Podcast Transcript
Rebel Health Coach
Tue, Oct 18, 2022 12:21PM • 1:11:21
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mold, dampness, building, people, mold growth, mold toxicity, problem, allergic, chemicals, illness, inflammation, air, asthma, bottom line, jason, symptoms, mycotoxins, develops, allergy, water
00:00
The reality is is that the enemy to healthy indoor air is not low. It’s dampness and all mold growth indoors of any significance is potentially problematic for indoor air quality, especially for sensitive individuals.
00:20
Welcome to the rebel health coach podcast with Tom Underwood armed with truth and knowledge your journey to a healthy lifestyle can be obtained preventative wellness, quality nourishment and daily fitness routines dramatically improve your outlook on life as a whole and you’ll find the support and info you need to accomplish a healthier lifestyle hear together we can empower each other along our journey to an amazing you.
00:49
Well, well well happy 2022 to you all. Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the rebel health coach Podcast. Today I have Jason Earle. Jason is a healthy homeless and Vangelis and founder of got mold. Jason has a man on a mission, Dorian father and curable entrepreneur and indoor air quality Crusader. He’s the founder and CEO of one 800 Got mold and my co lab USA and creator of got Mold Test Kit. Today we are going to discuss mold and indoor air quality. Over the last 20 years Jason has performed countless sick building investigations solving many medical mysteries along the way helping 1000s of families recover their health and peace of mind.
He has been featured in appeared on Good Morning America, Extreme Makeover Home additions, the Dr. Oz Show, entrepreneur, wired and at least two college textbooks and more hope you enjoy this episode. And Jason has a special gift for the listeners. If you go to www got bold.com backslash rebel, you can download a how to file mold in your home ebook, also, rebel 10 will get you 10% off mold kits, mold testing kits. So if you need one kid, two kids or three kids or more, save 10% by using the code rebel 10 enjoy this episode and make it a fantastic day.
Jason Earle, right. That’s right. Welcome to the rebel health coach podcast. Happy 2022 to you. Happy New Year. Yes, sir. It’s a new year a new you if you want to do it that way I don’t. Nothing really changes, I just make better, bigger goals. And so today we are going to talk about a topic. I’ve been waiting, or actually we’re talking about a topic I’ve been wanting to discuss for a long time and haven’t had the opportunity until your people reached out to me to do this.
And it’s mold and mold toxicity. And one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode so much is because those that are suffering from mold in illness are often misdiagnosed. And more times than not, the condition is overlooked altogether.
And so before we dive into this topic, I love stories about health and people that follow their passion. And you were a you were the youngest licensed stock broker their history at age 17, and also in Genesis World Book records for this feat. How the hell did you go from being a stockbroker, to more detective and getting more golf balls started? That was hard to spit out.
04:01
But we got it out? Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, a lot of a lot of this was relatively accident, the Wall Street was was an accident. First of all, thanks for having me on your show. You’re welcome. Glad to be here
04:17
grateful for your people reaching out to me because I’ve really wanted to do this. And this was a great opportunity with a great product. So thank you,
04:25
thank you. I know it’s a it’s a it’s a funny thing people often ask when when when our team reaches out. They all say, Oh, well, what are we gonna talk about? And I, you know, I have to remind people that our target market is very narrow, we look to speak to people about this, who live in buildings and breathe air, very narrow. Right? It’s pretty it’s it’s a subject that everyone’s going to have to deal with at some point, right, you know, in some way, shape or form. I look at mold as it’s, it’s up there with death and taxes.
You know, it’s a fact of life. It’s a it’s a fact of nature. It’s not something that happens accidentally comes with great regularity with great predictability if you have enough moisture. That’s how it happens. But, you know, the way I got into the mold business, the healthy home business more accurately, was was was very organic. To use that to continue to use mold metaphor, we, I ended up after Wall Street, having a realization that I childhood home was probably what caused my illness. I’ll rewind it, it sort of started at the beginning.
I grew up in a little farm town outside of Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton Junction, about an hour outside of New York. And we had a bunch of rescued animals. And it was it was kind of a little boy’s dream. We had horses and goats and all sorts of good stuff, five acres and surrounded by fields. But around the age of four years old, I suddenly got ill and lost a bunch of weight in a very brief period of time, and my mom brought me to the pediatrician.
And they said, No, you should take him to Children’s Hospital. This is serious. And initially, they diagnosed me with cystic fibrosis, which was, of course a devastating diagnosis.
06:06
Especially because my father had four cousins who died from CF before age of 14. So they spent six weeks crying while they were waiting for the appointment for the second opinion. And they were grateful to to learn that I didn’t have cystic fibrosis.
Actually, what I had was asthma, and it was compounded by pneumonia. And when they tested me for allergies, they they put me in a papoose or like this open, so I think about it like a straitjacket for toddlers. I could use one of those right now. I got two kids in diapers. So I could use one of those now, but, but, but but they use this, this, you know, open back sort of restraint system and drew a grin on my back and put the antigens are these out, you know, these skin tests on my back. And my dad’s that I looked at Ladybug, just big red swollen back with dots all over it.
So I was allergic to everything. They tested me for grass, wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, cotton. You know, it’s my clothes, my sheets, you know, it was everything. And I again grew up in a little nonworking farm, but surrounded by cornfields and soybean fields, and you know, all the allergens in high concentration. And so, you know, they were told my parents were told that I was going to be a bubble boy and my, both my parents were little hardscrabble. And they said, No, he’ll and he’ll figure it out. I was a nurse. And my dad was a reporter, but my mom was very much like, you know, he’ll, he’ll, he’ll figure it out. And so I lived under hailers.
And then when I was about 12, my folks split up, and I moved out of that house, and all my symptoms disappeared. It wasn’t instant, but it was as instant as you can, as you can imagine. And it was a gradual reduction. And I just, and I never thought about it. Again, except it was discussed briefly at the time, because my grandfather had also grown out and added his app. And, and so they attributed it to just, you know, adolescence. But I didn’t think about it again, until, you know, fast forward, I was in I, my mom died suddenly when I was 14.
And then I got Lyme disease a year later, which is early 90s. So the treatment for that was very aggressive antibiotics, but lots of Biaxin 30 pills a day on 30 pills a day for three days, and then and then three days off. So it was really brutal on my gut, I developed a nice chemical sensitivity and all sorts of other good stuff off of that. Digestive Issues that take me 20 years to get get control of but the but the bottom line is the 13 month, Lyme disease right after that. And so they basically forced me to drop out of high school.
And so I got a job working at the gas station where a full time job, I was already part time there and met a guy who recruited me to come more farm, I fix his flat tire and give me a big tip. And I saw him two weeks later, and I approached him and said, Hey, I don’t know if you realize he gave me a big pay, and I feel like you owe you overpaid me. And anyway, long story short, he recruited me to come work for him. And so it was literally like a fairy tale. And it’s a much longer story for maybe for another podcast. But the bottom line is I ended up working ended up getting recruited by guy who was managing director of a penny stock firm during the during the early 90s.
