Episode Summary 

I’m joined by Michael Rubino, aka The Mold Medic, to discuss how to overcome poor air quality and create a safe home environment. Michael is the leading expert on all aspects of mold, remediation, and air quality. We talk about how to get started if you suspect mold in your home, how to find a great remediator, and Michael’s top product recommendations. 

Key Takeaways 

Someone who has Hashimoto’s is likely to be a lot more sensitive to mold than someone without it. Michael shares easy visual inspections that you can do around your house and highlights possible places where mold can hide. He lists his go-to sampling strategies, including collecting dust, to test for toxins and abnormalities. He also details what to look for when building a team of experts to help you remediate and remove mold from your home. 

Michael Rubino 

Michael Rubino has become a renowned leader in the mold and remediation space. President of HomeCleanse, formerly known as All American Restoration, and author of The Mold Medic: An Expert's Guide on Mold Removal, Michael continues to push the conversation forward for creating better indoor air quality. He is also a council-certified Mold Remediator by IICRC and ACAC and a contributing member, sponsor, and speaker for the Indoor Air Quality Association.

Hidden In Plain Sight: How To Inspect For Mold In Your Home

The air that you breathe is essential for your health and wellbeing, especially if you have an autoimmune condition. One of the first places that Michael checks for mold is in toilet tanks. Other water-based appliances like washing machines, dishwashers, and coffee makers are common breeding grounds for mold. When was the last time that you checked your HVAC system filter? We all love having heating and cooling in our homes, but it’s a major way for mold to spread.  

Finding The Right Solution For You 

A lot of people turn to bleach when they see mold in their home, but Michael recommends using botanical products and hydrogen peroxide instead. If you want to go deeper, Michael details a couple of different sampling strategies that a good mold inspector would use and explains what to look for in a professional remediator. He talks about the next steps and shares why it’s so important to find a bespoke solution that matches your budget and end goal. 

In This Episode 

Emily asks Michael, “where should someone start if maybe they're suspecting water damage and mold is a factor in this bigger picture of having an autoimmune condition?” [ 1:52 ]

Michael shares his recommendations for HVAC air filters. [ 9:58 ]

Michael and Emily discuss cleaning remedies. [ 13:55 ]

Michael breaks down the science behind the dust test. [ 21:43 ]

Emily asks Michael, “How would you find a good remediator? What kind of questions would you ask?” [ 27:37 ]

Emily asks Michael a couple of rapid fire questions, including his top air filter recommendation, how he feels about humidifiers, and if HEPA vacuums are a necessary household item. [ 39:53 ]

Michael shares his final thoughts and message to anyone struggling with mold exposure. 

[ 47:16 ]

Quotes

Just relying on visuals and smell is not always enough to really determine what's going on. [ 20:13 ]

There's nothing that you can just spray and pray. You have to remove the carbon footprint that's left behind by whatever you're trying to remove. [33:48]

From a psychological perspective, if you're going to be wondering every time you cook with that spatula if mold is getting into what you're cooking, then just throw the spatula away. [38:53]

Be patient. I know it's hard to do when you're not feeling well, but when we make quick, rash decisions, we sometimes miscalculate and make mistakes that don't yield us the results we're looking for, especially with mold. [47:17]

DISCLAIMER THIS PODCAST/WEBSITE/COACHING SERVICE DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. The information, including but not limited to text, graphics, images, and other material contained, are for informational purposes only. NO material on this show/website/coaching practice/or special guests are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of YOUR physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding medical treatment. Never delay seeking medical advice because of something you read/hear/see on our show/website/or coaching practice.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Topics Covered:

• What to look for when you’re doing a visual inspection of your home 
• The differences between the dust test and ERMI test 
• Michael’s perspective on fogging the home after remediation, and what to consider before doing it 
• Why Michael highly recommends against using a humidifier that’s built into an HVAC system
• How to collect data so that you can take the right steps forward in your healing journey 

Resources Mentioned:

• Intellipure Super V Ultrafine Whole House Air Cleaner 

Guest Info: 

• Instagram 
• TikTok 
• Website 
• Change The Air Foundation 

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Be patient. I know it's hard to do when you're not feeling well. But when we make quick rash decisions we sometimes miss calculate and make these mistakes that don't yield us the results we're looking for, especially with mold, the increase of brain fog and fatigue. It can really be exhausting and challenging and overwhelming. That's why you really want to find people to work with and make you feel comfortable is it's a journey and you need a team. Not you're not just looking to hire somebody, you're looking to build a team. And if you look at it from that perspective, you're gonna have a lot more success.

What's up lovely ladies, Dr. Emily hybird. Here with thyroid strong podcast. I am a chiropractor, a mama to Elvis and Brooklyn and I have Hashimotos what is currently in remission. On this podcast I share simple, actionable steps with a little bit of tough love on how to lose that stubborn weight, get your energy and your life back and finally learn how to work out without burning out living with Hashimotos.

Michael Rubino is an air quality expert in Wellness Advocate helping to bridge the gap between our homes and the direct impact on health. He is the founder and CEO of home cleanse, a company dedicated to addressing the worldwide health epidemic caused by poor indoor air quality. You and I know this well. Rubino is also the founder of change the air Foundation, a nonprofit committed to empowering the world to achieve better health by establishing safer and healthier indoor environments. He's also the author of the mold medic and experts guide on mold removal and has also been featured on Gwyneth Paltrow, the goop podcast because you know what? Mold knows no boundaries. Glenn has had mold to hope you enjoy this episode. Michael Rubino, welcome to thyroid strong Podcast. I'm

really excited to have you on thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

We both know that mold knows no socio economic no income boundaries. You've been on the Gwyneth Paltrow show. Beyonce has had mold in her house. I think a lot of people don't know that mold can grow within just 24 hours of water damage. Is that right? That is right when someone is having maybe some symptoms, right, because Hashimoto symptoms very closely mimic mold exposure symptoms, right? Brain fog, fatigue, difficulty losing weight. Where should someone start, if maybe they're suspecting maybe water damage, and mold is a factor in this bigger picture of having an autoimmune condition?

