I would not ever want to see my loved one’s go through the horror that us mold victim’s experience. Our loved ones experience the turmoil with us, though sometimes not understand to the full extent by them.

When my little grand-daughter of three years old looks up at me and says Gramma, I will take care of you, or Gramma can I sleep over your house. You see, I can not let my grandchildren stay over at Gramma’s house, because Gramma’s house has mold, toxic mold throughout the building by know fault of my own. Will the problem be taken care of, not likely.

As I continue to breath with oxygen, take my nebulizer treatments, take all the medications to help me breath at this stage in my life is like a terrifying nightmare and at sometime I wish I will wake up and it will be gone.

Please feel free to visit my website and join my free forum for awareness, knowledge and support. Pray that this never happens to you or your loved one’s because it takes the once normal life that you had, and turns it completely upside down into horror.

Help support the mold victim’s of the world…spread the word…write to our political arena’s to pass bills that are stalled in congress for air quality regulation’s. For our schools, for our homes, for our workplace.

Darlene’s Website

Chronic Sinus Trouble

• More than 35 million Americans suffer from chronic sinus trouble. This means that you have congestion, runny nose, sinus headaches and other symptoms. You don’t have a cold or hay fever; you just have “bad sinuses.” It’s something genetic that’s been passed down, or a seasonal allergy. Most people leave it at that.
• Recent studies have shown that sinus trouble is almost always caused by environmental factors. And, the number one environmental factor is exposure to black mold.
• Mold releases spores which become airborne. Everyone is allergic to these spores in varying degrees. When you come into contact with airborne spores, they irritate your sinuses and produce these symptoms.

Asthma

• It has traditionally been accepted that asthma was genetic. It seemed that it was passed down from one generation to the next, and if it was in your family tree, you would be more likely to develop it.
• However, in the last few years studies have shown that asthma is due more to environmental factors than it was previously believed. There is a link between exposure to black mold in early life and the development of asthma later on.
• It is difficult to carry out a study on the effect of mold on the development of asthma, but the anecdotal evidence out there is overwhelming. Hopefully in the next few years, a definite link will be established.

Flu Symptoms

• Some varieties of toxic mold can produce flu-like symptoms. This includes nausea, fever and headaches. It is difficult to diagnose as black mold poisoning, however, because it could be so many other things.
• Toxic mold spores can cause problems for any part of the body, including the digestive tract. We usually think of mold having an effect on breathing, but spores enter the body through the respiratory system. From there, the microtoxins can go anywhere.

Mental Illness

• It is hard to believe that something as seemingly harmless as mold could have an effect on our brains, but it does. Exposure to toxic mold can have neurological effects, as spores enter the body and release toxins into the bloodstream.
• Common symptoms include chronic fatigue, hearing and memory loss, and mild symptoms of dementia. These are symptoms of the very advanced stages of toxic mold poisoning. If someone you know is suffering neurological damage due to toxic black mold exposure, you should seek medical help immediately.
• These symptoms are elusive, and that is why you should make sure your house is mold free. Have your house tested, either by a professional or do it yourself with a mold testing kit from your hardware store. Keeping the mold out of your house will greatly reduce the risk of developing these symptoms of black mold exposure.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A groundbreaking public health study has found a connection between damp, moldy homes and depression. The study, led by Brown University epidemiologist Edmond Shenassa, is the largest investigation of an association between mold and mood and is the first such investigation conducted outside the United Kingdom.

Shenassa said the findings, published in the American Journal of Public Health, came as a complete surprise. In fact, after a few U.K. studies published in the last decade had suggested a link, Shenassa and his skeptical team set out to debunk the notion that any link existed.

“We thought that once we statistically accounted for factors that could clearly contribute to depression – things like employment status and crowding – we would see any link vanish,” said Shenassa, the lead author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Community Health at Brown. “But the opposite was true. We found a solid association between depression and living in a damp, moldy home.”

Shenassa noted the study, an analysis of data from nearly 6,000 European adults, does not prove that moldy homes cause depression. The study wasn’t designed to draw that direct conclusion. However, Shenassa’s team did find a connection, one likely driven by two factors. One factor is a perceived lack of control over the housing environment. The other is mold-related health problems such as wheezing, fatigue and a cold or throat illness.

“Physical health, and perceptions of control, are linked with an elevated risk for depression,” Shenassa said, “and that makes sense. If you are sick from mold, and feel you can’t get rid of it, it may affect your mental health.”