And I happened to take to it well, and I was started at 16. And I worked there for about a year before I got my my stockbrokers license and I didn’t know it at the time, but I had become the youngest licensed broker in history. And then years later got a Guinness World Record for that. And I did that for nine years. I did really nice. I own my own firm for two years. And towards the end right before the.com bubble burst. When I when I when that happened the per my own the branch office of we couldn’t oSj or the franchise, they went out of business and so I just said, you know, this is no longer fun anymore. had my ups and downs close the chapter and I’m like backpacking.
I just left that when traveling. And while I was in Hawaii, I was reading a story about a guy who got sick from the hotel where he was working because we had a mold problem. And it was like a deja vu moment for me because he talked about how he was otherwise healthy. But after being exposed to the mold in this hotel, he suddenly developed adult onset asthma, which is something I never heard of, and also sensitivities, all these foods and things that he had never been sensitive to before.
And it was like, it was like a light bulb went off. And because it’s deja vu moment, if you will, but it was like, just flips the story around, right. He was living my story before years fast forward. And so. So I just thought, Geez, I wonder if we had a mold problem, which spurred me to call my father from a payphone which probably isn’t there anymore.
10:48
And said, Hey, Dad, you think we have a mold problem? And his, his response was, of course, we had more mushrooms in the basement. Why do you ask. And he just thought it was just so flippant of him, of course, they smoked indoors, they both had both asthmatic kid, they both smoke indoors, even in the car with the windows. That was just the 70s and 80s. That was just weird. But anyway, the bottom line is, I immediately saw that there was the connection there.
And I realized that we have so much dampness in that basement. So in retrospect, based upon what I’ve seen, it’s very clear to me that the damp that chronic dampness in the building, which is now according to the Institute of Medicine, a bunch of other research, product dampness in buildings, is a cause of significant underlying illness. It’s widespread, barely understood, the research is coming in, and it’s coming in in droves. It’s very exciting. But it tends to be siloed in different areas. And so but anyway, but my immune system was on high alert.
And so I became sensitive to all these latent senses of these deleted sensitivities emerged, in the front of my bike just said, I’m not gonna deal with any of that stuff. And so I was just a complete allergy, allergic allergy, allergic mess. Now, absent that exposure, I test positive for zero allergies, zero. Nice. And so the point is, is that, hey, there’s hope for people who are going through this, if anyone’s listening, and they’re dealing with a mold issue, especially if it’s allergic in nature, that can be that can correct itself, and it takes vigilance.
And we have to be, you know, you have to be patient, and kind with yourself and everything else. But But the bottom line and eliminate exposure, which is number one, but bottom line is it’s not it’s not a it’s not a permitted diagnosis. But the bottom line is I came back from New Jersey came back to New Jersey, from Hawaii, curious, armed with a lot of questions. But I ended up taking a job working for a mold remediation company, as a salesman, just going around, actually, it was a basement waterproofing company, but they did mold remediation on the side, or they were doing mold or mildew, they’re trying to try to make that allergic for the business.
Keep in mind, this is 20 years ago. So there was not there was no industry, mold, industry, mold, mold inspection, but identify that there was going to be an industry. And I was way early, but I was I was identified, there’s gonna be an industry and eventually, like lead paint, asbestos, there’s going to be an inspection company, and there’s going to be remediation companies. And they would be they would be legal, they would be regulated as such.
And so I took a job working for this remediation company and saw that they were doing bad business and they were hurting people. And I saw it most of the companies in the industry where they use a lot of chemicals, and all that all these all these substitutes for hard work, and, and actually leaving these buildings a lot sicker than they had found them, in many cases, leaving behind all these biocides and not cleaning up the mold and not doing an effective job of fixing the underlying water problem. And so I started an inspection company to help protect the consumer from that. And we pioneered the use of mold sniffing dogs.
And that became a company called one 800 Got mold, which is my mold inspection business. And that that has been just the most amazing way for us to to help people. But the problem is, is that inspections are are expensive. And they’re the end of the average consumer, you know, the average inspection is around $1,500 or so. So the average consumer, you know that it’s out of reach, and then even finding a qualified professional that’s not conflicted with some sort of, you know, other financial arrangement with a remediation company or what have you, is very difficult.
It’s very difficult for the consumer. And so with that in mind a number of years ago, we began creating a do it yourself test kit that would give people concerned consumers a cost effective first way to test their air without having to make a big commitment, but having to deal with the cost the costs or concerns about hiring a professional. But But the bottom line is what this is really been for me bold in general, has been a way to take a look at this experience of going through trying to figure out a way to create the tools and resources for other families so they don’t have to go through life and my family did. Yeah, that’s
14:45
you know, the funny part about it is is there’s a lot of people and we’re gonna get into this today. There’s all kinds of mold toxicity exists. I mean, coffee from the coffee drinker at the grocery store is a big one lately. it because that stuff’s sitting in warehouses on shelves, Trent. And so that’s one. But the biggest thing, in my opinion, and this is just my opinion is, and I said this a little when we started, this is this, this gets misdiagnosed.
Because let’s face it allopathic physicians don’t understand this, they do not, they do not understand this. And also mold and limes, test to emulate lives disease, as well. So often gets misdiagnosed as Lyme disease. And then when you do all the work to reverse the Lyme disease, it’s not fixing that doesn’t usually fix the mold part. So yeah, there’s a heavy overlap there.
Yes, yes. So this is a tough one. And let’s talk about I mean, first of all, mold toxicity causes a very, very, very huge chronic inflammatory response syndrome, which is CRS cisrs in our bodies. And that can range from a lot of different symptoms. And that’s where this gets confusing because brain fog, brain fog fatigue are usually on the top.
But there’s a lot of other things like muscle cramping, numbness, eye problems, you know, it’s just a whole list of things that this disruption, this inflammatory response causes in our system, because our system seeing that mold or feeling that mold, and the first response of our simple system is to create this inflammatory response, combative, but we don’t know where it’s coming from.
And we can’t put a finger on it, because let’s face it, most of the something like you said, to your point, and we’re going to get into this right now. It can be hidden and not recognized as mold. I mean, it’s not like you see a black spot on the wall every time. Or, but let’s get into what are some of the symptoms of mold illness?
17:19
Well, there’s a lot there. So mold, illness, can be broken down into a few different categories, you’ve got typical sort of allergic responses, upper respiratory, hay fever, like symptoms, you know, sinus congestion, things like that. And they tend to be more acute, the, you know, hives, itchy eyes, these kinds of things, they tend to go away when you when you leave the environment. There are more chronic allergic reactions that tend to be more obstructive airway, you know, you start to see, you know, wheezing, you know, you might have more prolonged chronic sinus congestion or chronic sinusitis, which is, by the way, according to the Mayo Clinic, 37 million Americans suffer from chronic sinusitis, and the vast majority of 9990 plus percent of those cases are mold related.
