Mastering the Art of a Healthy Home Microbiome

We have to look at this from a practical standpoint. What can we do, you know, what is in our control? And I think we got to take very logical steps in what's in our control and be very data driven.

Hello, everyone, My name is Kendra Seymour and I want to welcome you back to another Change the Air Foundation Summit interview. And I'm so excited for today's topic with Michael Rubino, who is one of our co founders and he's the current board chair of Change the Air Foundation. So welcome, Michael, welcome.

And it's glad you're excited because we talk all the time. Obviously it's the first time these, the people joining in get to see us interact. But I'm glad you're excited for this. And for those that don't know, Kendra, just want to thank you for helping me put this event together. And I hope that everybody watching this just really gets to take a lot of takeaways from this.

Yeah, no, no, you're welcome. It's been really exciting to do. And your topic today is probably one of the ones I'm most excited about because it's questions we get all the time and it, I don't, I don't want to give too much away because we're going to let you jump right in, but it's going to talk to us a bit about how to create that healthy home and cleaning and dust and all these questions that people are probably sitting there wondering. And I love that you're going to take us like right to the topic. And I, I understand you have a video for us, is that correct?

Yeah. So one of my favorite things to do is educate people. And I feel like the best way to do that is through some visuals. And so I put together this video that I'm about to share with you guys now. Thank you for watching in advance. And we'll get dive into some questions, I'm sure after.

Can you hear it?

Probably not, right? Because I don't think I can even hear it.

Nope.

Creating a healthy home first starts with finding out what may be unhealthy about it. One of the common denominators to look for is that four letter word mold. It's because certain species can grow in as quickly as 24 to 48 hours. So it's very easy to detect as a common denominator of sources of unwanted pollutants if you're detecting properly. More on that later. Using that common denominator, you can trace that back to water damage that may have had other contaminants like bacteria and VOCs with it. When water enters a home, it can cause VOCs, which are chemical off gassing from materials and paints that remain wet mold, bacteria and toxins. Quite simply, identifying current and past water damage events that have allowed an unfavorable microbiome to exist in your home is one of the best things you can do in your quest for a healthy home. But there's a simple missing link in why people spend money on mold remediation and don't end up creating the healthy environment they're seeking. It's because there's a misunderstanding in microbiology and how these microbiological contaminants actually affect a human being. Mold and bacteria are living organisms, and they constantly create particles and sometimes toxins. This is this way of reproducing and surviving the entire time that a living organism exists inside your home, including you are constantly spreading particles. Your dust comprises of your dead hair and skin cells as an example. But what else is in our dust? Well, these microorganisms constantly create particles that aerosolize and settle just like our dust does. In fact, it becomes a part of our dust. Have you ever seen a ray of light pass before you and noticed all the dust floating in your air? That's right, our dust is everywhere. As your H Vac turns on, as you open and close doors and windows.

Heck, even when you walk through a.

Room, you're creating force that kicks up dust. So if our dust is everywhere and when we have water events that create an unfavorable microbiome that adds to the amount of particles and toxins in our dust, it's easy to see how this can affect each of the 20,000 breaths we take each day. If there's one thing we have learned about dust, it stays forever until we remove it. That's right.

If you don't remove it and you.

Let it accumulate, what happens? It builds up and it gets thicker. That only means more potential bad stuff entering our body with each breath that we take.

So we need to remove the living.

Organisms, creating particles and toxins that are making our dust more dangerous and causing unwanted health effects. And then we need to remove our dust that has these particles present. Oh, but of course, there's a variable preventing us from obtaining such easy success. It's our H VAC system. You see, most of us have anywhere from MERV 8 to MERV 13 filtration. None of them remove as small of a particle as mold or bacteria. I don't care if it says mold on the packaging, because mold can be smaller than 3 microns. And why is this a problem? Because particles as small as mold, bacteria, toxins, etc. Can easily pass through the filter, making its way to the evaporator coil, the most vulnerable part of the H vac. Why?

Because it's constantly wet.

