70: Should you leave during remediation?

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, what is going on? I know that you probably just been clamoring to hear my voice, and I took about a week there because we're working on some really awesome things behind the scenes, but I have some things that I want to chat with you guys about. So we're gonna kind of jump right into it. And it all kind of started from this phone call that I had with a client when we were going over results with them. Right. We're going through things and they had some problems going on in the house. And, and I was kind of walking through, you know, what the lab results looked like, what the remediation plan was, was recommendation was going to be, and kind of had the order on all how all that was going to go. And a big thing that always comes up during these conversations is logistics, right? You're like, okay, it's cool. So we have to remediate, you know, X, Y and Z.

What do we do? Where do we go? Right? And it's, it's a tough question because the truth is, is that if you're doing any sort of kind of larger scale remediation in your house, you really shouldn't be there. Right. And so, you know, most of the clients that we work with, because we're working with really health, you know, compromised people there. It's not usually just like one sink in the laundry room or something. Like, there's usually a few things that are going on. They have to do some version of cleaning their house, whatever it's going to be. And so then the question comes up, they're like, well, can I be here while you're remediating, right? Or I mean, we're not remediating, but can I be here while remediation is happening? And you know, the answer is honestly, like, I, I don't like it when people stay in the house during remediation. You know, yes, there's engineering controls that are in place. Yes. You've got these negative pressure machines that are sucking air into the containments. Right. So you shouldn't be cross contaminating anything.

But you know what? I, I don't think that it's ever 100% perfect. I don't think that everything you're doing is ever going to completely stay in that containment for a couple reasons. One kind of depends on who your remediator is. But I've walked into containments where the containment itself is not very good, right? And so if the containment was set up and there's little gaps in it here or there, or the, the negative pressure isn't really working super well or whatever, then it's going to be a lot easier for things to get out of that containment. Right? Now think about it. You're in a containment, let's say, I mean, I'm standing in a room right now. Let's say that I had to rip open a wall that was in this room. That's demolition. That's happening, right? That's like construction style demolition. You're ripping drywall out of something that causes a really big disturbance and disruption of particle, Right? It's not just drywall, but it's all the other stuff back there, which by the way, we wouldn't be remediating it if there wasn't mold, right? So that means that there's mold back there. And so when you do that, you're creating like this, this microscopic explosion of whatever contamination is back there and it gets all airborne, right? And so the point of the containment is to keep it all in the containment, you know. You know, and so, you know, they have, they have air cleaning machines, they have negative pressure machines, different things like that. You know, compare it to, compare it to some like, massive disease that's going on, some super contagious disease that's happening. And you ever see like the, the like, if you ever watch Grey's Anatomy or any of these shows like that, they always have some episode at some point where there's this uncontainable disease that's going on and they have to put people in these bubbles and, and, and the staff in the hospital has to get completely suited up and they have to go in there and this and that, right? So think of it like that, right? Because ultimately if you're dealing with mold and if there's a mycotoxin issue, then you're dealing with biotoxins. You're literally dealing with chemical agents that are meant to kill living things, right? That's what's in there. Okay, so let's just understand kind of what we're trying to.

What is going on in this space in our house where we're actually trying to stay and live in there, right? That's that's kind of what we're dealing with. And you know, in these shows, in these TV shows, if you watch them, they, there are so many like precautions before they go into the room, right? They, they put on the suit, right? And then there's kind of like a mid entry room that they go into before they go into the main room. And that's kind of where they do all the suiting and stuff. And then they come out and there's some sort of like.

Like body washing sort of decontamination thing that they have to go through in order to get everything off of them. And if they're in the room and God forbid, like their glove rips or something, it's like the end of the world, right? Like that's, that's what's happening in these things. Here's what I'll tell you. Most remediation companies do not treat areas like this, right? So yes, they go and they're like, okay, we got to put in this machine that kind of just makes a suction into the room. Okay, so we'll do that.

