Fw: Shocking -- NYTimes.com Article: Haunted by Mold

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From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...>

Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 11:31 PM

Subject: Shocking -- NYTimes.com Article: Haunted by Mold

> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/magazine/12MOLD.html?searchpv=day02

>

>

> Subject: Shocking -- NYTimes.com Article: Haunted by Mold

> Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 21:27:31 EDT

>

> Haunted by Mold By LISA BELKIN NYTimes

>

> Melinda Ballard parks her cream-colored Jaguar next to her deserted

> dream house in Dripping Springs, Tex. -- a house she fled more than

> two years ago, leaving dirty dishes in the sink and unopened mail

> on the counter. Popping open the Jag's trunk, she pulls out two

> portable respirator masks. ''These won't screen out all the

> mycotoxins,'' she warns as she tosses one to me. ''That's the

> dangerous stuff, so we'll only stay a few minutes.''

>

> I follow as she wades through the strawlike remains of what was

> once a manicured garden, past the abandoned pool, the empty hot tub

> and the exquisite leaded glass that frames the front door. A sign

> on that door warns that we should really be wearing full Tyvek

> biohazard ''moon suits'' too, but this is a Texas summer, and we

> would probably die of heatstroke before the mycotoxins could get

> us. So we each fit a heavy black contraption over our noses and

> mouths, pull the elastic tight to form a seal and snap on our

> rubber gloves.

>

> Warning: Reading this story might make you sick. Not as sick as

> Melinda Ballard and her family, who began coughing up blood and

> suffering memory loss while living in this 22-room,

> 11,000-square-foot mansion. But it could make your skin itch and

> your throat hurt, and you could start to cough. Then you will

> wonder whether there is toxic mold growing in your house, too, and

> whether you should pay someone a great deal of money to come find

> out.

>

> That is the thing about toxic mold. Many of its symptoms are

> documented and real, but it can also be spread by suggestion and

> word of mouth. And lately, the slimy black growth, with names like

> Stachybotrys chartarum, Aspergillus and Penicillium seems to be

> everywhere -- in stately homes and housing projects, courthouses

> and libraries, factories and schools. One California lawyer alone

> is handling mold complaints for 1,000 clients. A physician in Reno,

> Nev., has evaluated or treated more than a thousand patients

> suffering from toxic-mold exposure. And in Texas, where the warm,

> wet climate is a perfect breeding ground, mold claims appear to

> have more than doubled since last year -- just the beginning of

> what is shaping up to be a very expensive epidemic.

>

> Melinda Ballard's house has become an emblem of the mold invasion.

> There is as much mold here as anyone has ever seen. The place is

> Exhibit A for lawyers, a how-not-to guide for homeowners, a

> business handbook for contractors and an ongoing nightmare for

> insurers. As we walk in through an unlocked side door (''Who would

> be stupid enough to come in and steal anything?'' Ballard says)

> this dream home certainly looks like a nightmare: the House That

> Mold Ate.

>

> Armies of inspectors have been through this house in the more than

> two years since Ballard, her husband, Ron , and their son,

> Reese, now 5, left. The investigators cut square holes in nearly

> every wall, then removed the Sheetrock to reveal a coating of mold

> hiding on the other side. It is thick and black and gangrenous,

> with a dull, powdery sheen that makes it seem waiting and alive.

> Just looking at it makes you want to throw up. Each colonized

> square of Sheetrock has been sealed in plastic and tacked on the

> wall whence it came, for future reference. As a result, the house

> feels like a mad scientist's lab, with plastic bags of mold

> wherever you turn -- near the sweeping Tara staircase in the front

> hall, interrupting the hand-painted murals on the walls, next to a

> portrait of Ballard in regal jewels and finery, behind the Erector

> set in Reese's bedroom.

>

> We stay for less than 10 minutes, but it is long enough. As we

> pull back down the endless driveway, my mouth feels dry, my throat

> aches and I am dizzy. Or maybe it's all in my head.