This is how our microbial problem in the basement becomes a microbial problem in the H vac, spreading across through all the vents in the home. The good news is that There exists today MERV16 filtration engineered to have the pressure drop of a MERV8 that you can easily order today if you know how to ask for it. So please do. This technology has the capability of filtering out much smaller particles much more efficiently for guidance. The higher the MERV rating, the smaller the particle it can remove. Now let's dive into locating organisms because it's a real big problem that needs to be solved here. When I came into this industry, everyone took air samples in the center of each room. And if each room contains samples less than outside, it was clear. It's really ironic considering problems are typically so far away from the center of the room and are usually located on exterior walls where water is likely to intrude, or interior plumbing walls. It would be a lot like scanning for a brain tumor in your stomach. Just because the stomach is in the center of your body, it just doesn't make sense.

And it's even worse when used as.

A screening tool, because they'll tell you that if the air quality in the center of the room is good, it means that your home is healthy. Which is wildly misleading because dust, the main part of how these particles get into your body in the first place, is too large to fit into the sample cassette.

So all that dust that could contain.

Tons of mold or bacteria is not being registered in the air sample taken in the center of the room. Unfortunately, people still employ this strategy today. It's a waste of money. And if your goal is to find something, well, you're looking at the wrong information. So what's the solution? Well, it requires having a knowledge of buildings and moisture intrusion and physically looking for problems and testing as close to them as possible. How close? Well, if you suspect water damage in a wall from potentially leaking window, the best thing to do would be to make a small incision into the wall and test behind the wall. Because even if it's not contributing to the air in the center of the room at that exact moment, it's certainly.

Contributing to the contaminated dust. If you're following me here with all.

This talk of contaminated dust, if you're just trying to understand if you might.

Have a problem in the home.

As an elementary step, testing your dust is the best way to do this. It's so simple, you can do it yourself without the need to pay an inspector. Because if you collect dust from various rooms of your home, and if you.

Have a large home, you could even.

Do one test on each floor to better differentiate, you can really see what's in your dust, which equates to what you're being exposed to far better than an air sample would do. The limitation of the dust test is.

The fact that it won't tell you.

Where the organisms are hiding, but it answers the question if you do have organisms creating particles, and how much of.

That are you really breathing in with.

Each of the 20,000 breaths that you take? This is the basis of how we as human beings are affected by the organisms living in the shadows of our home. So you see how creating a healthy home can seem incredibly complex, and it certainly can be if you don't know what to look for or how to do the work it takes to get and stay there. But at the same time, if you notice how incredibly simple the problem really is and how it affects us, and with the knowledge you now have, I hope you can take the right steps. Now that you have a better understanding of them, you can do this.

Well, what do you think?

I loved it. I. I'm not sure if I'm enlightened or incredibly grossed out, to be honest. What? I have so many questions. But first, let me say I love how you. You brought the visuals of the mold sport, and even has, like, a little mask on it, like, he's the bad guy, because these are microscopic things that aren't visible to the naked eye. And I think people tend to think that if they can't see it, it's not a problem, or it's so small, it can't really hurt me. And so I really loved how, like, even just she's laying in the bed and you can see it, the particles moving in as she's breathing and sitting down on the couch. So that was awesome. Again, a little grossed out, though.

Well, I think a ninja is a good representation because this can be very sneaky, right? It's 50 times smaller than what the eye can see. It's happening usually behind walls. We're not even aware of it. And so to really break down the representation of what's occurring in people's homes think is really important. You know, you have living organisms behind walls, behind ceilings, hidden in H. Vacs et cetera, that are constantly producing these particles that then become part of our dust. And then if we know that our dust is everywhere because we've seen it through that ray of light that's come through our windows, we can tell that our dust is getting inside of our bodies with each of the 20,000 breaths we take.

Right.

And so it's super important that people understand this, because if they understand it, then they can actually do something about it.