Wow, most of the people who suffer from chronic sinusitis are probably not aware of that. And it’s the most prevalent long term respiratory illness. So they should be probably brought up to speed on that. Respiratory, you know, asthma, 24 point 6 million Americans have asthma, 10 million of those are kids. That number by the way, that 10 million is up 100%, just in the last decade. But what’s interesting is that EPA and Berkeley Labs did a study concluded the 4.6 million of the 24.6.
That’s 25% is mold and dampness related. And so that that’s not just that aggravates it, but there’s also a causal link. The other stuff that you start getting into when we start talking about toxin based illnesses, that’s where the list just goes through the roof, or inflammatory based in symptoms through the roof, because you can pretty much pretty pretty much anything, I hate to say, I mean, it’s almost, it’s every doctor’s nightmare. It’s the dominant, especially when you start, you start with brain, spring fog and fatigue. And you and everybody else, you know, your parents, you know, like, when you have a job, you know, like, line filter for that that’s called life.
But the truth is that when you really have whether it whether it be COVID induced or mold induced or inflam, inflammation induced, you know, it’s actually really interesting. There’s a there was what book was that it just, it doesn’t really matter. But basically, the conclusion that this Oh is breathtaking, by Dr. Michael step by Michael, Stephen. And he said that inflammation is present in most psychiatric illness. It’s not just people think about inflammation as being this thing that happens when you bump into something or you know, there’s trauma involved or whether there’s swelling, allergic swelling or something like that. And you think about it very much as as, as this thing that’s sort of
19:57
related to something more topical, but the sake Gastric illness and inflammation that’s not something people often put in the same sentence.
And, and I think that’s really fascinating. So, but you when you start talking about mold and lime, the other thing that’s happening there is the body has a hard time deep people who have a problem with who have chronic Lyme, which means that they’re not responding to you know, other, they’ve technically knocked out the, the mine, but they’re having long term consequences from it, those people tend to have a difficult time detoxing from the lime, the lime produces a lot of lime likes to ship near near synovial fluid and in nearby and that and that is that is not processed easily by certain people. And so a mold also is treated much the same way.
So these bio toxins are processed poorly due to various different genetic predispositions anyway, that that tends to. Also, there’s this fascinating thing that happens with mold and lime, which is the chemical sensitivities that people often develop. And that’s also a really common thing, where people normally would be, would not have had problems with simple things like perfumes or you know, fragrances from laundry but, but a mold sensitivity that’s produced by a chronic exposure, you’re you’re being exposed to mold, you’re being exposed to a combination of things and not all these things, but you’re getting exposed to the spores, which are like these microscopic seeds.
They tend to cause more just allergic type responses. However, they do have mycotoxins on them, which are kind of like oily substances. And they travel they tend to travel with spores and fragments of fungal material. So they don’t become airborne by themselves. By the way, mycotoxins are not airborne by themselves, contrary to popular opinion. So mold produces spores, which is which causes allergic response, they also produce the musty smell, which is the byproduct of mold growth, which is actually like mold, burps, or mold farts, if you will.
And it really truly is digested byproducts. And those chemicals are, are they look just like industrial solvents. So benzene, various different kinds of aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, these are the things that active mold growth produces. And so when you start looking at the VOCs, that these produce, many of them look a lot like manmade VOCs, some of which are carcinogens. It’s no surprise that they trigger immune responses and inflammatory responses in sensitive individuals.
And that musty smell is directly correlated to by the way, they doubles children’s asthma risk if they’re exposed to musty odors in early childhood. It’s also the number one. Number two predictor of childhood asthma, behind maternal smoking. And so musty odor is a big deal. And people don’t talk about that that much. And then the mycotoxins everybody talks about are actually really a very small part of this of the puzzle.
Everybody talks about it because they’re the meat news media has done such a great job of vilifying mold, black mold, toxic mold, but the but that it’s a distraction, it’s almost a reality is is that the enemy to healthy indoor air is not mold, it’s dampness.
23:15
And all
23:17
mold growth indoors of any significance is potentially problematic for indoor air quality, especially for sensitive individuals. But any dampness indoors is what I’m looking at it is this time this I use the body as a building as a metaphor. And it plays really well but work with me on this. So I look at the body as an extension of the building as an extension of the immune system. Okay, so an Exo skin an exoskeleton, if you will see the we forget that these buildings that we live in work in are not just the static boxes that we store our stuff in?
Or that we baby, this is actually a basic human need. Right? Do you think about its air, water, food shelter is on that list, we would do very poorly without these buildings, right? In fact, we’re a lot like hermit crabs, we wouldn’t survive very long at all. And so the reality is, is that as long as we’ve been living in caves, or whether we’re living in built structures, the point is we’ve had to deal with all the moisture problems since the beginning of time. It’s just that the buildings now are built so tightly. That when build it when the mold develops, it concentrates indoors, there’s not enough air exchange. Plus we’re bringing all these chemicals from China and everything we buy at the mall down the street, or from Amazon.
We open these things up inside our house and all the chemicals from their manufacturing get released into the house, but there’s no air exchange. This is the underlying cause of why we’ve got chronic illness of every certain kind, autoimmune disease. You know why? We’re starting to see all sorts of hormonal disruptions chronic fatigue, you know, I’m telling you, you VOCs above mold. We live in buildings that are very tight that are basically chemical experiment.
And then when you get water in there involve the materials that we build with our very mold friendly, so they grow mold within 24 to 48 hours, you’ll always remember this this is a key key key takeaway from this talk is that mold growth occurs within 24 to 48 hours of an uncontrolled water event. So in other words, if something gets damp or wet and doesn’t get drive and I think about the laundry, this is the way you have to remember this. If you leave your laundry in for a day, you might be okay. Two days probably not. It gets funky right?
And the same thing goes with your sheetrock see this is something you can almost set your watch to mold growth is up there with death and taxes like I said stuff gets wet doesn’t get dry it’s moldy and and so we the reason we have these problems is because it’s because there’s just this modern buildings very tight, built with lots of mold from the materials and also built with chemic chemical chemically based materials that knew how smell you know what that smells like a lot of people inspiration success you know that smells like me.
Cancer you know, the new car smell same kind of thing. And so so I’m what I’m encouraging people to do is look at their bill be be more aware of their air, you know, air water, food shelter, you eat three times a day, everyone worries about their food, water you drink all day long. Most people are drinking bottled or filtered water. They’re smart about that right? Air,
26:23
what are you doing about your air? Well, first of all, Are you even aware of your air? You know how many times a day you breathe, you breathe 24,000 times a day. Even someone who breathes more slowly 21,000 times a day? How many of them are conscious? How many of them are you aware of.
And so if you’re breathing them eight times a day, and you’re not aware of them, then you know, this is this is the this is a public this is a public health concern that’s hiding in plain sight. That’s the point. And so what I’m encouraging people to do is it’s look at this building, as an extension of humans just realize that you are responsible as the building’s immune system. In fact, the building has, you could argue as an organism has a birthday and a death day, its longevity is dictated by how well you take care of it.
