66: PJ Harlow - The “Mold Unicorn”

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.

All right, everybody, welcome to today's episode of Mole Finders Radio, brought to you by what the Mold phone. I know, guys, it's super cheesy. I know. I get really excited. But today, it's not about the mole phone. It's about my very special guest, my friend. I'm super excited to have her on. I feel like we're gonna talk about a lot of cool stuff because we have lots of conversations offline that are pretty cool. So we were like, why not do it here? And so, everyone, this is PJ Harlow. Pj, say hi.

Hello, everyone.

Yay. I'm excited that we got to do this. So normally I'll, like. Normally I've done, like, three guest episodes. Normally, I will kind of introduce somebody and what they do, but the cool thing about you is that is that you and or me and Corey refer to you as a mold unicorn, and I'm sure that's not an official title anywhere, but I would love for you just to kind of explain what you do, because it's not, like a normal thing that you're going to go on Yelp and search, like, mold unicorn and find what you do. So do you maybe want to kind of want to talk about what you do and let everybody know who you are?

Totally. Totally. Thank you so much for having me on the show. You know, first up, I'm so excited to be here, and, you know, I feel like it's just truly an exciting time for us to, you know, find, like, minds. And it was just such an awesome thing for it to get hooked up with you and Corey and Steve and the whole gang.

You know, it is a whole gang. It's a whole family. Family gang.

I know. I feel like when, you know, we walk in the door, hey. Oh, like, always sunny or something.

But. But yeah, like, just totally stoked, but yeah. My name is PJ Harlow, and at my core, I am a health coach practitioner, but I specialize in mold. And so what I do. That's a very interesting question. I think I have many titles as you just referred to the mold unicorn. But one of the bigger things I do that is pretty Unique is I help people navigate the world of mold. And I was talking to Pete, my husband, who's the co owner of PJ Harlow Wellness, and we were talking about this podcast and, and kind of just how to explain, you know, what we do. And I came up with this kind of idea and I was like, you know what? Mold is like another language, right? Like when you, if you've ever had to, you know, go to court or something, or if you've been involved in something legal, what do you do? You get a lawyer because, you know, any kind of legal document that you've ever seen looks like another language. It's like herein after this day of June, you know, and you get a lawyer to help you navigate the legal, you know, world. The same thing with like insurance, right? You get your insurance policy. It's like double speak. So you need an interpreter. And that's kind of like what I do is I help people navigate the world of mold and I help interpret this for, for them because, you know, it's really overwhelming. And I feel like mold is like one of those things where there's this like misconception because everybody has an opinion about mold because it's common. It's, you know, we've been raised around mold and even down to grandma, you know, pour some bleach on it.

Yeah, Grandma's opinion is not the right opinion. For the record, everyone, yes, don't do.

That, don't do that. But, you know, it's like when you kind of put your foot into this kind of world, there's just so many layers to it that we really help people through that and we support people, you know, we consult, we help people find the right professionals like yourself. And that's kind of how we even got introduced, right?

Yeah, absolutely, it is. I think of it, and I've always told my clients, until really you and I connected, however long ago that was, is that they need to be their own quarterback throughout the process. Like, I handle one piece of it. We find the problem, we tell you how to fix it, right? And then you have a remediation company that's hopefully just executing the plan that we wrote out and not trying to do anything different, but it's another conversation for another day. So then you have us that finds it, you have the remediation company that's executing it. But then there's other moving pieces too, right? There's, there's rebuild, there's what do we do with the H VAC system? There's, how do we get insurance to Cover this stuff. There's. So it's. What remediation company do we find? How do we know who to look for? Right? And so the idea that you need kind of a coach or a quarterback that's like in the huddle calling the plays and like telling you exactly, like, you know, where you need to go and basically kind of connecting all of those pieces. That's. That's really how I view, you know, what you do, right. You're this connection to make sure that people are taking the right steps at the right time and bringing in the right people to surround themselves. Because I will be the first person to say about myself that I am very good at what I do, and I definitely am not good at things I don't know how to do.

And I, you know, that's true for most people. The problem is that sometimes you get professionals that think that they can kind of fake it, and it just doesn't work that way, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. And. And, you know, I started out, it didn't. It kind of really organically grew into this. And I started out, I'm. I'm a mold, suffer and mold, you know, warrior. I don't want to say victim necessarily, because I've kind of overcome a lot of things, but, you know, I fell into this world from my own story. And you would have thought, you know, I spent almost two decades of my life talking about buildings and the insurance industry, so you would have thought I would have known that I was being affected by mold. But, you know, nobody ever told me that.

How mold could really affect your health so, so intensely. And so.

