Who wants to breathe in hundreds, if not thousands of mold spores every day? The truth is, most of us probably do. Mold is all around us, every time we spruce up the landscaping with mulch or even cut the grass we provide a food source for mold growth. Most molds are more of a nuisance to us, similar to seasonal allergy effects in most people. For most healthy people with normal immune systems common molds found outside are not a major concern.
The problem we run into is when mold growth proliferates. When spore counts exceed the outdoor counts we can have sinus issues or even very significant health effects based on the type of mold. Some are highly toxic and any quantity of exposure poses a health risk.
We do a lot of water damage mitigation as well as mold remediation and what I’ve seen is that long term exposure to above average levels of spores often leads to chronic health affects. We have customers who have had to move because of the levels found in the outdoor environment were too high for their tolerance. We’ve seen customers develop a superhuman sense of smell and could detect minute amounts of growth sealed inside wall cavities. We’ve seen customers develop permanent respiratory issues from high levels of exposure as children.
We know just how dangerous this can be and have seen first hand how it can become a crippling affliction for some of our customers and that’s why we take it so seriously. We follow the IICRC S520 guidelines and always prefer to work with an industrial hygienist on a protocol for the environment. If you suspect you have an issue we can help identify what may be causing the problem and in many cases can help correct the root cause and fix the issue but we always recommend that every customer have someone independent perform a post remediation verification. This is done as a way to validate that the cleaning was done correctly and that nothing was missed.
Your health is your most important asset. Protect it. We’ll give some practical advice on how you can prevent issues and even a few things you can do yourself to correct issues you may see at home in future blogs. Check back often for more information and advice.
Ben McDonald - Triad STOP Restoration
