The salient point of this podcast episode is the critical inquiry every homeowner must undertake regarding the potential health hazards present within their living environments. We explore the various products and materials commonly found in homes—ranging from flooring and paint to cleaning agents—that may inadvertently compromise our well-being. Our esteemed guest, Russell Olinsky, renowned as the "Odor Hound", doing Environmental Health Inspections offers invaluable insights and practical strategies for cultivating a healthier home. Throughout our discussion, we emphasize the imperative of recognizing the signs of potential health risks and taking proactive measures to address them. Join us as we delve into the nuances of maintaining a safe and healthy living space, underscoring that our homes should be sanctuaries rather than sources of harm.

Links referenced in this episode:

• idealhomeimprovementaz.com
• stardustbuilding.org
• I.Foam
• Boxcaruniverse.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Boxcar Universe
• Ideal Home Improvement
• Legacy Custom Homes AZ
• Stardust Building Supplies
• I Foam
• Mr. Electric

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the importance of recognizing household products that may adversely affect health, urging homeowners to assess their environments critically.
• Homeowners are encouraged to be vigilant about potential health hazards within their homes, including mold and other contaminants in commonly used materials.
• Listeners are informed that many seemingly harmless household items, such as cleaning agents, may contain harmful chemicals that necessitate careful consideration and alternatives.
• The episode highlights the significance of professional inspections for both new and existing homes to ensure safety and prevent health-related issues caused by structural deficiencies.

On today's Boxcar Universe, we're diving into a question every homeowner should be asking themselves.

What products are in my home or even in the building materials around me that could actually be affecting my health?

From flooring and paint to cleaners and air quality, it's all on the table.

To help us sort all this out today is Russell Olensky, AKA the Otterhound, a true healthy home professional with tips that can make your space safer and healthier.

Starting today, let's dive right in.

Since the dawn of time, mankind has searched for ways to shelter themselves from the elements.

Over the centuries, these shelters have evolved from bamboo huts to concrete towers.

The last few years, there's been a push to save the planet.

Are you ready to embark on a more sustainable lifestyle?

Look no further.

You're about to enter the adventures of container home living.

And now, contractor, radio and TV personality, and your host for Boxcar Universe, Steve Dubel.

Hi, I'm Steve Dubel, host of Boxcar Universe.

And here's what's coming up on this week's edition of Boxcar Universe.

With us today is Russell Olensky.

He is an environmental specialist.

And also with us today is Dan Hayden, our good friend and now retired home inspector.

And we're going to be talking about healthy homes today and some of the things that are affecting your home.

And also when it affects your home in a negative kind of way, it's going to affect your health in a negative way also.

And if you never thought that your home could be detrimental to your health, think again.

So I want everybody to hang tight because we're going to dive right into this.

All that and more on this week's edition of Boxcar Universe.

Your home for remodeling and renovating your world.

And I'd like to welcome all of you to Boxcar Universe today.

And here we are almost at the end of September, and it's amazing where time is just fleeting and people are starting to think about their homes again, which is really a good thing.

And they're coming off vacations and kids are back at school and, you know, a lot of times during the summer, homes get neglected a little bit more than normal.

And I, as I always said, when people are homeowners or even business owners and they need to pay attention to what's going on around their house.

Like I said earlier, your house doesn't have a check engine light.

And you're the person that's going to have to realize when you see things that just don't look right in your home, or around your home, then you have to pay attention to it.

And if you don't know, you think there's something wrong, and your gut's telling you, hey, you know, maybe is that really a termite track over there?

Or what's hanging down from my ceiling?

Or, you know, it looks like, you know, my shower is getting starting to get that moldy look around the edge of the tile in the tub, you know, But a lot of times people just ignore that stuff till one day, all of a sudden, somebody decides that, hey, you know, maybe I better take care of that.

Let me go to the laundry room and get a bottle of bleach.

Because a lot of people think that they could bleach the mold away, and that's not going to work.

You've got specialized things you need to use for that.

But the best way to diagnose that is to have somebody like our first guest with us, Russell Olensky.

And, Russell, thanks for being on Boxcar Universe today.

It's great to have you here.

Thank you very much.

All right, and maybe what we'll do is during the break, we.

We can check the studio for mold, though.

I don't think there's any here.

I don't think so, but you never know.

But, you know, it goes along to that saying that we were talking about earlier.

You know, people turn around and say, well, I live in the desert.

You know, it's 115 degrees in the desert during the summer.

I mean, how could you have mold?

But, you know, I tell people, think again, because there is moisture here in certain places, and you need to be aware of it.

So tell our listeners a little bit about you, your background and your business and how you got started in detecting all these things, because when you get into it, yeah, it's bad things for your health, but it's also interesting things because people need to be.

I mean, they don't have to be as knowledgeable as you because you're the professional, but they need to know how to recognize things.

And I think that's half the problem.

So give us a little bit of idea of your business and your background.

Okay, Forget about the BS Mechanical engineering, master's environmental engineering, more of the same and so forth.

The pile hiling, deeper part.

Okay, I started getting involved with people with chemical sensitivity, and it was amazing to find that people could not take a shower, that the tap water, wherever it hit on their face or body, would turn red and they would get a severe headache.

And it was, like, inconceivable that somebody could Be allergic or sensitive to our environment.

And most people, you know, nothing will happen to them until it does.

You know, I mean, the first thing that I would think, well, if.

If that happened, like, well, you know, what is going on?

And then the sec.

I guess the second thought would be it has to be something in the water that it is doing there.

Why, why would it.

Why would it make my face red?

So for this one person, Cherry, she was sensitive to chlorine.

And the body lacked the enzymes to break down these chemicals.

And generally women, more than men are more sensitive to chemicals, more sensitive to smells because they have children.

So you got to protect yourself against the saber toothed tiger or bad food.

So that's why you develop a better sense of smell.

And the guys are more durable generally from smells.

And nothing's going to happen, nothing bothers us.

Right.

Until sort of find God in the foxhole, so to speak.

You know, oh, now I got to do something and it's too late.

And if you look at health, cancer, disease, where does it start?

It starts from stress, the unresolved stress.

The load exceeds our resistance and we get sick.

Right.