You know, even in my own story, that, like I said, this is how I came into this world was. Was because I got sick myself. And from the very gate, I noticed just how. How much of a lack of resources there were. And I mean, this was four or five years ago. I mean, I feel like we've come a long way in such a short time, even though I truly feel like we're still very much in our infancy as far as what me do, you know, we're in this period where there's a lot of change happening, and I definitely feel like there's a clear.

Difference between what we do and then there's kind of the old practices that are still in play. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I definitely do. I've talked about this idea before about where we are in the kind of timeline of adopting the truth about what mold really is as compared to what everyone thinks that it is. And we're so early in that that there is no mainstream acknowledgment or, or action even that's happening. Right. So it's kind of like it's the experts who really know that are trying to push the message out. But, you know, we only have as big of a platform as we have. Right. So we're definitely in the early stages of being able to roll this out to the masses, for sure.

Absolutely. And so, you know, what I do is really new. And so, so I started out.

After I got sick, and this just really changed the way I viewed health. And so the experience was just to be really honest, it was probably one of the darkest times of my life. And it affected me that intensely that when it was finally time for me to kind of go back to work, I couldn't. I couldn't even envision it. You know, it was like I knew too much now.

And so I decided I went back to school and became a health coach practitioner and really wanted to focus on helping people detox and working with people with environmental illnesses. And as you know, even in your own personal life of being a mold worrier too, you, you know, you can't heal if you're living in mold. And so that process of just starting to help people with that is kind of how it started. And because I have a big background, as I shared a little bit earlier, I spent a lot of time in the insurance industry, and I was a claims adjuster and an underwriter and had several different roles over a big span of time. So I kind of have already a good platform to kind of build my knowledge. And I've really worked hard to. To kind of bridge these two worlds together of health and home. And so I started helping people with, you know, really, there's, there's so many things we do, so many things here we help people with from the very beginning. You know, if you, if you're just a person who's really has no idea how to even start, we can kind of help you figure out, you know, to see is there a problem, you know, is there something going on in your home that's affecting your health? And then we can also help people who are already in it. You know, a lot of the people that we've worked with have been through multiple remediations, have had multiple inspections, and they're just not getting solutions. And a big, another big thing we do is we help people with toxic possessions. That's a big topic that is pretty overwhelming for people.

Yeah, that's, that's a big Conversation. Maybe. Maybe we'll get. We'll get into that maybe a little bit later if we have. Because, I mean, we could talk for so long just about your people's stuff. I have whole episodes about people's stuff.

Yeah.

The first thing. So a couple things. So I've been asked, you know, through. Through my text line or through DMS or whatever, like, hey, so I know about you. And then there's this person, pj, like, who should I be working with? You should I be working with pj?

It's not a yes or no thing, right. It's actually. We do two different things. And I think for, you know, for some folks, it gets confusing because honestly, like, we don't know. You know, as somebody who's new to this, you don't know all the different elements of it. Right. Like, on our end, you know, between you and me, we kind of know where, like, one starts and the other one finishes and picks up because it's. There's, you know, but for other folks, it's kind of hard, right? And so that's. That's why I wanted to spend a few minutes trying to explain it. Like, it's not about. It's. It's more about kind of having, like I said that. That almost coach, quarterback type person who's helping to kind of direct to the other specialists that you need to come in. I mean, think of it this way. Think of it like a general practitioner doctor, and then you call in the neurologist and you call in the, you know, the. This person and that part. I don't know that many doctor terms, but anyways, you call in specific people when you're trying to make diagnosis and figure out what's going on, right? And so, you know, that's. That's kind of the difference. So. So for any of you out there that are listening, you're like, well, what. What's the difference? It's really complementary is really what it is. Like, I think I would be the first to say that I know a little about what PJ talks about and I could give a little guidance, but I'm not an expert in that stuff. And I think that you would probably be the same that, like, you know, some about looking at a house, but, you know, you're not like, the expert at looking at a house. Right? And so there's, like, crossover with that. The one thing when. When I first first heard about you.

The insurance piece was the first thing that I really heard about the background, your insurance background. And I know I get asked all the time. So many questions even whether it's from just like through kind of the outlet side that people contact me or even the clients I'm working with directly. It's like, is insurance going to cover this? How do I get insurance to cover this? It's such a big thing. Yeah, you don't have to go into all of it, but I would love to like a couple tips or something that maybe we can share about how to get, increase your chances of having insurance, you know, play a role in helping you cover this stuff.

Yeah, so insurance is, is, is. They don't like the M word in the insurance industry, but so the thing about insurance is, is that it most, most policies, you know, they're already hip to it unfortunately. And so a lot of policies will have mold excluded already. And so there are some policies that have what's called a rider, which is kind of like an extra addition to your policy. And usually it's in increments of, it's not much to be honest. It's usually about 5 or $10,000. But.

