. Even during COVID you're going to leave your house at some point and you're going to go into a grocery store, or you're going to go to get your gas filled up and go pay the gas attendant in the little room that they have, or you're going to go to a friend's house, or you're going to go to a doctor, or you're going to go to wherever it is that you go that everyone goes in life. And there's mold in those places, too. So if that was the case, you would walk into those places and immediately just collapse. Right. It's not about removing every single thing. It's about reducing the amount of load that's coming into your immune system so your body can keep up and do what it's designed to do, which is detox itself. The problem is that some of us have a couple things going on. One, genetically, it is harder for us to detox. Which means if you think about that funnel and the water going into the funnel, you know how it kind of like slants down and then like less water comes out of the bottom. Well, if you're genetically predisposed to have a more difficult time to detox, then that hole in the bottom of the funnel is way smaller than it is for someone else. Okay. Because you can't move, nothing can go through it, which means less exposure for you is going to overflow the funnel. Okay, so what do you do in that case? You're like, well, Brian, then I can't be exposed to anything. I mean, you need to. Being exposed to stuff is not good. Right? But then there are things that your doctors are helping you with to promote detoxification in your body. This isn't a one step answer. The funnel has two sides. You can't just focus on one side and think the whole thing is going to get fixed. Right. So, yes, we got to reduce what's coming in the top. But if you're one of the genetically predisposed folks, then.

What you're doing from your doctor's guidance in terms of detoxing methods like sitting in saunas and taking glutathione and doing certain binders when it makes sense, and all the other, the antifungal, all the other things that they have, that is basically helping you detox. Right.

It's kind of the same idea of like a dialysis machine. Like, people with kidney issues need to go on a dialysis machine because it helps their kidney in what their kidneys can't do. Right? Like, their kidneys aren't functioning, so they need something to bypass it to help it. Right. That's what a dialysis machine does. It's kind of the same thing that your doctors are doing with you when you kind of have this genetic predisposition and your body just isn't capable of doing it very well. Right? It needs help. Your body needs help. So they're giving you tools that help it and that helps the bottom of your funnel. Right? So if you're not doing any of that and you just think that I just can't ever be around a mold spore for the rest of my life, you're going to struggle because it's not just a one side of the funnel deal. Guys, like, you got to address both sides of it. Okay. So, you know, I hope that makes sense. Right? It's. Every person's going to be different. Some people need to reduce their load by half. Some need to reduce it by more. Some maybe don't even need to reduce it that much. But at the end of the day, if mold is triggering you, then we obviously know that, you know, we need to have less of whatever that trigger is. I just want you guys to all be very, very aware that every home that's built has mold on the lumber that's used to build the house. It's just the reality of American building. It's just what happens. And so you got two options. You go, you gut an entire house. And I've talked about how to. About.

Remediating and renovating and what I would do if I bought an old house. I have an episode on what I would do if I bought an older house. I would gut the entire thing. That's what I would do if I bought an older house. I would gut the entire thing, and I would remediate it all. So now I know that the wood that's behind the walls doesn't have anything on it, and I would go from there. Right? So you can do that. And if you want to do that, that's amazing, because you're going to be reducing even more of the load. But it's, you know, don't get hung up on the there can't be a single spore thing. And going back to my response to Christy is that the reason that people in the Facebook group say that is because they think that they got everything right, and so they're like, well, we got everything. So now if one little thing. I'm still getting triggered. There must be one tiny little thing. So remediation doesn't work. It's not true. Like, she. They fogged her house. Like, fogging doesn't work, right? It doesn't work if you're not doing other things. I have an episode called Mycotoxin Bomb. I think it's episode 12. You could go listen to that. And it talks about why fogging doesn't work. It can be a component of a plan, but it's not the plan. You know, there's no magic thing that you do that just dissolves everything into nothingness and makes everybody better. Like, it doesn't work like that. So I hope that all that makes sense for you guys. It's a very common question that I get. And so I was glad that Christy submitted it, and hopefully you guys can see how this works. You guys ask a question, I get back to you. You guys ask a question, I get back to you. Like, that's the goal here, guys. I get back to you as soon as I can. Like I said, this isn't like, an immediate thing. It's not like you're texting your best friend, and if they don't text you in 30 seconds, you're like, what the hell are you doing? Why haven't you responded to me? It's not like that, obviously, because at this point, I have lots of best friends now that are texting me. So you gotta give me some time. But I definitely will work to get back with you guys. I am going to. In my. In my IG story today. Remember Oldfinders? Right? It changed, but if you were following me already, you'd still be following me. But it's Oldfinders. I'm gonna share the post that my cousin put up. He actually posted pictures of all of the. Of all the places in its house where there's water coming in, where there's mold on the framing, and it's all just framed. There's not even drywall up yet. And this. I mean, it's like a whole other discussion, but there's only so much that we can have control of. But I'm going to show you what I'm talking about. All right? So go ahead, go to my story today. Check that out. And.

Yeah, that's what I got for this one. I think that that takes us up for the day here. So thank you guys for listening, as always. If you haven't gone and checked out the webinar that I'm doing that I put a very long time of my life into to put together for you guys. Go check it out. It's a free webinar, how to find the hidden mold that's making you sick in just one day. You could register@moldfindersmethod.com it's moldfindersmethod.com the next one is going to be on December 23rd. So it's about a week and a half from now. So hopefully I will see you guys there and text me and comment to me and send me more pictures of your dogs. If this is like a thing, by the way, that people, when they first, like, meet me, they show me the pictures of their dog, I feel like that'd be pretty awesome. Like, who doesn't like looking at pictures of fun, happy dogs? So you could do that or send me whatever. I don't care. Hope you guys have a good one. We'll talk to you soon.

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 and give a rating wherever you get your podcasts. It'll help spread the word to those who really need it the most.