And if the building gets sick and develops aches and pains, which is what buildings do over time, the first thing that does is develop what a moisture issue, usually a leak, that usually and that first thing happens is it develops into a mold problem. And so you start to smell that smell, people get sick. See, I look at that mold issue not as a villain, not as this thing that’s trying to hurt you. but rather as a signal as a as a messenger from the building like inflammation in the body saying something’s wrong here, you need to take care of this.
And if you do, the building will heal and so too will the people. If that dampness remains chronic just like chronic inflammation is its own disease, that chronic dampness in the building is its own disease. And by the way, just as a side those chronic, that chronic dampness is an invitation for in fact, that is the environment that produces an environment conducive to the growth of molds like Stacie mattress, and petroleum and these water damage indicators that are known for their toxin production. So So you start looking at mold growth, dampness is the problem.
But you can if you fix it quickly, not so bad, you don’t fix it, you have chronic dampness, it’s the same as chronic inflammation in the body. It is its own disease. And so there’s a symbiotic relationship, if you will, playing this thing all the way through. There’s we have a relationship with our building, but I’m encouraging people to reconsider that there’s a symbiotic thing here, right? There’s a mutual if we take care of the building, it takes care of us you fail to take care of that building, well, then you’re gonna have to deal with the consequence. Wow, that’s
28:35
pretty strong right there. I don’t disagree. And I really do want to get into air. Because your website, which is got mold.com. There’s some articles on air, you got a really some really good articles on here. And some really good blogs. So the
28:57
center is where we’re spending a lot of time and energy. Yeah,
29:01
I can tell, I can tell what I was doing. Looking over last night, I started going down rabbit holes. And this is cool. This is interesting. So I want to get into air quality. One of the things I want to talk about before we get an air and finish out the day, or the podcast on pair.
And then your got Mold Test Kit. Of course. Let’s let’s talk about myths and facts on mold first. So what are some of the myths of mold? And you can cover facts on mold? Along with that if you want to? Sure. So what are some of the myths and facts on mold? Because there’s many, you know,
29:41
there’s many it’s almost all men, right? And it’s funny too, because they tell us that it’s it’s almost all wives tales. And, and it’s also it’s just it’s funny how these things get perpetuated Internet has, has has done a good job of perpetuating many of them. For example, one of them is The most common one is just throw some bleach on it.
Throw simply trying to write, that’s a really common one. And that was a funny one too, because bleach is, it’s, first of all, people are obsessed in America, Americans are obsessed with the smell of clean, and the look of clean and all that stuff. And that’s anybody who’s who’s pursued health long enough. Notice that that’s a that’s a, that’s a false. That’s a false narrative, right? Bleach is not healthy in any area. Absence of color is usually absence of health, and absence of nutrition and all that good stuff.
But anyway, the point is that the bleach is one of those things people think you were just going to sanitize we’re going to firstly get the first thing is you don’t have to kill them all. That’s I know that’s gonna be a big one. You don’t have to kill mold, there’s no need to kill them all. But that is in bold letters and neon and times where you don’t have to kill mold. Mold is, is easily removed when you remove the building materials that can’t be cleaned.
So sheet rock and anything porcelain absorptive, you remove those materials, and then you clean the rest of the surfaces. But clean as Americans is different than clean. Clean, doesn’t mean sanitize. It doesn’t mean sterile. It just means free of dirt and debris means free. So there’s a big difference in clean and sterile. And so the bottom line is that you when you’re doing mold remediation or doing mold cleanup, you don’t need to kill it first, there’s nothing you don’t need to sneak up behind it and kill it. So it’d be easier to remove it, you’re going to remove it anyway.
So adding chemicals, even if it’s bleach just adds another another cost another step more time and ultimately more, more more potential exposure to people who are applying those chemicals. The other thing about bleach is kind of fun. And this is where it is, is that what causes mold, water. Right? What is bleach, water 97%, I placed water in about 3% sodium hypochlorite, which evaporates very quickly leaving behind more water, water.
So you’ve just added water to a water problem, in most cases, but what you’ve left behind are beautifully bleached spores that you can’t see that lie there waiting for new live wants to land and eat the dead ones, and use the moisture to continue that process and then eat the rest is free, right. So you just add water to a water problem. That’s a very common one.
And the idea that, first of all, bleach and second of all that you need to use use chemicals in order to clean malt. The other thing is that, that you might want to consider when it comes to two common myths is you don’t need to know what kind of mold you have. Now we sell a test kit, we got mold, test kit@gmail.com, we sell it, do it yourself test kits, at best best of breed, it’s professional quality testing with literally the same kind of tests you’d get if you hired a professional. But we but we took out the cost and aggravation of finding and hiring.
But even so you’re gonna get a report that shows you the molds you have. And yes, certain molds are indicative of a more serious problem. But if you have a mold problem, it’s not just because you have a specific kind of home. The specific kinds of mold tell us about the length longevity, the problem, the severity, the problem, the chronic or acute nature of the problem, but they don’t fit the type of mold isn’t going to change how you treat it, you don’t have toxic mold, or that this mold doesn’t change how you do remediation, it doesn’t change if you do remediation, or not. In all cases, any mold growth of significance needs to be dealt with.
That makes sense, right? Yep, those are the most, those are some of the more common myths, you know, or that if I leave it alone, it will go away. That’s another big one. If I just leave it be just let it dry out. It’ll be fine.
Or I’ll just you know, or, you know, the spraying thing is really dangerous because you actually sprays you spread it, but just leaving mold alone will not make it go away because it will lie there and wait for 1000s of years until more moisture comes back and then it’ll begin to grow again and geometric and that and then you can literally get spores coming out of King Tut’s tomb that are that are able to to to germinate. So it is more patient than you are, I can assure you.
34:07
So put it in a big ol box fan out of the bowl, it’s not gonna help it
34:11
not not a good idea to blow high velocity air onto a mold problem. Generally, generally ill advised. It’s a really common problem that most people call when they have an insurance. They have a flood, they’ll call the insurance company and they’ll send over the guys, the fans. And the guys the fans come in with the best of intentions but they just throw the hands on without looking around to see if there’s if the moisture has been there for a little while.
Maybe there was a pre existing mold problem. And they end up taking a problem that started in the basement and spread it to the whole house and you go from a $5,000 problem to a $25,000 problem. That’s because of the overzealous use of fans. I’ve seen blow more budgets than then than you can possibly imagine.
34:55
So let’s talk about the what’s the difference between mold and mildew?
35:01
That’s a good question. Technically, mildew is a plant pathogen, so they it’s an organism, or it’s a group of organisms that grow on plants. And but but for the, for the that’s the that’s the science that that’s a scientific answer or right or of an encyclopedic answer.
But the reality is, is that mildew the way we refer to it is basic hygiene in the home, it’s the growth that happens on your tiles, or the grout, your tiles, the bathroom, around the gasket of your refrigerator, it’s this very low level growth, that won’t even if it’s left to go crazy, it’s not going to create a potential health hazard except for the extremely sensitive. And so mold and mildew both refer to the organisms. But so the distinction between mildew and mold would be mildew is basic hygiene, mold, or mold growth, the distinction would be less if you see mold in the house, that mold is present in the house in the form of mildew in every house and a mold problem.