Well, I think ruling out your home is probably a great way to start, mainly because we spend a lot of time in our homes, the EPA suggests that 90% of our time is spent indoors. So when we think about it from that perspective, I mean, the air that we're breathing inside is really, really important to our health and well being. And it's typically something we don't think about, it's not even on our list. So that can present some problems. It mimics a lot of different classifications of symptoms, people that have Lyme disease, as well have very similar issues. So it would be interesting to see is as time goes on, and more research is done and more clinical studying is done, to see how this all correlates, right. But for right now, we do know that someone who has Hashimotos is likely to be a lot more sensitive to mold than someone without him. And I think it's really important to kind of know and understand that because we want to create safe and healthy environments for ourselves so that we can always promote health and well being instead of having taken away from us.

I think you've come at it from a very interesting perspective, because you're a practitioner, but you're also you know, the home aspect. Would you have someone if someone is suspecting an exposure? Would you have them test their body first? Or would you have them start to investigate the home first,

you could do it simultaneously. I mean, there's no reason why you can't go test your body go test your home, you can work with, you know, doctors that have access to labs to do different types of testing for the body, looking for different biomarkers that throw up red flags, saying that you're exposed to something in your environment, and you can test your home. I think testing your home is really important. It's something that we often overlook. What's crazy about kind of the work that I do is most of the clients homes that I visit, you would never know that they have this extensive mold problem. Mold can be pretty elusive. It's pretty hidden. It's typically growing behind the wall so you don't see it. It's typically growing in like attics, crawl spaces, basements, places, you know, frequent a lot and it also can invade our H vac systems, which is kind of like the lungs of our home. So my 10 years of experience in the field and working in people's homes. I found some pretty crazy things and like I said it's kind of one of those things where if you don't know you're not Thinking about it. And if there's no signs of it, you're not knowing that there's a problem there

bringing in a mold inspector, like a professional can feel for some people very financially, like it's an investment, right, especially as you start to add samples on. And it's like cost per sample, what are some easier visual inspections that you could do around the house for yourself? Just to be like, okay, maybe I do have mold in my house, I noticed one on your Instagram that I responded to about opening up the tank to your toilet.

Yeah, we should definitely cover that. So what was interesting about that whole toilet trick, and how I kind of came up with that, is I noticed this weird pattern of like every home that had about had been identified that had mold than it had mold in their toilet tanks. I mean, a lot of not just a little bit too. And when I started looking at that, over the course of, you know, 10 different years, I'm like, I'm checking every report mold and the toilet. Let's check the next one mold in the toilet. I was like, why don't we use that as a good red flag to check to see if there's mold in the toilet. Because, you know, a lot of people are looking around, they're trying to look for visual signs, but doesn't help you when you're renting an apartment, and it was just painted. Or when a place was just thoroughly cleaned. A lot of these things can get covered up and hidden up and create these systems where we go into into these homes, we rent them, we buy them, we think they're fine, and they're not. And then we start to feel not Well, I think the toilet trick is great. So basically, how it works is you go over to your toilet tank, you take off that heavy lid, flip it over, you're looking on the underside of the toilet tank cover, and you're looking inside the toilet tank, looking for signs of mold. If you think it's dirt or sediment, you shouldn't be turned cinnamon in there, dirt or sediment is going to be more speckly, especially when it's mixed with water, this is going to be more fuzzy and colonize together. And so you should be able to kind of detect the difference between that or dirt. But if you see mold growing in there, you know, it's typically a sign that there's something going on inside the place. And the reason being is very simple. mold grows colonizes and then reproduces by creating spores. Right, the toilet tanks are pretty heavy lid it sits on top. Of course it's not hermetically sealed. There's some very minor Eric Shange, but there has to be a good amount of spores to opportunistically get inside that tank to start to create something visible to see it. And to remember how small mold actually is 250,000 spores can fit on the head of a pin. So when you see something like that, there's a lot of it there, right. And so I think it's really important that we talk about the quantity of what we're looking for there. You mentioned

in your Instagram feed other possible places that mold can hide that we don't often think of one of them is the ice dispenser on our refrigerator, or coffee maker, can you mention a couple of others because I think, yes, water damage behind a wall or water damage patch and the ceiling collo. There's water damage that can be molded. But some of those may be like hidden sources I need to think about. And so I'd love for you to share those.

Yeah, so the couple other ones are washing machines, that's pretty big one, particularly the front loading washing machines, which a lot of people get is they're functional, they look nice, but they're kind of a disaster, the way they're designed. They all have these rubber gaskets. And essentially what that rubber gaskets designed to do is designed when it fills up with water, and it's washing your clothes, that water is not seeping out onto the floor right next to the washing machine. So we need the rubber gasket. But the counter to that is in a traps moisture. Anything that traps moisture provides an ability for mold to grow. So we get that we also have that tray, that the front loaders have that where you put all the detergents and stuff. That tray also gets disgusting. If you've never pulled that out. You have one I encourage you to do that. And sorry for what you find you we have to be taking those out and cleaning those pretty regularly for we're gonna have those same thing with that rubber gasket, dishwashers and other disgusting thing that many of us neglect. If I tell you right now that your dishwasher has a filter, what would you say?

I would say where is it located? Yeah, so they all have filters.