>

> Moldy homes have been around since biblical times. Mold may even

> explain many of the plagues, if you accept that the crops had to be

> brought in early to escape the hail and locusts, meaning wet grain

> was stored in stacks when the darkness came, creating perfect

> breeding grounds for mold. The pampered firstborn sons may have

> eaten the top layer, and the toxins in the moldy grain could have

> killed them. In Leviticus 14:33-45, the Lord tells Moses and

> how to rid a house of mold. First ask a priest to inspect it. Then

> scrape the inside walls and throw all contaminated materials in an

> unclean part of town. If that doesn't work, the house ''must be

> torn down -- its stones, timbers and all the plaster.''

>

> ''That's exactly what we do today, except we skip the priest

> part,'' says C. Straus, who, as a professor of microbiology

> and immunology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, is

> a 21st-century version of a mold priest. The molds that Straus and

> others try to exorcise are everywhere. There are thousands of

> varieties, found in every region of the country, including the

> wildly different climates of Alaska and Hawaii. Virtually every

> breath you take contains mold spores, and although some people are

> more allergic than others, for most of us this is not a problem.

>

> Indoors, the drama begins when the spores encounter steady and

> significant amounts of water, commonly in the form of a roof leak

> or an unnoticed burst in a pipe. Add a cellulose-based material --

> the wallboards that modern homes are made of and older homes are

> renovated with turn out to be the perfect snack for multiplying

> mold -- and things get worse. ''These organisms go, 'Aha, I'm going

> to grow from a few spores on the surface to a colony that can be

> seen by the naked eye, containing hundreds of thousands or even

> millions of spores,' '' says D. Stetzenbach, director of the

> microbiology division of the Harry Reid Center for Environmental

> Studies at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

>

> This in and of itself is not necessarily a problem, either. Most

> molds, even multiplying ones, are relatively harmless, and most

> people won't have a strong reaction to them (unless they're

> allergic). But there is mold, and there is mold. Exposure to

> certain types of fungi, known as toxic mold, can cause a serious

> reaction. If you're unlucky, this is the kind of mold you have. If

> you're really unlucky, your toxic mold will gird for battle and go

> to war, secreting chemicals called mycotoxins, which can find their

> way into your body, entering through your nose, mouth and skin,

> lodging perhaps in your digestive tract, your lungs or your brain.

> Among these toxins are trichothecenes, which were rumored to have

> been used as a biological weapon during the wars in Afghanistan and

> Vietnam. They turned out not to be very useful as weapons, however,

> because they poison slowly and erratically. That was small comfort

> to Ballard, however, when the stuff was found throughout her house.

>

> Nor is she comforted by the fact that these molds are not really

> attacking humans. We simply get in their way. Their real targets

> are plants and other fungi that compete with them for water and

> food. ''They're just doing what nature programmed them to do,''

> says Stetzenbach, sympathizing with the mold she studies. ''If they

> can keep other organisms from inhabiting their space, then they get

> all the nutrients.''

>

> One of the first human soldiers in the mold wars was Bill Holder,

> who was trained as a mechanical, electrical and plumbing contractor

> and whose first encounters with mold were inside air-conditioning

> systems. Back in 1987 Holder received a frantic call from a former

> customer who owned a $55 million hotel that was rife with mold. As

> a favor, and because no one else seemed to know what to do, Holder

> gave it a try.

>

> Within a few years mold was his specialty. He was certain that

> these micro-organisms were responsible for serious health problems

> because ''every time we were called to a building it was because

> people were getting sick.'' But then, as now, he could find no

> irrefutable medical data to confirm his belief. In 1995 he sold his

> contracting business and eventually formed Assured Indoor Air

> Quality, a company created to tackle mold problems. One founding

> partner was a former school administrator, so the group began

> working on mold-infested schools, and has evaluated or cleaned out

> (the term of art is ''remediated'') more than 1,000 in the past six

> years.

>

> Along the way Assured Indoor Air Quality awarded research grants

> to scientists, and one went to Straus at the Texas Tech University

> Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. On April 1, 1999, Holder was

> flying to a meeting there. The front rows of seats faced each other

> on Southwest Airlines, and a thin, no-nonsense businesswoman sat

> across from him, on her way to Arkansas for a meeting of her own.