When you're kind of looking at coverage if it's been there for a really long time and you know, usually in a lot of cases that's not going to be something that's covered, but it's kind of like insurance is accidental, you know, and so, but it's hard. I do complimentary for clients. I will have them send over their policy to me and I will look at their policy and then kind of help guide them individually to, you know, kind of what to say and, you know, and how to, you know, if there, if I think there would be coverage because it really all depends on your claims adjuster. But as far, let me start and think of some tips here.

It's hard, it's hard to give generalized tips because every policy is different. So, so, but I mean, I do know when.

You are actually looking for a new place. And this is a tip that I give for people who are trying to find a new apartment or even purchasing a new home. And we help people with that too. Looking for low risk homes. You can actually do a quote with your insurance agent and see if there is a loss history on that that hits on that address. So if you said, hey, you know, my insurance agent, I'm thinking about buying this house or I'm thinking about renting this house. Can you do a quote for me? And they'll, they'll do it with the address and then that will hit and, and it'll bring up the loss history on It. So it's a good way to see if there's been any water damage claims previously.

That's really cool. Yeah. Because I know from experience that people don't always disclose stuff.

Actually, I tell the story a lot about one of my first clients. He's trying to buy this condo, and they basically hid the fact that the condo had this massive flood and they didn't tell him. And we just happened to find it out because I saw some bubbling on some baseboards. I was like, what. Why are all these baseboards bubbled? This makes no sense. We call the maintenance office, and they're like, oh, yeah, some old dude lived here before and ran a bath and then fell asleep and whole place flooded. Like, what?

Oh, wow.

So that is an amazing idea. I've never even thought of that idea to check on stuff yourself that way. And your insurance company will do that. That's super cool.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, so let me ask you this would. So if you're looking to, like, get new insurance, right. Like, is that something where you can help guide people to, like, a good. A good policy or something like that?

Yeah, I could. You know, and it depends on your state. You know, even though we work virtually, so we work with everybody. I mean, we even work outside of the US but, you know. Yeah, if we. If I. That's definitely something I could do with a client. I mean, we kind of. We're. Anything that has to be do with mold, we can help you.

Yeah. That's why it's so interesting.

Physical inspection that, you know, I'm not a licensed inspector. I'm not a licensed remediator. I'm more a consultant. Mold Unicorn.

You should put Mold Unicorn on your business card. You'll be like, I don't know. That sounds amazing. Sign me up.

Yeah, I think that's, you know, the other thing that I come across a lot is. And I actually refer people to you a lot after we do an inspection with them and we give them the remediation plan. So we kind of figure out everything that's going on and how to fix it. And then the question always comes, well, like, do you know a remediator around here? And, you know, our company's national. Right. So we fly all over the place, and it's just impossible for us to vet companies in every place and have this list every city in the country. Like, it's not a reasonable thing. And so what we did is we created, like, kind of a video series that we give to all of our clients, explains the process, kind of the expectations of what should be happening, what the testing would look like on the back end, examples of stuff that we share with them. We say, listen, we want you to take these videos and if you're looking at anyone locally, make them watch these videos and, and then quiz them on the videos. And if they didn't watch it or they're not, or they're doing things that we say not to do in there, then they're not a good f fit. But that's kind of the extent of what we're able to do with them because we don't call and screen and bet companies like that. Right?

Yeah.

But what's cool is that, you know, as part of this kind of quarterback coaching thing, I'm sorry, that I'm just, I'm renaming what you do. I don't know if that's okay.

But as part of that, you know, you're able to help people have those phone calls and conversations, right? You could try to vet people in terms of remediation companies and make sure they're not going to get screwed, hopefully, right?

Absolutely, absolutely. Because. And just like I was kind of talking in the beginning, you know, if, if you don't speak mold, you know, you're going to get alpha'd in a conversation, you're gonna get dominated and you. And, and most people don't know how to defend their self. And, and we are here to kind of support you, to educate you and to empower you, you know, so you know what to look for. And so that's, that's a key piece. You know, it's really important to us that we're giving people the tools. I mean, granted I do vet people, but I involve clients in the process, you know, because essentially I want the people that I'm working with to learn too. You know, Certainly, you know, there's a certain scope of.

You know, how can I say it? I guess depending on what level of support people want, that can kind of range in scope. But, you know, I really. It's important to us that people feel empowered, you know, and a lot of people that we work with, you know, sometimes people are broken, Brian. You know, they've been. This, this whole thing is so traumatic. And, and that's another piece that, you know, I'm really versed in working with people. Over the years, I've had a lot of experience in working with people who, from every spectrum of emotions and trauma. And so I really kind of know how to be there to validate some of the feelings that people have and I know that from not just working with other people, but my own experience. I know how this was. Just. I constantly hear the word overwhelmed. It's probably one of. One of the most frequent things I hear is just how overwhelming this process is. And even sometimes it's. It's so overwhelming that it almost. How can I say? Like, it's. There's so many elements. It almost forces some people to want to turn a blind eye because there's just so many unknowns. It's like, you know, do I really want to, you know, kind of open this up and it's scary.