And what it does is it filters out the gunk that comes off the dishes. Right, right. And so that's the idea. Well, you're actually supposed to unscrew that filter every once in a while and clean it and cleaned the cavity and put it back in. And I can tell by just looking at your face right now that you may have never done that ever, never. So think about all the dishwashers you've had over the length of time. This is stuff that we don't as a society kind of really pay attention to. So it's fine. I would be the first to admit that growing up, you know, I didn't really pay much attention to it either. And then, as I started to see more problems around it. I was like, Ooh, I should probably do something about this myself. When we talk about that. It's like there's certain little things especially with any water based appliance that has water, we have to look at how do we clean it? How do we maintain it, things like that. The H fac is another one that we tend to not think about as much. They all have filters in them. I did a segment on TV a couple of weeks ago. And I brought soldiers with me to show like the audience, the filter, and the cameraman stops me because I don't think I've changed my filter all year, I need to get on that. I'm like, Yes, you do, right, because that's the thing we like, we're so busy in life, you know, whether we have work or family and friends or healing or everything that we're doing right, that encompasses us, we neglect certain things that may may be counterproductive to our goals, especially our health goals. So changing the H back filter and upgrading it to because if you use a cheap filter, unfortunately, you're going to allow a lot of stuff to pass through that filter and contaminate your H vac system, which again, lungs of the home can be pretty problematic for the air that you're breathing,

how often should you change your air filter, and that H vac system,

I would say, three months is probably too long, that's typically the most the recommendation people get, I changed mine about every month and a half to two months. And how do I know that like, basically, every 30 days, I go over to it and I pop the cover off, and I take a look at it. And if it gets like black, it's got to be changed. And these things happen, because obviously the dust that we accumulate inside of our homes, is going to be drawn through that machine because it's drawing air in conditioning, and it's applying it back out, right. And that filter is designed to capture all those things. So it doesn't contaminate the age back, but it gets full of dust and debris and mold and bacteria and all kinds of crazy things that you don't want to be breathing in. So it's important to change that otherwise, it's going to restrict airflow cause issues with the H back allow particles to pass through because it's no longer working efficiently, et cetera, et cetera, for the filter

is there an ideal size of the filter in terms of like the amount of particulates like the size and the holes of the filter of what particulates are allowed through.

So there's what's considered MERV ratings, the highest MERV rating that you get, the smaller the particle it will remove. So it's opposite highest rating smallest particle. So you want the highest rating you can get I love MERV 16, because it's the highest you can get right now. And they came out I would say roughly like 2017 ish, I would imagine at some point there's going to be MERV 17 and Merv 18. Right? They'll keep innovating. But for right now, it's the highest you can get. The thing about MERV 16 is it's a thick filter, it's not something that can just slot in your H back closet, you typically need to install a filter box for this filter. So people may want to keep that in mind. It's not something you just go to Lowe's and Home Depot and pick up. But if you're looking at improving your air quality and optimizing your health as a result, it's a very sound investment to go a little step above MERV 16 also lasts longer, because it's thicker, it has more chambers, and it's going to last longer. So those filters last like a year and a half, as opposed to like two months.

If the MERV rating is high, thicker, catching more particulates, does it make the AC machine work harder, because I've definitely been in places where the AC is working so hard, there's ice and condensation. And next thing you know, there's like ice melting down onto the, into the mechanical room definitely don't want that

you don't want that there's a product that I like it's called Intel a pure super V, it is a MERV 16 filter, but it only has the pressure drop of The Merv eight. So what that essentially means is, it is no different, it causes no different pressure differential than if you were to go to Lowe's and Home Depot and buy that small little one inch filter and slanted it, right. So that's really good. And how they do that is obviously the different chambers, it kind of creates like this flow pattern here. So the air passes through the different chambers, but it doesn't get restricted in the same way. So yes, you want to be mindful of the product that you're buying, what is the pressure drop, because what happens is when the pressure drops to great, your coil is going to freeze and when it freezes, you're creating more of a problem than a solution and of itself. Also, just a word of caution, how some of these things happen is if you have a really good robust filter at the unit, you don't want to then have all these other filters at different returns around the house that's what's going to restrict your airflow too much. So you almost got to pick one or the other and the technology is much better at the unit these days then have to return boxes so I highly recommend kind of switching that that process out for

those who have front loading washing machines which I was like how did these even get created? These are like mold bombs. I think a lot of people are gonna first think oh well if I see mold in that gasket on the front loading washer, I'll just put some bleach in there and clean it out even if it's like a water stain where there's maybe some mold growing on the ceiling Why is bleach a big no go when you're addressing cleaning a mold?

Well, just like from loading washing machines should be banned so should bleach there's just no good reason to use bleach even if you wanted to like maybe your grout was dirty and you're like well Bleach Bleach is the grout like hydrogen peroxide does the same thing and it converts back to water. It's a becomes an earth So bleach, I don't know if you guys know. But if you mix bleach and ammonia together, that's literally Agent Orange. They used to kill lots of people through chemical warfare back in the Vietnam War, right? So we don't need to have access to these chemicals that are not healthy. Like if you think that inhaling and bleach is healthy, I don't think there's anyone that thinks that right? I mean, everyone's always like, Oh, I'm gonna ventilate when I'm using it or hear me out, we can just throw bleach away and use botanical products that are also broad spectrum disinfectants. And I think that's going to be a better solution to what we're trying to do, which is optimize our health. And the thing with bleach is a it's not known to effectively kill mold, they thought so back in the 80s, and 90s, they use bleach, however, they realized afterwards that it just keeps coming back. It's not actually effectively killing, removing or anything of itself as an effective way of helping with mold, I think the only effective thing that bleach really does do is help lighten certain things because it literally bleaches it, we created that whole word off of that, right? When it comes to like trying to be cleaner and trying to be healthier. It's not living up to the expectation that we had for it. And it's more harmful to us. So yeah, let's toss it away,

is there a certain percentage of concentration of hydrogen peroxide that you recommend