A lot of people that, you know, when you get.

That's why we always say, you know, there's.

People should.

Should seek out ways to de.

Stress.

I don't care if it's yoga, meditation, anything to calm the body, calm the mind so that, you know, your body, all your body is trying to do is react to the stress.

And that's when you get sick.

Exactly, Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So tell us, what did she do when she realized that it was the chlorine that was in the water that was hurting her?

Well, Sherry had to leave work because they were degreasing buses in the garage and that's where her office was.

They were also painting buses in the garage.

And she got exposed to all these chemicals and when they came and sprayed for mosquitoes, she had moved to the mountains to get away from everything.

She even went to the dentist and the dentist gave her some oxygen because she had trouble.

And the vinyl tubing was affecting her.

No way.

She went out in the hall and the dentist was like shocked.

What's going on?

Wow.

She was a mess.

Yeah.

Some intense chemical sensitivities.

I mean.

Yeah, that was really intense to be able to all that.

It's almost like everything in her general surroundings during the day that I were just affecting her.

I can imagine what she might have been affected her from when she was living at home.

Yeah.

And so these people become the carrying the canary in the coal mine.

And now it's getting worse because of our diet.

Health exposure, PFOs, these permanent chemicals, people's gut chemistry.

Look at the diet, look at the supermarkets.

A whole double aisle of sugar sodas.

Oh yeah, donut flavored yogurt.

I mean, unbelievable what we're doing to.

Our health, you know, and that's why I think a lot of times, at least I think people are starting to wake up now that a lot of this stuff is bad for you especially.

And then they're doing, you know, you see comparisons out there of a.

Well, what about how is the food and the way it's being processed here and it's affecting people versus like people in Europe and they don't put half the chemicals and stuff in their food as that we have here.

So it's like.

Okay, I mean, I just heard, and just, just as a point, I really, I thought of this, I heard yesterday on the news that somebody was amazed that I think there was an unheard of amount of people living in Japan that are over the age of 100, which is, it's, it's.

Oh my God.

At least I think it was over 100,000.

I mean it was, it was amazing.

And people are wondering, well, how did they, how did they, how did they live that long?

What are they doing that the rest of the world isn't?

And what's affecting them?

Because, you know, they made fun of it.

It was just like, well, you know, it must be the water.

No, we say that in New York when we talk about dirty water, hot dogs.

But no, but it must be the water.

It's our food.

It's our food basics.

Some of the chemicals that they're adding to everything to stretch the amount of food they can produce with additives.

And then those additives add up on us.

Well, yeah, I mean, obviously they're eating.

They obviously have a completely different diet where they live, which is something that's probably.

Obviously it's something that's really good.

Yeah.

Now Japan has over.

Well, the world has around 100,000 people that live over 196% of them I told, are in Japan.

Their diets are much better for the elderly, a lot of seafood.

But now they're having all kinds of other secondary problems with liver damage and other things because they're adopting western non healthy diets.

So there's, you can say an epidemic or a doubling of a lot of diseases in Japan.

Yeah.

So it's amazing that, you know, when things get, get that affect people that, you know And I think it started a long time ago, at least here when, you know, they start seeing little subtle changes.

But I think there's a lot of people out there now that are waking up and they're looking at different things and they go into the food market and they're being more conscious of what they, excuse me, of what they buy.

And yeah, that sugar aisle with that soda is just unbelievable.

I mean, you know, I, I can't remember, you know, people used to go buy, you know, guys I used to work with, they used to go bring like six packs in the cooler of soda.

I mean, you know, I mean, I gave up soda a long time ago.

I mean, it just in.

When it starts to.

It's amazing when, you know, when you get older how some of the stuff that you used to tolerate when you're in your 20s, all of a sudden starts to send you signals like, you know, this is bad for you.

Why are you drinking it or eating it?

So it's pretty, it's pretty nasty.

But one of the other things that, you know, we always talk about, you know, throughout the years Dan and I were talking about were, you know, that ugly four letter word mold which, you know, people seem to, you know, they, I think I can't tell you how many showers I've ripped out that had mold that has developed like in, on the, the shower door sliders in the corner where tile meets the tub, or, you know, where that water seems to just accumulate in areas that it supposedly, when it was done right originally, everything was caulked and it shouldn't be there.

But you know, I've scraped out, I don't know how much caulk that had mold on it.

I mean, it was only surface mold.

But you know, you get into some of the more, you know, the more intense things where people have ignored it for years and then.

And it turns into.

There's a fungus among us.

Yeah, there's a fungus among us.

The worst case of, of, of mold that I, that I ever experienced.

And I actually, actually I could say this because I had a Dan moment.

Okay?

I.

One of the people that I had done work for years ago, he had several different properties.

And I get a phone call from him and says, hey, could you go down look at this property?

We had some water damage.

I want to think some, Something happened.

I think they had to have the water heater replaced because it leaked and everything else.

So I went down and looked at it and the tenant opened the door and I swear, guys, it's like the musty smell almost knocked me over.

I mean, it just.

And it's just like, okay, show me where this happened.

And I'm walking through this.

I'm like, I called the owner up.

I'm like, this is nasty.

When did this happen?

He says, oh, it happened like a week ago.

I'm like, why didn't you call me?

You waited a week to call me.

Now I've got to get mold remediation people in there.

We had to plastic off half the house and just put the.

You know, have them go do their thing, which was there for at least four or five days for them with the blowers and the dryers and get everything out before I could even go in and start rebuilding.

I mean, it was nasty.

It was nasty.

But you know that people don't realize that if they smell something like that, pay attention to it, because it's trying to tell you something.

Something's wrong.

There's something not right here.

So you could either.

It goes along that saying, you could either pay me now or you could pay me later.

Pay me double later, or pay me.

Double later and get that big fat check.

You know, I mean, you gotta go for that stuff.

But what kind of mold issues have you come across, Russell?

Hundreds.

Hundreds.

Okay.

35 years.

I don't want to go through the worst one, but that was a house that was flooded for two months.

Oh, my God.

And the ceiling fans turned into palm trees, and it looked like a tropical rainforest.

Oh, my God.

Ceilings collapsed, and they had to strip it down to the base framing.

Framing.