No. And, you know, that's such a. That's such a good point. You know, there are clients that we have worked on.

Where it happened. Right. So the. The validation, the giving, letting someone realize that they have permission to understand something without feeling handcuffed by it, I think is a very, like, unique skill to have.

Because it does get overwhelming. And a lot of us are just like, well, if I don't know, then I don't have to worry about it. And, you know, I. I say this all the time to people. I'm like, you know what? You can do that, and that's fine. Mole can care less about your feelings. It can care less about what you're able to handle. And if you're overwhelmed or not, it is an assassin and it is coming to kill you. And. And, you know, it's like, kill me. I'm like, listen, guys, the. The toxins that this stuff creates is meant to kill living things. Like, that's what it's meant to do. And to the point where militaries are. Develop them. Developing them for biological warfare. Like, this is a real thing that's happening. So, like, you may not be ready to do it. Right. But by turning a blind eye to it, it's not going to, like, make it any better. Like, it again.

Yeah, mold doesn't care.

Yeah, it doesn't care.

And, you know, I. I get it. You know, we can't. There's certain things that we can't see. And. And that's commonly something that, you know, in some cases that I see when. When it comes to kind of this getting to the moment of truth. You know, there's these kind of frequent behaviors that. That I see in certain people. I mean, some people are accepting and 100% in and, you know, all the way. And then sometimes I'll also see where, you know, only one person is sick or only, you know, one person as admitting they're sick.

Yeah.

And, you know, and it kind of gets through these kind of stages where it becomes so much that sometimes people start talking themselves out of things and the fear comes in and then there's like the backtracking thought.

Yeah.

And you know, what am I going to find when I decide to uncage this? And it's almost like a syntax error and it becomes just so much that they can't take it in. And then the denial and you know, it's this kind of slowly you can kind of see that some people start to recoil and resist and they start co signing their own thoughts and like normalizing the situation. And so I'm kind of here to be the voice of reason too and to be that supportive person, like, hey, we can do this. You know, I'm just like you said, your quarterback or you know, the person that's here for you. I'm your cheerleader, your quarterback, the whole team.

And the whole team.

That's funny. So, so let me, let's like role play for a second. All right? So like I was working with a client recently and we went through and found good amount of stuff, right? And showed them what it would take to test. It was a big house. So, you know, the testing is more. Because there's, you know, multiple air conditioning systems and it's a large home. And you know, with that there's more space for things to happen, right? So it was probably a little more expensive than one of, one of the two were wanting to spend, right? And. And then I started hearing what you're saying, right? It's like, well, we weren't really, like, we're not really that sick. Like, I mean, I'm really, I guess the only one that's, that's feeling anything. Where when I look back at the notes from our initial conversation before we started, it was like, yeah, I'm not doing well. And yeah, this person has this going on, right? So like, I know what they told me up front. It's not like they can take it back, right? Like, that's what they told me. And then I'm talking to them and I'm showing them and yes, it was an investment to figure this out if we were going to do it, right? And all of a sudden the rationalization that you're talking about comes in, right? And then, so what they told me, they're like, listen, we, we need to think about this. Which is fine. Like, I never want to push people to do anything, right? But you could tell when they're like, listen, we can't decide right now. We need to think about this. That there really is some sort of, like, internal struggle happening there. Right. So, like, if that. If you were working with that. That client, like, what do you tell them? What. What's. What's your conversation with them after they call you and say, hey, pj Brian, talk to me about this, this, and this. And it seems super overwhelming. Like, what is. What does that conversation look like?

Sure. Yeah. First of all, you know, it's valid. You know, those feelings are valid. A lot of people that come to me are already in a place of distrust. You know, they've already. Something. Lots of people have been burned, you know, and. And, you know, so there's especially. And. And this is not to say anything about husbands, but it's usually the husbands who are very, you know, kind of really kind of scoping in on. On the money aspect and. And, you know, making sure that they're. They want to make sure that they're not being cheated or ripped off or anything like that. And, sure, that's valid, too, you know, because there are people out there that are trying to rip you off. But I usually validate the situation and, you know, your feelings are true, and that's okay to feel that way. But, you know, without knowing. You know, without knowing what we're dealing with, these other bigger decisions, and in most cases, people are terrified of, you know, they're kind of. How can I say it? A lot of times I see people. I've really worked hard to try to make this into, like, kind of chunk all of this down into phases. And, you know, you're definitely fitting into phase one, which is, you know, find the source, you know, and we have to be able to find the source and know what the issues are to be able to get to steps 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. And naturally, when you're in the land of unknown, your brain is kind of scattered, and it's going, you know, what am I going to do if we have to replace, you know, the H VAC system? And what am I going to do with all of my stuff? Am I going to have to throw everything away? And all of these things are kind of attacking you from all these angles, and it's valid. Like I said, it's scary. And I allow the space because people need space. But it's so important to know because this is health. This isn't just your home. This is your health. And mold, in many cases, is the root. It's the root. And. And, you know, when people are. When there's only one person Sick. You know, that's. That's horrible. But I wouldn't want everyone to get sick. And eventually you will get sick. I think there's also a misconception that only, like, some people will get sick, you know, eventually. If you're in mold long enough and it's bad, everybody will eventually get sick.