All right, cool. We got to remove, you know, we have demolition. We got to remove obviously all the drywall and stuff that's in here. We'll just bag it up and take it out. Well, that's cool. Except what's on the outside of the bag, right? Did they wipe down all the outsides of the bags and take those out? Right. If not, you're cross contaminating into the living space. What are they doing when they come in and out of the containment? When are they changing their clothes? Right. So if they're wearing a suit when they're in there, when are they taking it off? Are they, are they coming out of the containment then taking it off? Well, if they did, then they cross contaminated. If they're taking it off right before they exit the containment, I mean it's a little better. But you now you, your normal clothes have been in the containment for a minute, right? So, so you guys start thinking through all the little things that can happen. Like the reality is they should be building what's called an egress containment, which is basically like a changing room cleaning space or whatever, right? But no one ever does like a cleaning of their bodies before they come out of these things. Like I've never seen that happen, you know. And so you just gotta understand, you put up the containments, you put in the engineering controls to do the best that they can do. This is not being treated like the end of the World, this stuff is going to kill you situation like it would be in a TV show with this deadly virus. It's not treated like that. Right. And depending on the remediation company get worse. I've seen remediation companies send people into containments that aren't wearing suits. Like, so if your remediation company is sending their own people into containments to do remediation work and they're not wearing coverall suits and gloves and protective equipment, then do you think that they're really making sure that they're not cross contaminating your house? The answer is hell no, of course they're not. Right. And so the thing is, is, is when you're trying to decide like I want to stay in my house during remediation, which I get, right? Like nobody wants to leave. You just have to think about all this stuff. You know, you'd say, okay, I've got, you know, a few different things going on. Maybe they're pulling, you know, you know, they're remediating the attic, maybe they're remediating the crawl space. Well, listen, the other thing is that there are other little gaps and creases into your living spaces from these containments. For example, I have been in containments where the remediators did not cover the air conditioning or the heater, you know, depending on what you have. But the ventilation. Right. They didn't cover the vents in the room. Right. Which means, hello, I'm exposing my air conditioning system to everything that's going on in this room. You're setting off a mycotoxin bomb. Cool. Let's just run that up into the air conditioning system now. Right? I've, I've seen things like this done and you just, you know, you got to assume that it's not going to be 100% perfect. And then you have to think to yourself, am I okay being in a place where you know there is going to be cross contamination? I hate to break it to you. It's going to happen, right? It's, it's going to happen. And that's why a real remediation, a true remediation, is actually going beyond the source areas of problem. But you're actually cleaning the whole house too. And you do that after you do source remediation. Why do you do that? Because there's going to be cross contamination. And so you want to wait until all that stuff happens and then do a full clean of the house so you can get it all up and get rid of it. That is why you do it in that order. Otherwise people could be cleaning the main section of the house while they're remediating the containment areas of the house. And then when the containment areas are supposed to be done, then just have the crew go in and kind of double clean that. And you would save time. And everyone would love that. They would love to save time. Right. So when you're talking logistics, it's always about, okay, how long is this going to take? When you know, when would post inspections start to happen, how long is the testing process after that? And then people always want to try, which makes complete sense. You want to try to kind of fill the calendar where something is always happening. The reality is that you can't always be doing something in everywhere. You have to kind of do it in a specific order. And that's why, you know, being in a house, when you're remediating multiple containment zones and you're doing crawl space remediation, which easily could pop up into the living space throughout the whole house. Not just containments, but you know, there are gaps in your subfloors and cracks and areas there's around your plumbing and bathrooms. I don't know if you've ever gone under a house, but if you crawl under a bathroom, they run a plumbing line down to run the plumbing in the crawl space. You could see straight up into, into the bottom side of the tub. Like, they don't, they don't airtight seal the hole that the pipe comes through. They cut a big hole and then they take a pipe that's smaller than the size of that big hole and they run that through the hole and they run that down and that's it. Right. So you want to side note, you want to talk about another way your crawl space gets into your living space. Because you have big holes under all of your bathrooms that air is just moving straight up into. Right. And so if you're remediating a crawl space and you're walking or and you're crawling around and dirt's getting popped up everywhere and you're sanding stuff and whatever. Do you think some of that's going to get up in those spaces? Yeah, probably. Right. Especially if they're not containing them. Perfect. And I'll tell you this.

