Mold Course

Seems like a pretty reasonable guide from my quick read. The most important thing for people to know is the following snippet:

It is impossible to eliminate all mold and mold spores in the indoor environment. However, mold growth can be controlled indoors by controlling moisture indoors.

Dealing with mold is pretty easy, just get everything dry. No need to go crazy tearing the building apart to hunt for dormant/dead mold (obviously there is a correlation of moldy building with neglected buildings so you might have to demo/repair anyways). If air quality is a concern that can be addressed monitoring/filtering.

Afaik mold is only a big topic because of lawyers seeing a nice liability and the media a spooky story.

Dealing with mold is pretty easy, just get everything dry.

No, that's not enough. Dormant/dead mold can still cause air quality problems. In most cases damaged material needs to be replaced. In some cases it's sufficient to isolate the damaged material to reduce its impact on air quality.

I'm from Finland and it seems that we treat mold much more seriously compared to other countries. I don't know if Finnish people have a genetic or environmental effect that makes people much more susceptible to get symptoms in moldy buildings, but it's super weird reading about how other countries treat mold...

In fairness, they did say monitoring air quality was part of the solution. If you get it dry and clean any visible mold, then the air tests come back fine, it shouldn't be an issue. The air tests are the only way to really know.

Are you talking about those petri dishes you put out? I have heard from a trusted mold expert that they just always show up positive. I don't know that I trust that, but the problem is that every house actually has mold, and in many places, and who knows what's actually contributing to the problems. Are massive air purifiers enough to mitigate the issues? Can you just tackle the surface molds? Maybe these questions are answered in the mold course, I need to take it asap.

Are massive air purifiers enough to mitigate the issues?

As far as I know, air purifiers do not filter mold related particles in the air to any useful amount.

Depends on the model. HEPA filters can filter mold particles.

The petri dishes are for ID and yeah theyll be positive. Real air quality spore measures require a filter disk and vacuum. Then you need to compare counts inside vs outside. There will always be some level, which is why it's important to compare with ambient outdoor levels. Some say you even need multiple samples at varying weather conditions. Then types are important too.

It's not possible to reliably test if the air has harmful amounts/species of mold or not. The air quality tests contaminate very easily and even when they don't contaminate, there is a lot of uncertainty with the results, and given any particular results, different people will opine different interpretations of them...

The filter/vacuum testing is pretty good. You do need a baseline to compare it to, which is often the exterior spore count. Yes, the recommended actions can be all over the place.

Yes, for European it is weird to read.

I think this is a big issue in US because the way they build houses, mainly with wood and gypsum. In case of water damage it is really hard to dry those materials.

Typically in the US, nobody at any point in the process gives a shit if a home is or will become moldy, except sometimes the person living in the home. It's especially bad for renters who in many states have almost no legal protections (and if they do have them, accessing them is incredibly difficult).

It is becoming a big topic because more people are becoming sensitive to mold exposure and more time is being spent indoors. Think of how the prevalence of allergies has increased dramatically in our society. Something similar may be happening with mold except at orders of magnitude lower prevalence. Actually there are theories that similar pathways are involved with allergies and mold- that mold triggers immune reactions just like allergies.

When I learned about mold sensitivity I got concerned and started doing mold tests and looking out for mold exposure but eventually realized that nobody in my family is mold sensitive. The "not a big deal" attitude is right for most people, but we should be sensitive to those that are highly mold sensitive.

Houses are a lot tighter than they were in the past which makes it harder for them to "dry out" unless you have some kind of air circulation system. My house certainly doesn't and it wouldn't be easy to retrofit.

Apartments in our block have air-tight windows and doors. But also there are passive ventilation input in every room, which allow flow of some fresh air through closed windows. Central ventilation is constantly taking air from the apartment so we have no issues with excess moisture. Some people even put a humidifier during cold months to get moisture level up to 50%.

In cold weather, I think 35-40% RH is a good target, but where lower is okay and higher is not. There’s too much chance INO for that warm, humid air to migrate to the cold outer wall and drive condensation.

I don't know about that. Most new houses have air conditions for the hot humid days and a heater for the cold days. Most fully below grade basements have dehumidifiers in wet climates. I've never had issues with moisture except in cases of some system failure, like a sump pump.

Exposure to mold is also likely to be correlated with socioeconomic status, especially in more humid parts of the country. Think what kind of people are most likely to live in rundown houses (or even basements!) barely above the water table, without a functioning HVAC unit.

Mold is the kind of problem that is at most a nuisance for people who have the means to do something about it, but seemingly unsolvable for people who actually need a solution.

This! One of the best solutions to prevent mold is to improve energy efficiency. There are an increasing number of grant programs and Housing improvement initiatives available, but still those improvements are out of reach for a lot of people. We live in the Southeast US which is incredibly humid and so many houses have issues.

Yes, time spent indoors, and the West's obsession with anti-septic environments. I bought a little cabin on a lake in NJ after moving from NY. I didn't bother sealing every crack and nook with sealant given my energy bill was reasonable, and I liked the fresh air exchange over time. Friends moved up there and built air-tight houses with all the modern materials with foams, glues, carpet backing, tiling and other products that need a significant time to off gas, trap particulate and moisture, and as we now know, mold can thrive on almost anything with moisture. Anecdotal, but it seemed they were at the doctor's office 2 to 3x per year vs. my kids only going for checkups. People are now hypersensitive to so many things, and I believe a lot is due to this approach to what it means have a healthy home and household. I have raised 4 children, and aside from some mildly annoying hayfever for a very short period for 2 of them, they are mostly non-allergic and I am grateful, have no medicinal allergies. I also think we have grown a bit hypochondriacal and have actually fed into this phenomenon. There are even studies claiming 50% more likelihood to contract MS if you are exposed to the solvents or chemicals in paint thinners and household cleaning solutions. Even "organic" products in large amounts do not bode well for most people's health, so housing construction that claims to be "organic" with low VOC elements used sometimes doesn't even address the need for sufficient air exchange with fresh air over environmental ratings on windows, appliances, etc. Somewhere in the middle there is a happy medium from my natural materials, drafty cabin, and an air-tight, "organic" material house. We had mold in the attic and it was black and after reading about it back in the late 90s early 2000s I went up and cleaned the rafters with Clorox (yes, chlorine, I know. My nuclear solution!). and opened the once-closed off ceiling to the attic. I put in skylights and opened up the A-frame for more air and light. Nobody in my family at the time, including my newborns seems to have suffered from having lived with this black mold, but evidently, there are many and I am not sure how prevalent dangerous black mold is from your generic black mold, but as I have said earlier, anything in too large a quantity can be deleterious to your health. Too much grain dust in the air would irritate you too and in high enough concentrations probably kill you over time!