> They got to talking during the flight, and the woman complained

> about the parade of contractors and inspectors marching in and out

> of her house. As she talked, she coughed, and her Kleenex showed

> chunks of blood.

>

> ''Excuse my asking,'' Holder said, ''but have you by any chance

> had a leak in your house?''

>

> The woman was Melinda Ballard, and yes, she had most certainly had

> a leak. ''You're talking to Noah about the flood,'' she told

> Holder, because that's the way she talks. She also swears as easily

> as she speaks, has no patience for anyone who doesn't work as hard

> as she does, will insult you to your face if she thinks you're

> trying to ''bamboozle'' her and was warned by one lawyer before her

> mold lawsuit went before the jury that she had to practice being a

> ''dutiful Southern belle'' because men on the jury ''would be

> thinking, God, I would hate to be married to her.'' (She fired that

> lawyer.)

>

> Raised in wealth, Ballard made her own fortune in advertising and

> public relations in New York and moved to Dripping Springs in 1990.

> Fancying herself a cowgirl, she bought two cows named Jethro and

> Ellie Mae and lived with them and a herd of deer on 73 acres. In

> 1994 she married Ron , an Austin investment adviser, who was

> as ambitious and hard-driving as she was. Their son, Reese, was

> born in 1996.

>

> When Reese was 2, the house had a leak, which Ballard and

> paid a plumber to repair. It seemed so inconsequential at the time

> that they did not even report it to their insurance company. A few

> months later the hardwood floors around the house began to warp and

> buckle. Ballard then filed a claim with Farmers Insurance Group.

> She and the company exchanged a number of letters on the subject of

> the floor, and one of those, to Theresa McConnell, a claims

> representative, read: ''Molds and mildew are trapped underneath the

> floor and will escape into the house once the foundation is

> exposed. I would like for every effort to be made to ensure that

> the molds/mildew do not ruin furniture, carpets, etc.''

>

> This was the first mention of the word ''mold.'' After much

> arguing over the cost of the repairs, Farmers paid Ballard well

> over $100,000 to fix a variety of things related to leaks. As

> Farmers wrote check after check, it also pursued ways to stop

> writing them. Asserting that Ballard was ''underinsured,'' the

> company held some money back as a result. Ballard then accused

> Farmers of stalling because it did not want to reimburse the whole

> of such an expensive claim, an allegation the company denies.

>

> Meanwhile, Reese developed asthma. Melinda began having

> dizzy spells. The family visited a variety of doctors a total of

> about 50 times over a three-month period. Ron had the

> strangest symptoms. He would forget simple things like where he'd

> left his credit card or where he'd parked his car, or even what

> kind of car he owned. His co-workers would find him at his desk

> looking as if he were in a trance.

>

> But mold was not mentioned again until March 1999, when a Farmers

> investigator, who was in the house to inspect the source of damage

> to the kitchen floor, pulled back the refrigerator and revealed a

> wall that was shockingly slimy black. A month later, Ballard met

> Holder on the plane. ''I think I might know what's causing your

> problems,'' she remembers him saying, then he offered to provide

> her with a list of home contractors who might help.

>

> Ballard did not want anyone else's name. Holder was the first

> person she had met who seemed to know what was happening to her

> house and to her family, and she wanted him to help. He explained

> that his company worked only on schools and on commercial

> buildings. She went home and did some research. ''You're

> remediating the governor's mansion; that's a house,'' she told

> Holder by phone a few days later. The fact that Bush was

> showing symptoms of mold sensitivity (Holder located the source in

> the air-conditioning system) was supposed to be a secret, but

> Ballard had connections and was not used to taking no for an

> answer.

>

> Four days after their serendipitous plane ride, Holder visited

> Ballard in Dripping Springs. ''I looked in a few places I've

> learned to look,'' he says -- under an undisturbed board in the

> dining room, inside a crawl space beneath the stairs -- and found

> more pockets of mold. Two days later, tests showed that mold to

> include Stachybotrys and Penicillium, and Holder advised further

> tests. In the meantime, Ballard and her family moved to a nanny's

> apartment next to the garage.