Sick.

And nobody's immune.

Yeah. What's interesting is what does get sick actually mean for different people? Because it. It's. The severity can be more or less. But there are so many people that are just walking around not feeling the way that they. You know, they're feeling a certain way. That's not how they felt when they were younger, let's say. And they just attribute it to being older. And. And so part of it is not actually even understanding that that's an impact because maybe they're not getting hit as hard. But I think a lot of people get stuck. Stuck on the shoemaker. 25% of people have the genetic predisposition thing. And so they think that it's like just this small subset of people, which, I mean, 25 is a lot of people, but in the grand scheme of things, it's still minority. Right. So they think that. And then I went a little further one day, and I was like, okay, well, it's not. I know. It's not just that. It's people that have any sort of other health condition that kind of weakens the immune system. So then I just went and looked up stats for Lyme disease. Just all autoimmune diseases under an umbrella and pans, pandas, and put all that together. And then that was 40% of the US population. And that's still not everything. Right. Those are just the three that I could think of off the top of my head. So.

And we normalize it. Yeah, we normalize it. And you just reminded me when you said pants and pandas, because I thought of kids. And that's another thing that I commonly see is sometimes parents will say, well, my kids don't have any symptoms. And.

I find it amazing. We have an intake for our health coaching clients, and it's really pretty in depth. You know, it takes about 45 minutes to fill it out because it's looking at environment, it's looking at, like, your history. And I always tell parents, you know, don't fill this out. You know, don't you just fill this out. Fill it out with your child. No matter how old they are, fill it out with your child. And when they do, every single parent, Brian, comes back and says, I was amazed at how many symptoms my child had, but they just. Kids can't, you know, articulate and vocalize symptoms. I mean, when you're seven years old, how are you going to tell your mom you have anxiety?

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And so many of these kids too, they don't have a baseline, they don't know what well feels like. So when surely sometimes, you know, people and children can have symptoms but not even know how to tell their mom or dad that they feel bad because they've been in this moldy environment for probably years and this is just how they feel. This is just their everyday, this is just what they feel like. So, you know, I, I think that, you know, I don't know, it's, it's tough. I get it. And, and I just try to really support people through the process, but, you know, I won't co sign, you know, I try to really be there and like I said, the voice of reason to kind of be like, well, these are the options that we have and does it really make sense? You know, what makes sense at this point? And for me, you know, in all the experience that I have working with just so many people in this world, it's, you know, you can't really make those bigger decisions without knowing what you're dealing with. With.

Yeah, you're so right. And the other thing is that people are so close to it because they're so emotionally invested in their stuff or their house or whatever, or the fact that they're actually not feeling well or whatever it is that you can't make an objective decision sometimes. And that's why it's so important to have a third party if you need it. Not everybody needs it, but if you need it, it's almost like a mediator for, you know, for something. Right. Like to have that objective third party that is really looking out for you. Right. They're not like for you. It doesn't matter if they, and I tell, I've told this to people and they actually like take it the wrong way. And it's not me trying to be a dick when I'm talking to them, but the reality is I don't care what you, what you do with your house. I don't care if you remediate, I don't care if you do. It doesn't impact me at all. Right. Like by me telling you that there's a bunch of problems in the house. All I'm doing is trying to do right by you. I have no financial gain in any Way, if you have to rip your house apart, like, it means nothing to me. Right.

Yeah.

And sometimes people look at me like, how dare you talk to me like that? But the thing is that you mentioned it earlier. There's this distrust thing that people get because they've been burned so many times. And so sometimes you kind of have to shock somebody out of that. You're like, it literally doesn't matter to me, like, what happens. I came here because you asked me to come here, and I'm really trying to help you because that's what I do. If you don't listen to me, that's cool. But. Yeah, and so we need that voice that. That somebody that's not so tied up into it. Otherwise, sometimes we get lost in our own, you know, cloudy jungle head that we have. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I was.

And, you know, and I mean, it's kind of like, you know, when you're in mold, you already got brain fog. And one of the symptoms of that, too, is many people have trouble making decisions.