That’s an interesting question, what’s the difference in a mold? Because if everyone has has it, and a mold problem, right, so I’m glad you asked. So the difference is that a mold mold problem is where you’ve got a an active moisture issue, it could be intermittent, in other words, a leak that happens here, and then that only happens when the wind blows to this Tuesday, that’s still a problem, that’s still a moisture problem, even if it’s not leaking today, and tomorrow and the next day, but if it leaks intermittently, that’s a problem.
And so any any growth, any mold grow, that that has a way of impacting your indoor air, which means any mold growth on any surface in your building of any significance is a mold problem. So that’s, but mold, the presence of mold in your environment is is normal, it’s healthy. In fact, in fact, great book by Rob Dunn called never home alone, did some really interesting research in the element found that we have far more species of microbes than we ever possibly thought. In fact, in each breath that you inhale, you may inhale as many as 10,000 Different species in a normal healthy home.
In fact, the lower number of species you inhale, the less healthy that home is measured by out by the by the profiles of the occupants. And so you actually want more microbes, you just don’t want them growing in your house. Mm
37:26
hmm. Interesting. So let’s step back here, then, is that I’m curious, is all mold toxic? Now? Okay. There’s non toxic mold.
37:39
So the toxic mold is a bit of a, it’s a bit of a misnomer, because the mold produces toxins. But keep in mind that mycotoxins are also the basis for almost all the antibiotics that we use penicillin, right? And so So toxins have, you know, and keep my there lots and lots and lots of toxins and lots of foods that people eat every day, apple seeds are very toxic enough of them.
And, you know, they’re little things, even the the, actually the pigment in apples, that thing it makes it red is actually slightly toxic, hormetic response and people it’s actually good for you because it’s toxic, and you only need a little bit. But the so So the bottom line is that the toxic mold piece is a bit of a red herring. Because the incredible number of diseases that mold either causes or aggravates, is massive in comparison to this narrow list of nebulous symptoms that are caused by and I see narrow, if it’s nebulous and narrow, it’s a very long list of their they’re difficult to attribute any one particular disease, but you start looking at mold in general and the byproducts of dampness indoors.
I mean, the one the most interesting one, to me that kind of gets people’s attention is you got chronic sinusitis and asthma, which is upper respiratory and and that’s very common. Everyone understands that asthma. Well, mold get it. But a Brown University did a study in 2007, on average NASA, and he found a direct correlation between mold and dampness indoors and depression.
Now, this is fascinating, because first of all people don’t think about that, as I mentioned before psychiatric illness mold, but they he looked at it and they weren’t able to figure out whether there’s a causal relationship. But one of my dear friends Joan Bennett, Rutgers University, she’s a fungal geneticist. She had a house that was flooded during Katrina, that she went down there as a scientist, and went to sample the house to see she was curious because she knew it was very moldy.
And she brought that petri dish. It’s like a good scientist and went into her house and was a gaff by what she saw with her own personal belongings just covered fuzz, but also was hit by a face full of musty odor and got sick for two weeks. And so she became fascinated by the musty odor. And she began studying this And she started testing fruit flies that make the fluoresce or go out when they produce dopamine.
And she started testing them with this musty odor. And what she found was that they stopped producing dopamine. They also began flying down instead of light, they began, they stopped reproducing, and they started developing what she described as Parkinsonian like symptoms, so the nervous system cognitive issues, and so and so she, she she concluded that she prefers to mold the microbial VOCs not as musty odor and she calls them Bala toxins. She coined the term volatile organic compounds, but she sees them producing a toxic response and biological organism an organism. And so she’s she’s, she’s calling them Bala toxins.
And so she found a correlation between mold and dampness, or between mold and depression, as well. But in brief thoughts, and I have experienced this personally, and I know lots of people who have the fatigue and that perpetuates plus your divergence power. If you’ve got a mold problem that you haven’t fixed, it probably means that you don’t have enough money or the resources or the permission to do it. And so, so you the mold, toxic toxic mold conversations complicated.
That’s fascinating, because if you if you look at mold as how it impacts our overall health and some of the largest health concerns that we have fresh and being a big one that falls outside the toxic mold conversation, kind of right, because really what we’re saying is dampness indoors is the disease. Mold is the symptom.
41:42
And from that causes a whole bunch of it. So dampness causes all these things dampness is the illness. And the mold is the symptom. It’s the it’s like inflammation in the body. And if we can get people to focus on that, what it comes down to what you what do you do, if you think you have a mold problem, first thing you do is find the moisture and die fix that that’s the first thing before you worry about any sort of inspections or testifying the moisture. And if you can’t find the moisture, then you hire. So that’s really important. But we ask people to you know, just engage your senses.
Do you see it? Smell it or feel it? These are the things you want to ask yourself? Do you see any signs of it? You see? Yeah, have you had any water damage, leaks, floods, those kinds of things, blistering pain, discoloration, if you see it, do you smell it? You probably have it too. But musty smell is pretty, it’s pretty hard to it’s pretty hard to fake. If you got a musty smell, you got mold, doing its thing it’s eating, it’s digesting, right? Something’s it’s growing somewhere and usually in close proximity to the odor. And if you feel it, which means symptoms, you feel worse when you’re indoors and you do when you leave, you know this, people are usually pretty aware, people out there intuition on this stuff is pretty good.
So I always say if you see it smell or feel it, if you see something, smell something or feel something, do something. But you want to trust your intuition. But you also want to get the facts. And that’s why we suggest testing. As you know, gmail.com or test kit, of course, you know, we’re big fans of that. There’s another one that tests for the musty odor, which is good for hidden mold growth, that’s through home air check.com. But at the end of the day, you want to make sure that you’re you know, you’re getting advice from places that you trust.
So that means like not getting it from Facebook, you want to do want to find resources online, that are unbiased, and you want to work with professionals that are also unbiased. So if you do, you know, do some testing, do it yourself or otherwise, you’ll find a professional and you want to hire them, make sure that they’re independent, and that they don’t have a conflict of interest. In other words, they don’t have a remediation business and their brother isn’t in the remediation business. Because that can get messy and people will will do funny things in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
43:44
Of course they will. Of course they will. That’s the way the word like mold.
43:52
Just the way it is. Yeah.
43:54
Is there a way to cue mode? Since I mean, we already talked about bleach, but is there if I wanted to say Hey, no need? There’s no need? Okay, okay,
44:03
yeah, there’s no need. If you thought if you have mold on us on a hard surface, it can be wiped off, okay, if you have mold on a soft surface, it has to be thrown away. Okay. And so and then what you end up with is air mold in the air, and then air the settles on surfaces, and those just get cleaned. So so the way mold remediation works is like I said, it’s a combination that there’s controlled demolition, you take out the stuff, you put a tent around the work area with special ventilation.