Yeah.

And probably replace a lot of the base framing.

Because if it's wood, it's susceptible to more mold.

At least some of.

Some of it probably.

If they could save any of it had to be at least treated.

But a lot of it probably had to be replaced.

Yeah, but I mean, every week I'm finding things this past week probably leaking into the wall.

A year and a half.

It's a ductless air conditioning unit in the wall, and they didn't have the right adapter, so they never hooked up the drain.

So it's like a big inverted V in the wall of mold.

10ft on the bottom and, you know, just a little bit on top.

So what do you do?

Cut it out?

You keep it wet.

The worst thing you want to do is open up a wall and dry it with a fan.

Oh, that's like the biggest dynamite for a plumber when they do that and you come in, test the house, and it's teeming in mold.

And when the Spores are wet, they don't become airborne very well.

But when you dry them, that's the whole nature of the beast.

Well, what would you do if, like, for instance, if you open the wall up and just don't put a fan on it, just let it dry naturally.

Yeah, you want to keep it wet and cut it out.

Cut it out?

Yeah, cut it out wet, Cut it out wet.

Makes sense.

Don't cover it with kills, like a lot of apartments.

Oh, man.

No kills.

And don't put bleach on it because bleach separates.

And don't use that poof stuff.

All that does is hide the problem.

No, that poof stuff, that's for odors.

That's why people do it.

Yeah.

So when people have the duck syndrome, what do you mean by duck?

Smells like a duck, walks like a duck, acts like a duck, poop stuff.

I'm sorry, it's mold.

So I have to ask you, okay, so how did you get the nickname the odor hound?

I found out that I have a really good sense of smell.

And I could tell if somebody was smoking enough while you're driving in the car in front or even more so that they were smoking and there's no more cars and brake leaks and antifreeze leaks.

And so I been telling everybody, hey, you know, you got a problem here.

I guess I'm in good company here with you guys today because the noses know.

And then I found out that so many people don't smell what I smell.

Good case example.

92nd street in Mountain View area.

They couldn't rent the second floor because of a smell.

Who knows?

Half a million dollars lost.

And I go in, sniff.

Oh, I know what the problem is.

It's like machine oil.

Like if we're on a lathe milling machine, that hot oil smell.

And that was a smell.

And it comes in the late afternoon.

What was the problem?

Problem.

The corrugated roof was metal.

They put too much oil in.

Solution was simple.

Pull down the insulation, degrease it, and away the problem goes.

Wow, that's amazing.

The other one that we don't have to worry about too much now was the old refrigerant.

That stuff had such a nasty basic to it.

When that stuff would sit there and just every once in a while and it'd be in the house and it starts out as a headache, and then it gets worse from that stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

And it probably gets a lot worse until finally you realize that, you know, it's something more serious than you thought.

And then you gotta start calling you guys to come in and smell everything, which is really good.

So I have to travel sometimes throughout the country for just odors, whether it be up in the mountains, in the mine and come in, sniff.

Oh, knew what the problem was.

Here's 50 engineers.

They don't know the problem.

The second I walked in 30 seconds, I knew what the problem was.

Their air conditioning drain line didn't have a trap and it was draining into the chemical pit.

Oh, wow.

Oh, yeah, that'd be fun.

Well, you know, again, you have to know what you're looking for and the average person will probably have no clue.

And that's not saying that's bad, but at least they just need to recognize that there's a problem.

And I think that's what they need to, they need to go to.

But we're going to take a short break.

When we come back, we're going to have more with Russell here and Dan and we're going to be talking about some other things that you need to be aware of that could cause you some issues with your health in your home.

So I want everybody to hang tight.

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All right, we are back and you're listening to Boxcar Universe.

And we are here with Russell Olensky today and my good friend Dan Hayden.

And we were talking about things that you need to be aware of to have a healthy home.

And we're kind of pointing out a lot of these things that you need to be aware of if you think you have some health concerns in your home.

And I don't care if it's a traditional home, a container home, you know, it doesn't make a difference what kind of home it is.

Some of the things that we're going to be talking about are affecting you outside and inside.

So these are things that you need to be aware of if you're having any health concerns.

But I want to make a couple of quick announcements, too.

I want to, before we get back into our discussion.

For those of you here in Valley of the sun and you've been following Boxcar Universe for a long time, we have our model container pool over at my good friend Susan's lot, shed lot over on 99th Avenue in Thomas.

And she is better known to the world as the Shed Gal.

If you've seen her in social media, you know who I'm talking about.

And if you haven't, you will because she's everywhere.

She's a big force here in the Valley when it comes to all types of metal structures, sheds, as well as our model container pool.

So I want everybody to everybody to go over there.

If you're interested in that, by all means, you can always contact me as well.

Steveoxcaruniverse.com and we'll get into talking a little bit about your needs for a container pool.

One of the other announcements I'd like to make as well, a lot of people have been wondering, hey, Steve, where you been?

I haven't seen you on TV lately.

Well, Steve is coming back to streaming TV here probably in about two weeks.

We are going to be hosting the Home Renovation IQ show, which we're going to be on an app, Q Vision on the Roku Channel.

And we're going to be talking about everything, about different things about home improvement, plumbing, roofing, pest control.

Anything that's pertaining to your home, we're going to be talking about.

So I'll keep you posted on that, but make sure that you jot that down.

I would I think our launch date is scheduled for October 1st, so we're going to be doing that.

So we'll get some streaming TV home improvement for you.

And again, much like I've been doing all over the years, talking about trying to educate homeowners about being smart about their homes and home renovation IQ is our visual version of that.

And we're going to be launching October 1st, so make sure you check out Qvision.

And we'll be making some social media posts about that.

So remind you along the way and you go to your local app store and download qvision.

But let's get back to our discussion with Russell and Dan and we want to get.

Russell, you talked a little bit about the, you know, the H VAC leaks and how the drain, you know, was all of a sudden going into the downspout.

That was the floor drain and it was going down and causing odors and stuff.

But what about, what about some of the other things?

Talking about some of the duct issues with H VAC units spreading around.

I'm sure it's depending on the insulation.

It's up in the attic.

