The ERMI for mold testing the home

What is an ermi? Do you need an ermi? And how do you do an ERMI if you have no idea what ERMI is? That just sounded really weird. So ERMI stands for. It's ERMI stands for Environmental Relative Moldiness Index. And what it is, is a. Is a test that was created a long time ago by the EPA where you take dust from a home and then you analyze the dust to see which molds are there. We're looking at 36 specific molds, which molds are there and what their concentrations are. And the nice thing about the ERMI is it separates. Group one is your water damage molds. So that's where you're going to find toxigenic and problematic molds. And group two is common indoor molds, which aren't as threatening, as hostile as the molds in group one. Okay, so the ERMI is, to boil it down, it's the best mold test we have for checking a home for the mold load on a home. Is your home mold sick? And could that be affecting your health, Your health? Now, every home has mold outside. Every breath you take outside, every breath you take inside has mold. The question is, do you have high levels of toxinic molds? Toxigenic molds are the molds that spit out mycotoxins. And it's the mycotoxins that. That create our health problems that affect our neurological system, our gut, our endocrine system, which is our hormones, our liver, our kidneys, our skin. They're dermatoxic teratogenic. Affect baby and utero. These mycotoxins from these toxigenic molds just destroy lives. And that's why we do the ermi, because it is the only test that gives you the breakdown of the molds in your home, where you can determine which ones, you can see which ones are toxigenic. And we know create can create mycotoxins. Okay, so the ERMI is a dust test. It's kind of like. It's kind of like the forensic team. If there's a murder, the forensic team comes in and they look really close to find clues to tell us what happened. And that's what the ERMI is. It's a forensic test that comes in and says, here's the mold of your home. I'm going to look at this with DNA analysis, find out if there's any bad guys here. That's what we're doing with the ermi. Okay. Now, people say, I had my home mold tested. It was fine. I did an air quality test, and if you've watched my other videos, you know that air testing misses at least 95% of molds in a home when it's just put in the middle of a room. And that's what most people do. Most mold inspectors do. They come in, put the spore trap in the middle of your living room. They do one outside, they do one on your main floor. If you have a basement, they'll go do one in the basement, and a couple weeks later, you'll get the lab report that says, guess what? Everything's in range, and this will not affect your health. Now, this is what frustrates me to no end. And if you've watched my other videos, you know that already because it's so hard for people to get to the point where they can understand that mold may be causing their symptoms. Medical doctors just see mold as an allergy. They don't know anything about mycotoxins or mycotoxicosis. Mold inspectors or most mold inspectors are just doing air tests where everything comes back within range. Yet we have these people in these sick homes and moldy homes mold toxic bodies from mycotoxins, and none of the professionals are able to find a problem and help them. This is where I come in. That's why this is my passion, because I'm able to help people test their home properly, test their body properly, and then they're able to start undoing all that damage. So, for example, I spoke to a mom last week, and their daughter was having health issues. She had alopecia universalis, which is alopecia. That's not just the hair on your head, but all hair on your body. So eyebrows, everything goes. And they started to suspect that it was her bedroom in the basement. So they had called their licensed mold inspector. I have the report here. I know who did it, and I have the report in front of me. They did. And I'm going to do a video on this, too. And it may be done when you're watching this, it may already be an option to watch. But they had the air inspection done in the basement, including her room, and everything came back fine. Had a little bit elevated levels of aspergills and pest penicillium. Not that much more than the outside sample. And they were told that it was fine. Okay, so now got this problem, but we suspected mold, but we were just told it's fine. Had another contractor in. Had a contractor in that knew a lot about mold, and he did not want to disrupt this little girl's room because it looks so good. And then they learned about the army. And this is why I talk about the ermi, because they did an ERMI in her room, and it came back with, oh, high stachybotrys. High stachybotrys. Ketomium bulimia was high trichoderma, like. Let me. Let me get the number for you. This is. Where's that PDF? Okay. Aspergillus penicillioides, which is one of the five molds checked on the. Hurts me, too. Was it under 100? No. Was it under a thousand? No. 58,000, 159. Aspergillus versicolor. That makes steragmaticistein, which can be liver toxic, carcinogenic. It's kind of important to know. And were they warned by anyone else? No. What did the ERMI find? Did it find, you know, 100 spore equivalent per milligram, maybe 200? No. It found over 27,000 of Aspergillus varicicolor. Stachybotrys. Super high Willemia. Way too high. Okay, that's not okay. When people are sick, when their homes are making them sick, and you hire professionals to come in and they tell you it's safe when it's not, when it's to the point of triggering horrible autoimmunity, it's not okay. I'll never give a green light. I'll never say, okay, maybe just use them. I'll never accept those reports. I don't. If someone gives me an air test, I say, you have to do an ermias for this exact reason. I see it over and over and over. Sick people being told by their medical doctors it's in their heads. Mold