8% Or better, you know, again, the more the higher the percentage rating, the more actual hydrogen peroxide you're getting. If it's 8%, that means it's 92% water and 80% Hydrogen Peroxide, just to give people kind of that frame of mind, if you go to CVS right now and just like bought that little brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, it would probably be 3%. So you can kind of see that 8% means that if you need to buy it's more of a professionally graded product, so you would probably need to go on random website and buy something like that. Also, fun fact, 8% is the highest percentage you can ship before it becomes a hazardous shipment. So that's why I think 8% is good. And we typically when I'm working in somebody's home, I'll boost it up to like 12%. And I think that's really all that's needed. There's not really much more benefit of using more than that. What you're trying to do with hydrogen peroxide is you're trying to pull everything to the surface, kind of like when you get a cut, and you're using hydrogen peroxide, you're trying to pull everything to the surface and help it scab is what you're trying to do when you're using it and building materials and stuff like that, too. And just like when you use it on a cut, if you actually use it on mold, you're going to see it bubble up, like mold or bacteria or anything biological, you're going to see it bubble up. And you'll see it actually working pulling something to the surface. If it doesn't bubble up, it means there's nothing there to pull up. So interesting.

Yeah, it's good to know, when you talk about botanicals, what are you speaking to specifically

so botanical products are basically like plant based products, no chemicals. And I've learned more about botanicals myself, there are different percentage botanicals, and there are products out there that have to be certified to be considered 100% botanical, but it just like everything else that we do in America here. It's kind of foolish, but don't have to be 100% botanical to call yourself botanical, which I don't understand. I think it should be all or nothing but people should know that because if you read the ingredients, and it says something that that is not botanical that's in there, they'll be surprised because the FDA allows it

when someone is doing a visual inspection of their own home. Ideally, they'd hire mold inspector, but let's just say they want to educate themselves on what to look for, with their own eyes and maybe with their nose. What are some signs as they walk around the house that they would be suspecting oh, maybe that's water damage, which could lead to mold growth.

So coffee like stains that we see it's pulling rust and other things out of the path that the water is traveling and you're seeing that kind of pull through into the drywall when you see those types of stains. So that means that there was water damage, we may also see like paint bubbling paint cracking just weird things that haven't been there shouldn't be there. When you look at your walls or ceilings, stress cracks can look pretty close, like structural stress cracks and just the house settling to some of the cracks that you'll see with water damage. So it can be kind of tricky, but anytime you see any sort of like cracking that shouldn't be there you'll want to take a look and investigate further you can always get like a cheapy moisture meter and have one handy and this way you can check and see if the drywall seams wet in that area as compared to some of the other areas. It's a good frame of reference. You'll also see like in wood floors and things like that buckling had a project recently where they had laminate floor on top of old wood floor which didn't make sense to me but and that's just what they did. And the floor itself was just like literally bowing it was like probably two inches higher in one spot. And it was actually the wood floor underneath it buckling and pushing the laminate up right so whenever you see something weird buckling or or any thing like that and your floor, that's a good sign that there's some sort of water intrusion somewhere smell wise, you can get things from like a cigar like smell. I've heard people complain about an earthy or musty smell, there's another good way to describe the kind of Gooners that would typically encompass water damage and mold and things like that. Other people describe it as like a wet basement smell that makes any sense or like a wet dog smell. So you know, depending on the person and their sensory profile, if you will, they may smell different things, but all revolving around the same problem. But

that almost smells Right. Like you could be in a space, there could be mold, maybe behind the walls, there might not be an odor, right, potentially,

most of the clients homes I walk into, like I said, you would never know no odor, nothing out of the ordinary until you have obviously start looking a little deeper. But from first glance, I could see why hiring a mold inspector to come and do a visual inspection and say, Oh, this is the cleanest place I've ever seen, can yield you some not so great results when you're trying to identify a problem. Because just relying on visual and smell is not always enough to really determine what's going on. Especially if you are already dealing with other underlying health conditions, you're typically going to be more sensitive than the average person. And so it doesn't have to take this horrible problem where you see it and you smell it to impact you. So, you know, you'll want to kind of dig a little deeper than that,

let's move on to talking about an actual inspection. Because there's different ways that different inspectors inspect and some have more of a gold standard. For example, I just called a company and I asked them, Do you do air cavity? air samples? And the guy goes, What's that? And I go, Well, you know, from my understanding 50% of homes, if they have mold can potentially be behind walls. How do you notice behind a wall? The guy that found the mold, especially company goes, Oh, you just rip out the wall?

So the how do you know which one to rip out?

Exactly. And I think it's really important because a lot of mold inspectors will suggest lots of sampling. But I think it's important to narrow down does the sampling direct you to the source? Like you could do an air sample every room, do an ErmI? Upper level lower level and do assembly but like, did you find the source? Right? Can you talk about a couple of different sampling strategies that a good mold inspector would use more than just air samples. And also something that you've been playing with lately, the dust test?