The study was a statistical analysis of data from the Large Analysis and Review of European Housing and Health Status (LARES), a survey on housing, health and place of residence conducted in 2002 and 2003 by the World Health Organization (WHO). To conduct the survey, WHO interviewers visited thousands of homes in eight European cities and asked residents a series of questions, including if they had depressive symptoms such as decreased appetite, low self-esteem, and sleep disturbances. WHO interviewers also made visual checks of each household, looking for spots on walls and ceilings that indicate mold.

Shenassa’s team analyzed LARES data from 5,882 adults in 2,982 households.

“What the study makes clear is the importance of housing as indicator of health, including mental health,” Shenassa said. “Healthy homes can promote healthy lives.”

Shenassa and his team are conducting follow-up research to see if mold does, indeed, directly cause depression. Shenassa said that given the results of the current study, he wouldn’t be surprised if there is a cause-and-effect association. Molds are toxins, and some research has indicated that these toxins can affect the nervous system or the immune system or impede the function of the frontal cortex, the part of the brain that plays a part in impulse control, memory, problem solving, sexual behavior, socialization and spontaneity.

The research team includes Allison Liebhaber, a former Brown undergraduate; Constantine Daskalakis of Thomas Jefferson University; Matthias Braubach of WHO; and Mary Jean Brown of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Those factors in the home that cause or exacerbate asthma and allergies in children are not well understood, but scientists agree they include allergens like dust mites, mold, and environmental tobacco smoke.

Mark Mendell, an epidemiologist in Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, suggests another set of factors worth investigating: emissions from common indoor building and decorating products, such as composite wood materials that emit formaldehyde, flexible plastics that emit “plasticizers,” or even a fresh coat of paint.

In addition to known allergens like mold, tobacco smoke, and dust mites, children’s allergies may also be exacerbated by emissions from composite materials, the chemicals that make plastics flexible, and even paints.

In a paper for the journal Indoor Air, Mendell conducted a review of epidemiologic studies published in scientific journals from 1989 through mid–2006, comprised of 21 studies mostly from outside the United States. These found associations between common indoor materials and increased risk of asthma, pulmonary infections, and allergies in children.

The growing body of research identified specific risk factors including organic chemicals like formaldehyde, benzene, and phthalate esters (the “plasticizers” that make some plastics flexible); indoor materials including carpet, paint, flexible flooring, and other plastics; and various activities related to installing and cleaning these materials indoors.

Mendell is careful to note that “causal relationships have not been demonstrated” in these studies. However, his review of these studies, most of which were conducted in Europe, suggests that U.S. scientists should take a closer look at emissions from indoor materials for their possible effects on children’s health.
Asthma prevalence growing

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the prevalence of asthma in children in the United States increased from 3.6 percent in 1980 to 6.2 percent in 1996. This is an average increase of 4.3 percent per year, a relatively high growth rate that worries health experts. Asthma can be a severe, life-threatening illness; moreover, both allergies and asthma are expensive to individuals and to society. Current science suggests that risk factors for developing asthma include genetic predisposition; specific allergens such as dust mites, cockroaches, and pet dander; moisture and mold; and environmental tobacco smoke. There could be other risk factors, as yet unknown.

A complication for researchers seeking the causes of the asthma growth rate is that while a few risks have been clearly demonstrated, the case for others is weak. “Sufficient evidence of a causal relationship” is the CDC’s strongest level of evidence; “sufficient evidence of an association” and “limited evidence of an association” are weaker. The CDC also draws a distinction between factors that cause a condition, such as the development of asthma, and those that exacerbate an existing condition, for example by triggering asthma attacks.

In an authoritative report published in 2000, the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that there is sufficient evidence for a causal relationship between the development of asthma in susceptible children and exposure to house dust-mite allergen. The report also concluded that there is sufficient evidence of an association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and development of asthma in younger children, a statement strong enough to suggest that parents should protect children from exposure to tobacco smoke. Except for environmental tobacco smoke, however, the CDC currently does not recognize association of chemical agents encountered in the home with asthma.
Building materials are emitters

“The most frequently identified risk factors related to indoor residential chemical emissions include formaldehyde or formaldehyde-emitting particleboards, plasticizers or plastic materials, and recent painting,” says Mendell.

Some common household substances and materials emit chemicals like those diagrammed here, including formaldehyde, benzene, phthalate esters, polyvinyl chloride, polyurethanes, and epoxy resins.

Pressed wood products include particleboard, medium density fiberboard, interior plywood, and interior hardwood paneling. The urea-formaldehyde resin within them releases formaldehyde over time. So do other indoor sources, including tobacco smoke, varnishes, paints, and carpets. Moisture on building materials can also accelerate the release of airborne formaldehyde. Painting and freshly painted surfaces release various volatile organic compounds into indoor air.