My sensitivity appeared to change after living in a moldy apartment. I originally scoffed that mold was an overhyped problem, but it caused problems for me that persist years later. I am now very sensitive to damp/moldy air and have to take an allergy pill everyday for indoor allergies.

Afaik mold is only a big topic because of lawyers seeing a nice liability and the media a spooky story.

Unfortunately, mold is also a growing health concern for a sizable portion of the population. My family got severely ill from a moldy house, and it is taking us years to fully recover. The longer we have been aware the more and more folks we find are dealing with something similar.

The EPA Guide is a great start, but in our experience lacks some situational nuance that might increase its helpfulness. Each person reacts differently mold, some folks are just more sensitive than others. There are no federal standards for mold, either for allowable amounts in your home or guidelines for construction. So depending on your health response you may in fact need to go crazy tearing apart your house to hunt for mold.

After talking with ~30 different mold remediators, inspectors, remodeling contractors, etc. We got ~30 different responses for possible causes for mold in our our home. Ultimately, the cost to fix the true sources of mold in our home (due the sources being related to construction practices around the foundation) was equivalent to new construction. We ended up tearing down the moldy house. We're hoping to move into our new house late next spring!

Some people charge insane prices. I can't believe a foundation issue would cost as much as new construction. It's not that hard to put in a French drain, even if the house needs to be cribbed up due to structural issues.

I know, seems crazy from the outside looking in, but nothing was particularly outrageously priced (and we did get several estimates from all sorts of people). To be fair, it wasn't just the foundation. Because of the mold in the basement the rest of the house also became contaminated and needed to be remediated (and my family is now super sensitive). I will also note that this during COVID so prices were somewhat higher than they are now. Believe me we did not set out to tear down our house, but that ended up being the best way to address the issues with the old house.

How did the rest of the house become contaminated? It would need moisture. Did it not have HVAC?

I have a similar story, but in our case it was a rental house in the Bay Area. It's been 3 years and who knows how many temporary places to live, and we're still not even close to recovery.

We ended up with the realization that the rental housing stock in the Bay Area are all very old, usually not well maintained and depending on the area, very likely to have or have had water damage, the only thing we could do to get into newly built housing, was to rent an apartment.

The amount of bad information and advise is pretty staggering – if you're adversely reacting to the environment you're in, the best thing you can do is remove yourself from it, then accept that you may never be able to return to it.

Anyway, this all sounds very familiar and you're welcome to reach out to me at <hn-name>@icloud.com – and that goes for anyone else dealing with similar stuff.

If you're living in a house without active water issues (roof leak, foundation leak, etc), proper filtration/ventilation/de-humidification, and are still having reactions to mold; it's probably best to just move (like you found out). No need to tear apart the current house.

If you need supreme indoor air quality, that'd take the following:

- A fairly air tight building envelope - Proper WRB and insulation strategy (exterior+interior in many places) for your climate (including basement) to prevent condensation - Adequate continuous ventilation/filtration

Which is not feasible for most housing stock in the USA. You might be able to keep the framing, plumping/electrical, and foundation (if you're lucky). Framing is relatively cheap compared to the rest of the house.

What kind of issues did you have with the foundation?

There’s many individual damage symptoms, but typically humidity somehow enters through the walls of the basement, making them damp/wet and thereby leading to mould infestation.

The expensive but thorough solution is to dig around the foundation and install a vertical damp-proof course around the outside walls. The walls would additionally require drying and depending on building material removing the old plaster and re-plastering.

If a concrete floor is damp, the culprit would be a crack which can be sealed with special injected sealants. If it’s an older type of floor, it may need to be replaced with concrete.

How did the basement infest the rest of the house, just regular air transfer or did humidity rise through the walls and caused infestation in the above-ground rooms?

just get everything dry

In many places this is not easy.

Does anyone know of a real-time (analog or digital) detection sensor for mold? All I've been able to find are kits that you buy and snail mail samples to a lab which strikes me as a giant pain.

The issue is Fungi are everywhere, all the time, and without exception (even feeding in nuclear disasters). They predate most forms of life, majority are harmless or beneficial, and the genetics vary widely. For example, Yeasts are just about everywhere...

I would recommend Paul Stamets books for their accessibility, even if he is probably the weirdest eccentric of our time. Seriously weird dude, but an expert on Fungi taxonomy without question none the less.

Around this time of year we get Amanita muscaria popping up in the yard, and some very oddly behaved squirrels having a bad day.

Characterizing Paul Stamets as weird or eccentric seems a bit off. He's no more weird or eccentric than any other scientist I've met. He speaks openly about an experience he had with psychedelic mushrooms which he says cured his lifelong stuttering, which sent him down the mycological rabbit hole. He's worked extensively with the DoD researching antimicrobial properties of fungi, his publications look sound, and some of that work seems wildly beneficial for cancer treatment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7agK0nkiZpA

You probably need to read more of the works, as it gets pretty loopy at times. I was aware of the petrochemical site-remediation DoD work testing his guided evolutionary biology theories. =)

What's the Elon quote? "If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough" If you're not considering ideas someone thinks are crazy, you're not thinking hard enough.

I like cheese goldfish crackers, and don't really care for speculative fiction,

We worry about Elon of late, and really hope he doesn't end up going full Howard Hughes.

Have a great day =)

We worry about Elon of late

Elon and Stamets in the same club? Sounds rad.

Your menu as a passenger will likely include:

1. Algae

2. Fruiting Fungi specialized in direct human-waste conversion

3. Freshwater Shrimp

4. Worms

5. Fast growing Aquaponics plants

6. insect larva

Elon should reach the same conclusion eventually based on payload cost.