>

> The insurance company sent an investigator to collect its own air

> samples, and Ballard hired Holder, who brought along two other

> experts, including Straus, to help conduct additional tests.

> Straus barely lasted 30 minutes. ''Walking into that house was one

> of the biggest mistakes I ever made,'' he says. ''None of us were

> wearing any protection. I was standing on that Tara staircase, and

> all of a sudden I didn't feel very good.'' Straus spent the next

> four hours lying in Holder's truck, crawling out only to vomit. He

> also lost 25 percent of the hearing in one ear, and the damage

> seems to be permanent.

>

> ''I don't go into Stachy houses anymore,'' he says, theorizing

> that his repeated exposure over the years has left him highly

> sensitive to toxic mold. ''I let the young people do that.''

>

> On April 23 Holder called Ballard to report that there was

> airborne Stachybotrys, among other molds, in her house. Taking

> Holder's advice to, she says, ''get the hell out of there,'' the

> family abandoned their home and its contents within the hour. They

> left all their possessions -- the couple's wedding photos, Reese's

> baby pictures, frayed stuffed animals and imported stuffed couches.

> Stopping at a nearby Wal-Mart, they bought new clothes and

> toiletries, then settled in for several months at the Four Seasons

> Hotel. (Farmers picked up the tab.)

>

> The only thing they took from the house -- a house she had

> expected to be ''my sanctuary'' when she helped design it 15 years

> earlier -- was a bottle of Scotch. ''I credit Cutty Sark with my

> escaping personal injury,'' says Ballard, who refuses to wear a

> seat belt and hooks it over her shoulder when she drives in order

> to fool the cops.

>

> Ballard jokes that ''her drinking kept her from getting as sick as

> the rest of the family.'' Holder says that with the current lack of

> scientific evidence, this is as good a theory as any, adding, ''I

> believe she's just too damn mean for those toxins to affect her.''

>

> Standing outside unit 130 in the Spectrum condominium complex in

> Santa Ana, Calif., on IV, the state's busiest mold

> lawyer, hands me a disposable respirator mask. I've had practice at

> this by now, and I slip it on and pull the elastic tight. on

> is quite a sight in his own mask -- a towering man, with a shaved

> head and walrus mustache. The western boots peering out from under

> his well-cut suits are a hint that he would rather be roping and

> riding. Waiting for us in the tiny two-bedroom apartment are his

> client Noe Montoya, Montoya's wife and newborn baby and his two

> elementary-school-age daughters. All but the infant have been sick

> for months, with nosebleeds and coughs, and there is black mold

> growing up the girls' bedroom wall.

>

> There are 1,500 residents of this complex, nearly all Hispanic,

> and all thought they had bought into the American homeowner's

> dream. Montoya, who works as a waiter at a nearby chain restaurant,

> struggled to pay $75,000 for his condo two years ago. Then, about a

> year ago, mold began sprouting everywhere. Montoya cleans the mold

> from his daughters' hot-pink wall every morning, but it is back

> within a day, growing through the Sheetrock from the other side.

> Unlike Melinda Ballard, who had the resources to eventually escape

> to a five-star hotel, Montoya is trapped. Everything he owns is

> invested in this apartment. He can't afford to rent another place,

> and he cannot sell. Who would buy a condo full of mold?

>

> on is keenly aware of how he looks, standing there wearing

> a mask, while the family stands barefaced and unprotected. ''It's a

> real dilemma,'' he says. ''But I go into these buildings for a

> living, and I decided that I need to protect my own health.''

>

> We walk from one apartment to the next, and on points out

> mold wherever we go. Pulling aside bathroom tiles and peering

> behind stationary concrete planters, he says things like ''There's

> water leaking through the joists in the drywall'' and ''We have a

> series of pinhole leaks in the potable water lines,'' which make

> him sound like the building contractor he was before he went to law

> school.

>

> When he graduated he started a construction law firm, expecting to

> handle mostly faulty construction and product-liability cases.