And the workers have protective protective gear to protect their, their, their skin and their and their mucous membranes and their lungs. And then they go in and they remove all the building materials that are water damaged or mold affected. That can’t be clean. And then and then they’ll HEPA vacuum and wipe everything down. But if you have if you have a specific mold, for example, like on a on a on a sofa or something like that, and it’s upholstered, usually it has to be disposed of. Okay.
44:59
That’s my next question. soon do you need to replace the drywall and the wood, if it’s mold damage,
45:05
it depends if the wood has been if the structural integrity of the wood has been impacted, okay, so in other words, mold bio and mold doesn’t really like it will grow on the surface of it, but it doesn’t really like it’s too hard to to it’s at the speed, then you know, wood has a strong structure, which gives it that stability that we like that we use it for. And those cells have that, that that, that block shape, and that the hard walls are difficult for mold to derive.
So it has these a lot more moisture to break it down, and then start to pre chew it if you will. So mold mold pens, so usually you can just remove the she ra any installation that’s done wet always has to go carpet carpet padding that’s not wet for 24 hours or longer should go ceiling ceiling tiles rather, anything portions or anything. Upholstered unless it’s high monetary or sentimental value should be generally disposed of, if it’s not dried within 24 hours. And that’s that’s the general rule anything, anything porcelain absorptive should be should be disposed of, if it’s not dried within 24 hours, anything that’s structural can generally be restored, even if it’s not perfect, right.
So you may feel self sustaining on the wood, in many cases, but who cares? It doesn’t, it’s not the issue. And then you just replace the materials. Now, here’s another quick little fun tip for people who are in this room and going through this. Look at the building materials that you’re replacing your old ones with, this is your opportunity to make a step in the right direction. What I mean by that is chemicals.
So we talked about earlier VOCs are a major underlying cause of illness in America. There’s just There’s fascinating actually, I just this morning read a piece of non alcoholic fatty liver disease. The big deal absolutely nearly a third of Americans are borderline, pre non alcoholic fatty liver. Did you know that a third of Americans are I
47:05
just read that mine. I read that the other day actually having the same article.
47:09
It’s shocking to me, I guess what they’re now seeing that VOCs in our buildings are a culprit. So we’re dealing with you don’t have to be an alcoholic to drink. A voc alcohol is a voc. You can also see your livers processing all that stuff. It’s not just sugar and alcohol people. And so if you’re going to be doing remediation, or doing renovations, choose materials that don’t have a high chemical load, so choose materials like paints that don’t have vocs no VOC and low VOC paints are very good these days.
And they’re affordable. The she ra you can use paperless wallboard. There’s one made by dens armor plot made by George pacifical dendrimer plus, that doesn’t grow mold when it gets wet. These are the kinds of materials you want to consider replacing our our standard sort of builder’s grade stuff with because listen moisture happens, mold happens, you know, and so if a moisture problem does happen, you want to be you want to plan for and be proactive.
48:15
So let’s talk about this brings it brings me right where I wanted to be anyways, air, the air in the house. And I have an air doctor, which I love. But I’d like to know, how do we do this and this world because I live in an older Townhome. And whatever they want to touch base on the VOCs and what to look for when you die, but we can do that in a minute. How do we create this environment and our homes now? That it keeps us healthy?
It keeps us breathing good air by air doctor does a wonderful job. But you know, is there what is the best or I mean, what is what should be used to create this environment inside our homes? I mean, it’s not fresh air. We’re not outside?
49:06
No, no. And that’s it, you know, yeah, it’s a very expensive proposition to heat and cool the outdoors, right? And that’s what you’re that’s what you’re up against when you’re dealing with. So, so when it comes to air quality problem, okay, the first tool that may just backup the first tool for a healthy home is awareness. Okay? Because with awareness, you can prevent new stuff coming in. The problem is that we’re buying houses from people who are using old that yesterday’s thinking and yesterday’s materials and yesterday’s contractors and all that stuff.
And so you’re buying a legacy, you’re building new construction, you have even worse problems because they’re all for profit and that lower cost materials, higher chemical load. So you have to be super vigilant if you’re going to be doing anything new to spec out every material and I do this consulting for people as mostly I do it for my my I have investors and friends when they’re building houses now, but to spec out you can do you can go to companies like green guard.org where they have these materials that have been have been screened.
So you can see like, you know, paints and carpets and sealants and finishes and things like that they have been been approved by green guard is a great resource. So the first tool for healthy indoor air is awareness. It stopped rains that stuff in its first but then also realizing the stuff that’s already in the house that’s that’s just inevitably going to be a problem like carpet in a basement. That’s a big problem. Carpet and basements is bad period.
Don’t tell me the kind of carpet they’ll tell me about your dehumidifier and don’t tell me all the bullshit. carpet in the basement bad news. Okay, get rid of it. By the way I have carpet in my basement. We just moved in the task gonna go out right it’s one of those things. I also prefer not to have sheetrock in a basement you can use paperless wallboard, but when in terms of things that anybody can do, this is the key right? Something that anybody can do.
First thing you want to do is get yourself a really good air purifier or three or four and use them 24 hours a day, seven days a week like you would a pacemaker if you had a hard problem. You keep those near you put them in your bedroom, you put them in the in the in their living room in areas where you spend the most time and if you don’t have a good bathroom, kitchen exhaust and especially in the kitchen is kitchens produce a tremendous amount of pollution and all sorts of pollution you wouldn’t believe. And so the bottom line is good air purifiers. Now well how do you know what’s good air purifier. But not all HEPA filters are created equal.
What you don’t want are anything that creates ions, zapped any, any hydroxyls ozone anything that’s got lots of acronyms except for HEPA, probably lots of gadgetry. That’s not what you want. You want to mechanical filter that removes particles, which are mold spores. And also this guy activated carbon in it that removes the VOCs. And you want a lot of Voc want to learn as much as much carbon as possible. The units that I liked the most right now are made by a company called mattify. Me the I FYI, they’re about half the price of IQ air, which is my which has been long my favorite air purifiers are the gold standard. And they have a tremendous amount of carbon, which removes the VOCs. So I like IQ air, they’re very expensive, and mattify much more cost effective.
And you can get a really good HEPA filter for a small for a one bedroom or 200 for under $100 for 200 square feet. Really, really good units. So air purifiers are awesome. Our absolutely I think they’re required appliance. And every home I think if you’ve got to if you if you’ve got a refrigerator, and you’ve got you know a washer and dryer in your house, next thing is air purifiers never broke.
52:46
Its fundamental, especially if you haven’t gotten rid of your carpet, especially if you have the other thing is you want to get yourself a HEPA filtered vacuum cleaner. And that should be all these used to be true HEPA searched true HEPA. That means that the unit, the air goes through the filter instead of a round. A lot of times these don’t have gaskets, and so they’re not called True HEPA if they’re not true air bypass system. And so you get a lot of unfiltered air.