Which item looks like it won’t taste awful after awhile. =)

Seeds, m'dude. Nature's figured out how to transport plants already.

comment withdrawn.

Animals and plants are the youngest, fungi are significantly older, at least almost as old as the oldest multicellular life. "Most forms of life" might be an overstatement, still, depending on how you count.

My mistake, you're correct, fungi are much older than plants. Stupid of me to offer a correction without even a cursory search to confirm what I thought I knew.

When I heard "Paul Stamets" and "Fungus" together, my mind went to star trek, I find that Stamets is inspired by a real-life mycologist of the same name is very cool reference by the ST writers.

Sci Fi is always about the present, but the dude certainly sounds like he is from another planet at times. It is good people are more aware of his work , even if fiction greatly underestimates how odd it is in real life =)

He was a great guest on Rogan. I take Lion’s Mane supplement based on research he pointed to that turned out to be pretty interesting.

Actually, some varieties border on performance enhancers due to molecular structures similar to steroid hormones, and should have been banned by the Olympic committees.

Ganoderma sichuanense ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingzhi_(mushroom) )

can you take sample and look at it under a microscope maybe?

I don't know of anything, but will buy if one exists. Closest thing that is out there are Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) detectors, some of the expensive ones detect particles as small as mold but the IAQ detectors can't tell you that it is mold, only that particulates of a certain size are present.

As another pointed out, from the fact sheet:

2. There is no practical way to eliminate all mold and mold spores in the indoor environment; the way to control indoor mold growth is to control moisture.

10. Molds can be found almost anywhere; they can grow on virtually any substance, providing moisture is present. There are molds that can grow on wood, paper, carpet, and foods.

But I'd also add:

11. There are many kinds of mold, some more harmful than others. Some are literally penicillin. Some just smell musty, but don't pose a threat. Some can cause severe health problems. The only way to be certain what type of mold you have is to have it tested in a lab.

12. DO NOT try to clean mold yourself. If you try to do this without knowing the proper procedures, you will spread the spores all over your house and into your air conditioning system. Generally every house has mold in it, somewhere. Exposed molds should be remediated, but don't go tearing apart your house to find mold (you'll definitely find it if your house/apartment is over a certain age).

13. Bleach doesn't kill mold. It only turns it white. Hydrogen Peroxide does kill it. You can by concentrated hydrogen peroxide from a lab supply store (we buy 35% and dilute it to 3.5% for everyday cleaning). Spray it onto surfaces in a fine mist (don't soak things) and leave it for 5 minutes. At this point it's mostly stabilized into water that you can wipe away with a paper towel or cloth.

14. Insurance companies really don't like paying for mold remediation. We recently uncovered some (Aspergillus, the Penicillin mold) below our kitchen sink and had to rip out a bunch of cabinets to get it all cleaned out. It coincided with a leak we found in our garbage disposal unit, and our insurance company (Front Line) is now attempting to intimidate us into dropping our claim by using words like fraud and sending forensic inspectors to our house.

The best advice I can give is to take pictures before you think you need to, especially when it comes to moisture-related damage and repairs. We had a plumber come fix our garbage disposal, never suspecting we'd be filing an insurance claim, so we didn't record as much as we could have or take photos of the initial issue, and that may end up costing us.

(Aspergillus, the Penicillin mold)

the Penicillin mold would be Penicillium, Aspergillus is used to make Soya Sauce and Sake.

Aspergillis is commonly known as mildew. It's black.

Aspergillis is a whole host of different molds. They can be all different colours.

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergillus#/media/File:Four_3...

Thanks for the clarification. I’m mostly repeating from (sometimes bad) memory my conversation with a mold inspector from a few weeks ago.

Homeowners insurance only covers damage from specific perils, like sudden water damage, fire, wind damage from a storm.

You'd be surprised at how thorough homeowners insurance is. Mine covers accidental damage to electronics (i.e. "dropped my laptop"). It's not worth making a claim because of deductible and rate increases, but it's in there.

You say that, but there’s literally a line on my policy that states a coverage amount for mold remediation…

Killing the mold isn't the problem. That's the easy part. Denaturing or removing the mycotoxins is the problem. The mold doesn't make you sick, it's the mycotoxins that some molds excrete that make you sick.

Look at this study that used gamma irradiation, detergent / bleach wash, and steam cleaning to test as ways to remove mold mycotoxins on paper, cloth, wood, and carpet. Unfortunately none of these techniques worked to inactivate mycotoxins, with two exceptions. A detergent / bleach wash worked to inactivate the mycotoxins on paper and cloth, but not on carpet or untreated wood. So porous surfaces must by physically removed and trashed to get rid of the mycotoxins. If you cannot physically remove it (like untreated wood that is a part of your houses' foundation), you must physically sand the mold off while using a HEPA vacuum to clean it all up.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15238314/

Could you epoxy seal everything?

Sealing works well if there is not visible mold growth on the item. So like think about sealing an art canvas in a home that had mold in it, but the art canvas was in the living room and the mold colony was in the bathroom under the shower. In that case, any sort of light sealant would trap any possible residual mycotoxins on the canvas so they will no longer float around the air in the home.

But if you have mold growing on unpainted wood joists, for example, because of a plumbing leak, you can't just paint over the mold colony on those joists with a sealant, because it may not penetrate deep enough into the wood, and you can't paint the backside of that joist where it touches the floor / ceiling, and so the mold often will just continue to grow and grow around your sealant. Many paints marketed as mold killers and sealers are totally ineffective at stopping the problem in scenarios like this.

This is all so bizarre to me. You would all die horrible deaths in the tropics, where you take care not to leave your laundry wet and unwashed too long so it doesn't get mold, but don't give it a second though beyond that. Mold is just a fact of life, like wind and sunshine.

12. DO NOT try to clean mold yourself

SMH this is like saying don't clean your house, don't bathe, etc. Mold is everywhere, don't think about it. Unless you're immunocompromised or have an allergy, it's completely harmless.