Sealing off those areas when you're in a tight crawl space is even more difficult than simply getting on a ladder and putting a piece of plastic over an air conditioning vent. Right. Like, think about the difference of how much more difficult that is just physically to be able to do that. And if people Are cutting corners from covering air, air conditioning vents. Do you think they're cutting corners under the house, uncovering those things? The answer is yes, right? And so these are all reasons and this is all explanations I give to my clients. And they're like, hey, can we stay here while this is going on? I say, ah, I don't want you to. I mean, you could do whatever you want to do, right? And the reality is that's true. I never tell someone they can or can't do something. It's not my. It's not my place to be, you know, the iron fist that rules their life or anything. But I explain stuff to people and say, okay, if you do that, here are the pros and cons of that, right? Pros. You get to stay in your house. It's a little more comfortable. It's not as inconvenient. You save money on renting somewhere to live. Cons, you're probably cross contaminating your house. You're probably exposing yourself to even more than what you're exposing yourself before because of all the disruption that's going on. By the way, you called us because you're being exposed to something and it's making you sick. So weigh it out. Do I stay in the house and possibly get more sick during this process, or do I, do I leave and let it get done right the first time and treat it like what it is, which is a biotoxin remediation zone? Like biotoxins, chemicals. That's what mycotoxins are, right? Chemical byproducts. What if there was a chemical spill somewhere? Would you be like, like in your house? What if there's a chemical spill? Would you be like, ah, you know what? I kind of want to stay in here while you guys are doing all this stuff in your hazmat suits? No freaking way would you do that? Right? Like, the common sense on that would be like, get me out of here. There's like chemicals everywhere. I got to get out of here. I've seen enough movies of people in, in all these suits and stuff. And I've seen like, the chemicals create like, you know, third arms that come out of people and whatever, right? I'm not going to be a part of that. Well, guys, mycotoxins are chemicals. Like, they're chemical byproducts. They're meant to kill things that are alive. That's what they're meant to do. All right? So just kind of keep that in mind when you're trying to make your decision. Should I stay or should I go?

The way to really make it happen most effectively is to go that way. The remediation crew, they can move things around, they can get access to what they need to get access to. The stuff that's getting disrupted all over the place isn't directly impacting you and then all of it can get cleaned up in the second phase of remediation. And then you could come back in after post testing and know that everything is clean because the test will come back, everything is clean and you're not worrying about it anymore, right? And so you know when you come in that whatever the, the, the cross contamination, the disruption and all that stuff that's been going on through the rest of the house, you can know at that point if you follow the process, right? And you do the follow up inspections and the post testing, you can know that it's taken care of at that point and then come back in, right? So on average, just so you guys know, again, you know, we work with people that are in a bad place, right? That's, that's, that's who we work with. So it takes on average about two to three months for the whole thing to happen.

Partially because we are traveling the country. So it's not like we're just leaving the house and going to check out your place. There's schedules that have to be in play, there's different things that happen. So there's a part of that in terms of the follow up inspections and stuff. And then there's time for lab results to come back after the remediation's been done. There's the time for the remediation, there's different elements, right? So don't, I've had clients think that like as soon as we come in and find the problem, like before the inspection, kind of freaking out, like you need to get here sooner. Can you get here sooner? I need you to get here sooner because we need to get back in the house. And I don't want to say anything in the email but like in my mind I'm like, you guys realize if I show up two days sooner, it's going to have very, very little impact on how quickly you could get back in your house, right? Because we have to go through the house, then we have to wait for lab results to come in, then we have to get on the phone and talk about those lab results and then you have to find a remediation company to come in and do that and figure out their schedule and when they can come in and do that work. Then they actually need the time to do all of the work. Right. And then after they do all the work, you really should have us come back in and re inspect everything and retest everything to make sure that it actually was effective. And then we have to wait for those lab results to come in and hopefully it all cleared the first time. But if areas didn't clear the first time and some of the areas need more cleaning, then the remediation company has to come back in and, and reclean those areas to get them to where they're supposed to be. That's why you do post testing. Otherwise you wouldn't know that it wasn't clean enough and then you would go back in and there would still be problems. Right. So that's why you should be post testing. But then maybe they have to come back in and reclaim something else. Then maybe we retest again and then maybe everything is okay. And do you think all that happens in a week? Like. No. Right. It doesn't happen in a week. So it takes time, I would say on average like two to three months for everything. If we're dealing with, you know, with a, you know, a decent mold situation that requires source cleaning, cleaning of the rest of the house that may have been contaminated, addressing H vac systems, kind of the whole thing. So if all that is happening, that's kind of the timeline that I think you'll be looking at. So for two and a half to three months, are you thinking you're going to stay in your house while all this is going on? Don't even think about what you're maybe being exposed to. Think about all the noise and all the disruption that's going on. They have all these machines that are running 247 to try to clean the air. They're, they're doing construction work in your house, knocking things around, doing all this stuff like, like, you know, do you want to be there for that? I don't. You know, the times that it's happened for me, I've left and it hasn't. I've never been, I've never needed to be in a full scale kind of situation like what we need to recommend to our clients because one, for my health condition isn't to that point and two, we just haven't really had massive problems. I've always had like kind of isolated areas under, under a sink here, something, you know, a single room had something under a window or something. And, and I just kind of got us out of the house from, from the, from my renting situation, which I'VE talked about before. But anyways, guys, keep that in mind. You know, is it safe to be in the house? I'm never going to tell you it's safe or not safe. Right, that's. That's a. That's a loaded word. That's really hard for me to say with. With definitive, you know, clarity. Right. But there are ideal situations and there are not ideal situations. So you got to understand the. The risks, the rewards from that. So basically, pros and cons, you make those decisions for you. But hopefully everything that I've talked through will kind of help you think through the whole process and also maybe help you in your question of interviewing remediation companies. All the things that I was just talking about as problems, maybe talk to them and make sure that stuff's not happening. Right.