Yes.

And when you've got these big decisions. I tried. You know, that's one of the. I really focus on this aspect, is we can't make major decisions. You know, we can't skip step one. You can't do that in this. It's like you have to know the range of what you're. What you're dealing with. And so I always kind of compare it. To me, at least when we're talking about mold in the home, the inspector, you know, what you do, Brian, to me, is the core of everything. It. You know, it's so important. It's the map. It's the map to let us know what, you know, how we need to handle things. You know, I know that all of those other things seem so huge, and they are. You know, but it's kind of like. Too.

You know, I kind of made this. I had one client that was kind of really didn't want to go through with the inspection, and price was a big part of it. And I kind of made the analogy that. Okay, okay, let's say that your wife needed surgery. Right. Would you get the cheapest doctor or would you get the best doctor?

Yeah.

And that merely kind of put it in a different perspective, because that's truly where we're at when we're talking about mold in the home. And so I'm really passionate about what I do, and I'm really. I feel honored every day to help people. People kind of navigate this. But.

You know, I know how mold affected Me, I mean, it dropped me to. To my knees. I. I have a healthy respect for mold.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, your. You know, your. Your impact from mold was actually even far worse than mine was.

Mine. In the grand scheme of things, of people that I've worked with and talked to and people that I know, it seems like if you compare me to them, it's like nothing happened to me compared to everybody compared to everybody else. Like, I got a little brain fog and got some skin breakouts. Like, that's kind of what. Like what it was to me that freaked me out enough. Right? Like that was enough. Yeah. Like other people. It's, you know, and it just. It can be so much worse. And it's. That's why it's so important to be on top of this stuff. You know, you were talking about the kid thing, the kids porn portion earlier, and it just made me think of. I had a conversation with Dr. Tanya Dempsey, like a year and a half ago or something. She's out of the east coast, and.

She. We were talking. We're actually talking about mast cell activation syndrome was kind of the. The purpose of the conversation. But I started asking because I was talking about how when I was looking for a new place for us, you know, I. At the time, I had an infant. Now she's two. But it was. You got to be so careful where you go, because the immune system is underdeveloped in kids. Right. And so it's almost as if they're an immunocompromised person at that point, because they just don't have an immune system yet. And so you really have to protect that. That immune system for them. And so I was like, you know, trying to find places. And I said that to her. She's like, or.

Or.

And then I asked. I was like, so just like, curiosity. I mean, we're going to be settled before that. But, like, at what point? Point. Because I've always heard kids have a lesser immune system. Like, at what point it. Is it, like, kind of developed? Right. And in my mind, I thought the. I thought the answer was going to be, like, I don't know, around 10 or something. Eight, 10. Something like that. She said, like, 22. She said like eight.

Wow.

18 to 22 was like, what she said. She's like, it's not kids, it's. You think of, like, the lifespan of a person. Right. And that's like, the first portion of it. Yeah. Anyways, like, apparently it takes much longer for your immune system to develop than I thought, which was really interesting. It just, like, made me think of that when we were talking. We were talking about that a minute ago.

Yeah, but, yeah, totally.

It's. It's. It's important. You know, the. The reason that I wanted to have you on was to really. I tell this to people a lot, that you have to surround yourself with the right people, you know.

Because, I mean, I was just texting with someone on the mole phone today, and I did an episode a while back that was talking about this mold scam, and I was, like, really upset during the episode. I was, like, ranting, I'm pretty. I don't think I cussed, but I felt like I wanted to. It was, like, really, really mad because I just. I won't get into it. But anyways, it's. You know, people. You know, these. These experts come into a house and they tell you just to fog your house and, like, walk away.

And.

And when someone like that gets a more reputable name, people believe them, you know, and it's completely irresponsible. And, like, I feel like being one of these top names that people come to, like, I have this very big responsibility to not F someone over because they put all of their trust in you. Right? And this is where this whole distrust thing that you mentioned earlier comes from, is that you could only put your trust in someone like that so many times. The same way with relationships in general. Like, you could only open your heart to someone so many times and just get cheated on and beat up or whatever in the relationship. Physically beat up, but just, like, emotionally beat up. And then it's harder for you to open up to people. Right. It's just like a natural thing.

And.

And so anyways, I was texting with someone about this, and it just, like, really upset me again. It was like I got PTSD from the episode I recorded. I was, like, fuming that day. If anyone wants to hear me, like, really pissed off, go listen. Episode 49.

No, I get. I get. You know, I get fired up, too, for people. And. And that is one of the things that we commonly see. You know, my husband Pete and I were. We were just talking about this yesterday because we saw it in. In another one of our clients where, you know, these guys come in and they. They know the lingo. You know, they're learning the lingo and they manipulate and they. You know, it's kind of like this subscription model, and it's a good hug.

