My Story - Part 1

In July of 2021, my family and I moved into a home that was less than a year old.  Buying a new house means no issues, right?!  A few months after moving in, we had a water leak in our master bathroom (WHY!?).  Water had found its way behind the shower pan, under the tub and caused damage to our hardwood floors in our master bedroom.  The water also found its way into our unfinished basement utility room.  The problem did not create any immediate mold issues, but we hired an inspector anyways and they recommended that we obtain results from an ERMI sample.  (for those that don't know, an ERMI sample evaluates the dust from a certain area, or areas, in your home and records the count of various mold DNA found in the sample).  The ERMI showed mold counts that were almost off the chart for certain mold species and our family was shocked.  Because of the results of the mold test on our home, the doctors I was working with at the time recommended a mycotoxin test.  The results of my mycotoxin test were also off the chart for two long term water damage molds.  Again, I was shocked and slightly frozen.  I had been working with doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, coaches, and even visited the Amen Clinic trying to find answers for the mental and emotional issues I was experiencing.  I quickly learned that mold had been wreaking havoc on my body and brain, and that it had been that way for years. 

After discovering that our almost brand new home had mold and that my body was significantly impacted by mold, my wife and I began the process of learning what would be required to potentially remedy our issues.  We were prescribed a whole home fine particle clean and attempted to discover the source of our water leak.  I was also given a basic mold detox protocol by my doctors at that time to try to heal while trying to fix and save our home from having to move out.  We obtained quotes to have our entire home cleaned and quickly learned that in NC, insurance does not give you much money to help with your mold issues. We planned a trip out of town and scheduled the work to be done with the costs coming out of our pocket. 

While out of town, we quickly discovered to our dismay that the workers doing the job at our house did not care about our house being cleaned as much as we did.  We watched on our security cameras (that were in plain sight) as they haphazardly cleaned some of our surfaces and items.  They did not follow their own written protocol (from the IICRC S520 guidelines) and the work they did was subpar.  We knew that contractors were not always reliable, but were again shocked and frustrated that the people we hired were not doing what we were paying them for.  When we returned from our trip, we felt sick in the house and moved out to a hotel. We ultimately ended up staying at an acquaintance's cottage nearby for a at least a month.  We learned that staying in a moldy environment was not going to help accelerate our family's healing and decided it was up to us to try to fix our home since we were the people that cared the most about our home.

After a couple of months of trying to navigate life while living away from our home, we decided our best chance to fix our house was to remediate it ourselves.  My wife is a research champion and researched the proper cleaning method per the IICRC standards.  We bought an air scrubber, fogger, lots of rags, cleaning solution (we used Benefact Decon 30 and Bioesque), a HEPA vacuum and scheduled a few cleaning contractors in the area to help us.  A friend of ours also let us borrow an industrial size dehumidifier and additional air scrubbers.   We had our ducts cleaned and turned off our entire HVAC for a week while we performed the work.  It was exhausting and incredibly labor intensive, but we vacuumed and wiped every single surface in our home while keeping the home under negative pressure and while watching the temperature and humidity rise.  We prayed that everything would be ok when we were finished.   After we cleaned, we re-cleaned our ducts and turned on the AC, waiting to see how we would feel next.....