Jason Earle

This is the time of year for moldy attics. It may not be festive, but it’s reliable. Most people think of attics as inherently dry spaces, unlike basements, and assume they’re impervious to mold problems due to the lack of moisture. Most people are wrong about that.

Whether it’s used as storage with a staircase and a door leading to it, or is merely the space between roof and ceiling, filled with trusses, and accessible only via a trap door in a closet, an attic is a critical part of a home’s respiratory system. This means that ventilation – correct ventilation – is essential to the attic’s health.

We recently published a comprehensive article on this subject in our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly. Here’s a clipping of it:

As we all remember from eighth-grade science class, warm air rises in a building. In a case where there’s a lot of moisture in that warm air, when it finds its way into a cold attic, the water in the air will bead up on the cold interior surfaces of the roof like it would on a glass of iced tea on a hot summer day. During really cold periods, this condensation will actually freeze, making some attics an unintended winter wonderland.

In such circumstances, the exposed nails will transform into icicles overnight, and when the sun comes up, the roof warms, melting the icicles, causing it to drip rusty water droplets onto the floor. This cycle of moisture accumulation on the dusty wooden surfaces of the attic is enough to create an environment conducive to mold growth. Sometimes this takes decades, sometimes only one season. Depending upon how severe the problem is, the damage can range from some minor surface mold, which can be easily cleaned, to complete rot and degradation of the sheathing, requiring a new roof to be installed. Not fun.

The story gets a lot more exciting from there. To read the rest of the article,  you can go to our online edition of Habitat Quarterly or jump over to our repost here on 1800gotmold.com.

It seems to be common knowledge that living in a moldy home, or working in a moldy workplace, is not good for people. But what is it about mold that’s bad for us, and why?

There have been numerous studies aimed at answering this question and, while no single study tells the whole story, taken in aggregate they confirm much of “common knowledge.”  It’s enough, at least, to silence the “mold deniers,” those who scoff at the idea that indoor mold exposure can make people sick. That is, if they’re paying attention.

It’s really a matter of indoor air pollution, which the US EPA says can be up to 100 times worse than the outdoor air in the dirtiest cities. And that’s mainly because our homes and buildings don’t breathe like they used to; they’ve been made too airtight, in the name of energy savings.

Here’s a clip of an article we published in the Fall 2009 issue of our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly:

Indoor air pollutants commonly include skin and hair cells from people and any animals in the house (aka “dust”); volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by various plastics, adhesives, textiles, finishes and cleaning products. Also in the air are mold spores, mold parts and microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCs) produced by mold. If there is mold growth in the house, these substances will continue to intensify.

Some molds also emit substances called mycotoxins. A good example is penicillin, the first antibiotic, which was derived from the mycotoxins of the penicillium fungus, a common mold. Most modern antibiotics are derived from, or based on, mycotoxins. Ironically, medical science knows little if anything about what those mycotoxins might do to people. But they know they’re deadly to bacteria.

As homes in the US became more airtight and energy-stingy, they also became more prone to moisture problems. Just as there’s no such thing as a waterproof watch (they’re “water resistant”), there’s no such thing as a waterproof house. Water will find its way in, either through leaks, plumbing failures, spills, or as water vapor that condenses when conditions are right.

With that invading moisture comes the rising probability of mold growth, and the risk of the indoor air becoming a far greater threat to health. Medical science has begun finding the links between indoor mold growth and our health, and doctors are beginning to recognize that home indoor air quality is a factor that must be investigated for their patients who don’t respond to treatment.

Mold assessment experts tell us that even blind spaces such as wall cavities, crawl spaces and attics can gain moisture via condensation, and mold can grow unseen. All mold needs is relative humidity of more than 50%, the same temperature range people can tolerate, and food, meaning anything organic, such as wood, paper, fabric, and even dust.

To read more about the scientific studies that have been done to indict mold as the culprit in many human illnesses, you can read the original article here, or the reposted version here on 1800gotmold.com.

When you close up a house, whether it’s at the beach, in the mountains, or in a development, things start to happen that weren’t happening when people were there. Humidity rises and falls with the weather, and when it rises it gives rise to mold growth in places you wouldn’t expect in an occupied home.

Why does this happen? It’s primarily because you’ve decided to save money by turning off the heat and/or AC. This turns the house into an incubator for mold. Think of a sandwich in a plastic bag left outdoors. We published an article on this topic in last summer’s edition of our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly. Here’s a snippet:

The problem lies in the fact that the house gets closed up when not in use and in the interest of saving money on utility bills, the heat is turned down or the air conditioning is turned off. At first blush, this seems like a prudent thing to do. Why waste money heating or cooling an empty place?

Here’s why: One mold remediation project often costs way more than a year’s worth of utility bills, often more than several years. Plus, you’ll find the odor has infiltrated your upholstered furniture, rugs, carpets, drapes. It will all have to go.