Yeah, we'll start with like the order of magnitude here, if you will, if you're like, hey, I might have mold. Where do I start, I would say test your dust. Because that's the best way to see what you're exposed to. So it's like screening your home. Just like when you're sick, and you go to the doctor like something's wrong, Doc, let's run some tests and see what's going on the screen your body, and they're looking at different things, then as they look for different abnormalities, they may go a little deeper and testing Okay, now that we know it's this category, let's test a little deeper in that category. Mold is basically the same way inside of your home, you want to screen your own testing, your dust is going to be much more effective at that because unfortunately, as you mentioned earlier, if I test in the center of the room, I'm very likely not to pick up anything abnormal unless that room is so bad. And the reason being is because typically, mold is going to travel about three feet from where the sources to furthering tests to that source, the more particles you're going to pick up. But what happens beyond that three feet is very interesting. It basically falls to the floor and binds with our dust or falls to the surfaces, horizontal surfaces binding with our dust. Once it's bound with our dust, it's too big to fit inside the air sampling kits. They just don't pick it up. What then ends up happening is our dust circulates across our house. So if you ever sat on a couch on a sunny day and saw that ray of light peek through the window, and you're like, that's a lot of stuff in the air rose. Yeah. But like you never see it when it's right in front of you. Right. So it's really interesting that when we look at it from that perspective, you know, you're breathing all this stuff in a lot of this stuff is bound to your does talking allergens, toxins, mold, bacteria, you name it, and it just circulates around the house. And when we test our air, it's not picking any of that stuff up. But yet we're breathing it in and we're exposed to it. So it's much better to just test our dust, right? Because that's what we're essentially ended up breathing in. When we do that we're able to look for abnormalities. So for example, maybe we find that there's 40,000 spores per milligram of doses of Aspergillus, Penicillium? That's right, good. Now we can understand that we have to find the source of Aspergillus. Penicillium is in our house. So my new way of thinking and this is why I created the DOS test is you get to be in control of your own destiny hear you do your own dust test. Very easy to do. You don't need to pay somebody 1000s of dollars to take a Swiffer type cloth and elect us and send it into a two lab, you can do it yourself. When you do that, and you send it into a lab to be analyzed, you'll now know what abnormalities you have. Why? Because it's going to tell you, hey, this species, this is what it is. But also, it's 100 times higher than what it should be. Right. So we know there's a source. And it does that throughout the 36, different water damage borne species that we typically find in people's homes, and also can tell you roughly about how many sources you likely have. And this is data based on 1000s of homes that I've been involved in whether they were remediated, whether it was other hygenist, that inspected it, etc. But we have access to 1000s of homes data, we've been able to correlate how many homes have had this many sources based upon this data. Now we have good data to work with. And so with that data, you can then call your inspector, and you can say, here's what I have. I don't need your expertise and telling me if I have it, I know I have it. Now I need you to help me find it. And so you're much more likely to find an educated person at that point. Because they're either going to be like, Okay, I can definitely help you find this, or I don't know what any of that means. And if you don't know what it means, and you're not going to be any help at all, you're not I think that's what it really comes down to. Unfortunately, this industry, well, it's archaic. Most of the people that you find out there in the world, they've been doing this for 2030 years, well, 2030 years ago, maybe the standards were acceptable. But with new information, they're no longer acceptable. And that's the thing about science evolves, as new information becomes apparent, we need to adapt to that new information so that we can help folks. And that's what we've kind of been doing over the past decade, at least from my side of things. And unfortunately, like change in any industry, it's going to take a long time for people to get caught up.

How is the dust test different than an Urmi test? Because an army collects dust, it picks up the 36 different mold species? How are they different?

Good question, the dust test and the ErmI are pretty close to them. When they did they utilize the same technology. So PCR DNA analyzation technology, the main difference is that early gives you this score. And the score, I don't know if you've ever seen it, I don't know if people listening have ever seen it, the score makes you cry more than it actually gives you useful information. I have never seen an army that was not in the red, even armies that were like, hey, the data is showing that yes, we want to see some improvement. But you're like, so damn near perfect at this point that a couple different tweaks, and you're there, it doesn't, it just tells you that basically, it's all bad. On the flip side, I've seen really good Urmi scores with horrible data. So like, you have a negative two, but you have 100 scores of stacking boxes per cubic meter, you have good Tomia. So the way in which the scoring system works is flawed. And so we need to kind of move past that now. And this is what I aim to do with the dust test. Urmi doesn't tell you how many sources you have. It doesn't tell you if you have mycotoxins present, you'd have to do a separate test for that doesn't tell you the likelihood that you have bacteria in the mix, we're going to get more actionable data with the dust test. It's the same price as the ErmI. So you're gonna get more for your money.

When you are then getting that data. What would you look for in a good remediator? Like, what would be the qualities or maybe a couple of questions, right? Because when I was on my Mole journey, I was like, Wait, the inspector doesn't do the remediation. I mean, some do well, some do and that you want to avoid them. But how would you find a good remediator? What kind of questions would you ask? For example, I was asking remediator recently Do you wall off and create a contained area so that whatever is getting exposed and exploded doesn't go through the home? Do you use an air scrubber negative air pressure? And the guy was like, What? What does that say? Moving on? interviewing the next?