> Then, in 1994, he was contacted by a couple in Malibu who had a

> leak. Water had become trapped beneath the layers of their

> improperly tiled roof and had drawn mold into the house. The couple

> suffered from mysterious rashes, and the wife was taken to the

> emergency room more than once, gasping for breath.

>

> on, who knew a lot about joists and drywall but nothing

> about rashes, went on the Internet, where he learned that science

> did not know much, either. Then, as now, there was no definitive

> epidemiological study proving that mold makes people sick. And

> then, as now, there was no simple blood test or the equivalent to

> measure mold exposure. But there were enough scientists who

> suspected a link and enough doctors who were certain they'd seen

> illness caused by toxic mold that on sensed he had a

> dynamite case.

>

> This most recent history of mold began in the early 1990's, in a

> museum down in SoHo. Employees began falling ill at work with

> symptoms ranging from rashes to extreme fatigue to memory loss, and

> they came to see Dr. Eckardt Johanning, an occupational and

> environmental doctor at Mount Sinai Medical Center. At that time,

> ''occ-docs'' like Johanning specialized in other dangers of the

> workplace, like carpal tunnel syndrome and asbestos poisoning.

> Stumped, Johanning inspected the museum offices and found mold

> that, when cultured, was determined to be ''something called

> Stachybotrys,'' says Johanning, who at the time had never heard of

> the mold. (Since then he has compiled a 675-page tome called

> ''Bioaerosols, Fungi and Mycotoxins: Health Effects, Assessment,

> Prevention and Control.'')

>

> Johanning searched the medical literature and found spotty

> research. There were allegations that toxic mold has been used in

> warfare and descriptions of animal poisonings, where mycotoxins in

> feed went on to kill large numbers of cattle in Russia and Finland.

> ''We know from laboratory animals,'' explains Stetzenbach, ''when

> there's forced inhalation of Stachy into mice, and then the mice

> are sacrificed and we look at the lung tissue, we see damage. But

> we can't force humans to inhale toxins.''

>

> In fact, one of the few controlled human studies inspired more

> debate than answers. In the fall of 1994, Dr. Dorr Dearborn, a

> pediatric pulmonologist at Cleveland's Rainbow Babies and

> Children's Hospital, began seeing too many cases of babies with

> bleeding in their lungs. As the total reached 8 and eventually 10,

> Dearborn called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

> which sent an investigation team. The team's leader, Dr. Ruth

> Etzel, designed a study matching each sick infant with three

> control infants who were the same age and lived in the same

> neighborhood. It turned out that most of the affected babies lived

> in homes with water damage and mold where tobacco smoke was often

> present. Among the molds found was Stachy, and the C.D.C. declared

> a possible link between mold, tobacco smoke and ''acute ideopathic

> pulmonary hemorrhage'' (A.I.P.H.). The study was published in a

> respected, peer-reviewed journal.

>

> These conclusions caused some government agencies to take action.

> The health and housing departments of Cleveland and Cayahoga County

> offers free home inspections to new mothers living in the part of

> town where the initial cases were clustered. The United States

> Department of Housing and Urban Development has put resources into

> mold research, too, spending $3.17 million on an effort to remove

> mold from the homes of infants at risk for A.I.P.H. and of

> asthmatic children. In addition, the American Academy of Pediatrics

> has warned that ''until more is known about the etiology of

> idiopathic pulmonary hemorrhage, prudence dictates that

> pediatricians try to ensure that infants under 1 year of age are

> not exposed to chronically moldy, water-damaged environments.''

>

> Since the Cleveland study was first released, other doctors have

> become convinced that there are mold risks to adults as well. ''We

> do know for a fact that mold is associated with cognitive

> impairment in some people,'' says Dr. Wayne Gordon, a

> neuropsychologist and professor of rehabilitation medicine at the

> Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan, and one of a small but

> growing group of scientists who have come to specialize in the

> health effects of mycotoxins. These doctors cannot yet say

> definitively how these toxins work and why they affect some people

> more than others. But they do know that victims of the toxins visit

> their offices every day, more this year than last year and that

> their problems range from minor memory loss to devastating

> cognitive failure. ''This is real,'' he says, ''and it isn't going

> away.''