Exactly what I referred to it as. It's like the iPhone forever plan is like, yeah, totally.

And. And they use, you know, fogging as their, you know, remediation. And then they, they do the air test and try get that to pass. And then it does. You know, it burns me up. I can't. You know, they come in like Ghostbusters, like.

Yeah. So the reason I bring that up is because you need to have the right people around you, you know? Yeah. And so one, I think you're one of the right people to have. And two, you're welcome. And then two, I think that you could actually help people avoid getting sucked into the wrong person in a different area of expertise. Which is so important, you know. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, like, if you don't know anything about this, I mean, some of these people, they're, they're tied in with some of the doctors, you know, the doctors. The doctors are body doctors. Jill Christa says this all the time. Dr. Christa says it all the time. She's like, I'm a body expert, I am not a building expert. Go talk to Brian. Like, but so many doctors don't do that, right? Like they, they want to feel like that they can do everything. And, and then even if they do feel like that, they're gonna say, okay, go talk to so and so they don't. And it's not on them. Like they can only know so much. But like that, you know, let's call them that subscription inspector sells them with all the lingo and the language and stuff. He's talking about Ermie and this and that, like all these cool enzymes and stuff. And then the doctor thinks like, okay, this guy knows what he's talking about. So then the person gets referred to this subscription guy from their doctor, Right?

Yeah.

So they've gotten like this third party validation. The problem is that the doctor doesn't know enough about the inspection. Inspection side to really, truly vet that person. Right?

Yeah.

And so they're getting this third party endorsement. I mean, listen, it's a marketing tactic, right? You go, you find the people who have your audience and then you make friends with that person and you get referrals. It's been happening for hundreds of years. Like, this is just how it works, right. And so that's what these guys are doing. And the doctors don't know any better. So they talk a good game and the doctors think they're great. And that's really where I think, like, you can shine for people is to help is. Is like the bullshit meter, Right? I think.

Yeah.

You know, and, and it's just so important to, for that to happen.

Totally. Totally. I mean, and that's. We even have in, you know, in some of our packages, that's. We include that vetting time. I call it, you know, back work. You know, we have our front work, which is one on one with clients, but in all of our. We have. We don't have that many packages. I try to keep the selection slim because I know many people are brain fog.

Right.

Too many decisions. I intentionally do that because I know what it's like to be all brain foggy and you can't even, you know, do I want OJ or apple juice? You know, it's like you can't make smallest decisions. But. But yeah, we include that, you know, for, for really any stage of this. And.

It'S. I don't know, that's a good aspect of it. Many clients really like that feature. And, you know, we help people through whatever it is. There's some people who are stuck too. You know, there's those people out there who. And my heart breaks for people because I know what this is like too, where they can't make a move right now. And how can I kind of mitigate some of the risk in my house and maybe dilute some of the risk, but I can't financially do all of these things right now. We try to help people come up with ideas for that. And really, I look at it like there's no perfect way to do this. And, you know, if you try to achieve perfection, it's. It's not going to happen. So really, if you're, if you're even learning anything that you're doing is a good step in the right direction. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I have very similar conversations. It's. Listen, as long as you have a plan on where you're going, this doesn't happen overnight. Right. And think about where you've been to now. How long has it taken you to get to now? What if it takes an extra six months in the grand scheme of things, you at least know where you're going and, and there's a plan. Right. And that seems to help, as you know, because people think, I can't do it all right now. But, you know, to get to your point earlier, you can't even have that conversation with someone until you know what's happening in the house, you know.

Yeah.

And. And so when people decide that we're only gonna maybe handpick like two or three things that, that look most problematic at the time, that's not always the most problematic parts. Right. So there's no harm in knowing everything and then still choosing to only work on what are then identified as the most problematic parts. There's no, like, no one slapping your hand and telling you that you're a bad person for doing that. Right. But you need to know which ones actually are. Like, I. I did this, this house a while ago, and there was this wall that was next to a sink, and there was, like a towel hanger on that wall. And so there was, like, drip stains on that wall because people would wash their hands, go to the towel, you know, dry their hands. Their hands would drip on the wall. Right. And so, you know, one of the signs of water damage we look for, because that's where, you know, mole could be hiding if you see water damage. And so I. I'm talking to them about this when I'm kind of reviewing everything with them, and they're like, oh, that's just from, you know, that's just from when we wash our hands and stuff. I'm like, no, I get that. Like, I get that's what it's from. From mold. Doesn't care where the water came from. Like, you can't rationalize, like, oh, I know where it's from. So it's not a big deal. It's not like it has to be some hidden leak somewhere. If you're spraying water on a wall for months at a time, then that could be a problem. They didn't want to test it. I actually said, listen, we have to test this. Like, I gave it to them. I just gave them the sample because they weren't going to do it. They were so adamant about not doing it, so I just threw it in. It was the worst thing in the whole house. It was like 550,000 count in that wall. And they would have missed it, not done it. Worked on other things and had this massive, massive source in this wall. And then they would have wondered why things aren't as good as it could be. You know, like, this is why it's so important to actually see the plan. Like, see all the data. So you can make the plan. Right?