All right, so here's kind of a follow up of what we just talked about. All right, so I got this text on the mold phone. It's from Rachel. So it says, I know you say to stay off Facebook pages about mold. I really try to, because it can be depressing. Side note, why do I do this? Because people on Facebook pages don't know what they're talking about. About. And so you think that things are not possible or whatever when the person telling you really has no way to know that, I guess. Right. So, like, don't take advice from people that don't know what they're talking about. It's kind of the point of that. Anyways. Today I saw a woman posting about certain types of aspergillus being able to cause cancer and permanent brain damage. Sometimes I feel like my brain is just failing me. Like this morning, I can't find the thoughts or form the right words. I guess my question is, is the aspergillus on my ERMI report one of them or is it tellable? I don't want to hurt our kids or our family. I'm worried we made matters worse by having the crawl space remediated and air ducts cleaned while being in the home. I want us to heal, but is that even possible while being in the home?

Okay, so this. We're going to kind of talk about what's gone on here. Right. So we talked about being in a home when remediation is going on. Right. So Rachel here was right. So she had her crawl space remediated. She had her and her air, you know, her air ducts cleaned and everything as part of that process. All right, so we've talked about what happens. Right. So can there be more of an exposure issue here? Yeah, there could be. Right. Because you didn't leave when we talked all about that. Let's just dive in a little bit into what the core of her question is. Which is mold causing cancer? Is Aspergillus one of them? Like, that sort of thing? All right, so.

Disclaimer time. Like I say all the time, guys, I'm not a doctor, but I know a whole lot of them. So can mold cause cancer? I've talked to many doctors that think, yes. I've worked with clients that actually have cancer, and their doctors have told me that they believe that the mold in their house has caused the cancer that they have. And that is really important. Right. So, yes, I think that it can. I think that it can. I have not done the research myself because, you know, I'm not a doctor. Right. Okay. So let's keep that in mind. So now we're talking about is this specific aspergillus type that's on my army capable of doing it? This is the mechanism of causing the cancer that I really don't know. Right. The way that I've understood it is that mycotoxins can.

Because they basically are storing in our cells, in our fat cells, and then they basically help to kind of like replicate and induce. Honestly, guys, I don't know the full scope of it. Right? But like I said, you know, mycotoxins are meant to kill living things, right? And I have seen things that suggest that mycotoxins cause cancer. And then I've also worked with clients who have cancer, and the doctors have told me that they think the mold is doing it. So, you know, is it the specific species on your ermi that's gonna cause. I don't know. Right. I don't know the answer to that. Here's what I know. Being exposed to mold and being exposed to their toxins is really, really, really not good for you. Right. And when things like that happen, like, the reason cancer happens is because we're exposed to all these different things, and then our. Our body kind of reacts, and then it kind of like, it kind of rewrites a little bit of what's going on in our body, and then those cells start duplicating, and there you go, you have cancer. Right? And that's why there's all of these preventative treatments you could be doing that is red light therapy, you know, to help kind of power up your internal. Your cells, the energy stores in your body to help kind of counteract stuff like that. Right. So the same thing with Infrared, you know, infrared saunas and stuff. The.