I mean, you know, Dan's gone up in attics and so have I where, you know, you think that the homeowner was cooling the attic because the ducts are malfunctioning.

I have gone in addicts that were cooler than the interior of the house, really, because the.

Everything was so disconnected.

You go up in the attic.

Oh, I'm going to stay up here.

It's nice, right?

So when your inspector says it was nice in the attic, you better worry.

Yeah, you better.

You better worry is right.

I mean, but what kind of health issues Russell, are we talking about?

My first thought would be for things like that would be respiratory.

Correct.

One of the biggest problems I find is fiberglass.

I don't know how many units I've looked at.

And you look at the platform where the air conditioner is either in the garage or in the house, you open it up and you look in the return and you see fiberglass insulation.

One of the worst ones I saw more recently, it was just before holiday.

And the air conditioning return is on the first floor.

They just had brand new units put in.

The house is maybe 35 years old.

I don't know how many layers of paint was on that grill.

I finally got the grill off and it looked like a rug in there with dirt.

Wow.

I mean, I took out over a gallon of dust.

Old air filter.

Nobody looked in the return.

Not a single air conditioning guy looked in that Return.

They just do their job and they ignore the rest.

That was a return.

That was on the floor level.

Yes, on the floor level.

Once they battled it open.

Yep.

You could just look and.

Oh, I've seen those.

And the ones that seem the worst to me, the ones where they've got the insulation sticking out into the return, then halfway passes, they drywalled inside of the return.

And there you're crossing your fingers, you're hoping for a better outcome, but it really should be a sealed chase all the way up.

Well, you know, yeah, I think I remember, if I remember correctly, you know, getting.

You know, when I was started my business back in the early 90s and starting getting.

Doing bigger and better contracting work that, you know, you'd open up, do getting into a remodel, and you'd open up and take the grills down, the supply grills off the ceiling or the upper part of the wall.

And some of the stuff that you used to see in there was just unbelievable.

But then the other.

You start seeing companies come up with this.

Oh, yeah, we'll come in and we'll.

We'll, you know, we'll clean the inside of your duct.

I'm like, okay, so what are you doing?

How are you cleaning this?

And, you know, they're talking about, well, we got these brushes, and they twirl in and they go through it, and they break all the loose stuff up.

And then we.

Or we just vacuum it.

I've seen.

I remember back in the day, people just taking.

Open them up.

Guys come in with vacuum hoses.

They reach their arm in as far as they can reach, which is, what, two feet maybe, with a hose extension maybe on it, and they're just vacuuming around the outside of it, which is at the end.

And they say, oh, yeah, we cleaned your duct.

Well, not really.

Not really, because you have the air.

Return and the actual mechanical return.

They used to charge people money for that.

Oh, we cleaned your whole duct.

No, you didn't.

And then if they actually do put those brushes in those ducts.

Yeah.

Two thirds of them separate, just pull away from what they were.

You know, the little zip tie that holds them to.

Well, yeah.

And who's to say that those brushes, if there's a bad joint or if you've got one of these funky joints like in some of these old homes, they get reducted, you know, and you don't have a lot of clearance, and they're stuck in through the framing where you could barely get air through.

Not to mention figuring a brush I mean, that's why they wonder where.

I remember seeing somebody was doing a flip years ago, about five years ago, they were doing something they ran duct work.

And I mean, so where's the plan?

Who designed this?

You know, I mean, surely did design it to go up and down and be crimped at the, at the corner where the truss is because you didn't have room.

You had to reinforce for having to lay on the truss.

You know, I mean, these things are.

See, this is the problem.

People are going to do things along the way, not to mention the sick aspect of it, but they start doing things.

And then when people get sick, say you wanted to have somebody clean your duct properly, but you don't know what's going on up in the attic, what's going on in that duct.

Somebody could do more damage if they go in there with those brushes than if they didn't do it at all.

I saw so much damage with my borescope.

When I bore scoped down through the ducts and stuff, it was just, oh, I can see the, I can see the attic light.

Oh, fun.

Oh yeah, that's not good at all.

Or you see a big.

Or I'm in the attic and I see this big long rip in the main duct and the air is just blowing up out of it.

Yeah, well, I had, I had.

I was, I was at my friend's house one day and I happened to be going to the bathroom and I closed the door and all of a sudden I. I felt this, this cold air coming out of the door latch in the jam.

And I'm like, what the hell is going on in here?

And I'm like, let me, let me pop the lid in the laundry room.

I popped the lid in the laundry room.

And like we were talking about before, the attic was cool or just as cool as the house.

So I said, when did you get your air conditioning work done?

Oh, yeah, the guy came in a couple of months ago and they put a brand new unit in.

I'm like, really?

Like, did he bother to attach it to the house?

He looked at the duct and we found out later that the air was, was just had to go somewhere and it was coming filtering down in the, in the gap between the jam in the framing of the house.

And it was coming out through the latch hole where it was, it was in the jam.

So, you know, the people that are doing the work, that's what, that's what really bugs me.

People are not conscientious enough to do the work correctly.

And then we have to come in and find all these.

These strange things, you know, why should I come in?

After the duct cleaning and the complaining of respiratory irritants, and you look in the underground and it was lined, and they broke up the liner and they disturbed everything that was matted down another one, I go in the basement, and she's complaining odor.

And it smells like a wall cavity has a certain smell of insulation and wood.

So I put my scope in, and the ductwork is completely blocked.

I see fiberglass insulation in the return.

Oh, geez.

And finally go upstairs, open up the wall, and apparently when she had the air conditioning units changed, they tugged at that line and didn't even look at it.

So she was sucking all this air from the inner wall cavities through gaps.

Oh, man, you can imagine what the health is.

Oh, yeah.

But common sense is uncommon.

I mean, I've been at the Biltmore and looking ducks, and, you know, you don't want to mention what you've seen from rat nests.

Daylight and so forth, immaculate houses.

And one of the things I do and people should look is look at the dust in the house.

Take your finger, wipe it.

Look at it.

Is it crystalline?

Is it white?

Bright white.

That indicates drywall dust.

Is it dark black?

That means you're getting a lot of soot from outside.

I came up with a cheap, inexpensive test for air leaks.

I take a sheet of toilet tissue, one sheet, about a half inch by the length, three inches.