>

> In March of last year, however, the C.D.C. backed away from its

> initial study. In a 97-page examination of the case, two panels of

> reviewers gathered by the agency criticized everything from the way

> the babies' illness was diagnosed to the way the mold was measured.

> ''The available evidence,'' the reviewers concluded, ''does not

> substantiate the reported epidemiologic associations -- between

> household water damage and A.I.P.H. or between household fungi and

> A.I.P.H. -- or any inferences regarding causality.''

>

> In other words, one report by the C.D.C. recants another report by

> the C.D.C. The agency now describes mold as an ''allergen'' on its

> Web site, but makes little mention of the serious problems that

> researchers like Dearborn, Etzel and Gordon say are associated with

> mold. Nor does it mention that their findings have been replicated

> by other scientists. And while the agency advises that mold be

> cleaned up, it does not recommend testing to discover what type of

> mold is growing. ''We are not saying there are no health

> consequences to mold,'' says Dr. Redd, chief of the

> air-pollution-and-respiratory-health branch at the C.D.C. ''There's

> a diversity of opinion. Our opinion is that not enough is known

> about it.'' The agency does not doubt that people are suffering, he

> says, but the C.D.C. is lacking scientific proof of the extent to

> which mold is the cause. To declare causation without that proof,

> he says, would be as irresponsible as waiting too long.

>

> Dearborn and Etzel disagree and stand by their study. The C.D.C.

> rebuttal ''put the message out there that there was nothing to

> worry about,'' Dearborn says. ''They didn't take the prudent health

> position that until there is definitive evidence, we will take

> precautions. A legal standard of proof is 51 percent. A scientific

> standard of proof is greater than 95 percent. But where does public

> health prudence fall between the two?''

>

> While scientists argue over mold, lawyers have been having a field

> day. Like the fungus itself, mold litigation has completely taken

> over on's practice in the years since the Malibu claim.

> ''The case settled very shortly, once we demonstrated what this

> stuff was,'' on says. The whole of the house was

> shrink-wrapped in plastic, torn down, then carted away and buried.

>

> Today, callers to his voice mail are instructed that all new

> toxic-mold cases are being screened by the firm's new director of

> microbiological investigations, a paralegal with a master's degree

> in microbiology. At last count, she had a list of 325 potential new

> clients on deck, and on has stopped representing individual

> homeowners in favor of cases that ''really prove a point.'' On his

> plate at the moment are five courthouses where everyone from the

> judges to the bailiffs complain that they have become sick, and

> housing projects like the Spectrum, which, he says ''should have

> been the American dream, but has become a nightmare.''

>

> (on, too, makes some exceptions to his ''no private homes''

> rule. His star client right now is Brockovich, whose

> two-story, 4,000-square-foot house outside Los Angeles -- bought

> with the money from the movie about her environmental crusades --

> is contaminated with mold. There is a huge poster in on's

> office of as Brockovich, signed by the real

> . ''To , What a 'bulldog' you are,'' it says, then asks,

> ''Gee, could a 'mold' movie be next?'')

>

> on says he believes he is in on the start of an entirely

> new area of law. ''It's a hybrid,'' he says, ''that's why people

> have a hard time getting their arms around it. It's part

> construction defect, because that's what allows the water to get

> into the building. And it's part personal injury, and very few

> lawyers do both.'' on himself had not handled a personal

> injury case until 1994, ''when I realized, Hey, we can't just treat

> the building, we've got to treat some people in the building as

> well.''

>

> Industry watchers agree. Mealey's Publications, which puts out

> monthly legal reports, just added Mealey's Litigation Report: Mold

> to its title list. ''Mold litigation isn't going to go away any

> time soon,'' says Colleen McLaughlin, the report's editor. ''The

> attorneys involved are cutting edge, the type who are always

> looking for the next big thing.''

>

> What looks like Genesis to lawyers looks like Armageddon to

> insurance companies. ''This mold problem seemed to come out of

> nowhere,'' says Janet Bachman, vice-president of claims

> administration for the American Insurance Association. The Ballard

> case became front-page news in Texas and spurred many other mold

> claims. In the state, Bachman says, there has been a 137 percent

> increase so far this year in the amount paid out by insurance

> companies for water damage. (Insurance policies do not cover mold,

> per se; they cover damage that results from an otherwise covered

> event, like a leak or burst pipe.)