Yeah, I love it. I think we had Brian Carr on a while ago, and he talked about who's the Peanuts character with the dust cloud and kind of how we have that human cloud effect. And I think I even saw a study that said something like the act of, like, walking generates something like 10 million particles per cubic feet. And, you know, we can get the carpet. That's probably a whole nother episode. But. But I want to jump in with my first question. So I love that you broke it down into kind of two steps for people. Step one is really about remov, the living organism, which is, we sometimes say, that source area where the mold is growing. We talk a lot about that at the foundation. And then step two, you said, is moving, removing that dust that has settled in our environment and around. And one of the questions we always get is, well, I can't afford to remediate right now. Would cleaning and removing some of that dust have any benefit to someone who was maybe needing a little bit of time before remediation was an option?

You know, I think that's a very individualistic question, meaning it's going to vary from person to person. You know, look at it from this perspective. If your bathtub's overflowing with water, right, you're going to want to shut off the faucet, stop that source of water filling up the bathtub before you start putting down towels. And so, you know, if you can't shut off the faucet, right, then putting out towels in an emergency is probably a smart thing to do. But obviously, the ideal situation is first shutting off the faucet, then cleaning up the mess. You know, if you look at these organisms as constantly creating particles, it's kind of like your faucet here. We have to try to do some sort of combination of shutting off the faucet and. And, you know, kind of cleaning up the mess. I think what's interesting about this is that, you know, I've. I've talked to. I've spoken to so many people over the years, and my goal as a professional is to meet People where they're at. Right. And because I can't help somebody if I'm presenting solutions to them that they simply just can't afford or can't feasibly do. And I think what I want people to realize is that you want to take steps. Making improvements insignificant versus significant are obviously vital.

Right.

If we're in a situation where we're not feeling well and we're pretty sure our home is the culprit. Okay, good. Well, what can we do about that? And it's meeting people where they're at to figure out what is feasible and making sure that we're following some sort of logic in terms of what we're recommending. Right. And I think a lot of people get overwhelmed and they have this fear that if they don't do everything or that, you know, if they don't take all the steps, then taking ASAP is not valuable. And I'll tell you, I mean, 75% of the people that I help can't afford to do everything that they find. Right. And so, but yet they're do. They're taking steps, they're taking the right steps and they're getting better. Right. And so I think there's a lot of value in that. And I think people need to understand that. Of course, everyone's got their own sensitivity level to their environment, but we have to, we have to figure out, you know, a way to take action and don't get into that paralysis by analysis because it's just not helpful.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because it is very overwhelming. And I think sometimes people just decide like, well, it's the lost cause. I'm not going to do anything. And we have for those listening, some great resources. Corey Levy's done a few interviews for us that you can find on our website, changetheairfoundation.org, where he talks about how you might prioritize that because he's a iep and. And so he can help walk you through that or a good IEP in your area can help you do that too. One of the things I love that you brought up because I feel like it's often overlooked, as you talked about, like the H VAC unit and the filtration there, some people may not realize that, yes, you need to be changing out your filter and that the type of filter matters. So I'm wondering, because MERV is technically a measurement, right. The numbers range. And in your video, what was the number you recommended again? Was it 16?

Yes.

So do you have to, like, have anything special done to your H VAC unit to accommodate a MERV 16. Or is it as simple as, like, going to Home Depot or ordering one online and switching it out?

No, unfortunately, you have to. You have to buy like a. A device. Right. Because the issue and the challenge with filtration is the first off, let's explain what it is. So the Merv rating, the higher the Merv rating, the smaller the particle it can remove. And that's really the simplicity of it, of it. It's how efficient is this filter and that every filter has a rating. Now, the biggest challenge, and this is an engineering challenge, is the higher the MERV rating, the more you restrict airflow. And so with that being said, if you talk to any H Vac guy and you mentioned MERV16, they're going to be like, oh, no, you can't have that good of a filter. That's going to destroy your system. And it would be true if it's not set up properly or you don't buy the right product. Right. But, you know, for me, I'm looking at products that are MERV 16 filter, and there's a few of them out there that don't restrict airflow as much, and they're engineered that way. One of the ones I like, for example, is a MERV16 pressure drop of a MERV8. Right. So it solves the problem of better filtration without restricting airflow. So I think for. For me, it's about understanding that and putting together something that makes sense. Now, the product that I like, and they all range like at 1500-2500 bucks, somewhere in that ballpark, just so people have some perspective. Yeah, that can be expensive, but an H Vac system can be 15, 20 grand. So 10% to real, 10% of the cost of an H vac to protect your H vac and more importantly, also not only protect it, but increase the air quality of the air that you're breathing. I think that's a really sound investment. And considering how many problems I've seen in H Vacs over the past 11 years, it's alarming. I mean, you have a problem in your basement. Your H Vac system's designed to draw.