When there's no wind, I open up the front door, hold it, just a jar, have somebody turn on the blower, or more than one unit, one at a time, and watch the tissue.

And almost every home, well, not every, but over 60% sucks in, meaning you're sucking air from outside and you're wasting electricity.

Yet people do duct cleaning, but are they going to do it right?

Look at the unit first.

How many people have an air conditioning unit accessed on the outside of the house, exposed to the element?

You open the door and you see the black mold at the bottom.

And then you open it up and you see all this fiberglass insulation, and it's next to the water heater, and the water heater leaked.

So many homes.

Good example.

One client who's mold sensitive asked me to inspect a home.

These are five to six thousand dollars a month rentals.

I looked at 12 homes.

Three are ruled out just from satellite photos.

So that means eight homes failed, man.

Wow.

Eight homes, most of them water heaters, leaked into the platform, into the air return.

You look inside, you see the fiberglass mold.

That one's gone.

That one's gone.

You look in the laundry room, you see mold in the cabinet.

Nobody looked.

And then one was a new one for me.

UV light.

I have special UV lights.

Looked in the master bathroom and the master bedroom.

Any partition from the cabinet glowed six inches to a foot up from water wicking up.

Then I look under the cabinet, the front edge, and there's mold.

Not from a shower leak, not from the tub leak, but water coming down the street, going down the driveway, underneath the garage, going sideways, and wicking up into the bedroom.

Oh, my God.

Who knows?

30, $40,000 repair if you can do it.

Yeah, sure.

And nobody knew.

No smell of mold.

But that was going to be a major problem.

In that year.

We didn't have much rain.

So this past year, it'd be a whole different story.

Yeah, really.

You know, before we get into talking about a little more about chemicals, I just want to bring up one thing that I experienced that I'd like to get your opinion on.

We were doing a house several years ago that.

I kid everybody.

The gentleman who owned the house passed away.

And we walked in the house, and we have to do.

We had to do a complete.

It was a flip.

So I walked in the house, and the painting was done in early Navajo.

Nicotine.

That's what it was.

You walk in and you could smell that this person was a smoker like crazy.

Not to mention that the nicotine.

The whole house was yellow.

Ceilings, walls, everything.

Okay.

So.

So we went back and obviously we went back and did.

You know, we.

We did the proper priming.

We did everything.

We got everything all back together.

However, talking a little bit about the AC duct and stuff, because it permeated everything that you could see in the room, but it permeated all the ducts.

Okay.

And the realtors came in and they said.

When it was done, the people came in, they said, you know, I could still smell like somebody smoked in this house.

And I had to look high and far to find somebody that was specialized in being able to handle that and get rid of the odor.

Because people don't understand that, you know, I mean, anybody now.

I mean, I think there's a lot more people out there, obviously, who don't smoke that understand that, you know, when they get around people that smoke, it's just something really.

It's nasty, it's disgusting, it's.

And it smells like crap.

There's just no way to describe it.

And if you want to have that smell in your house, then you know, don't invite anybody over.

Some people are also very attuned to past pet smell.

Yes.

Yeah, I. I've had people tell me that they could tell that there were pets in the home, too, but that.

But that smell.

Have you ever run across anybody do.

Had early nicotine house?

Yeah.

In fact, there was one house just east of here.

It was a mutual Omaha Wild Kingdom photographer.

He smoked for 16 years in Adobe house.

I brought in the ozone generator, did it twice, and late afternoon, the smell would come back, so I had to inject ozone into the walls.

When you took off any switch plate, it was brown.

Oh, wow.

That's how bad this place was.

So, no, I've done curry, dead animals, skunk, sabotage, many, many, many hundreds of odor jobs to identify where it's coming from, and then how do you eliminate it?

And I've been very successful at getting rid of these smells.

Yeah, yeah.

But.

But now.

But you've traveled all around the country.

Okay.

Is there any one particular area that is more prone to some of these things that we're talking about than others, or is it just, you know, it's bad all over?

Each area has good and bad.

Now, if you go to Louisiana, particularly after the hurricanes.

Yeah.

I mean, the outside air concentrations of mold was unbelievable.

I think we had a half a million, and out here we have a couple of hundred, you know, aspergillus, penicillin, mold.

So this area, we're fortunate as far as outside airborne mold.

One of the cleanest areas in the country used to be alpine up in the mountains.

Right.

I don't know about anymore, but you go up in the mountains and you can get formaldehyde from the trees, you know, from the pine trees.

So naturally occurring.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you're by the ocean, it may be good, but then you get all the moisture.

So every area has its good and bad.

And we want to make our bedrooms primarily an oasis because we spend one third of our life in a bedroom.

Sure.

So let's try to keep the carpeting out of the bedroom, you know, or if you do have it, make sure you don't have the double doors where the wind come in in the rain and get hidden mold.

Common sense.

Yeah.

And I think probably I got to believe that some of the builders out there that actually who design, design and build homes, they need to take into account some of these things that maybe they've been doing in the past, normally in building materials and stuff like that, to make changes so that the homes are healthy.

Yeah.

So you don't look at windows as mold injection ports.

Right, right.

Exactly.

No mold injection ports in here in this house.

All right, we're going to take a short break.

When we come back, we'll get into those chemicals and other things you need to watch out for and some of those other bad things like we were talking about earlier before the show started, about radon and talking a little bit about carbon monoxide dangers need to be aware of too, that's in your home and how we started getting CO2.

You.

Know, checks within your house.

So make sure that you stay tuned.

We got a lot more coming your way.

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All right, we are back and you're listening to Boxcar Universe.

And this is, I guess, guys, this is what we could call our healthy home podcast today.

Talking about, does it make a difference what kind of home you have?

Cabin or castle?

These things that we're talking about could be affecting your health and things that we want to start talking about this segment.

We want to talk a little bit about, you know, the chemicals and stuff that are in your home and the ones that you're using.

And we could probably get started with a couple of things that, you know, we talk about older homes with asbestos tiles where people could think that they could just rip up tiles and they, they don't.

I don't think a lot of people don't even give it a second thought that, well, it's tile and it's been here a long time, but you know that there's asbestos in it.