Yeah, the map. You know, you can't. You can't. It's really hard to guide yourself. And, you know, we're in this time right now where, you know, I talked about earlier how people are overwhelmed. Another thing I see is that people are overloaded with too much information. And so, you know, a common thing that I see is people go into Facebook groups.

Oh, man. I harp on this, too.

The Facebook groups. I get It. Everybody's looking for relativity and support, but you don't know who you're talking to in there. And you ask a question, and you get 15 different answers, and, you know, often it's not. None of them are right sometimes. So, you know, I think sometimes it makes it even more complex when you kind of. You know, I. I was telling somebody the other day who, you know, she just got her army back, and it was. It was not a good army. And she was saying, you know, all. All kinds of people are telling me that remediation isn't possible. And. And she was like, can. Can you tell me what your feelings are about that? And I was like, listen, like, you're gonna get all kinds of people telling you, you know, everything from, you need to burn your house down and move to the desert, and, you know, you can only use a wooden toothpick to comb your hair for the next five years. Or, you know, you can get that end, and then you can get all the way on the other end of the spectrum where people are gonna tell you that, you know, it's no big deal like, that the army's horrible, you know, and it. It's. It's like, if you're. If you're, you know, looking for answers, you're gonna find them, you know, and so I just feel like, you know, just. I don't know. Oh, the groups.

I. You know, you said so many things that I say all the time. Like, it's so funny. Like, the. The. The webinar that I've been doing literally has a section that's called don't believe the Facebook groups. You don't have to burn your house down. Like. Like, it's literally a section where I talk all about remediation and why people say that. Like, it's just. Yeah, it's so funny. You literally use the same words. Like you've seen it. It's not like one person that said you had to burn your house down. Like, you go into a Facebook group, and probably once a week, there's somebody talking about burning your house down and living in a tent in the backyard. And it's. It's not that people don't have to. I mean, I know I've had clients that had to live in a tent in the backyard. It's because there was a bunch of stuff happening in the house. And.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyways, you know, And. And, you know, it's in. You know, it's individualized. The. The level of remediation and decontamination is always based on the most sensitive person in the house. So, you know, there. While there is certainly a template that, that, you know, we kind of follow, it's really individualized and it depends on, you know, like I said, there's certain things that you can kind of follow protocol, but it really depends on the person. And so that's why I feel like it's. It's just. I don't know, I've had so many clients, kind of. It just brings me so much joy when people kind of come back and they're like, pj, like, you don't know how much this helps me to have somebody, you know, be able to talk to and to support me through this. I don't know what I would have done. And I wish I would have had a me back when this happened. I do, because I felt just like, alone and isolated and just, you know, I needed a person to bounce stuff off of. Is this right? Is this the right way to go and what do you think? And help me.

Well, listen, there can only be so many unicorns, otherwise they're not special. So there you go.

All right. We've been at this for a hot minute here.

So I know.

I feel like maybe we can. I feel like we could do other ones. We'll try to see what the people would be interested in hearing and maybe come back and do another one. So for now, I feel like we covered a lot. Hopefully it's helpful for people. If people want to talk to you and get that voice of reason, how do they do that?

Oh, awesome. Yeah, I have a really big Instagram account. I do a lot on Instagram. If you're on Instagram, pop over at PJ Harlow Wellness is my handle there. And our website is PJ Harlow wellness.com and we offer a free 15 minute conversation. If you just want to touch base and book an appointment and we can kind of get to know each other a little bit. And I usually tell people, you know, a little bit about me and what we do here. And then I usually ask people to share what they're currently going through and what they'd like to explore as far as support. And we offer testing on our website. We have a lot of resources on the website, too. I love to write and, you know, from the gate, that's how kind of how my website started was to provide people with truth. That's really important to me. And.

And, yeah, so listen, go check out pj. Like I said earlier, it's not a matter of do you work with someone like me or someone like pj, you really want to surround yourself with the best of the best in terms of talent and, and people who are good at different things. And so that's pj. Phil's a very big whole for a lot of folks when it comes to that. So yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm, I'm honored to be on the A team.

I need to keep a list of like, who's on the B team.

All right, well, thanks, pj. This is fun.

Thank you so much. This was so fun. And yeah.

All right, thanks everyone for listening. We'll talk to you again soon. Later.

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 needed the most.