Air in and condition it.

That problem in your basement becomes a problem in your H Vac and now it just gets worse. Right. And so we have to take proper steps to mitigate our risks. And H Vac filtration is definitely an important step.

I kind of feel like in a note for us, we need to have a whole thing on H vac units and filtration and ductwork, because it really is such a huge part of it all, and there's a lot of considerations there. So we'll have to plan for something in the future on that.

Put me to work.

Okay, so now this is the meat of it. This is the part that I was kind of excited about because you talked about removing that dust. And this is something that I think most of us can do. It comes down to our. Our cleaning regimen. And I know we're going to do a whole big thing on this, change the air foundation, but I want to give people kind of a bit of a preview. So I'm a homeowner. I vacuum every week. I mop and I dust. But I want to know from your perspective, if you can kind of take us through maybe your personal cleaning regimen and what you do. Can you talk to us about vacuums? Can you talk to us about how you mop? Can you talk to us about how you dust and maybe sprinkle in some of those products that you like?

Sure.

Yeah. So I pretty much learned about dust control through getting licensed to be an asbestos guy, and I did that earlier on in my career in my 20s. And, you know, through asbestos. What I learned was the big challenge with asbestos is when you cut it, it. The dust disperses from asbestos, and that can be very dangerous and harmful to people inside. And so the goal was not only did you need engineering controls, which. But. Well, that's a whole other conversation. But you needed to protect the airflow and control the airflow. But on top of that, you had to wet it before you cut it. And it was like, it's very simple. You wet it. When you wet it, it's makes it heavier, right?

It's.

It captures the dust, keeps the dust from aerosolizing. You know, nothing's ever foolproof, but it's.

It's a good.

It's a good effective strategy. And so you would wet this, you would spray it down, then you would cut it, then you would remove it, dispose of it, and then you would, as a precaution, clean the entire space.

Right.

And so that's. It's actually my education through the asbestos arena that really helped me kind of create protocols with mold.

Right.

Because this kind of follows the same principle. You have mold growing in a wall. As you open that wall, you're going to release a ton of particulate. So it's. How do we. How do we minimize that. That risk? And then, you know, if we're cleaning as thoroughly for these asbestos particles, why aren't we cleaning as thoroughly for these mold particles? And lo and behold, right, this is now part of kind of the process that I preach to people. With that being said, if we look at dust and we want to suppress the aerosolization of dust, the best thing to do is wet wipe. And you know, many years ago I was big into like HEPA vacuums and HEPA vacuum the space and all that kind of stuff. And I've done so much testing, right, pre testing, post testing, looking at results, how do we make things better? And basically the wet wiping process is the most effective and efficient process of any other process that you could possibly do at removing dust. And it's just because you're suppressing it, you're keeping it from aerosolizing because now it's wet. And then I use microfiber towels to then wipe it clean. Microfiber towels. I'm going to sound like a microfiber towel salesman for a minute. But the reality of it is, is the fact that it's 100 times more effective at removing particles than like a paper towel or terry cloth. And so it's, it's got these, these little fibers, hence the name microfiber, that are helping capture these things, especially when they're wet. And so when we've, when I've done this process, I've tried it all. Vacuum first, do this spray this way, 45 degree angle. I've tried everything. And I'll tell you, the best, most effective way is the simplest. It's just spray it down with something. I use benefact decon 30. There's amazing, many amazing products out there. Choose the one that works best for you, but you spray it down, you wipe it clean and you're done. And I think the remediation industry has tried to make this so complex and so mysterious. And I was on that bandwagon earlier on in my career. I legitimately thought that and if I didn't clean your home, you, you probably weren't going to, you know, be able to live there. And then the reality of this all came to light as I've done all this testing, that there's nothing special about what your remediator is doing, it's just that they're thoroughly trying to remove the dust and it's, that's that simple.

