air purification and carpet cleaning

My naturopath is trying to convince me to move to a new apartment because of environmental pollution (ie: mold, fast food smells from the neighboring jack in the box, etc). In lieu of moving, she suggested I invest in a HEPA air purifier and deep clean my apartment (carpets, etc).

Has anyone else used an air filter or deep cleaned their place and found it helped? I feel like this is a big investment and unsure if it will be worth it at all.

thanks!

Mostly mold, dust, and i live next to a jack-in-the-box and a sushi place that does a lot of deep frying (and I am sensitive to airborne gluten and soy-ie: frying oil!!). My property manager is convinced that there is not a mold problem. It is all between the walls and under the paint, so I have no way of proving it without destroying the wall or something.

I think I am going to get the carpets cleaned and see how that goes first. Then, I'll think about investing in an air thing. I think moving would be way more costly and complicated at the present moment. :-/

My doctor wants me to get a HEPA from IQAir. they are just under a thousand. yikes! I put an old little ionic air purifier in the bathroom where the majority of the mold is a few days ago and it has taken the edge off of the amount of it in the air, so my body is actually able to fight back! what that means is that I have a BAD cold now. I don't ever get sick (or feel sick) and my body temp is so low i don't ever get a fever, so I guess this is a good thing! I've been using a neti pot daily now and wearing a beanie on and off for the last week too. I'll keep you updated if I do decide to invest in a HEPA purifier.

I can see some of it. I know there is a lot I can't see because there has been MASSIVE water damage to our floors and walls and the adjacent tenant recently flooded out the apartment below them. There are bad water stains all over our ceilings from the roof leaking and also on the ceiling in the apartment below us.

... maybe I should move. *sigh* But I only pay $75 in rent right now.

sooo... there has been water stains showing up on the bedroom ceiling. There is a solar panel array above our unit and someone came today to fix whatever was wrong. Long story short..... there is a hole in the roof and he pulled out and replaced several black, mold covered panels. I talked to him for a while and he showed me one of the other apartments and their mold damage. He told me that my apartment was poorly circulating and trapping humidity. Knowing what I already know about the apartment plus this just became the "last nail in the coffin".

I had to sit down with my roommate and basically tell him I need to move out. He is not on the lease, so if I leave, he is kicked out too. I'm on my way out the door now to start apartment hunting.

If living in a mold-free environment does nothing more than clean up my acne (which is 500% worse now than when I was a teen!) I think it will be worth it. I'm on unemployment and chances are it will be running out in Feb. so I've got to figure out something. Unfortunately doctors appointments may be the first place I will be force to cut back on. My stress level is through the roof now! ahhhhhh!

Moral Animal, Hate to be a pain in the neck, but if you HAVE to find a new place to live anyway, you might also consider EMF's. Don't really know what all you have to do to check, but a cousin had to sell her condo and move because of high EMF's in certain parts of it. She swears when she got into a "safer" environment, she felt and slept better. Ok, adding insult to injury, but there's my two cents. If you're moving anyway, why not consider that too?? I sure wish you the best in your apartment hunting...What a pain in the, er, neck for a healthy person. A real trauma for folks like us....

As long as you are keeping things in mind during your hunt, I will share that getting rid of the wall-to-wall carpet in my house in favor of hard flooring and natural area rugs that can be thoroughly cleaned ( in addition to regular vacuuming of course) periodically helped alleviate some of my symptoms. I did some research and discovered that wall-to-wall carpet can house all sorts of potentially irritating things, and, for me, synthetic fibers seem to be a problem. Maybe there is an apartment with hard floors.

Rose