Re: Re: Mold Challange 2 - who

September 21, 2006

who,

> cladospoium higher than outside main floor and basement

> pen/asp main floor, but low amounts, humm, could be a lot of reasons,

> tub over flow, carpet, etc.

Good points. All those and others have to be included in the

inspection and assessment.

> but if house isn't being lived in amounts

> could be much higher when its occupied.

The house is still occupied and the owners were present.

> stachy higher outside humm,

I almost never see Stachbotrys levels this high outside even under

ideal conditions for Stachybotrys (which is rare). Outside is usually

ideal for Cladosporium, however, therefore very common.

> where were tests done outside, was it away from house on done on a

> covered porch?

Another variable. The owner saw the sample being collected outside

the patio door, so that is where I took my sample. Exact spot? No.

Exact weather conditions? No. The other guy took them in a quiet

rain, I took mine while very dry and windy.

> if it was raining, stachy could be growing outside,

Stachybotrys is slow growing at first and then very rapid under ideal

conditions. Outdoors is not ideal conditions for rapid growth.

Stachybotrys is common in soil, as is the legionella bacterium that

cause Legionaires disease. But that doesn't mean either grows well

there, just like cactus seeds are common around the world but they

don't grow everywhere. Same for Cyprus tree pollen and seeds. We have

no Cyprus trees in Colorado but during a pollen study 15 years ago,

we saw lots of Cyprus pollen. Think of the wind storms in China that

blow dust across the Pacific and across the US.

> -sence it was raining, your results might show higher amounts than

> previous testing.

I'll know in a couple of days.

> was the home previously remediated? could there have

> been some water pipes behind these patched areas that may have leaked?

There was nothing on the disclosure form about moisture or water

problems or previous remediation. Neither was there any evidence what-

so-ever that either had occurred.

> is there carpet in the home?

Only on the second floor, not on the main floor or in the unfinished

basement.

> what kind of walk

> out basement?

Front of basement is below grade with the sides uniformly sloping to

the basement floor at the back. All solid unfinished concrete walls

and slab with no cracks or efflorescence.

> dont know if baseing your symptoms would be a safe

> thing to do.

He knows the limits of the effects and has evaluated the risk with

his schedule and recovery time. This is the most accurate and

meaningful evaluation. If you don't react in the house, you won't

care what is in there. If you do react, it could be anything. You

need to identify it and remove it by cleaning or structure removal.

It it can't be removed then isolate it. If it can't be isolated then

reduce it with ventilation or filtration. If none of those work to

stop the exposure then remove yourself from the exposure. Which is

why they moved out of their original house 7 months ago.

> to many things involved.

You can say that again! Although this situation is more complex than

most, I've never seen a simple one in my 20 years.

> or the 'professional' was a crook and was going to try to make some

> easy money

That is certainly a possibility. However, a check on the company

finds that they only do testing, no remediation. So I can't figure

out a motive - unless he is connected with another company that does

do remediation and he gets a commission. However, he did not refer

them to anyone and no one has called. He may just be untrained,

inexperienced and/or incompetent. His easy money may be just getting

lots of quick jobs everyday. Which is a possibility since he did no

inspection and refused to interpret the results. Even then, I'm still

puzzled on how he could get a false positive that was inadvertant.

> or cross contamination at the lab.

That has been known to happen at the best of them. Or mis-

identification by the technician. I have slides from a study showing

the same sample sent to 8 different labs with 8 different results.

That's a little more than scary!

Not all samples are evaluated by a mycologist. Most are by a

technician with time pressures to meet a quota. The lab that was used

is not known for those conditions however. They have an excellent

reputation for high Quality Control.

> enough moisture to make outside stachy grow and I do

> believe that it doesn't put out spores while its growing.

There are cycles of growing during the life cycle of mold growth.

Think of a tree or ragweed. Seeds germinate - IF it has the proper

enviornment of food, sun, temperature and moisture at the right time

of year. The plant grows bigger and then starts to reproduce by via

pollen. Seeds grow and are distributed by air, birds, animals, etc.

Similar for mold and all its different components of the colony that

grows.

> humm, just not something right about these

> results,

Exactly. So that becomes one of the questions to be answered before

the buyers can decide whether or not to purchase or to back out.

As I said on one of the other responses, there are some excellent

thinkers on . There is more to mold and mold testing

than just taking samples and looking at the numbers.

Carl Grimes

Healthy Habitats LLC

September 21, 2006

Hey Carl, do you know the answer to the following question.....?

If a person is working in a VERY sick (moldy) contaminated building, & they do

not have symptoms that we know of, will they still test positive--or not?

Thanks,

Re: [] Re: Mold Challange 2 - who