Mold is hardly completely harmless. Please do not spread harmful misinformation.

regarding 12 -- some mold remediation procedures are relatively DIY friendly once you have a bit of knowledge on the subject

regarding 13 - now I'm confused. we're telling people how to clean mold when in #12 we're telling people not to clean mold. the whole piece here implying it can just be wiped away should be removed. simplifying mold cleanup like this is what leads to bad DIY jobs.

That isn’t what I meant to imply, but you’re not wrong. We use the peroxide as a general cleaner, which both sanitizes and also kills mold on surfaces.

13. Bleach doesn't kill mold. It only turns it white. Hydrogen Peroxide does kill it. You can by concentrated hydrogen peroxide from a lab supply store (we buy 35% and dilute it to 3.5% for everyday cleaning). Spray it onto surfaces in a fine mist (don't soak things) and leave it for 5 minutes. At this point it's mostly stabilized into water that you can wipe away with a paper towel or cloth.

Bleach does kill mold but the concentrations of bleach required will also damage the surfaces that it's on.

Bleach can kill mold, but often will not even in high concentrations as mold can live in things that do not absorb bleach.

Just a warning to anyone reading this that 35% lab grade hydrogen peroxide can be VERY dangerous, so I'd just stick to the 2% drug store stuff unless you really know what you're doing.

High purity hydrogen peroxide has been used as a rocket fuel since it's such a great oxidizer.

I'm convinced the uptick in "gluten sensitivity" is actually sensitivity to mold on grains. I often get a stuffy nose, and then next-day brain fog after eating bread, anything with soy sauce, etc.

Had a complete allergy test panel and I have zero reactivity to gluten, etc.

Grains (especially flour and oats) are particularly susceptible to mold contamination, and it's interesting to note that the US allows significantly more mold contamination in grains [0] (see Table 3). 5x higher Aflatoxin for all foods, 33% higher Deoxynivalenol in bread, and ZERO maximum amount for Ochratoxin A in any foods in the US.

If you have problems eating grains in the US, it's very likely a mold sensitivity, not anything related to gluten/gliadin.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163171/

A sensitivity to grains can also be a sensitivity to oligosaccharides... especially if you present with digestive issues. Bread can cause multiple problems.

I also don't think people are quite aware that part of the reason gluten-free foods are so popular is they can help with conditions that are not caused by gluten sensitivities as they omit ingredients which cause multiple health problems. Multiple of which were poorly understood at the time gluten free foods exploded, which drove scepticism because people could not understand why so many people were buying these foods if they did not have celiac disease and often seemed to be often be able to tolerate some amount of gluten.

If you have food sensitivities I'd visit a doctor & do deep research and do trial/error.

I wish there was a website where you could input your food sensitivities and it would tell you what digestive dysfunction you have. Personally I am sensitive to restaurant pad thai and also tonkotsu ramen. Eating either of those will guarantee prompt digestive problems for me. But I'm at a loss to explain why those two things are bad. Especially the pad thai when it's seemingly just another noodle dish.

That exists, it's called social media. Just publicly post "I suffer from x" and you'll summon a baker's dozen experts to tell you "it's not x, it's y" in no time.

It's not working

I'm sorry :(

I hope you don't mind my joke. I meant no disrespect towards you and would never wish to minimize any suffering you experience.

I was poking fun at self-appointed experts who are more concerned with "um actually-ing" than rendering any help, and I now realize my comment doesn't help either.

I hope you find the answers and relief you deserve.

My wife has a bunch of yet unconfirmed food intolerances, but her journey to work out what it is exactly has really opened my eyes to how complicated this is. To the point that I struggle to think a system as simple as you point out is feasible. Things like the ripeness of an avocado or banana can be trigger, or if a protein is seared vs boiled/braised. It's also not binary, a trigger won't always immediately cause a reaction. It's like the body has a threshold of a given thing it can process, and a half-life on how quickly it metabolises and can take on more. But that half-life itself is variable based on other things you're ingesting. So are you intolerant of bananas? Or is it actually amines and the reason you had a reaction is because you also had dark chocolate 4 days ago, and a charred T-bone the day before that? Or maybe it actually is the banana, or more specifically the chitinase in it. Let's test it by seeing if you react to a higher intake of green beans too.

Each time there's a reaction if you want to try an actually isolate the cause it's back to nothing but plain rice and boiled chicken breast for literally weeks. Then from a neutral state you can introduce the new hypothesis, but given the whole half-life aspect you need to work out whether it's a certain amount of that food over a certain amount of time. If you get a reaction, there's still probably two or more reasons why (e.g., amines vs chitinase vs potassium vs whatever) so now you start again to isolate that. And/or you still need to work out the interaction with other foods. Over and over it repeats. It sucks.

At some point you also want to actually enjoy your life and not spend years being a walking diet experiment.

How can you tell any of these conclusions are valid and it’s not just pattern-matching on random events? Especially if you keep finding that whatever you theorized from some experience is disproven by what happens next.

For anybody wanting to initiate research on this topic, a recommended keyword to start with is "FODMAP diet". A lot of people exhibit food intolerances to the types of fermentable carbohydrates covered by this acronym that fall short of an allergy but can nonetheless be quite unpleasant (IBS, etc.)

Had a complete allergy test panel and I have zero reactivity to gluten, etc.

We don't currently have any accepted and reliable tests for the condition known as gluten intolerance.

Note that you can order celiac disease screening and you can order certain gluten allergy testing, but gluten intolerance is considered a third condition. You cannot currently order a test for this, so the negative test results you received were likely either for celiac disease or a traditional gluten allergy.

Also, note that there are more compounds in grains that you can be allergic to beyond gluten. Gluten gets the spotlight because it was the hot topic for many years, but it's possible to be fine with pure gluten but allergic to grains.

It all gets confusing, but the important thing is to remember that Celiac disease, gluten allergy, and gluten intolerance are three separate conditions and excluding one does not mean you can't have the others. It's also important to remember that there are many more compounds in grains than just gluten.

If you have problems eating grains in the US, it's very likely a mold sensitivity, not anything related to gluten/gliadin.

That's quite a logical leap without any evidence. For what it's worth, I also have similar allergic reactions to grains but my experience doesn't differ at all when I travel to the EU.

