How does MOLD affect Air Quality & Your Health?

Spring is in the air! Flowers are in bloom and there is lots of pollen floating around.

However, many of us forget that there are also lots of mold spores floating all around us too. With our wet climate, they can often find a suitable place to grow around your windows, walls or cupboards. Mold can negatively affect indoor air quality and is not necessarily all healthy to be around, such as with penicillin (there are over 1,000 kinds of mold). If you have experienced repeated unexplained illnesses, there is a chance you might have a ‘mold problem’. This can be a serious health concern so please read my feature article:

How does MOLD affect Air Quality & Your Health?

Mold spores are floating around us in the air all the time,
just looking for some damp organic material to grow on. Excessive mold in your home can affect the quality of the air you breathe and your overall health.

Our past clients who were affected by mold often reported feeling very unwell but their doctors were not always able to find any underlying illness. They’ve experienced repeated: headaches, breathing difficulties, respiratory infections, excessive coughing, dizziness, confusion and tiredness.

As a seasoned home and property inspector, I’ve found that mold can be quite tricky to detect without the proper equipment. Certain forms of mold are oderless and can grow unseen for years. Home owners and renters are often are completely unaware until they get sick.

At Duxbury & Associates we take indoor air quality very seriously.
We encourage home owners to get their air quality checked to ensure their well-being and that their family’s health is protected. We work closely with an experienced mold technician who offers scientific lab-testing with collecting air samples which are then sealed, recorded for quality-control and couriered to the lab. A comprehensive report which determines the potential mold toxicity and recommends actions to improve air quality is then provided. These reports have been used as evidence in legal and other cases where air quality was in dispute.

QUESTION? If we have mold… can’t we just kill it with bleach?
ANSWER: NO, killing mold is not recommended by leading industry experts. Bleach can actually be more harmful than the mold you are fighting! Even if you can ‘kill’ mold, “hibernating” spores can become just as toxic as when it was living and can be easily re-activated with sufficient moisture in your home. Mold does not behave the same way as bacteria and killing it should not be mistaken as clean-up or removal.

QUESTION? If we have mold on drywall why don’t we just tear it out?
Do we really need a professional inspection and renovation?
ANSWER: YES, mold growing on drywall, is often an indicator of a more serious mold issue inside the wall. Disturbed mold spreads so if the wall is opened without protecting the rest of the area from traveling mold spores, you may be making the problem worse and more expensive to fix.

“One of my colleagues in Toronto has been using the keen nose of a dog in the fight against mold.”