It's the word frayability, which means it will turn to dust very easily.

Oh, yeah.

And be airborne within seconds.

And you start messing with that stuff and you're just going to fill up, you know, the air in your house and your air conditioning system.

So if you think you've got some of that asbestos, old asbestos tile, let somebody handle that and get out of the house.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, that's why, I mean, you know, like, when we do remodeling work, if somebody's living in the home, they have these companies out there that now they go in that they advertise that they do, you know, they ductless tile demo, or I should say they vacuum up the dust so that it just doesn't go anywhere.

Because a lot of times if you go in there and you just break up tile, the dust is going to go everywhere.

It's going to be quite.

Doing tile demos, quite messy.

But if you go back and you have somebody who does it like that, it costs a little more.

But on the other hand, too, you don't get a lot of that dust.

I don't care if it's asbestos or just plain cement dust.

It's Kind of to make the whole house a lot cleaner in the long run, be able to get that out.

But the other thing too is talking about popcorn ceiling.

Popcorn ceiling is, is something that people don't give it a second thought to unless you know you've had, have it, had it up on your ceiling for a long time.

And if it is hazardous material, it's quite expensive to get removed.

I remember the pretty stuff.

You'd shards the glass and the popcorn and sprayed it on the ceiling so it would really glisten.

That was a house I lived in when I was in Texas.

I was like, what, get too fancy?

Dan?

No, but that was what was in there.

STEVE the background on asbestos is not very good.

World War I, right.

Nurses used it for masks.

Within two years they died of agonizing deaths.

So that was covered up.

Then World War II, they used it again and it's a national priority.

So they use that World Trade center.

You know, the low levels were right.

People still dying from that.

They tried to ban it coming in from California through Consumer Product Safety Council, but it's not immediate risk of health.

So it's still allowed.

People in the hair drying industry, I mean the hairdressers, salons, they used it in their dryers, the clothes, I mean their hair dryers, besides all the other chemicals they're finding.

So no, asbestos is still around and it's not something to be treated lightly.

Yeah, they used asbestos on the inside and then they also put it on tiles on the outside of the house.

Yeah, the problem is not, you know, when Dan said when it becomes friable, those fine fibers get deep in the lungs and they don't go away.

And that's where that problem is, these microscopic fibers.

Now, popcorn ceiling is typically lots of times 3% chrysotile, not as bad.

But the asbestos from scraping floor tiles off, really not, not good.

Not good.

Yeah.

And it's, it's just, it's things that you need to, you need to be aware of.

And besides that, you know how much, how much in some of the things that we use to, we bring into our home to clean our home are hazardous to your health.

Different cleaners, I mean, it's got to be, there's got to be a boatload of different ones.

I mean, until years ago, until all of a sudden you start seeing net natural cleaners and they start marketing them with different ways because they say, well, or chemical free or, or something like that.

And then obviously then you got to go back and figure out, okay, is, is the chemical Free one going to do the same job as the one with the chemical.

And then that person's got to make a decision.

Am I getting myself home clean with the natural or.

Or do I need to do the chemical?

You know, it's.

It's the same like talking about pest control.

Pest control, you know, the stuff to use or in termites to be able to go back and do that because, you know, back in the day that, you know, they'll use all kinds of things to kill.

Kill things that kill weeds.

Ddt.

Yeah.

How many people had gotten sick from DDT?

From years ago?

A lot.

Yeah.

So that's something, you know, using that.

Those chemicals and stuff like that, I think are.

People need to be aware of it.

And I've met some people, you know, in my lifetime that, I mean, that's a priority for them.

They make that a really big deal because they're very health conscious.

And I think sometimes it goes beyond the point of, you know, food, because people have food allergies.

Well, that's another story, you know, for another day.

But still, some of the things that people do in their home and they need to be aware of how the home works.

And I think it has to.

I think a lot of times we take it for granted the way the home was built.

Well, it was built safely and the materials that they use are safe and everything else.

So how could I possibly get sick?

Well, if you look at what's in people, I get medical reports from doctors from their patients having problems that they can't identify.

So we look at the urine, look at the gut chemistry, look at the bacteria, look at all the different chemicals in there, waste products, blood.

And you can almost tell where these people live and what they do.

People along the border, from all the toilet cleaning chemicals and the fabulosos and so forth to other things, we go.

Crazy over that fabuloso.

Yeah, we think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Now, some people sensitive, generally 11% are sensitive to perfumes.

But we can go back to basics.

Vinegar, water, a little dishwashing, liquid hydrogen peroxide.

But we have to bleach everything for a lot of things.

And bleach can create a lot of byproducts that are toxic.

You know, never mix bleach and ammonia, you know, that'll.

You may not live to tell, you know, but I get people who are sick, and then I got to figure out why they're getting sick.

Is it one person?

Is it the whole family?

And this is something they're spraying on countertops just to keep them clean.

Yeah.

And basically something simple like that.

How many people have heard of a Cuban mop?

It's just a pole with a cross stick.

You take a dishcloth, white cotton, you wet it, slide it down, you mop the floor and you put it in the washing machine.

Very simple.

No chemicals.

That's a self made Swiffer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's in all that Swiffer stuff, by the way?

You know?

Well, those pads, you know those.

Yeah, who knows what's in those pads?

Johnson Wax Divulge.

And they use mineral oil so they don't have the chemicals.

I won't discuss other ones because I think I have some agreements that I.

Can'T discuss, those disclosure agreements.

But when people get sick, I have to figure out why they're getting sick.

Right.

And some of them go to lawsuits.

And so you gotta.

But basics, going back to basics, what are you using?

You know, what's in it?

Yeah, that's something we all have to figure out and be aware of.

But let's talk a little bit about jumping back a little bit.

Talking about things that are in the home.

You brought some different types of air filters in that obviously a lot of people turned around, you know, years ago.

You know, everybody used to, you know, you can go to Home Depot or Lowe's and you could buy, you know, those cheapy filters, you know.

But then everybody started getting more exotic and they started doing different things.

And before you know it, then all of a sudden the air conditioning people kept saying that, well, you know, you can't put this filter in because it's too.

It's going to make the unit work harder because it has the too restrictive.