I'm my experience, the blood tests for Celiac are also used for Gluten Intolerance.

If a blood test for Celiac is positive, the biopsy is negative, and nothing else can account for your symptoms, and removing gluten improved your symptoms, then you end up in the Gluten Intolerant category.

That's interesting, because I have no issues with imported wheat, or imported soy sauce, etc.

YMMV. The only foods that cause me issues are foods made with US-grown grains, and I've had negative allergy tests for every grain-related immune reaction.

Ochratoxin A is a carcinogen, a mold that regularly contaminates grains, and there's no legal limit in the US whatsoever. That's insane to me.

(edit: feel free to `sed s/very likely/possible/`)

I thought I was going crazy cause grains seriously mess me up and got all the gluten sensitivity testing as well with no reactivity.

I just started avoiding most grain based carbs and as a result my life is 100% better with none of the brain fog symptoms and lethargy.

The mold contamination is something I never really considered and could explain a lot. Thanks for sharing!

You're welcome, was hoping it could help others. For what it's worth, I did have an above-average exposure to environmental mold growing up; that may contribute to creating a sensitivity in some people.

Very interesting. Thanks.

You might also have some level of intolerance to the so-called FODMAPs[0] (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols). Speaking from personal experience, excess consumption of foods containing one or more (not necessarily all) of these carbohydrates can produce some quite unpleasant effects. None of these issues will present as an allergy because they aren't that. Dietary intolerances can be tricky things to pin down.

Not to discount the mold sensitivity suggestion either; it seems quite plausible to me as well.

[0]https://www.monashfodmap.com/about-fodmap-and-ibs/

I sometimes wonder if it's the glyphosate on wheat. Would be interesting to do a study on organic vs glyphosate treated wheat.

Isn't the gluten issue because farmers changed over to using dwarf wheat to increase crop density? Dwarf wheat has more gluten than traditional types.

I have chronic vestibular migraines and it has been suggested by a few that mold might be triggering them. I am just starting to go down that rabbit hole so this is very timely!

Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome is the mother of all rabbit holes. But after suffering severe multi-system symptoms for many years I 90% recovered. Several experts in the field have told me that most if not all migraines are due to environmental exposure to toxins (mold and actinomycetes).

Environmental illness is real with measurable physiological effects. And it is treatable.

https://www.survivingmold.com/ https://www.survivingmold.com/docs/SHOEMAKER_PROTOCOL_ESSAY_...

What kind of doctor did you go to and what kinds of testing did it take? How long did it take once you figured out what was going on to get to 90% better? My neurologist seems disinterested in finding the root cause. I even had to diagnose myself and then go to several doctors until one agreed. I take migraine meds and they help a lot so far, especially Ubrelvy, but it is $100/pill and I am not sure it will be covered by insurance.

If you are concerned about mold being a cause, there are couple of urine tests for mycotoxins that were super helpful for us understanding the mysterious illness in our family.

What kind of doctor do I go to and what are the name of the tests?

You need to find a functional health practitioner, and be willing to try many different practitioners. It took us several tries to find a practitioner who was willing to test for mold. If you aren't familiar, functional practitioners focus on the root cause of medical issues rather than just symptoms. We found success with a functional nurse practitioner, though they capped out and we have moved on.

There are two tests we do periodically: https://realtimelab.com https://mosaicdx.com/test/mycotox-profile/

You may be able to find ways to get the tests directly (not through a health practitioner) if that ends up being the path you need. They are not cheap and not typically covered by insurance, but we found being mysteriously ill was way more expensive in the long run than paying for tests. May your path to healing be a straight one!

Unfortunately, urine mycotoxin testing is not diagnostically significant.

"Even if we are presented with impeccable lab results from ELISA and thorough use of standard differential diagnosis (we aren’t), based on world-wide control data, and a robust literature on CIRS, there is no basis to ascribe any diagnostic significance to urine mycotoxin testing" https://www.survivingmold.com/Publications/Urinary_mycotoxin...

However, there are significant blood tests including Transforming Growth Factor Beta-1 and Complement C4-A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGF_beta_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4A

I recognize urine mycotoxin tests are potentially controversial, but these tests were very diagnostically significant for us and our mold journey. The mycotoxins that were off the charts in our tests matched the mold that was eventually found in our house (after multiple mold inspectors missed it).

This area is definitely more "gray" than implied by your comment. I have tremendous respect for Shoemaker, but there are some gaps in that paper that did not appear to address how our practitioner used those tests for us. Many of the studies mentioned in the meta-review focus on the presence or absence of mycotoxins not the measured amount. Also, our practitioner used the test "backwards" compared to procedure outlines in the review paper. Our practitioner used the test before we had any evidence that we lived in a water-damaged building, whereas the paper is specifically focused on determining cause of illness after exposure to a water-damaged building.

I thought the tests were controversial because mycotoxins is also contained in some foods. Most research papers don’t use a reference group that isn’t affected by mold.

I highly recommend reading about it at https://www.survivingmold.com/resources-for-patients/diagnos...

You can do a visual contrast sensitivity test online: https://www.survivingmold.com/store/online-vcs-screening

I have been treated by Dr Shoemaker and am currently being treated by Dr Scott McMahon who is an expert researcher in the field. Call him and set up a consultation. There is a fair amount of blood tests but your symptom history and VCS tests will go a long way toward diagnosis.

YMMV, but after initial treatment I felt 40% better in 6 months. Ensuring a clean environment is critical. It took 5+ years of treatment to reach the 90% improvement.

However, each person is unique. Younger and less genetically susceptible patients improve much quicker.

https://www.survivingmold.com/shoemaker-protocol/list-of-cer...

Ritchie Shoemaker is a quack with a long disciplinary history:

https://quackwatch.org/cases/board/med/shoemaker/consent/

Unlike mold-caused asthma and allergies, "Toxic mold illness" and CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) are not real conditions, as described in a recent Australian report:

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/biotoxins-i...

"Toxic mold illness" is a popular scam among the grifters who market themselves as integrative/functional/naturopathic: https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-the-internet-so-obsesse...