>

> If that trend continues through the end of 2001, Texas insurers

> will be spending roughly $670 million on water claims. (That does

> not count damage from the Houston floods last June; while they will

> cause mold damage, the floods themselves are not covered events,

> meaning the resulting damage is not reimbursed by insurance.) Some

> in the insurance industry say that premiums will have to increase

> by 40 percent in order to offset mold claims.

>

> Insurers are hoping, Bachman says, that this will turn out to be a

> short-term scare, a crisis of the moment, and that soon a fickle

> public will start worrying about something else. ''For a while the

> hysteria was over radon,'' she says. ''And now it's so obvious that

> nobody gives a damn. Remember the Alar scare? Now that's a big

> shrug, too. Maybe this is just 15 minutes of fame for the latest

> boo-boo.''

>

> Just in case it doesn't disappear, however, some insurers are

> taking concrete steps. Farmers Insurance, for instance, has said

> that it will stop selling new homeowner's policies that include

> water-damage coverage. In addition, it has asked the Texas

> Department of Insurance to allow the company to exclude mold damage

> from its policies entirely, even mold that results from a covered

> event.

>

> State governments, in an effort to protect homeowners, are

> beginning to act, too. California's Senate recently approved the

> Toxic Mold Protection Act, which orders the State Department of

> Health Services to establish licensing standards for professionals

> who go into the business of measuring and cleaning out toxic mold.

> ''Right now anyone can advertise in the Yellow Pages and call

> themselves a mold expert,'' says on, who helped draft the

> legislation, and who refers to opportunists as ''mold diggers.''

>

> Whenever on gives a lecture before an industry group, he

> says, ''I ask for a hand count at the beginning to find out who's

> in the audience, and 90 percent are contractors who were all doing

> lead and asbestos abatement until the last year, and now they're

> trying to jump on the mold bandwagon. It frightens me because

> you've got people that are taking a two-day course, and then

> they're turning around as quote-unquote experts.''

>

> The California bill also urges the health department to establish

> permissible exposure limits: how much mold is too much? Exactly

> what level of spores per cubic meter of air is enough to make us

> sick? It may be an impossible task, because the same level of mold

> seems to affect every individual differently. That would explain,

> among other things, why Ballard's husband is still so sick but

> Ballard herself is not.

>

> ''We don't always see the same health reaction every time,''

> Johanning says. ''I've seen marriages go down because people are

> not equally affected by it and one spouse thinks the other is

> imagining things.''

>

> Ron sits in the overdecorated living room of the rented

> house that his family has been living in, staring straight ahead.

> The furnishings around him are a swirl of burgundy and green,

> yellow and red, but he is a study in white and beige. His

> expression is as bland and subdued as his clothing, as he tries,

> quietly and haltingly, to explain who he used to be and who he is

> today.

>

> Back when he was an investment adviser, he says: ''I did three to

> four deals at a time, I kept all these balls in the air. If I

> dialed your phone number once, I would have remembered it.'' But in

> the months before the mold was finally discovered in his Dripping

> Springs home, his memory began to go. ''My problem is with input,''

> he says, trying to explain what his doctors have since explained to

> him. ''I can concentrate on one thing for a while, but if you add a

> second thing, then the input makes me short-circuit.'' By way of

> example, his wife says, ''He can talk on the phone, but if you hand

> him a piece of paper while he's talking, his brain just fries.''

>

> was asked to quit his job nearly two years ago, according

> to Ballard, and has been going to cognitive therapy sessions four

> times a week. ''He's not worse, but he's not better,'' she says of

> her husband's progress. ''I guess we have to give it time.'' When

> not at therapy, he works at keeping his life simple. ''You can

> arrange your day to avoid feeling like an idiot,'' he says.

> ''Sitting here and watching 'Oprah,' you're not going to feel like

> an idiot, but I aimed a little higher than that in my life.......

>

>

>

>