It won't suck up the air as easily.

Yeah, it may pick up more particles, but it's making the unit work harder.

Yeah, there were some bad filters out there.

Those green mesh filters, I call them rock catchers.

The only thing that's rock catchers.

The only thing they'll catch is a rock coming through.

They were sold so bad.

Well, yeah, but you know, they're cheap.

That's why people like them.

And they figure, well, I got something in there.

But you know, I think.

But I think there's a way to get something better than the cheap one.

But maybe not something that is so restrictive that you're not going to get proper airflow through, but you want to be able to have it filter out.

I remember when I had my home, I had.

I used to go up, what was it every month and it Had a double set of filters up in the air handling units that I had to take out, clean everything, bring them back down, you know, clean them, bring them back up and put them back in.

And they used to.

I think that was in a. I think those were in a train unit, if I remember correctly.

They were because I remember seeing them.

Yeah.

And they were.

They were.

That was an ordeal, but only because of the way I had to get to them.

But I mean, other than that, I mean, you know, in a regular home, if you just.

It's amazing how some people don't even.

Just don't even change the filter.

You know, if you say, did you.

Have you done it in 30 days?

And they look at you like filter, deer in the headlights.

What's the filter?

Yeah, what's the filter?

You know, what's the story with that?

But, Russell, what could you tell us about carbon monoxide dangers?

Well, now we're getting up to the heating season coming up.

And now it's one of the most dangerous seasons for fires and carbon monoxide poisoning.

I had one client collapsed, lost all bodily function.

Carbon monoxide poisoning.

Yet there's no natural gas in her place.

She doesn't use a fireplace.

What happened?

This is a tough test to figure out what the cause was.

And what happened was she had the sliding door open and on the adjacent one, the window open.

And so her unit was under negative pressure, air sucked down from the chimney.

Her neighbor downstairs was burning.

The fireplace went up the chimney.

All four chimneys are connected to each other.

Downdraft.

And she almost died.

She just woke up enough to call 911 and she was saved.

Wow.

I've had other clients with leaks.

One house, brand new house.

I smell nitrogen oxides.

Nobody else smelled it.

And I said, we gotta get out of this house.

And the plumber says, that's impossible.

It's all electric.

There's no natural gas in the heating system.

Got out of the house and found out that somebody stepped on the water heater cover on the roof.

It wasn't venting.

So the gas, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, was in the closet next to the air handler.

And just like you don't want to have an air handler in a car with a garage sucking it in, same thing.

You're going to suck those fumes in.

And so nothing happened.

But the plumber apologized and gave me a nice $16 roll of duct tape because he was wrong.

See, I told you.

Man's best friend.

Duct tape telling you.

Oh, and don't forget, with duct tape, there's something called Gaffer's Tape.

Gaffer's tape.

It's like duct tape, but it doesn't leave the glue behind.

Oh, okay.

So it's only $2 more.

And they use it for taping wires for filming.

Sure.

But I love gaffer's tape.

I hate duct tape.

If you want to pull it off and it leaves that residue behind.

Oh, yeah.

And then you got to go back.

Yeah, the duct left something behind.

Well, you know what I always found that took.

That.

Took that.

That stickiness off was, you know, when I used to.

We used to do.

Way back in the day when I was in New York, and we used to do auto body custom painting and stuff like that.

If we had used any piece of tape or anything that had the stickiness left, they have this special, like, remover to clean the bodies off and take any, you know, stickiness dust, whatever used to clean it off.

And I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head.

I remember I could see the can in my head, but I can't remember the name of it.

But, yeah, that.

But Gaffer's Tape.

That sounds like a good deal.

I remember the first.

Everybody, don't make a run on Home Depot now.

No, Gaffer's Tape.

First time I.

The first time I came up on Gaffer's Tape, I was in the Air Force and over the Air Force audio visual unit, and they had this tape all over the place.

And I was going.

And then one of the other airmen talked to me, and I said, how you gotta get all that off the floor?

And he just went.

I went, oh, cool.

Oh, that was cool.

Kind of like that same stuff they used to pull off the hooks on the wall now for Christmas, Daddy, you don't have to pull the tape off.

That's right.

Those command strips.

That's right.

That's.

Yeah, that's amazing.

But again, what about.

Yeah, but now.

But, Dan, you.

Now, when did actually they come up with carbon monoxide detectors?

About roughly.

Do you remember?

It was the late 60s.

Late 60s.

Was it early?

They were big.

Yeah, but now they're.

But now they.

Even now they're so condensed.

They do the smoke detectors and the carbon monoxide detectors in one unit.

I haven't put them on the ceiling.

I'd rather see.

Rather have them separate.

Yeah, I'd rather have them separate.

Because that way they're not engaging in each other for the same.

Right, that's true.

And not necessarily.

I got to believe that because there are certain areas, obviously, to Code where you have to put smoke detectors, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's where the, the carbon monoxide detector has to go.

That's not where the flow would be for carbon monoxide.

Yeah, but one important thing you got to remember, industry lobbied to put high detection limits in these meters.

So they're not allowed to sell carbon monoxide meter that detects lower levels of carbon monoxide.

They're geared for 50 parts per million.

That's right.

What happens with carbon monoxide gets into your blood, disables your hemoglobin, so you can't get oxygen.

And it's very difficult for that hemoglobin to get rid of that carbon monoxide.

And that's why people die of carbon monoxide poisoning, because it sticks to the blood better than oxygen.

Wow.

And at 50 parts per million for two days exposure, three days, that's not going to be good.

No, it's definitely not good.

The highest I ever measured in the valley was 11.

And that was in Sunny Slope, where the street lights look like a light bulb.

You have a cone coming down like an alien in the street, and it was all over.

I've never seen it so bad.

And that was 11 parts per million from all the people using, you know, for the fireplaces.

Oh, that's amazing.

What, what do you think would be the best recommendation that you would be able to give the average homeowner on being vigil to, to be able to recognize some of these things?

Having qualified inspectors buy a brand new house, have that house inspected.

Don't assume that the house is brand new, that there wasn't leaks from rain from being uncovered, water intrusion coming from the foundation.

Rely on reliable inspectors.

So brand new homes, used homes, have a good quality home inspector.