Cold thermogenesis, which is like, you know, like cold baths and cold showers and things like that. All of that is meant to.

Or one element of those things can be increasing. The process is called autophagy, which is basically like getting rid of the bad cells so they don't duplicate. Right. And so when you're exposed to a bunch of mold and you're exposed to mycotoxins, it damages some of your cells. And if they start duplicating, that's, you know, that's like oxidative stress. You know, the kind of. The same type of thing as oxidative stress. And that's when you start getting cancer development. Right. This is. This is me talking, not as a cancer researcher, but just from things that I've read. So listen, is it that particular species of Aspergillus? I don't know. There are several species of Aspergillus that can create mycotoxins. So is it the mold itself? Is it maybe the toxins that they're producing that might cause cancer in a specific person? It might be different for different people. Guys. Like, our bodies are all different. The stages that we are in terms of our internal systems and our cellular strength and all the other things that go in our bodies are completely different. Right, right. For some of us, it's not cancer, but it turns into like brain damage. It turns into like a neuroplasticity issue. Right. You get inhalational Alzheimer's, you get different things. That's not cancer. Right. But that's something else that's really terrible, too.

So the key is, I wouldn't say I'm going to look at this ERMI report, and as long as this one mold is not here, that, that somebody in a Facebook group said causes cancer, then I'm okay. Right. Can't look at it that way. Right. The way that I look at my life, it's a series of things and choices that I make to help prevent this stuff from happening to me in the future. Right. One of them is my environment. What am I doing? I have, for one, I live in a place that doesn't have mole problems. Right. And lucky for me, I know how to do that. Right. So I get it. But I live in a place that doesn't have mole problems. Right. So that's step one. Step two, I have air filters in every, I want to say every room of my house, but probably 75% of my house is covered with some sort of air filtration technology. Because yes, there's no mold, guys. There's more than just mold that causes problems, right? Air quality is a big problem in general and these devices can be effective. I've got five of these things in my house. That's another thing, that's another choice that I've made of things that I do. I do daily sauna treatments, red light therapy and whole body vibration to help my body detox get rid of kind of these, you know, kind of what I was just explaining with like, you know, the dead cells and work through that process. There are definitely a lot of studies that show that doing all of those things can help limit your ability of developing some of these life altering conditions, which could be cancer and brain damage and Alzheimer's and all this other stuff that happens, right? That's something else that I do, you know, exercise, which I haven't been doing as much because I've been super busy. Like it happens to everybody. But I go through phases and I really try. And you don't have to do it every day, but doing a couple things. So all of this stuff helps, right? Everything that I have done now in my life, being in the world that I am and seeing how many people I see that are in really bad health situations, I don't want to be there. So I make choices to get around that, right? So when you look at an URMI result and you're like, well, is this one mold here? Nah, this mold here. Cool. Guys, it's not about the one mold, right? It's about a series of things that add up to the point where your body just can't deal with it anymore. And so the environment is a very big component of that. A lot of times if you're dealing with some of the, any of these health conditions, doctors are going to say you got to fix your environment first. None of this other stuff is really going to work until you do your environment. Environment. So the same way that there's an order to remediate your house, right? There's. You do things in a particular order, like I mentioned earlier, there's also kind of an order of how you need to start treating yourself, right? And the first thing is that we live in these homes that we think are protecting us from the elements and they are kind of. But if the home is not protecting us from what's happening inside, right, Then they're not actually protecting us, they're making us worse. Like, we gotta like rework how we think about this stuff. All right? So just.

Like I said, Facebook groups, they're great. You could get support there. But when you start asking very specific questions about very specific things, you literally have someone in this group that said this species of Aspergillus causes cancer. How in the world can that person know that? Unless they're an oncologist or some sort of medical expert. Right. And they've done research on a very particular strain of mold and how that exact mold causes cancer, they can't know that. Right. So.

Please try to take the Facebook groups for what they're worth. I understand it's a great support mechanism. You can see what have worked for other people. But don't just take it as gospel from them when they say it. Right? Like say, okay, this has worked for someone. Let me think through this. How would this work for me? Does this make sense? Right. It's cool to get ideas from there. I would not be running my life completely off of what people say on Facebook. It'd be very weird life if you did that. Anyways, okay. I hope that that was helpful and kind of rounded out the initial conversation from before. So I think that's it for today. Thanks for listening, guys. We'll talk to you.

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.