It's really, really tricky. It's just so tricky, because the industry needs is in need of a huge transformation. What you need to ask are things like that. Yes. Like, are you going to use engineering controls? Good? What are engineering controls? Right? Because a lot of people say yeah, we use engineering controls because they learned it in their 3d class when they got their mold certification. But the reality of it is, Do they even know what it is? I can't tell you how many projects I've been on where house was remediated. Clients like calling me while the house was being remediated and saying, I think I made a mistake hiring this company. I'm upstairs, they're working downstairs and I feel really sick. I'm like, Okay, well, I need you to go downstairs and FaceTime me and show me what's happening. And they had an air scrubber inside the containment good. That was under negative pressure good. They also had an air scrubber outside the containment so they were trying to clean the air outside while they're working inside. But the one outside the containment was under stronger pressure than the one inside the containment. So what that means is that the one outside the containment is pulling more air towards it than the one inside. So it basically, because they set up engineering controls improperly, they cross contaminated the entire house, you need to know how to use the equipment that you're supposed to use just bringing it up on site and showing people that you have it is not nearly enough to do a right job. So that's where things can get kind of tricky is you want to ask them, How do you plan on setting up the engineering controls? It's a great way to do it. Because if they can't answer that question, or they say like, oh, yeah, when we get there, we'll figure it out on site. And you know, I don't want you to figure it out on the fly, I want you to tell me upfront what you're planning to do. So that's a really good way to kind of identify that. The other thing is, it's the three day class to get a certification, you know, I had to start somewhere, right, I had to have the first client. But I also had high integrity and high determination to succeed. And not everybody has that, right. And so you get into a situation where you take a three day class, if this person doesn't have your back, and they're falling behind on the terms of the contract, a lot of these contracts are written pretty poorly. So you definitely want to check those contracts. I've seen proposals that are literally two pages long. And the term is basically like, this is the work we're gonna do whether it works or not, which I think is kind of crazy. Like when I write a contract, it's like 20 pages long. And it's like, this is exactly what you're getting. This is exactly things that are outside of our control. And we're being very transparent about what we can and can't do. And I think that if you don't have that transparency, then if they don't get it all fixed, then you're likely to be in this position where they're just keep billing you to try something that they don't actually know how to get done properly.

The plan for the remediation, the recommendation comes from the mold inspection report, right? Typically, right? So there should be guidance. It's not like they're like crap, shoot, there's guidance.

But if an inspector says shoot the ball from half court and get it in, okay, you could shoot the ball from half court, what happens if you don't get it in, you're like, Well, I paid for you to get it in the back of the net, that's where these problems exist. So you have guidance, the guidance is not bulletproof. Right? You know, the inspector will say, Well, I recommended taking this out, but you'll always see any inspection report, it says that they don't have X ray vision. And so it's up to the person in the field to go far enough to make sure they got it all. And different companies will have different parameters, you know, like, well, maybe they'll cover up to four feet. But if the next room is impacted, they're gonna be lecture for that. Understandable, but you just have to know what the terms of the contract are, and actually have that in writing and make it clear, so you know, what you're getting yourself into, because a lot of people they go do remediation, maybe they spent, I don't know, $20,000. And what they expect to get for that $20,000 is essentially a clean home. Right? That's what they're looking for a clean bill of health, this home is fixed. So often what they actually get is, this is the scope of work that I did for the 20,000. But that scope of work didn't work, maybe they didn't clean thoroughly enough or do something. So if you are not protected, or do not feel confident that they have your back as a company and have that integrity, you're very likely to get burned in that process. And that's why so many remediations fail, and people have to move on from one remediate error and hire another one. It's a very sad part of the process. But I would say 40% of the projects that I'm in front of have been remediated before, and I'm coming in to clean up someone else's mess.

Wow. After remediation, do you recommend fogging the home from what I understand fogging kind of like binds to the potential mold particles in the air and then has a drop on a horizontal surface? And then you're cleaning the surfaces with a microfiber cloth?

Yeah, depends. I mean, I think that's fogging is a great way to apply a product just because you're not applying it so heavily that it's saturating your walls, you're still applying a product, you can do it to again, cause those particles to bind in the air for the floor, can also do it as a way of lying something to your walls and wiping down your walls or a piece of furniture. You just have to remember that fogging is gonna require cleaning, you have to clean after you can't just essentially, fog and then it's all going to be fixed. Right. And I think that's something that people often forget or are misled when they're sold the product. Products only work if you use it properly. And that's like true of anything. There's nothing that you can just spray and pray. Yeah, nothing that will work. And essentially, you have to like remove the carbon footprint that's left behind by whatever you're trying to remove. So as long as you go about it that way, you're you're good. If you're fogging as a means of replacing remediation, that's where you get hurt. That's where you spend money. Hiring companies that cannot actually resolve your problem

do you think is poor possible to feel better or quote unquote, heal from mold exposure? If, let's say financially, you can't move, like you're still in the environment. Do you think it's possible? Do you think moving out of the moldy space? is imperative essential? Because it's tricky. There's a lot of moldy places. What was the statistic results like 80% or 85% of buildings because they have water damage,

it's probably closer to 80%. I mean, the largest home survey ever done was in 1994. So that's how long ago we've actually looked into this. Yeah. And it was 50% of homes had visible signs of water damage. So visible is a key word there, right? I told you how many clients homes that I walk in? And you would never tell? I mean, that number is going to be much higher, can you heal from it, if you don't get out of it? I think that really is going to depend on the person. And obviously, every single home is going to have different types of molds, different quantities. And so I've had clients who were like, alright, I feel horrible here. But this place seems like it has a better Urmi than this place, where I feel, hey, but that's this Urmi is worse, I don't understand that. Like, well, first off, stop looking at the score. Number two, let's look at the data. This place has Aspergillus versicolor, where this place doesn't, it's very possible that you have a sensitivity Aspergillus versicolor, especially considering it's a mycotoxin, producing species of Aspergillus. And you have off the charts, levels of okra toxin A. So if we look at the correlation between the two, it's very possible that this house has a specific type of mold, that does not work well for you. Whereas this other house, yes, it was a little more elevated. But it was other molds that maybe your body was fine removing. And so because everyone is different, you know, you have to look at this from a perspective of we have to understand more about individuals, and start to look and diagnose what could be happening for that person. And there's no way to fully ever do it right now with the technology that we have. But you can obviously start to make some inferences as to what what are the differences that seem to be causing these types of adverse reactions. And that's how we're going to get to kind of build the future because we're never going to figure out the things that we don't know if we don't start looking.

