In the last several years there has been increasing hype and concern about Mold. There are some good reasons for this two of which were eluded to in the previous blog.
#1 of importance has to be Health. Even though mold has been around longer than we have and most forms of mold may not affect people in general there is more to it. Think of cooking on a grill in the back yard, for a moment, which invariably produces smoke. During the course of a person grilling you are bound to inhale a little smoke here and there which generally is not going to do any long term damage and may possibly cause a cough or two. As long as you don’t hold your head directly over the grill inhaling a lot more smoke it is generally not going to hurt you much (this does not include those with breathing disorders like asthma; we want to be sensible).
It is similar with Mold Spores which are in the air we breath most all of the time since the spores come from the outdoors, usually. The basic idea is not to inhale too many mold spores within a short period of time. Doing so can overwhelm our lung capacity and the body’s ability to dispose of or handle the mold spores we have inhaled which the body handles on a regular basis. So when mold is growing more than it should inside a home, thereby increasing the number of mold spores in the air, this can potentially cause health problems especially with people who are more “sensitive” to mold spores of various types and with other existing health conditions.
There are also ‘micotoxins’ that growing mold produces which are designed to combat other neighboring or competing mold that is growing nearby. I like to refer to this as ‘Mold Warfare’. Although these micotoxins are made to combat other molds we humans can smell them and may be affected by them depending on our own body’s immune system and sensitivities. I have done inspections for families that had known allergy or sensitivity to certain mold types and taking air samples helps determine what they were being exposed to inside their home.
On the next blog, which should be next week, I will talk more on the topic of ‘Mold Sampling’ or ‘Mold Testing’. Thanks for tuning in.