Mold - Anybody in a Mold Group or been through remediation?

Hi, WBF,

I'm so sorry to hear how terrible a time you and your mother have been having lately. I have meant to reply, and things just keep coming up with my moving process, and I run out of time and/or steam. I kept saving your posts for last because I had the most to say! Truly I am sorry that I have not been there for you.

Mold stuff is especially hard because there's practically no one who seems to understand the dynamics involved. You're right - whom can we really trust to help clean things or remediate responsibly? Where can we go that's genuinely safe? It's horribly frustrating. I wish I had more helpful advice. I too am not on Facebook, so I basically have Neil Nathan books, this forum, and the three main mold websites for support. My doctor is great but doesn't know more than I do at this point, about these things.

I talked with my mold inspector a lot about whether it's actually possible to make a space safe for someone with CIRS. He seems to think so, relatively speaking, meaning that you can make a place much safer but nowhere will be entirely mold-free. I went into detail about his plan in another post, but basically he's into removing any mold sources, installing very advanced moisture management devices, cleaning every surface with cloths and HEPA filtration, cleaning any ducted or vented systems, and then moving in only safe belongings. (I'm not convinced that items will be 100% safe ever, but again, I think it's all relative....) He was careful to point out that CIRS will still take time to recover from, even in a safer space. In my understanding, there are outdoor molds which obviously we can't control, and we'll keep reacting to molds somewhat as long as we have the mycotoxins in our adipose tissue (years) and as long as our brains are wired to over-react to various things.

It's overwhelming. Please be gentle with yourself.

Sandyfeet, I love the recommendation to reach out, through church or otherwise, as many people will go out of their way to help if asked.

May we all find our footing on these dicey paths.

Sandyfeet and Sara,

Thank you so much for your support and advice. All very good suggestions and advise. Not easy to carry out, as you well know.

If I were married or had a healthy sibling who wanted to take us to another location, we probably would consider it. Being it’s just my mom and I and most of our family is here, leaving the area for unknown territory is just too daunting for me to consider at this point.

“Where can we go that’s genuinely safe?” - That’s a question no one can really answer. What is safe for some may not be safe for others. Just because someone found a clean enough house in one town doesn’t mean most of the houses on the market are that clean, etc.

I wrote options down last night and all of them are a risk.

a). Sell this house (if we even can as it’s now damaged) and lose money. Start house hunting again (we already looked at close to 120 houses)

- lose money on the house
- stress and slim prospects of finding a house I don’t react to that doesn’t require work and is in our now even lower price range as we have already put out $10k on a roof and patio repairs

b). Get inspection and testing done by someone who understands CIRS and get a protocol for remediation at the risk that we may not find a suitable remediator or be able to afford remediation at the cost of $2,500-$3,000, as we have to pay their travel expenses. Make a decision after this as to whether or not we remediate.

- loss of $3,000 more

c). Commit to inspection, testing, and remediation no matter what and hope it works.

- tens of thousands of dollars that we don’t have
- still will have reconstruction costs and carpet replacement and HVAC system cleaning and appliances and some furniture at a minimum on top of remediation costs

I know of 2 other CIRS patients in the area who had remediation and it was either unsuccessful or only partly successful. They don’t recommend any of the inspectors or remediators in our area.

On the one hand it seems insane that we bought a house that had known water damage in the first place.

On the other hand, I had reactions to something in most every house we looked at (including this one). Even newer houses felt moldy to me. Also 99% of houses have carpet and replacing floors is a lot more expensive than I thought. Everything is more expensive than I thought. I can’t imagine any house for sale in our price range that would be non-water damaged without chemical off-gassing and have no carpet.

Sara mentioned outdoor molds, and they are bad here, especially during certain times of the year and in the mornings and evenings when there’s dew.

I get the sense that I am much more sensitive than most, especially to chemicals. My CIRS doctor didn’t know what to do with me. She did tell that some patients had remediation done and had extremely low ERMI. I honestly cannot imagine that, as it is so far from my experience. It likely depends on how isolated the mold is. In this house it appears to be in multiple locations, although some rooms are more affected than others.

I know nothing about how this latest leak has affected the air quality inside the house. I have not been inside since the day we found the leak in early May - over a month ago. I have had such severe reactions to mold toxins from the street and front yard that I am terrified of even checking the mailbox and make my mom leave me at the grocery store while she goes to check the mail.

Her car now has mold from water leaking into the headliner from clogged drain holes in the sunroof. Getting the drains unclogged will cost $200-$1,000. Have no idea what it would cost to replace the headliner. I had immediate reactions in the car yesterday - inflammation and stiffness in the back of my neck and head and pain/numbness in my upper front teeth.

My life is getting ridiculous.

WalkingbyFaith said...


Are you in that group? What are their feelings about remediation? Frankly, pretty much any place here would need remediation at some level.

Yes, I am. I don't need remediation in my home so I have not paid too much attention to those posts, but plenty of people do post about remediation issues and everyone chimes in on the best methods, etc.

If you join and post pics of your mold issue you will get lots of feedback

The mold avoiders fb group is ran by the person on paradigm change site. I’ve found it helpful.

Lapis_29 said...

Girlie said...



Lapis - Did you have someone come in and check for mold? Or did you do an ERMI test yourself?

At my house I just did the nose test. Its a very small house on a slab, no basement. Attic beams look spotless, new roof no leaks, not too many places for mold to hide.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I haven't done an ERMI in my house....but we do have a crawl space (cement). My husband goes down there regularly and says there's no signs of mold...no smell...and I sent him into the attic to check for mold up there and nothing.
I don't smell anything in the rest of the house...
I've got a keen sense of smell...so I hope I'd smell something...even if it can't be seen.

I do smell mold in other places...so I think I'd be able to smell it in my home.

Hi WalikingByFaith,

I had my house tested and have visible mold on a few windows and inside 2 closets that are next to the bathroom. The inspection showed high levels in the basement from the air test the rest of the house was normal what ever that is. They did do tape samples and came back with mold in a few different areas.

Quote for the basement was around 6k clean walls, floor joist then hepa vac and run hepa air filter for a few days. Clean about 10% of the items and throw the rest out. Each bedroom with closet was around 600. The bedroom upstairs has some spots on the ceiling so clean entire room and cut a few holes to see how bad under the sheetrock that room alone was almost 2k. Then depending on what they find probably more. Entire house estimate was almost 15k. I'm not sure what were going to do yet, but I'll let you know how it goes if we do decide to have it done. Going to at least get the basement done may get a couple other quotes first.