The other thing that people want might want to look at if they’re really wanting to invest in their indoor air quality, once you’ve got the air purifiers going is is an E RV or an HRV, which is an energy recovery ventilator or a heat recovery ventilator. And so they’re different. They’re different units, they’re based upon the way they handle humidity. And based on whether you’re in a heating climate recalling climate. In other words, when you air condition most of the year, whether you eat most of the air, and those units will exchange outdoor air with indoor air, they’ll expel the stale air and they do it by passing air through a trout a entry will we’ll that will actually a heat exchanger that will transfer the heat or whatever energy you got in your air into the incoming air and filter out the incoming air so you’re not bringing pollutants in.
But you’re passing out the air and you’re keeping you’re not losing all the energy. So you’re not just like pissing your electric bill into the wind. And so those are those are powerful now they’re required in many commercial buildings. That was the answer to sick building syndrome syndrome way back when which you’ll remember from the 80s and early 90s That was the answer to that because it was VOCs it was it was it was it was too much carbon dioxide too many people in the buildings and too many new materials that were all made of that crude early plastic that we all know and love as we made our soda bottles, it smelled like chemicals, everything we made like there was just so but anyway, they saw that with the RV and a previous or with with building with Eric Shane, we don’t have that resident construction.
And we need that in residential construction. So So in other words, so just summarize that you want to be smart about the stuff you bring in the house. You want to remove the stuff that’s low hanging fruit like carpet and basements and anything that smells chemically and you want to be super vigilant about anything that’s moisture prone and be hyper vigilant about things like bathroom exhaust vents, make sure they go through the roof instead of into the attic, dryer vents outside, not into the basement. So humidify people do crazy things like this, don’t dry your clothes indoors, dry your clothes outside, if you can’t put them in the dryer, these are the things you do to control moisture, and then get a humidity gauge, monitor these things you know, if you can’t modify, quantify it, don’t modify it.
So people want a humidifier and dehumidifier without knowing what the humidity is, get a human of humanity gave their ad bucks, and then keep it between 40 and 60%. And do it your bedroom in your basement, they have great units that you can put where you get a dashboard, a digital dash, where you put it in your kitchen, you put these wireless sensors in all the areas that you don’t really want to go to like the crawlspace outside.
So you can see you have code on paper, you know, like, throw it in a kid’s room and see if they’re gonna be cold at night, you throw these remote sensors all over the place, you get this dashboard, Oregon scientific mates, for example, and you monitor these things. And if you see the humidity spike in any of these rooms, you may have a leak, you may have a flood. And that’s the kind of attention to the awareness you want to have about your building.
Because it’s an extension of your immune system, you want to know it like your body, like the back of your hand, so to speak, you know, because this is really truly hiding right under the beard.
56:17
All right, mold remediation companies or contractors. How do you go about finding a qualified good mold remediation contract?
56:28
I don’t know. But if you figure it out, you let me know.
56:33
Okay, all right. I mean, it, is it? No, you’re a good builder
56:38
is a lot like that. Because there’s a there’s a changing of the guard that happens with contractors, especially with contractors that you know, in the environmental remediation space, where they can be great. And then they lose a foreman, that foreman was what made them great, you know, because that’s the guy who’s in the field every day, okay, oh, in front of the consumer, who’s making sure that they’re not using the customer.
So they’re using the Porta Viar toe these kinds of little things, that’s the foreman, who is the leader in the field. So that it can be one thing I will tell you is that the big franchises are generally not good. I’ll tell you why. Because they are, they’re primarily focused on insurance work, which is quick and dirty. And they don’t like to do testing, testing is key, you have to work with a remediation contractor that actually wrote an article about how to hire a mold remediation.
Yeah. Which I which I can provide you, I can put that in a link, I can send you a link to that, or we can put it in the show notes. There’s an article about how to hire a mold remediation contractor. And so basically, what we say is, you want to use all the typical resources, you know, look at your reviews, Yelp, Department of Consumer Affairs, better business, Bureau, all that stuff, then you want to make sure that they don’t do inspections, especially not their own work, right, that they’re not going to do testing, you want to make sure they’re willing to submit themselves to third party clearance testing, that means that they’re going to have a third party do the testing.
That depends that is the determines whether or not they get paid. Right? Okay. And so but but the way that works best is if that guy or gal comes in and does the initial inspection, generates a work plan, the contractor bids on the work plan, and then and then the inspector comes in, does the testing at the end, that’s what we do at one 800 Got mold. So we got guide the entire process. So we come in, do an inspection, just like a physical in a doctor’s office, doing a proper physical, then we do the testing, and then we do the diagnostics, we develop a remediation plan, we hand it over to the remediator, who I like to think of remediation like surgery, okay, use that.
And so the remediation contractor simply looks at our work plan and says okay, yes, this is how we’ll follow up. Here’s the clearance criteria. Here’s how we know when we’re finished. And then we come back and do the testing at the end. And so you need to have a contractor that’s willing to play that game, because that’s the game that protects you. Right? So you want to have an inspection done before and you want to have an inspection done after and you want to have the inspector be the one who’s driving the ship on that.
Don’t buy into free inspections, remediation, contractors love to do a free inspection. And it’s a lot like inviting a vampire into a house. You wouldn’t invite a timeshare salesman into your house. So anybody who’s doing free inspections, they trust me they don’t value their time at $0 but they’re gonna get paid somehow. All
59:26
right, let’s talk about got mold.com We’re gonna have a got bold.com/rebel And where are they going to get for going there?
59:39
Yes, sir. so@gmail.com That’s where we we just launched by the way, very exciting. It’s been a little over a month now that we have made these kits publicly available. And so we are just working with, you know, a few podcast hosts at this point and just slowly opening this up to to the public and it’s been it’s been a lot of fun. So what We’re doing now for your listeners of your show is we have a welcome page at koco.com/rebel or EBL.
You can also use, if you go to gmail.com, you can also use the coupon code rebel 10 for 10% off, okay wanted to take a look at what we sell@gmail.com is a what is an air testing kit that allows you to collect samples in one, two or three rooms. They start at $149, one room 199 for two rooms, and 249 for three rooms. And when you when you once you’ve bought a kit, you get our air sampling pump, which is what makes this work. This replaces a professional air sampling pump, you get to keep that either give it to a friend, and they can order supplies that they want to test or you can keep that and retest yourself.
And if you do that you can order refills for a reduced fee of $99 for one room 149 for two, and 199. Three, okay. And so again, for your listeners, anybody who wants to, to buy a kit, they can get a 10% off of any of those, you want to get a forecast because the pump. And so and with one of the things that’s unique about the way we’re going about it is that all of our fees are included. So there’s no shipping fees, there’s the lab fees, everything is included in that price, the other kits.
And so if you look at it in terms of actual price, this is the price there is no secondary, there’s no there’s no nickel and diming whatsoever. And what you get for that is you’ll get the air sampling pump, you’ll get the cassettes to collect the samples, you get a prepaid return mailer, that goes to our lab partner, then one lab in the country, MIP and K, they have a two day turnaround there. So just think about how long it takes in the mail. That’s how long it takes for turnaround time.