The CDC warned against urine testing promoted by the "toxic mold" scammers: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6406a7.htm

Mold exposure is no joke. I lived in a rented apartment that was flooded badly during Hurricane Sandy (and I was on the 4th floor!). Within a few days of the storm passing I was emailing my landlord, concerned that he apparently hadn’t begun doing anything to reduce likelihood of mold growth. A few weeks later gives us the go ahead to move back in, and within weeks of that I rapidly began developing symptoms.

Initially looked like severe allergies but then I started coughing up blood, waking up gasping for breath, really bad nausea and other GI issues. I was already pissed off with management at this apartment so we moved out about 4 months after the hurricane. While moving out we found all this black mold hiding behind furniture and in corners. Took pictures and then made a point to do mold air quality test before handing over the keys. Saw my PCP who had been overseeing my care the whole time, probably dozens of visits, and mentioned what I found. He then had zero doubt that the mold was causing everything

He ordered a blood test that shows the immune system’s response to mold and it indicated my body was dealing with quite a bit of it. The air tests showed the presence of 3 types/quantities of toxigenic mold and correlated with blood tests

I think it took nearly two years for me to fully recover after moving out of the apartment. Was at least fortunate that all of that documentation allowed me to get a settlement. I had literally emailed the landlord saying I have asthma and the apartment must be safe for me to move back into. I now do mold air tests before I move anywhere

Oddly the house we are about to move into passed the mold air test and then we found a ton of mold in the insulation once we ripped all the drywall out of what is going to be my bedroom

What do you use to test for mold?

I use companies licensed in mold remediation and testing. If you live in a fairly populated area and google “mold air testing in (x city)” you should hopefully find something. It’s strange to me how infrequently these services are utilized. My realtor, who is one of the most experienced in the state even wasn’t sure who to go to for this when I first asked

There's some care to take here, especially depending on state licensing requirements. In some places it's particularly easy or low risk to present fraudulent results or interpretations of results on air tests so they can pitch expensive but unnecessary mitigation. National and regional chains often provide licensing cover for, and set quotas on, operators that enable some of this scamming.

One way to vet a mold tester is to go through a property management or landlords' association, even if you're not either of those things (even if you're a renter!). They often refer or have a list of vetted local contractors publicly available. Nobody likes wasting money on property less than a landlord.

100%. for this reason it can be ideal to go with a company that only does testing, not remediation. In smaller markets, though, you might be forced to go through a company that does remediation as well. Had to do it recently but they were honest and helpful, gave us a clean rating

HERTSMI-2 is the most accurate. Often houses will pass air spore tests but HERTSMI-2 will catch the problem. It isn't necessary to do an ERMI - that tests for ALL molds in your house. You only need to test for Mycotoxin producing molds, which the HERTSMI-2 does.

This is the kit I recommend for testing for mold: https://www.envirobiomics.com/product/hertsmi-2/

Only costs $130. Buy the Swiffer kit. Vacuum is not as accurate. Clean the whole house, then wait 2-4 weeks, then use the Swiffer kit to collect dust that has settled in the bedrooms and living room. Don't do kitchen or bathrooms.

Interpreting a HERTSMI-2:

0-8: Excellent

9-10: Good

11-15: Possibly dangerous. Deep clean the whole house, especially locations that are rarely cleaned and have settled dust like the tops of ceiling fans, door frames, blinds, etc. Wait 2-4 weeks and retest. If the score is still 11 or above, you have a significant mold problem that needs to be found and remediated by professionals.

16-50: Dangerous. You have a significant mold problem that needs to be found and remediated by professionals.

I read a detailed account from a non-anon former Apple employee (I can get the link to share) who was similarly sick from per the evidence strong chemical fumes they were ejecting from their factories nearby some of the employee housing. No follow up or accountability and several reasons why they were allowed to operate that way perhaps (besides other team dysfunction). Just terrible stuff like this seems to happen regardless of a biz’s rep w general population and dismissed from attention if it ever receives it

NY and Ontario landlords and I’m sure elsewhere have a high tolerance for leaving terrible mold situations in rentals, I know someone who had permanent nerve damage and a condition for life from how the black mold behind her shower that the landlord wouldn’t fix and the state wouldn’t help resolve

would love a link to read more, thanks for sharing!

I’m sorry I replied on twitter a couple months ago and they’ve deleted the posts. I followed them and could find that way maybe but don’t want to dox them now that they’ve taken it down. They couldn’t find journalist interest and I tried to refer one. I have no affiliation / authority over this second hand info of course.

To clarify, they were not a factory worker, they were corporate (not that it makes it better but it means that exposure to stuff wouldn't have been a part of their employment agreement) and the root cause was that it saved money

It tested negative, because that mold was still trapped in the space within the drywall.

What steps did you take to secure your own living area? I've been through a few hurricanes and part of the recovery process is multiple deep cleans and constant inspection of your own living space, placing desiccate bags in every closet to soak up the residual moisture, replacing water damaged furniture, rugs...

The biggest problem with apartments or condos that experience severe water damage is building management or condo associations that don't want to take on the expense of bringing in experts to repeatedly inspect every apartment for this kind of mold growth. As a resident you and your neighbors, landlords... end up with a significant part of the burden of keeping your domiciles mold free.

A friend of mine has a severely mentally damaged family member who has decided it'd be a whole bunch of fun to have an indoor swimming pool. She repeatedly opens all the taps in their bathroom while arranging for all the water to spill everywhere, and proceeds to splash around in it. This has been going in daily for over a month now.

The sad part is the family has at this point given up entirely on correcting the behavior or even drying the house, and it's just a matter of time before there's irreparable damage and severe illnesses throughout. Even worse, it's a townhouse connected to other houses the the left and right, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the damage/sickenss spreads to the neighbors.

High density living definitely has its downsides...

This person needs to be in a mental institution, not their house. This is also closely related to the crime problems people have with high-density living. The complete and utter failure of our society to correctly put people away is not a knock on "high density living", it's a symptom of the US shutting down asylums and preventing people who are dangerous to society from being locked away.

When those decisions were made (to shut down asylums, etc.) what techniques were intended to backfill the same need? Did evidence suggest that something else (drugs at home?) would be at least similarly effective and more humane?