inspectors telling people it's not their home. It's not okay. It's not okay. Wow. Okay, I'm done my rant. This is why I only take the ermi. If the family. If someone hasn't done the ERMI and they think they're mold sick, they need to do the ermi. Okay. Because we need that data because of that example and a million like it. It's sickening what's happening out there. Okay, so some people. I've got some notes here to make sure I don't miss the points that you guys have brought to my attention. So what do mold inspectors say when you say when you ask about an ermi? Well, first of all, some of them don't even know what an ERMI is. So how do you like that? You got a mold inspector that only knows how to do an air test, has no idea what An ERMI is, even though it saves lives, it lets us know, is there a mold problem? Okay, so if they do know what an ERMI is, then they'll say, okay, that's not really good. Okay, they'll say that collects historical data on the home, the air test collects what's happening now. ERMI collects what happened in the past. So it's no good. So you want an air test today? Yes, it collects what's happening now, and it collects historical. Say you had a water leak in your wall, in a wall somewhere or behind the shower, doesn't matter where, in your H Vac. Well, you wouldn't have a water leak. Well, the air handler can get water all around it. You have this unknown water source. Let's go with that. And it's been happening for one year, two year, three years. That's historical. That's not a water leak that happened this week. Does it matter less because it's historical? Absolutely not. If I have giant mold problems hidden in walls, under floors, in the attic, in the crawl space behind the shower, under the toilet, behind the cabinets, that's been happening for a long time. I need to know that. So I need to be collecting the dust that has the evidence of what's happened historically in the home. And then I also will be picking up the spores that are happening from a most recent mold or water source and mold problem that could be coming out. So because the ERMI checks for both. That's perfect. That's not a detriment. We love that. Because the more data, the better. Okay. EPA says not to do it. Okay. The EPA that developed this says it's not for public use. And that's what you hear from mold inspectors as well, and people that hear them and they get scared off of it. But why would you get scared off from it? Just because they say, here's this great test, but public shouldn't use it. Does that mean you shouldn't use the best test available? Of course we should use the best test available. We're literally collecting dust and getting DNA analysis of the dust. Just because the EPA doesn't recommend it, doesn't lower the value, doesn't lower the data, doesn't lower that. We can now doesn't lower the fact that we can now find out why people are sick in homes. It makes no difference what they recommend. It's just. I don't understand. When people say the EPA doesn't recommend it, they recommend AEHR tests. Yes. Everyone loves AEHR tests. Corporations love AEHR tests. Landlords love AEHR tests. Why? Because it misses most everything. So it means landlords now don't have to remediate their rentals. That means big money, big savings. Insurance companies love air tests. Why? Because no mold is found, they don't have to pay. You picking up where I'm going with this? If you lived by what the federal government rubber stamped and said was their recommendation, you'd have a very sad, sick life. Okay. And last thing I wanted to tell you is that it's diy. You can do this yourself. I'll put the link with this video. I want people to do it themselves to make sure it's done right. Because you could hire someone and they haven't watched my video, which I'll include a link to this on how to do it properly. If you do it yourself, you can make sure it's done right. When I have people do an ermi, I have them check every room of their house and I have a video that explains all this. I have them do every room of their house up high and down low. So like on top of picture frames, on top of shelves, but down low on top of baseboard. So if I was just doing my office here, I might have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 over 10 touch points, 10 data points coming from this. Then I go to one of our girls rooms, I might have another 8 to 10 data points collecting from there. By the time I'm done the house, I can easily have over 100 collection points. All this sample data goes into one Swiffer and then all that dust comes off. They take 5 milligrams from that and test it. The more sample points you have, the more data points you have. The more data you have, the less likely you are to miss these molds. When you do an air sample, you're sticking. They're doing one spore trap in the middle of the living room and just sucking what comes easily in a small radius around that. I've seen people, I've had people that have visible moldy bathrooms. But the air sample is done out in the middle of the living room and it picked up nothing. It came back and said mold wasn't a problem in their home. And they're like, we've got major mold problems. We can see it's not even hidden. That's not counting the hidden things. Okay, so that's why I want you to do your own ermi. And like I said, I'll put the link to that. So if your home hasn't been ERMI tested, it hasn't been mold tested, so don't rule out mold as a potential cause of your health issues. If you've done and got the all clear from the air sample, you need to do the ERMI. I know this video is long, going over 11 and a half minutes now, but I hope this explains it well, gives you a good understanding of the ermi, what the ERMI is, why we do it, and I'll link to how to do it as well. I hope that helps.

Do you have questions about mold in your home or body? Book a consultation with Matt, AKA the Mold man to guide your home and body to the next level of healing.