Do you think let's say someone's in a moldy home, they move to a space that's not moldy? What do you think about people throwing away all their stuff? You see this in a lot of mold, Facebook groups, they like moved, got rid of everything and replaced everything. And it feels excessive. Sometimes I wonder if maybe you don't have to replace everything. Maybe you don't have to replace anything. Maybe it's just the mattresses. Yeah, I was just wondering your thoughts on that.

Melissa Bologna, it was like a famous actress model. She just told a story recently, where she never lived in this place that had toxic levels of mold. She had remediated, she never actually got to live there. Because she moved all of her stuff there and place had a leak. And then it was she was dealing with this insurance claim, ended up moving out of that place and moving back to Los Angeles, and brought all of her stuff with her that was supposedly cleaned. She actually got sick, then from her stuff that got brought with her. So it's interesting, because there's obviously something to cross contamination, I see it all the time people move and it follows them. However, there's obviously scientific reason and understanding of what's happening porous items like fabric couches, if they're pretty close to where the source was, it probably has a high level of contamination that you can never really fully get anything out of. Because if you look back to mold is really small 25 to 50 times smaller than what the eye can see. If you were to take a fabric couch and put it under a microscope, those threads would be like wide, huge holes for something like mold to go in through and get into the stuffing. And it just so happens that every time you plop down on that couch, you're going to be releasing that stuff into your breathing zone entering the body, right. So the odds of something like being able to keep something like that are pretty slim, but like wood, furniture, glass, furniture, plastic, metal, all these things are non porous, most of our furniture can be cleaned and cleaned properly and brought with us. But it just depends. Because you have two schools of extremes. You're like I'm throwing everything away, well, you don't have to throw everything away. You can throw some stuff away, that may be impossible to clean. And you can keep things that you can clean, which is gonna be honestly most of your stuff. So it just becomes a cost versus worse and the time to appropriately clean everything. And I think some people also struggle with this psychologically. And I tell people this all the time, like you can clean certain things from a financial perspective you should but from a psychological perspective, if you're going to be wondering every time you cook with that spatula, if mold is getting into the to what you're cooking, then just throw this bachelor away, right and so this is such a personal Journey, I have never worked with two identical people in 10 years and 1000s of people, every single person is different. Every circumstance is unique. And it was, it's been very hard to scale this because of those reasons, I have to basically look at each situation in a new way, and try to understand that person. And then I have to recommend things that I think will help that specific person based upon their labs based upon their data, based upon the way in which they think based upon the way they communicate, this has become a very personalized thing. And that's how medicine should be. And that's how these things should be because, truthfully, we're not all the same,

we'll do a couple rapid fire questions. Do you have a favorite air filter? Not that the air filters should replace remediating removing the mold? But do you have a favorite air filter brand?

I feel like answering this question, I will upset at least somebody. So I've been working with Intel appear since about 2017. Oh, great company, mainly because they're, they've always been kind of the front leader in trying to capture a small particle as possible. So I've always been impressed by them. I've also been talking with molecule recently and testing some of their products, Pico technology, which is their patent of their filter media. It's got some pretty remarkable things about it. Like it can capture a smallest point when nanometers, I think that the technology that can be built off of that is very promising. And again, I'm always looking at how do we advance things forward. So I'm excited to see, you know, the continuation of what molecule can create, there are so many other ones that people love, I look, I always look at studies, many of these, how they conduct their study is they'll cut a piece of their filter, and they'll put it through an H back duct. And then they'll measure the particle size, I can pass through it. It's just not using the right application. So I don't like to see those studies as like their only study. So some of the favorite brands people have I don't typically recommend just because of that fact. And I don't want to name anybody or throw shade anywhere. So keep that simple. But I would like check out the two companies I did mention if you are interested, how do you feel about swamp coolers?

It is in dry areas like Colorado in older homes where they have not putting in the AC, they don't want to invest in putting all the ductwork in, and they put this thing like on the roof that basically pulls air in, cools it through this like wet cooling pad and then pushes it into the house. And I always ask what happens during the wintertime, because they wrap it in TARP? Like what happens to all that water in that wet pad. It's cooling there is a very cheap, or investment instead of cooling a house with like AC

without looking into it and having as much background knowledge, it would be difficult for me to answer however, I will say that just based upon what you told me, there's certainly some red flags, and you brought up some great questions cheapest, great like we need things accessible and cost effective. However, sometimes cheap gets us in trouble. Right as the society we tend to frontload the cost effective question like what is it going to cost me today? Yeah, but we also need to factor in what is it going to cost me tomorrow to and that needs to be part and parcel of the conversation. Because if we put that in and it's cheaper, but then it costs us $30,000 of remediation work and renovations needing to fix some of the problems created by it. That needs to be kind of part of the budget conversation.

How do you feel about humidifiers? So in drier parts of the country, they put in a humidifier so that like the wood floor doesn't work? Because the humidity is 8% Outside?