And then you get a beautiful report, that lab report that tells you what kind of molds you have and what concentrations and then we also have an interpretation engine that’s unique to us. That gives you a green, yellow, orange or red reading, depending upon what was found, as well as a list of resources, including an eBook, 45 page ebook with inspection checklists, which will also have on your download on your welcome page.com/rebel. And, and some links to some of the trade associations who train and certify mold inspectors and remediators.
Which answers one of your questions, how do you find a qualified Mold Remediator. After you’ve done some homework, you can go to iicrc.org. That’s also an on our website in this sample report iicrc.org. And you can find qualified mold contractors there. But generally speaking, we recommend people start with an inspector rather than a contractor because the inspectors really going to be your Sherpa who will your guide through the process.
And so you want to probably go to AC ac.org, which is the which is where the certified industrial certified indoor environmentalists are listed. And those people will be able to guide you through that process.
1:03:08
Now, let’s talk about one room kit. Let’s walk through this. What do you do with this kit, you put the walk through
1:03:18
this is so if you want to have your house tested for mold right now and you were to call a professional, they’re going to come over, they’re going to do an inspection but with with the difficult part of you know flashlights, particle counters, and then they’re going to figure out where they want to collect an air sample. Okay, and that’s going to be driven by what they see or don’t see in the inspection. They’re gonna find a complaint area where there’s somebody’s either see something, smell something or feel something.
And then in that room, you’ll then set up they would set up an air sampling pump, which is on a tripod looks a lot like like, like a like a bar to detail or labor or more like a like an alien on a tripod. Anyway, it’s calibrated the baits about $700. And on top of that are these cassettes. These cassettes are air sampling cassettes. They’re used in all sorts of indoor air quality surveys, including asbestos and things like that these cassettes, okay, the RAD cassette acts like a filter.
And so the air passes through the filter gets drawn by the pump in through, and then these cassettes they run for five minutes each. And then they get put back in the box that they came from. And then when you’re all done, you go to gmail.com/activate put in your information, who put the samples where you are the reports and things like that.
And then this is the return mailer, boom, this goes right in the mail, the same box that the cassettes came in and the same set, same box is set to go back to the lab, and they will be analyzed. Like I said, according to the same professional standards that that you would pay a pretty penny for and then the results
1:04:52
are within two businesses. Okay, question for you. What’s the outdoor air sampling?
1:04:57
That’s a great question. So But there is no such thing as normal when it comes to mold indoors, because there are so many different kinds of molds, and there are so many different kinds of climates and eco ecologies if you will, amongst our great 50 states. And so, the, the way we, the way the indoor air quality industry looks at these things is that there are,
1:05:24
there are,
1:05:25
it’s basically a relative comparison, so we collect an outside air sample to see what’s normal in your environment. At the time of the sampling, all mold spores in your house should, or at least most should come from outside. Okay. And so we should see the same kinds inside. And the same concentrations inside as we do outside to a large degree.
But we don’t, oftentimes, we see high concentrations in different types indoors, and that’s a red flag. Right? So that’s where we’re at the outdoor reference sample is the comparator, okay? It’s the basis is the, it’s a baseline that we use, and what the software does, essentially, is delete what we find in the outdoor sample from the indoor sample. And then we do this comparison. And so our software knows there are outliers, you know, certain molds, you see certain number of minutes, that’s just, that’s just a red flag.
There are certain times when you might find that there’s a really high number of outside, if you don’t cut that outside sample, the indoor environment looks really bad, but it’s transient air moves through your house, people think it’s a static thing. You’d be amazed at how much turnover happens and and, and, and houses that aren’t super, super tight. Okay,
1:06:40
great. Anything you want to leave the listeners with before we leave? No, other than
1:06:47
get in touch with your home, you know, your house is your home and your home is your health. There is there are very few things but I don’t know anything that has a higher return on investment and event than healthy indoor environment. Its energy, its vitality, its longevity, its clarity of thought, its productivity. This is I mean, you want to have biohacking, the best thing you can do is have healthy airman.
I mean, honestly, forget about all this stuff over food, you can you can live without food and water for a while, but you can’t live with that area. And, and you know, three minutes and you’re in bad shape. So my suggestion is to start thinking about this in a in a slightly different way and, and realize that, that this is the kind of thing that a very small investment, and a continual renewal of awareness has the potential to truly give you the better years of your life.
It is within your control. And everybody in this world is worried about the outdoor pollution and everything else. And they should be, you know, we want to protect our environment. But I can’t do anything about that. I can’t eat China, India and Russia stop doing the things. Where can I but I can control my indoor environment I can and very few things in this world. Do we have that opportunity to do so? And I feel like if you can, you should. And so that’s what I want to
1:08:12
leave you. Okay. Now, one question I have for all my guests that doesn’t have anything to do with the topic today, which was more than more of a one on one basically, is if Jason had 30 to 45 minutes to kill her chill what album artist would you listen to? And you can’t say air supply?
1:08:36
How much time
1:08:38
30 to 45 minutes.
1:08:40
I’ve been I’ve been playing with albums lately. It’s funny. You ask that because we listened to songs so much right? But like a real album? I probably would would go with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
1:08:53
Yeah, I had that conversation on this this last weekend on the way to our fishing trip. It’s like Who are some of the greatest rock bands of all time. And we were talking about the Beatles that were that fit in. And that was my if you’re going to put the Beatles in one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. That album would be my number one from them.
1:09:14
Yeah, no doubt about it. I am a huge fan of The Beatles. In fact, I I haven’t sat through the entire thing yet. But I can’t wait to have the time to do so. But the GET BACK documentary. Yeah. Oh, really. Plus, it’s fast. It’s eight hours of these guys of John Lennon and Paul McCartney hanging out. Ringo Starr hanging out recording an album which became over recording an album they were going to they were going to perform live, which ultimately became their last live performance.
And it’s fascinating and they’re, they’re, they’re at this point in their career where they’re just, you know, there are the P and Yoko Ono’s, you know, sort of annoyingly present in all the shots and anyway, it’s really great. Yeah,
1:09:57
I mean, she’s annoying. Yeah. Oh, that’s a perfect way to describe her. Okay. Yeah. So
1:10:05
she she inserted herself, you know, in a in a rather obvious way.
1:10:11
Yes. Very consistent and where it was Disney Channel.
1:10:15
It’s on Disney plus okay. And Disney plus and I got inspired by that I started I’ve been listening to all the Beatles albums since the beginning I went back to the, you know the first and listened chronologically. Yeah, what a cool experience. Yeah. And really did that change change our world?
1:10:33
Yeah, they did. They did that. I mean, but yeah, they did that. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate you coming on. And this was a great episode. I loved it. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you very much for having me. Absolutely.
1:10:50
Thank you for joining in today with the rebel health coach Tom Underwood. And be sure to subscribe to the show so you can catch all the episodes with desire and commitment you can implement a lifestyle of wellness and fitness. For the support and encouragement and tools you need to be successful. Visit Tom Underwood dotnet