Don't use the seller's home inspector, which I've had a few people that have a vested interest, have common sense when you're looking at a house, look at drainage outside, look for problems, look at the attic, do that little tissue test that I mentioned earlier.

Look at the dust in the house, pay attention to your symptoms.

Do you feel worse in the house?

Do other people feel problems?

Maybe there's something going on, maybe not.

And I think that's important, that people need to turn around and be aware that with all the things that are going on that people can get sick for, they have to turn around and be aware that, yeah, you know, I've turned around.

I've.

I mean, I've ripped showers out before where people turned around and said, I've been feeling really well.

That well.

But I noticed there's some issues with my shower.

And as soon as we ripped it all out and treated everything or replaced everything, put it all back together, I mean, and, and they're fine.

So I think it's really important that they need to be aware of that.

Russell, how can our listeners contact you if they need to have their home inspected?

Okay.

All right.

Well, you know, really, it's been a pleasure having you on here, and I know there's a lot of things that we didn't get to talk about, but that's always good for another day.

But I hope we've gotten people to start thinking about what is going on in their home.

And I think that's really, that's really, it's a great start.

The other one thing I just want to make sure that, to remind people that we didn't get a chance to talk about, but dryer fires.

We want to make sure that if you have a home and you've got a dryer in your home, which most homes do, make sure that you clean your dryer.

Not just the lint that's in the dryer and at the front of your dryer, but the flex duct.

It goes up into the cavity that's in the wall.

It's not just the flex duct that could be jammed.

It could be that whole line that goes up to the roof.

Everything was built from scratch, brand new, right?

And all of a sudden, and I'm talking about, we're living at the house about two, three years now.

And all of a sudden, when I was married, my wife said to me at the time, she said, you know, doing the laundry and it smells like.

Smells like something's burning.

And I'm like, really?

I said, just shut it off.

If you're doing lot, just shut it off.

Okay.

Okay.

So I went back and what I found was that when the guys did the stucco, okay, there was a flap for the vent that swings.

Okay.

What happened was they had stuck over a corner of the flap, and the flap was closed.

And it had been closed for 2, 3 years until finally it started building up.

And when that debris inside all that hair and that debris started clumping up, it gets hard.

I mean, I know Dan has seen the stuff that we found in certain places we've cleaned out.

It's hard, but it's like compressed hair and dust all together.

And that could just ignite.

And there's so many homes that have.

You can get home fires from that.

So you have to have somebody.

If somebody's coming out and cleaning your, let's say, cleaning your fireplace, ask them if they would if they do duct cleaning for your dryer, because that's going to help.

You never know.

And you'd be surprised.

People have turned around and, you know, they've gotten it done.

And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so glad that I did, because it could just.

The house could burn down.

Here's an indicator about a duct that's blint filled.

It takes longer and longer to dry your clothes.

Yes, that's a, that's a telltale sign right there.

Because that's what, that's what my wife at the time had told me.

She says, yeah, the home, it's taken longer to get the clothes dry.

And I'm like, you know, I didn't give it a second thought until all of a sudden she says, well, yeah, I had that smell.

And that smell just did it.

And then I started researching it.

So I called the stucco guy up, I said, hey, by the way, how you doing?

You never guess what I found on this stucco job he did on my house like three years ago.

He says, like what?

And I told him what happened.

And the other thing too is.

And Russell, you're absolutely right.

You don't trust the person.

Even though the city home, the city inspector comes out and gives you your cfo.

That doesn't mean that he looked at everything the way you would look at it or Dan would look at it.

Because there are certain things that you go back.

I mean, well, Dan, you know, Dan, if Dan never did a, like a, anything less than a three or four hour home inspection, I tell him to give a, you know, to go home and retire earlier because, you know, he does.

He used to do these novel home inspections, you know, that were like pages.

They were like, they were extremely long, you know.

But then you get these other people that you talk to.

They go, oh, yeah, I had home inspector come out.

I said, how long did it take him to do it?

Oh, he was here for about an hour and a half.

I hope you didn't, I hope you didn't pay him.

And they said, well, of course I paid him.

I said, well, you know, you, you know, you gave him that old thing that Dan used to say is the old tail light warranty.

Yeah.

When the tail light, you can't see the tail light anymore, the warranty is void.

So.

But you've got to make sure that you.

You get somebody to.

It doesn't hurt to have somebody double check your house because you're talking about your home, which is a lot of us are our most major investment in our lifetime.

And you don't want to make sure.

You want to make sure that your house is safe and there isn't anything that you could prevent from.

From a disaster happening.

So I. Yeah.

I urge all of you, if you have any inkling at all that you're building a new home, like Russell said, get a home inspector to do a progress check because you can do progress home inspection checks as a third party as well based on what the builder's doing.

Now, some builders will balk at that, but that's okay.

I mean, if you really want to.

I'm sure if you want to get that done and you do a double check, I would do it.

I think it's money well worth spent.

I really do.

I really do.

Once you guys say so.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Absolutely.

All right.

We want to thank all our listeners for listening to Boxcar Universe today.

And we hope we gave you your healthy home check and points to think about for the things that you are experiencing in your home.

If you do have any questions and you may think that there's something wrong, make sure you give Russell a call and he will make way and it doesn't make a difference here.

He's in Phoenix, Arizona, but as he said, he's.

He's worked cross country.

So if you are in the sound of our voice today, make sure that you give him a call and retain his services because he is very meticulous in what he looks for.

And you know, I know Russell and I haven't known each other long, but I know he's a man after my own heart.

He doesn't take no for an answer.

And if he can't find it, he won't stop until he does.

So we want to thank him for that.

But remember, we are your source and cutting edge for information for remodeling container homes and container pools.

So if you are thinking of having one of those built for your home, maybe you'd like an ADU on your property.

Is now that the city allows secondary dwellings on your property, make sure you give us a call.

We'll make sure we.

We design and get it done right for you.

And if you have any questions at all, you can always email me@stevecaruniverse.com and if you are obviously a streaming person and like to listen to podcasts, we can be heard on virtually any podcast player.

And always remember, let us remodel and renovate your world.

Have a great weekend.

You're a great American.

I love you.

Sam.