Poland? Yeah, I mean, it's uh, you know, wood products can crack or get damaged. If the humidity is too low, our lips will chat and crack. And you know, I'm all about being comfortable, right. So you do need some level of humidity. However, some of the horror stories to be careful about comes from recommendations with this is if you get a humidifier have one that also has a humidistat that when it reaches a certain level of humidity, it'll turn off because I've had people that live in Arizona that now have mold because they were just pumping humidity and like forgot about it and left and like got back home and their walls are like sweating, like just like like as if there was a rainforest inside, right. So we don't want that either. So if you can have some sort of control mechanism of not having too much humidity, not too little humidity. That's where you want to be. Yeah, humidity indoors, you want to keep, you know, somewhere between 35 and 50%. You can go a little higher because mold doesn't start to grow until 60%. But I've tried to keep it. I always tried to keep it in that range depending on the season. Yeah. How do you feel about humidifiers that are built into the H vac system? Because that's very common in like drier areas like Colorado I personally despise it for many reasons, like, there's already a lot of moisture that's created from the coil itself. And I know it's like the best way to distribute the humidity around. But if it's not done right, and it's not done carefully and thoughtfully, you know, you're gonna introduce so much moisture at that coil. And it's going to introduce so much moisture, like, essentially, if you've ever looked inside one of those eight flat closets, and you've seen like that piece of equipment, you'll see like a duck on top that's running up and out, what happens is, when you have too much moisture right there, it's going to splash water literally all over the inside of that duct. And you're likely to have some mold issues as a result. So you just got to be really careful, I personally would try to stay away from those things and put humidifiers with humidistat carefully around, they also get pretty moldy themselves, because they usually look like these like white and black boxes that sit on the floor next to the H vac. And they get so gross. So it's just one thing that you're gonna forget about not maintains, I try to steer people away from that.

Alright, last question. HEPA vacuums are like told to use them, are they useful, especially because mold binds can collect with the dust and we want to keep our homes dust free, as well.

Yes. So use full, they're more useful for me than they are for you. And they're more useful if you have carpeting than if you don't. So essentially, the reason being is most a track while all vacuums, they're going to have intake and exhaust, right. So it's going to bring air in, which creates the suction, and then it's going to push air out. And that again, it's all part of creating that vacuum air has to get exchanged in and out in order for it to have suction and remove things. Well, the problem is the out part, when it pushes air out. The mold is very light, it's very small. So it's dust, you're likely to aerosolize all these particles before you get a chance to really vacuum them. And so that's where it creates kind of some complexities. carpeting, it's different, it's already been embedded into the fibers. So you don't really have that issue. But if you're like vacuuming hardwood floors tile, it's going to create some issues with that regard. That's why I like wet wiping like like a Swiffer like Swiffer mops, I mean, wet wipe, for sure. Because then you're actually removing it. And I typically wet wipe with microfiber towels because they're 100 times more effective at removing particulates than like paper towels or terry cloth. So you want to like spray it down. I don't know if you know this, but anything that's wet, it's hard for a two aerosolized kind of mixes with the water, raise it down. And now it's not going to aerosolized very easily. So you can wipe it away, that's going to be a better strategy.

Awesome. Do you have any, like last words or message for the women with Hashimotos that maybe know they're living in mold, or trying to just get through that process of inspection, remediation, trying to get to the other side, if you have any message for them, be patient,

I know it's hard to do when you're not feeling well. But when we make quick rash decisions, we sometimes miscalculate and make these mistakes that don't yield us the results we're looking for, especially with mold, the increase in brain fog and fatigue, it can really be exhausting and challenging and overwhelming. That's why you really want to find people to work with and make you feel comfortable. Because it's a journey and you need a team, not you're not just looking to hire somebody, you're looking to build a team. And if you look at it from that perspective, you're gonna have a lot more success. When you're interviewing companies to work with, you ask yourself, Do I want this person on my team? You know, is this person going to look out for me? Or is this person going just going to look at me as another dollar sign another opportunity, their business? I think that that really needs to be said, and Rome wasn't built in a day, doing this properly is going to take time. And you want to be patient with that. And you want to plan for that. So that you can start taking the steps you need to take all this is happening. Because you shouldn't really do this and live in your home remediation wise, just because you're going to be moving stuff around, do you want to make sure that you're not going back in until all that stuff is removed? And I think that you also have to understand you don't have to do everything, all at one shot to receive any benefits. People have that misconception like, well, if I have mold in my wall, then I need to remove it or I'm never gonna get better. Actually, it's all about reducing your exposure. And the data helps you understand what's creating the most exposure so that you can tackle the highest creation of areas first, and work your way down. There are people that I told you don't open up that ceiling don't open up that wall because you're probably picking up cross contamination from the area next door. And when you focus on that area, you'll probably see these levels lessen We want to create healthier environments, we want to take the steps that we can to fix things. We don't want to build bubbles around our houses and we don't need to. And so I just think that from a frame of reference of do what you can, if you work with somebody who knows what they're doing, you'll be able to do what you can and be able to feel better as a result, you know, and so I think that's really important because some people get so overwhelmed, like, oh my god, I found mold here, here, here, here, here. What do I do? Well, start somewhere, you know, and I think that's what it comes down to like, just like when we renovate our homes, No one moves into a home and does like kitchen, bathroom, bathroom. You know, hallway painting allows changing all the windows, like all one shot, right? It's a journey. And that's why it's so important to use data so that you can take the right steps forward in that journey.

Where can people find you?

So you can find me on Instagram? You can find me on Tik Tok. I'm a tick tock guy now these days you know keeping up with the times my team is doing crazy stuff same handle. Yeah. Okay, so my my handle used to be at the mole medic for for those who are listening, you may be familiar and then it is now at the Michael Rubino mainly because when you type in mold medic, when you're like kind of used to to searching for that, and you're still gonna see my photo pop up and everything. And so that's my handle, you can also go to the mold medic.com If you're looking to find me on the web and do some more research and information, I did write a book called the mold medic and experts got a mold removal two years ago now, which is a great book if you haven't read it. If you're looking for remediation resources, go to home cleanse.com. And I also have a nonprofit called Change the air foundation you can go to change the air foundation.org To learn more about the change that we're trying to do around the subject to make sure that people have accessibility to clean air.

Thank you so much super informative, and I feel like I have like a million notes over here. So thank you.

So well thank you for having me. It was great

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