When those decisions were made (to shut down asylums, etc.) what techniques were intended to backfill the same need?

Generally, the umbrella term for the intended replacement is "community-based mental health services," and that embraces a fairly broad continuum of care, in principal.

Among the things that did not happen was sufficient funding for these to be adequately provided publicly, or assurance that non-institutionalized, privately-insured people would be likely to have these covered by private insurance. While some progress on each has been made since, access remains an issue, as does service delivery, especially with the unhoused. (One thing that was not provided for with the withdrawal of institutionalization was a replacement for the room and board inherent in institutionalization.)

No, there was controversy over mistreated patients in a number of asylums.

There were campaigns to close the asylums based on this, but no real plan for what to replace them with.

This person needs to be in a mental institution, not their house

I'm with you in theory, but given it was the medical industry that damaged her in the first place, her mother is understandably very apprehensive about them having further access to her.

You neglect the dark side of this "lock the crazies away" solution: the so-called "doctors" are given full access to the person to arrange for whatever medical procedures they deem fit, with zero checks and balances, at the taxpayers dollar. In her case the "doctors" convinced her non-english-speaking parents to put their healthy daughter through a surgery generally considered elective/postponable at a very young age and (accidentally?) suffocated her while she was under, thereby permanently destroying her brain for life. The total amount taxpayers will pay the medical-pharmaceutical complex to keep her vegetive for her entire life is difficult to fathom.

All is not well in the state of public medicine.

High density living definitely has its downsides...

I thought this story was fake, thank you for confirming.

It's not, but if you want to continue to live in fantasyland where anecdotes contrary to your preconceived notions simply don't exist, nobody can stop you.

It does sound lovely over there, for a time. But I'd imagine my unused brain would atrophy away.

Mold is being remediated in my house as I type this. My wife and I have been dealing with insidious symptoms for years (brain fog, joint pain, anxiety, muscle stiffness, balance issues, neuropathy, increased ADHD, and more). Only recently did we discover that there was black mold (Stachybotrys chartarum) in both our bedroom and in the air supply trunk located after the air handler. The bedroom mold was caused by an inactive leak that must have been there before we ever bought the house. The air handler was due to poor installation alongside high humidity.

We’ve already noticed a huge decrease in symptoms about 10 days after the air handler was pulled.

Wow, that is kind of terrifying! How did you find the mold?

I've seen about every doctor possible and finally got a diagnosis of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS). The doctor said many of his patients suffer from mold. He recommended a whole home mold inspection.

The inspector only discovered mold in the air handler itself, which isn't too uncommon. We could have just cleaned the handler coils but decided to pull the entire thing just to be sure. Only after it was pulled did we see about a 15 foot long stretch of mold going directly into our ductwork.

In the bedroom we were replacing our carpet with hardwood floors and discovered a 10 foot mold stretch behind the baseboards.

You might want to try and rule out Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) while you're at it. There is a huge overlap in symptoms. Bear in mind the Beighton score has high a false negative rate and the difference between HSD and hEDS disappears whenever you look at the stats closely. It appears that many mold and lyme disease symptoms are triggers for pre-existing hEDS.

Yeah, I have EDS hypermobility also. Surprisingly, my joint stability and muscle strength already seem better just being out of the mold.

You might have some better luck with hEDS specific treatments, low dose naltrexone, low dose modafinil, supplemental T3 hormone, weightlifting if you can, metformin and a very low sugar diet. And perhaps supplemental Test and HGH.

I can confirm that mold causes joint pain. I even had increased anti-CCP antibodies that correlated with my joint paint. Sadly there was no treatment for me because RA diagnosis is not possible without joint swelling. The only thing I can do is to avoid mold. When I avoid mold, I have no joint pain and also my antibodies are normal again. It’s scary to know that mold is slowly destroying my joints.

I think my real problem is MCAS but doctors don’t seem to know or treat it.

Remember to get your heatpump cleaned

Is there something that needs to be done other than the filters?

Yes. The mesh grid and all the plastics around it. It's not really possible to deep clean without specific equipment.

+1 ours got so moldy inside. Especially after the hardwood installers ran them while sanding. I've gotten quite good at deep cleaning and sterilizing them, but it's a long and messy process.

I initially thought this would be about the mold linker (https://github.com/rui314/mold)

Heh, I was hoping it was something to do with designing industrial injection moulds or similar. :)

I was hoping it was a course or tutorial about nurturing, cultivating, and simulating friendly slime mold, not brutally eradicating harmful fungoidal mold!

Like these fascinating tutorials about visually programmed Slime Mold Simulations using Blender's simulation and geometry nodes:

Slime Mold Simulation Nodes Tutorial (Blender 3.6a)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_eHAsC9OoA

Simulation Nodes Tutorial: Slime Splattering Generator | Blender 3.6 Geometry Nodes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUzfJPlBzIs

Tutorial | Grow Cordyceps Fungus in Blender 3.5+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LOaFbbTSZQ

Slime free Add-On for Blender 3.1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJEvaeTNCkw

Slime Mold Effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FMSgOAoq7Q

Another Slime Mold Simulation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y5nyeeuDug

Random Projects in Blender (Physarum Transport)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBQk3uiKSE0

Blender 3.6 Physarum Simulation! (Part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycc-D6ITOOs

Grid-Based Physarum Simulation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8qQF-5Qtw

Physarum (Slime Mold) Simulation in Blender! (Final Part)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErIZn8WPr08

Physarum Simulation Test (Blender 3.5)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcaHXVZZUIk

Blender 3.6 Physarum Simulation!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQY8UOoto7I

I have black-colored mold that grows in one of my bathrooms on the toilet bowl under the water's surface and on the tub/shower curtain. I clean it, but it always comes back in 1-3 weeks. It does not appear elsewhere.

Any ideas? Is there a cheap test I can do on the water?

I don't know if it's a danger or not.

Remove it with vinegar, it will stay away longer, although it won't remove the root cause.