Formaldehyde emissions and particleboard were associated with asthma, chronic bronchitis, and other respiratory symptoms. Phthalate plasticizers, or the presence of phthalate-containing surface materials such as polyvinyl chloride or vinyl, as well as painting and other room renovation, were also associated in various studies with asthma, allergy, and respiratory symptoms.

The studies that examined indoor material emissions differed widely in design and focus, says Mendell. Their methods varied from measuring actual chemical concentrations of indoor air or dust to simply observing the presence or absence of materials that emit organic chemicals. Thus there is a need for more rigorously controlled research to eliminate possible confounding factors; for example, other unmeasured factors could be the real explanation for the findings in some studies.

“Future studies will have to carefully measure formaldehyde and other chemicals indoors,” says Mendell. “They will need to determine whether it’s a specific chemical such as formaldehyde that causes the association, or some other emission that is always associated with the presence of that chemical. Formaldehyde emissions, for example, are known to come from particle board, but this material also emits other chemicals.”

One chemical compound, or several working together, could be the cause of health conditions. Still, when all the studies are taken together, and considering both their strengths and weaknesses, “it is hard to imagine what else could explain these findings that is not related to indoor chemical emissions,” Mendell says.

Mendell has been studying the associations between health and indoor environmental factors throughout his career. As an epidemiologist with the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, he studied the indoor factors associated with “sick building syndrome,” a set of respiratory and other symptoms among workers in office buildings. Detailed by the CDC to Berkeley Lab in 2000, he continued to work on those issues and ultimately joined the staff of the Lab’s Indoor Environment Department.

“I believe that studying health impacts of the indoor environment is one of the most important directions for building science,” he says. Most employed people work indoors and indeed spend most of their lives indoors, yet the health effects of the indoor environment are not well understood. Berkeley Lab’s Indoor Environment Department is one of the few research groups in the U.S. currently doing research in this field.

It was while considering literature relating indoor environments and respiratory health effects in children that Mendell noticed the large number of papers from outside the United States that seemed to implicate emissions from building materials. After carefully reviewing the available evidence, he says, “These studies justify conducting further research in this area, especially where the evidence is strongest — as with formaldehyde at levels commonly found in homes.”
What should concerned parents do?

Currently there is not, in the CDC’s phrase, “sufficient evidence of a causal relationship” between respiratory problems in children and building-material emissions. Yet some parents may want to take steps to minimize risks to their children before a scientific consensus on this question has formed. What are reasonable steps to take?

Strategies to reduce possible risks from chemical emissions include using natural bedding like feathers, which also harbor fewer dust mites, plus furniture made of real wood and flooring of real wood or authentic linseed-oil-based linoleum.

“I would think twice before repainting an infant’s nursery or using pressed wood products in children’s rooms,” says Mendell. “Also, in the case of an asthmatic child, I would avoid wrapping the child’s mattress in a vinyl product.”

Wrapping a child’s mattress and pillows is often recommended as a control measure to minimize factors that exacerbate asthma, because dust mites and other organisms known to be associated with biological risk factors tend to take up residence there. However, some of these wrappings are made of vinyl that emits phthalates over time, and the emissions could pose respiratory health risks to children.

Despite the common practice of providing children at risk for asthma with synthetic pillows and comforters, synthetic bedding has been consistently associated with greater occurrence of respiratory health effects than natural bedding like feathers. It is not yet clear if this is due to chemical emissions from synthetic bedding or to the enormously higher growth rate of dust mites in synthetic bedding than in feather bedding — a surprising finding, yet one demonstrated by substantial research.

Parents could also avoid putting particleboard furniture into children’s rooms. Particleboard is sometimes covered in wood-grained vinyl in an attempt to reduce formaldehyde emissions, and the extensive use of these materials in mass-produced furniture means extra work for parents looking for furniture free of them. Alternatives are available, however.

Mendell also suggests choosing alternatives to PVC flooring for children’s rooms — for example, real wood or authentic linoleum. Product selection can be tricky. For instance, most bamboo flooring, widely promoted as a “green” flooring material, contains the same formaldehyde-releasing glue as particleboard. Some manufacturers of bamboo, however, use the non-formaldehyde-emitting glues required for all composite wood products sold in Europe and Japan. The U.S. has not placed the same emphasis on controlling indoor emissions for health.

Mendell’s hope is that further research in the U.S. will quantify these health risks to children, and to adults as well, helping guide informed consumers to take health-protecting actions.