What’s the solution? Dehumidifiers and minimum heat and AC. You’ll find the details here, or in our repost of the article on 1800gotmold.com here.

It’s critically important after a flood to waste no time getting things as dry as possible and getting rid of things that have soaked up water. The idea is to head off the emergence of a major mold growth.

In last summer’s edition of our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly, we published an article detailing what to do after a flood. It seems now would be a good time to revisit that piece and perhaps give a few folks on the east coast a chance to absorb something other than water. Here’s a snippet:

When floods hit cities and commercial buildings whose owners have healthy bank accounts and adequate insurance, it’s almost entertaining to see the action after the water recedes. Machinery and crews of workers hit the scene immediately, tearing out soggy materials, scooping out mud, drying out structures with huge fans. In the vast majority of cases, these buildings end up being restored to as-new or better condition. Ensuing mold problems are rare.

In surrounding residential neighborhoods, often at lower elevations and especially those not so well heeled, the cleanup process is much slower, and mold problems become increasingly likely. The most extreme example, of course, is New Orleans after the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Many homes there are still not restored, and many never will be. Mold is as common in New Orleans as sourdough bread in San Francisco.

Mold does not give you much time to react after a flood – even a small one. You have 24 hours to get wet things out of the house and dry out the remaining structure, or it’s a virtual certainty you will have a bumper crop of mold. Mold has been tied to various health conditions such as asthma, chronic sinusitis, allergies, bronchitis and even depression.

Whether your flood is caused by nature, a plumbing failure, a sewage leak or a roof defect`, the first priority is safety, and the second priority is getting the water out. The New York State Health Department has compiled a comprehensive list of tasks and precautions, which we offer in its entirety (with our notes – italicized) here.

If this information is useful to you, you can read it in the online version of Habitat Quarterly here, or where we reposted it on 1800gotmold.com. Either way, we hope it helps.

A lot of people have dehumidifiers, and a lot of them are making serious mistakes in their use. Of course, a lot of people don’t have dehumidifiers who should, and that’s perhaps an even bigger mistake.

Moisture is the key ingredient in indoor mold problems. If you can control moisture, you won’t have a mold problem. So if your roofing, siding, windows, plumbing and ventilation systems are all without issues, what you have left is relative humidity, a term that describes the amount of water in the air relative to the amount of water the air could hold at its current temperature.

We published a detailed article on dehumidifiers in the summer 2010 issue of our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly. We also reposted it here on 1800gotmold.com, so you can read it in either place.

Here’s a snippet:

Although your air conditioner does behave like a large dehumidifier, often it can’t keep up with the infiltration of humid air from outside, especially in very humid climates. In other cases, dehumidifiers are needed in spaces which aren’t affected by your heating or cooling systems, such as crawlspaces. Plus, you still need to control humidity during the nine months when your AC is not running, especially in basements and other scenarios prone to dampness, such as houses built on wooded lots.

So, if you have a dehumidifier, are you using it correctly? And if you don’t have one, should you? Read on and find out.

People with chronic sinusitis – a near-constant congestion and inflammation of the sinuses – may actually be suffering from exposure to mold. So says one of our favorite doctors, Dr. Wellington S. Tichenor, a New York City allergist and a member of our 1-800-GOT-MOLD? board of advisors.

Dr. Tichenor’s experience-based opinion is backed up by a 1999 Mayo Clinic study, which concluded that 96 percent of chronic sinusitis is caused by mold. We’re talking about 15 percent of the population here, a group of people who are plagued by this misery and spend countless hours and dollars trying to get it resolved.

The good doctor recently authored an article in our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly, which you can read here, and we recently reposted it here on 1800gotmold.com. Here’s a snippet.

We are not sure why some people are more sensitive to mold than others and consequently develop these mold-related episodes of sinusitis.  One of the theories is that these people have more exposure to mold in their environments, while other theories hold that they are due to the use or abuse of antibiotics.

In a situation in which patients have had mold exposure in the environment for an extending period of time, this extended exposure can cause patients to have this immunological overreaction. This reaction may or may not be due to a true allergy, but in some patients who have more severe problems with fungal sinusitis, we know that they will improve if they are treated the same way patients with more severe allergies are treated: with allergy immunotherapy, which will desensitize them to the molds that they have problems with.  We also know that the fungi we may find in the sinuses are the same ones that are found in the environment.

One of the treatments Dr. Tichenor also mentions is “irrigation,” which we talked about in a previous post here. Of course, for someone with longstanding chronic sinusitis, the do-it-yourself approach may not be adequate. On the other hand, it can do no harm, and we have seen it work for friends and family.

Of course, it you try the nasal irrigation route on your own and it doesn’t work, you’ll want to see Dr. Tichenor, or a doctor a lot like him.

Either way, as we’re fond of saying, mold is nothing to sneeze at.

No, that headline doesn’t suggest anyone should put their head in a toilet and pull the lever. The sinus remedy I want to tell you about is much older than Thomas Crapper’s invention, by several thousand years. The revelation that it’s a valid one, however, is little more than 10 years of age.