So when, so someone could go out and you can get microfiber cloths like on Amazon or most places, there's reusable kinds, there's disposable kinds. Do you have a preference?

My preference, what I use in my home is called smart rags and other disposable ones. You get them on Amazon, as you mentioned. I, I think I get a pretty good discount bulk rate or something and so I just go with that. But the reality of the situation is, is that I don't want to clean these things, I just want to toss them. I mean, why I think paper towels are so successful and I understand that this is, may not be the best thing for the outdoor environment and we can touch on that. But the reality of the situation is I have to worry about my health as the first and foremost, right? And so when I look at that from that perspective, I want to throw these things away. I don't want to wash my, wash them in the washing machine, potentially bringing in stuff into my washing machine that might get, you know, stuck in the drains. Of course we clean our washing machines and all that stuff and I'm not trying to impact any fear on people, but the cleanest thing for me to do is to just toss them. And, and when you buy disposable microfiber towels, they're more economical so that you can toss them, right? Because I think what a lot of people don't know is these high grade microfiber towels, all they, the only difference between them is that the higher the grade, the more times you can rewash it, right? And then because they all have this piping that kind of goes around it and so it doesn't fall apart at the seams and you can rewash it 20 times and that's great. If you want to rewash them and do that, by all means, go for it. But for me, I'd rather toss them. I don't have to worry about my washing machine. I don't have to worry about. Did the washing machine get, get rid of everything from it? I am sayonara, it's gone and I don't have to worry about it anymore. And so for me that, that part is, is invaluable. But everybody's got to make their own decision. Everybody has their own, you know, I guess, rules of engagement of how they use certain things. And so that, that is the secret behind the grade quality of the microfiber.

That's really interesting. I didn't know that that was the difference. I assumed the higher the price, maybe one was somehow better. But it sounds like it's the same, you know, material woven in the same way, just ones made to be, you know, washed numerous times. Okay, so, so you wipe your bookcases and your shelves and your counters and stuff with these microfiber cloths. With the solution, use benefact, but you can use anything if you have multiple chemical sensitivities. Could it just be as simple as maybe water and some sort of surfactant, like unscented dish soap? Would that work effectively for someone who can't handle some of the stronger chemicals?

Yeah. I mean, first off, I think we should all throw out all of our chemicals because chemicals don't add to the health of the occupants inside. They do take away from it. I think we all understand what chemicals do. You know, we could use soap and water. Sure. There's two key ingredients that I think are important to discuss. Surfactant, as you mentioned, which is essentially a fancy term or scientific term for dish soap. Right. What dish soap does is it helps separate and degrease. And that's good because we. We are oily human beings. I'm sorry, but we're all oily, some more than others. And that's okay because I know I'm oily, too. And as I touch surfaces around the house, I leave my oily residues on my belongings. And that's a part of life, as you don't. Right. If you don't believe me, go to Disney World and go look at all those handrails that have been touched by 100 million people, and you will clearly see that there's a differentiation between the handrails at Disney World versus the handrail in your home. Right. And so our oils, over time, they really make things soft and they help sculpt things. But one of the things that they do is our oils also create a residue for things to stick to, like toxins and spores and particles and dust and all that fun stuff. And so there's a value in this degreasing factor, especially in bathrooms and kitchens, where we add to the oils with our oily shampoos and lotions and conditioners. And then in the kitchen, all the cooking, oily cooking stuff that we do, too. So I think that there's a very big benefit. Benefit to the surfactant. And there are many products with surfactant. But then we want, you know, I mean, if you just use that in water, yeah, you're going to get some benefit. But I do think that there's a value in some sort of disinfectant. Right. And I think there's a. You know, what are disinfectants? Well, those are antimicrobial. Right. So why do we use. Why do we not just use dish soap on our hands. Well, some dish soaps might be antimicrobial and have disinfectant in it, but not all of them do. Right. And so you can either use like an antimicrobial dish soap that has some disinfectant with the surfactant that can kind of knock off two buckets or you can buy a product that has a botanical disinfectant in it. Thymol is a great one. You know, just as an example. There are many other examples, but find something that works for you, right. That is that, that you want to have in your household that you believe in. That's a good product. But the disinfectant aspect, it does help kill bacteria and other things that we might want to kill as we're cleaning. And not only killing, but also removing. Right. And so that's kind of the two punch strategy. Let's disinfect and let's remove.