The root cause is that you have a source of moisture there, allowing these fungi to live. Maybe your toilet has a pin leak, or that spot is a bit colder than the rest of your bathroom, leading to moisture condensing there first. If you remove the source of moisture, the mold will be gone too.

How do you clean it? I'm no expert, but I'd turn off the water to the toilet then flush it till it's empty, then hit it with some mould spray. I'd look at the water tank too (which should now be empty) and give that a clean too. Read the instructions on the sprays cos you're meant to leave them for 5-10mins to do their work before you wash them off. Then turn your tap back on and see how you go.

Funny thing I'm actually learning to grow the right mold in my charcuterie.

Nice! I'm diving into the world of charcuterie too. The most frustrating piece has been sourcing an pH meter that is both affordable and accurate, all the while hearing accounts of many folks who forgo ph testing altogether. Curious what you decided on here!

The EPA course seems reasonable and informative.

My in-laws discovered mold in their home about four years ago thanks to a tipoff from a psychic. They had their home inspected once, and found nothing. They had their home inspected again and mold was found in their air conditioning system.

Since then, they've had multiple mold remediation companies come in.

* Removal and replacement of several interior walls

* Covering of proximal structural timbers with proprietary anti-mold spray

* several rounds of professional cleaning, with various proprietary blends of magical chemicals

The symptoms my in-laws attribute to mold exposure have not decreased. They've had maybe five or six mold remediation specialists use tools of varying degrees of woo to scan the home. My mother-in-law will set a pan of water overnight in random places and send the water to a lab for testing--no mater where she puts it, it almost always comes back positive (surprise).

I fully believe my inlaws were and are the victim of mold remediation scams. Coupled with their continued reliance on psychics for life advice and their dismissal of mainstream health (they never go to medical doctors) in favor of "functional medicine" and chiropracty, they've dumped nearly 100k of their retirement into trying to solve a problem that we have no direct evidence is the cause of their symptoms.

The story doesn't really have a happy ending. They're living with us as they can't move into other constructions "because of the VOCs" (our home isn't special, they just started living here before they "learned" about VOCs).

I'm not in a position to criticize any particular mold remediation company or technique, I just wanted to share my absurd reality in case it helps anyone else frame what they might be going through themselves. There is a cottage industry of various kinds of remediation scams, and many of them are outright egregious.

thanks for shining a light on this scummy industry and I hope your in-laws come to their senses or you can insulate yourself and loved ones from their inevitable downfall.

If you stop thinking about LLMs as AI, and more as an incredible tool for doing retrieval I hope one day that when you see a deeply informative post from a government site it comes standard with a chat dialog so you can quickly ask your questions and be directed to relevant chunks of information.

Great reason to live in a semi-arid area I guess, mold just doesn't grow here much. Current outdoor humidity is 26% and this is the wet part of the year.

And here I was hoping (apparently much like @DonHopkins) that this would be something to do with Slime Molds / Slime Mold Computing[1][2][3][4][5]. Oh well, maybe next time.

[1]: https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/16716/slime-mold-computin...

[2]: https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_686-1

[3]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.05774

[4]: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-maga...

[5]: https://www.sci.news/biology/slime-mold-problems-linear-time...

I love mold, really improved my linking times.

The golden rule to a long-lived healthy building is to keep everything as dry as possible.

They should send this to every landlord in Singapore that gives zero fs about tenant safety.

It’s a national disgrace.

would love to connect with folks that have had mold issues. ariana@conscience.vc / https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianadthacker/

I've dealt with indoor flooding in the past and was recommended Decon 30[1] botanical disinfectant by an experienced remediator. Its main active ingredient is thymol (derived from thyme) and it's EPA approved for fungicidal, bactericidal, and viricidal use. It's not as marketed for consumer use, but pretty easy to find on Amazon or at a janitorial supply store. Safety data sheet here[2].

Personally, I found it generally more pleasant and less harsh on the skin in particular than hydrogen peroxide or cleaners from Clorox.

[1] https://benefect.com/us/products/decon-30/

[2] https://benefect.com/pdf/decon-30-product-data-sheet-usa.pdf

If anyone is reading this and you think you have mold illness, lyme disease, or fibromyalgia, read Toxic, by Neil Nathan MD. This doctor has been treating patients for decades, and it is the gold standard for how to diagnose and treat the complex health issues that arise from mold exposure.

https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Toxicity-Multiple-Sensitivities...

DampRid makes good product to supplement your dehumidifiers - https://damprid.com/

This is oddly relevant to my recently discovered disaster in the basement bathroom.

tl;dr

- mold usually only significantly affects people prone to respiratory infections or allergies. it's a lung irritant for most people but once the mold is removed, the lungs typically recover. when remediating mold, it's a good idea to have a respirator and eye mask, mostly just to prevent irritation or from breathing cleaning chemicals

- you can never stop mold from being in your house, but you can prevent it from growing. mold grows faster the hotter it is, and typically grows at 55% humidity or higher. reduce humidity and stop any dripping or standing water to prevent mold growth. to reduce humidity you can use a dehumidifier or desiccants (better for closets/drawers). increased air flow also helps prevent mold (mold likes dark places without air flow and high humidity)

- mold can be found in most central air systems/vents, it's not surprising. but it will grow and cause health issues if the air conditioning system is prone to water or high humidity.

- the reason you need to remove mold even if you don't smell it/it's not visible is mold breaks down organic matter, so it will stain and/or destroy clothes, wood, leather, etc.

- different molds have different behaviors. some can be killed with just vinegar, but some need a more severe treatment. bleach, other household products don't tend to work, because it doesn't kill the root.

- once a mold root gains hold in a permeable material, it's pretty hard to kill the root, so you can kill the outer version of it but it'll often just grow back. so if flooring/sheathing like OSB gets mold, you'll probably need to scrap it. hard wood can take longer for mold to grow on but once the roots are in the wood, you'd need to remove the wood down to the root or it'll grow back.

- concrobium mold control is the best overall product for mold control, as it can kill the mold and root and prevent mold from regrowing on surfaces. if you find mold in hard to reach areas, a dry fogger with concrobium is often the easiest solution

- if it's not practical for you to reduce humidity or increase airflow in a given space, keep your stuff in airtight plastic bins.