The highly respect Mayo Clinic announced in 1999 that a clinical study it conducted found that 96 percent of all chronic sinusitis is caused by mold. That doesn’t mean mold growth in the sinuses, merely the presence of mold spores causing a reaction in the mucous membrane that doesn’t go away until the fungal irritant is removed. So I’m here to tell you how to remove it.

It doesn’t matter whether you have chronic sinusitis, or you just inhaled a snootful of dust, pollen or other irritants that have you sneezing and blowing. My go-to remedy is the venerable “neti pot,” used by Vedic healers in India millennia ago and still in use today.

We published a pretty comprehensive article on this in the Summer 2010 issue of our season magazine, Habitat Quarterly, and we recently reposted that piece here on 1800gotmold.com. Here’s a snippet:

Lots of people who don’t suffer from sinus problems, and who aren’t yogis or even aspiring to become one, do this and love it, but anyone predisposed to this kind of ailment might want to consider this as a normal part of their daily hygiene. Like most preventive measures originating out of Eastern wisdom, this method is dismissed by many physicians. Others are simply unaware of it. A few are strong advocates, such as Dr. Wellington Tichenor, MD, in New York City, who also happens to be a rarity in other ways too. His patients never stop raving about him.

One fair warning: Because it uses salt water, your world will smell like the seashore for a little while after a flush. It’s not unpleasant and, trust me, it goes away pretty quickly. You might want to get yourself a little sandbox and take your shoes off to complete the illusion.

Last time around, we talked about air purifiers and how important your indoor air quality is to your health. What we neglected to mention is that it’s not just about your lungs, but your entire cardiovascular system. Turns out breathing air loaded with particulates has a negative impact on your heart, and using a HEPA air purifier has a positive impact.

This is especially true if you use a fireplace or wood stove, according to a study done for the American Thoracic Society.

Of course, wood smoke is not the only hazard. Previous studies have show the same kind of inflammatory damage to cardiovascular cells from vehicle emissions. So now if you burn wood, it’s a double whammy.

But you don’t have to get rid of your wood fire; just get a good HEPA air purifier and keep it running. Then you’ll be toasty and healthy all at once. Makes me warm all over just to think about it. Of course, it’s June and 90 degrees outside, so I’m already pretty warm.

We published a detailed article about this study in our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly, and we’ve reposted that article here on 1800gotmold.com, so if you want the rest of the story, take your pick.

We’re in the mold-detection business, but there are many things in the air in most homes that can be almost as harmful to some people’s health as the irritants and toxins produced by fungal growth. Even in the cleanest of homes, you can have billions of microscopic particles in your home’s air that you really don’t want to inhale.

The smallest of these particles remain airborne virtually forever, meaning you don’t get rid of them by dusting or vacuuming. In fact, they will go right through most vacuum cleaner bags and filters, so you end up just redistributing them. And they’re so tiny you’ll never see them as dust you can clean.

What’s worse, the tiniest of particles are the most easily inhaled deep into the lungs, where they get a chance to do the most harm. We’re talking about things like mold spores, of course, which are everywhere even if you don’t have a mold problem, plus human and animal skin cells, dander, dust mites, dust mite excrement and so on.

So even without a mold problem, or even after an extensive mold remediation project, the air in your home can be loaded with stuff you don’t want to breathe.

What’s the solution? Well, we published an extensive article on just that in a recent edition of our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly. I’m talking about air purifiers. We’ll tell you what they are, how they work, which ones to avoid, and which ones we highly recommend.

You can read the article here on 1800gotmold.com, or in the online version of Habitat Quarterly. Take a deep breath, and go there now.

There is almost certainly something unique in the air in Puerto Rico, and it’s not the aroma of tropical beaches, lush forests and mountain streams. Puerto Rico has the highest incidence of asthma – and the highest mortality rate from asthma – of the entire North and Central Americas and the Caribbean.

I’m talking three times the rate of asthma, and 2.5 times the death rate, compared to white non-Hispanic people in the continental US.

Even Puerto Ricans who move to the continental US seem to maintain their penchant for asthma, which some attribute to an unknown genetic factor. I don’t buy that argument. The people of Puerto Rico carry similar lineage to millions of others in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and South America. They are a varied mix of indigenous people, Europeans and Africans. The only conclusion I can draw is that there is something in the environment in Puerto Rico that creates a higher propensity for asthma, and whatever it is stays with the person who has acquired it.

We ran a too-brief article on this phenomenon in a recent issue of our seasonal magazine, Habitat Quarterly. I have reposted it elsewhere on this site, so you can read it in either place, though you may find many other interesting tidbits in the magazine.

I can’t help but think that mold has a lot to do with the problem, and I would relish the opportunity to test my thesis and perhaps help a few thousand people in the process.

Whatever the cause, there is no doubt in my mind that it’s something in the air. I would love to find it.