Yeah, I love that that removal piece is key. Sometimes I think people underestimate. It seems so simple that it can't possibly be that effective. I've got to change it, I've got to alternate, like alter it somehow. But really it comes down to removal. I'm going to guess that you do not own a mop, am I correct? With the sponge? And you use it week to week and it just harbors all sorts of gross stuff, right?

No, I don't, I don't own a mop.

So you use then the microfiber cloth on your floor?

I do, yeah. I think it's, it's just a, it's just a more effective way at cleaning. You know, I have like this extension pole, it's got microfiber pads on it. They're wet pads. Right. And I clean and I toss those pads away and I buy refills and everything is, is great because those sponges, I mean, are like a sponge. Right? And what does sponges do? I mean if you wash dishes in the sink, you know that at the end of the day that sponge in a week or so is going to smell pretty gross. Right. And that's all the bacteria and stuff that starts to grow and develop on that sponge. The same thing with mopping, Right. Because there is bacteria in our homes. I mean if I test your home right now, Kendra, I'm going to find strep and staff and all these, all these gram positive bacteria spec that do live amongst your home. And so they come from us, they live inside of us, we spew them out. It's abundant in the soil. Unfortunately, we do walk around outside and come inside and bring stuff in with us. And so we want to make sure we're just removing this stuff and not swishing it around with our sponges and sponge mops.

So it's funny you brought up bacteria because I recently read a study out of the University of Arizona, and it talked about how our carpet harbors. I think the study showed like 200,000. What is it, 200,000 units of bacteria per square inch in your carpet versus your toilet seat, which only had 49. And you tend to think of your toilet seat as being the ultimate gross thing, but your carpet, again, probably a topic for another time. Okay, so this is all really helpful. So I'm ditching my mop and I'm going to invest in those microfiber cloths. I do want to take a minute to circle back, though, to HEPA vacuuming, but before I do, because I don't want to forget to ask this question. Does this process remove, just for clarity, for anyone listening, mold, mycotoxins, mold fragments and bacteria, does it take care of all of them or do I need to switch a bacteria or help us understand that a little bit more?

I mean, if you're using a broad spectrum disinfectant with a surfactant, it takes care of everything, right? And because. And that's, that's the idea of a broad spectrum, right? It's taking care of more than just one thing. Thing, and I think for, you know, really clarity purposes, is that we learn new information all the time. And that's what science is about. It's about learning new information. New studies come out. We're cons. New technologies come out for testing, right? And so every year it's like I'm having to brush up on some new technology to then figure out, then test that technology and figure out, can I use this to be better or do better or help people with more. And I think with that being said, we have to understand that, you know, for a while we thought, okay, mycotoxins are typically sticky, right? And so we thought, well, it must stick to everything. But that didn't really make sense because you have to test the dust to.

Test for them, right?

And so then the thought process was, well, maybe the mycotoxin actually gets attached to the spore because they're both getting released at the same time. It envelopes the spore, becomes part of the dust. And now you're breathing that in, which is much more likely considering how we test for mycotoxins in A home is really going to be through that dust. So if we look at, I mean, and, and, and to further preface this, every thing that we can test for these days, even bacteria, is all getting pushed over towards PCR technology and dust testing. Right? And so if we are testing the dust as a baseline to how contaminated something is, then we can clearly come to a conclusion that if we clean the environment, get rid of the dust, allow new dust to settle, and then test the dust again to understand how that information has changed, we really can get a really good sense of what is going to make a difference in people's, you know, lives, especially as it equates to how much time people spend in their homes. And so it's a very, it's an evolving science. It's, it's that it's ever changing. Hopefully by the time I talk next year about this topic, I have new information to give to people that makes things easier. But the good news is that we don't have to worry about this. Our, you know, our homes being the plague. We don't have to worry about like this contamination becoming an all encompassing thing. We can do something about it. And that is empowering and that is important. And the other good thing is you don't need me to come into your home and, and to personally clean your home. That is not the case. And you know, we, for a while we thought it, you needed special people with special equipment, with special understanding. But no, it's this stuff settles in your dust, we got to remove your dust and you can do it. And it, it will be, it will be a benefit even if you can't afford remediation. It will be a benefit to clean more aggressively and clean more thoroughly starting today. And I think that for the first time I'm starting to see how we can make this information more available and more accessible. And everyone deserves to have a clean, healthy environment.

Yeah, absolutely. And we are all about that. At Change the Air foundation we want you to feel like you are in control and you have the power to make some of these changes. So I, before we run out of time, I do want to spend a moment or two, if it's okay, talking a little bit about vacuum cleaners. Because not all vacuum cleaners are created the same, right? In some cases, some are a little like taking a leaf blower inside your living room. And so there are some key considerations I think we want to maybe talk about, you know, about how you want a HEPA filter. Well, a sealed system with a HEPA filter. But can you Just give us some pointers on vacuum cleaners and what we might want to look for when purchasing one. So we're not just redistributing everything back into the air.

So vacuum cleaners in and of itself are very tricky for a multitude of reasons. So first off, let's talk about filtration. We talked about HEPA filtration. Okay, so that's going to get some mold. Not all mold because it only gets down to 3 microns. Mold can be between 2 and 4. It's not going to get rid of mold fragments. Unfortunately, mold can break up into smaller particles in the spore itself. It's not going to get rid of toxins, not viruses, not bacteria. All these things are too small to pass through a HEPA filter. They're too small and they will pass through HEPA filter. So good. But then now that we know that, okay, what are we going to do about that? Well, there's some solutions we can talk about, but that's just the filter. Then there's the vacuum itself being HEPA rated. So if it weren't, wasn't confusing enough already, now you have to worry about the filter and the vacuum being HEPA rated. Why is that? Well, because if the filter is really good, that's great. But if the machine itself has is just built all wonky and it's got tons of air gaps because it's not a well sealed system, well, then it's doesn't matter that there's a good filter because it could bypass that filter just through air leaks of the machine itself. So you have to make sure both is HEPA rated. There's all this talk about opa, right, which is a little bit better than hepa, which is a little bit better than hepa. So is it better? A little bit better, right? Is it a little bit better? No, unfortunately not. Because it still only gets down to what I think 0.2 microns or 1 micron, something to that effect. So, yeah, it's capturing more of mold.

Good news.

But still missing mycotoxins, still missing bacteria, viruses, you name it. So, you know, I think just where we're going technologically, it'd be nice to see, you know, vacuum manufacturers want to go the distance and get better and capture a smaller particle because I think the demand to have a clean, healthy home is there. And we're missing so many things that can still pass through and make us sick that we, we really want to do a better job on that front. So what do we do with a vacuum? Okay, good. So well, you could take your vacuum outside, you can run the hose through the window and vacuum stuff. No, it's not really efficient, but people do it and it's, it's, it's an option. The problem with a vacuum cleaner is that if you know how a vacuum works, it's kind of like an air purifier, right? It draws air in. That's that suction, it's the air coming in. But what happens is the air has to go back out, right. And so it's going to have an exhaust to push, draw the air in and exhaust it back out. Now, there's some, you know, good engineers that are creating some, like sealed exhaust systems. There's a good vacuum cleaner I recommend that has one of those and it helps.

It's not perfect.

There's nothing perfect yet, because you always will need to draw air in and somehow exhaust air back out, creating that vacuum. With that being said, we saw that my video earlier about how just walking through a room, just walking through a room, just opening a door can kick up a ton of dust. What do you think that exhaust from a vacuum cleaner is doing? It is blowing crap around. And, and by the way, if it passes through the filter, that little exhaust is where it's all going to come out, just so everyone's aware. So, you know, we want to do a better job capturing as many particles as we can. You know, if you have carpets, you need a vacuum. If you have fabric furniture, you need a vacuum. But my goal is to try to get people more into the wet wiping game because I think it's more effective. Yeah, you still got to worry about walking through a room, which, by the way, congratulations. You know, we can't do anything about. We have to walk or through a room, we have to move through the room. It, you know, when I look at this from this perspective, it's like, well, how do we tackle this? Well, there's no way to get 100% efficacy, one shot. So cleaning is an exponential process, meaning if we get 75% better every time we clean, if we're starting off at 100 million particles, 75% of that's going to be 75 million. So now we got 25 million particles, then 75% of that. Now we're getting down to the hundreds of thousands of particles and then eventually the tens of thousands of particles. And then eventually we just got thousands of particles or hundreds of particles, which is more in the realm of where you'd want to be. So we have to remember that, you know, our Head can spin very quickly around all this stuff, and this chase for perfection can be overwhelming. Just take steps and utilize logic. If we wet wipe areas that don't need to be vacuumed, like a hardwood floor or a tile floor, then we should do that. If we have fabric, furniture, rugs, things of that nature that we need to vacuum, then we should do that.

We have no choice.

And the nice thing about the fabric is you got these particles and dust suspended in the fabric, so the exhaust isn't making as much of a commotion. So you'll have the opportunity to kind of vacuum it away. But just, you know, we got to use a little more common sense, and we have to realize that we can do this. I am just another human being. Of course. I've become very passionate about this subject, and I've seen a lot of people suffer. But all I've done is try things and test things and teach people what I've learned. And that is the only difference between me and you listening to me right now. And you can clean your home just as well as I can. And I promise you, and I want.

You to know that I love that. I love the visual of gradually reducing it for any of the parents out there. And you might relate to this, Mike, if your kid ever came home with a project that had glitter on it or got one of those toys for Christmas. And I remember one time from preschool, I picked my daughter up, and it was St. Patrick's Day, and there was just green glitter. And I think, oh, my God. And I found it in the car. I found it in my son's diaper. Mind you, he wasn't the one in preschool. And it was just over the house. But over time, you know, there was less and less glitter through my house. And you can kind of think about removing your dust. Even, you know, any contaminants in your dust like that, You're. You're removing that glitter, you know, slowly, over time. But thank you so much, Mike. Are there any final parting words or thoughts you want to share with people? You summed it up so nicely already.

But, yeah, no, I just, like, I think that creating a healthy environment is a very specific and individual process. You know, you. You need to take the steps that you can take. You don't get overwhelmed. If you go on blogs and all these things out there, Facebook groups and whatnot, you will be living in a tent and setting your house on fire. And, you know, I think that that is a very overwhelming and dark place to be. And, you know, I think that it's we have to look at this from a practical standpoint. What can we do? You know, what is in our control? And I think we got to take very logical steps in what. What's in our control and be very data driven. Right. Like the data helps us decide how.

To take those steps.

And so we gotta be data driven, calm, and take this, the steps that we can take. And if you do that, you will have success, you will have results, you will get to where you want to go. As human beings, we have a lot of. We put a lot of stress on ourselves. I know I do this all the time envisioning the light at the end of the tunnel and be just wanting to be there so bad. But there are steps that we can take to get closer to that light at the end of the tunnel that we don't take if we're paralyzed thinking about the light at the end of the tunnel. And so I just want people to really just know that you can do this. You are doing this. You're already taking a step turning this episode on and listening to little old me speak about this stuff. So you're already taking a step. You just gotta take a couple more. And with the information, hopefully you've learned today, you have more confidence to be able to take those steps. And that's what I'm here for. So hopefully I've accomplished that. And hopefully you are ready to begin.

I'm ready to clean. Thank you so much, Mike. And for everyone listening, all of these summit talks, all of our information is designed to give you those exact things Mike spoke about. So those actionable steps that you can start taking today to start making a difference in your home and your health. So if you enjoyed this episode, please do us a favor. If you haven't already, head on over to changetheairfoundation.org Sign up for our newsletter because it really is the best way to get information like this, information about future summits directly to your inbox. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time.