I can no longer work due to chronic ongoing health problems, COPD, fibromyalsia, emphysema, and I am only 44 years old. I lived for 4 months with an extremely painful rash on my stomach, went to countless doctors begging for help/relief because I had no idea what could be causing this rash. I had biopsies done and were sent to a lab that came back inconclusive. This was after 3 months of getting very little sleep, due to the pain that seemed to get worse each day. When I mentioned the possibility of toxic mold to the dermatologist, he totally dismissed my comment and said that mold doesn’t cause rashes. I have no idea just how many doctors I saw within that four months still unsure what I was dealing with until someone suggested having air testing done after my 7 year old daughter had her first nose bleed at my kitchen sink. This was the last time my daughter stayed in our home. Between the rashes my children would break out in whenever they were in our home and the rash I had that never went away, I had the air and surface testing done and the deadly toxic mold was found under my kitchen sink where my daughter got the nose bleed. There were high levels of mold throughout the house and we had to evacuate our home immediately. The was the second time that I’ve experienced this kind of loss. The first was when my parent’s house burned to the ground and all of our family memories with it. The difference between that experience and this one is that people did reach out then and now after this experience and reaching out for help over and over again with no results it leaves me feeling more helpless, more devastated and broken. Heartbroken, I sit here with a lump in my throat just wanting to go back to the life I knew before all of this when I was raising my children in the only home they have ever known, when I was healthy and could play with the children and could plant in my garden and tend to my home.

To those of you who have experienced the pain and agony and the devastation you feel at having to tell your children that they can no longer live in their home, when you close the door not knowing when if ever you will return and how you are going to financially afford it, my heart goes out to you. I wish I had one answer for us all. I go to my old home and stand outside and grieve with the longing for home, for God to make a way for us to go home. I hope that one day there will be some good to come from this and quite honestly right now I searching for what it could possibly be. I am grateful that we got out of there with our lives because I know there are those who haven’t been as fortunate. The last five years have involved one loss after another starting with my sister and her death from lung cancer, my father being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a pending divorce, the loss of our home and my health.
At this point I am searching for hope and doing the best I can to cope with life as I know it now.

After in excess of 400 phone calls to get help, I still have received no direction on what to do. I would like believe that there is something I can do, somewhere I can turn to get the help I need and any suggestions would be a blessing. Please, those of you that are feeling the same sadness, frustration, longing to go home know that you are not alone and I am waiting for prayers to be answered.

My experience is classic:
On 11/01/06, I leased a HUD/USDA subsidized apartment, and became ill within 3 weeks. Having been exceptionally strong & healthy all of my 52 years, I spent 6 months in an environment that had been water damaged twice (1999 & 2002)w/out remediation. Like everyone else but the wealthy, I have been misdiagnosed medically & psychologically, evicted, homeless, ace losing everything, and am in despair. This is hell on earth, when the EPA, CDC, FEMA, OEMS, etc. are informed but are not taking advocacy stances. I knew the lady who lived in the apartment before me; she passed away in 2006, diagnosed w/emphysema, lung cancer, allergies, also classic. She was a kind, intelligent woman; her suffering was needless. Equally appalling is the refusal to adhere to HUD regulations by the owner & mgmt. agents as well as the Public Housing Authority. This inaction & subsequent evictions, etc. is “Victim Blaming”. When a person is made ill from an environment they did not create & is forced to question their sanity or the reality of the basis for illness, it is CRIMINAL. Times for major rally/lobbying~ I’m e-vailable:januarymoon1@yahoo.com, ready to act & advocate however.

Peace,
Neysa K. Claytor

Thanks you Neysa for sharing your story. If anyone would like to share their mold story please leave a comment and we will post it so everyone can see what a huge problem this really is.

My name is Jennifer Jakubowski, last October my family and I were told we had to leave our home and throw all our possessions away. Due to toxic mold, so I understand how confused and overwhelmed you are feeling. My husband and I have 3 children, 9, 6, and 1. So the feeling of fear for you children’s health I also understand. The spore count in our house was over 11,600 spores per cubic meter, with over 8 types of dangerous mold present. As your probably aware 500 is considered alarm for serious health issues, and an unsafe living atmosphere. Our baby’s room read (to numerous to count) according to the lab that analyzed the results. We had just bought the house one year prior to that, moving our children out of a busy city. The mold took everything we owned, and infested the entire house, including the frame work, so the whole thing needs to get demolished. I read your story and felt my heart going back to the first few months after we found out. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, however for us it has been 9 months since we found out and we are still homeless. Our insurance also does not cover anything. We are stressed with having to give up our property, which we don’t want to do. However we can not afford to live paying both a mortgage and rent for much longer, as well as trying to get financing to build a new house. We both are working more to pay the difference and are sacrificing time with our family. Though it may seem weird you are blessed that the builder actually is willing to help you in some way. My husband helps build with habitat for humanity even while we don’t have a home. I was glad to read that they are at least trying to help in any way they can. As I’m typing this, I’m not really sure of my point, except that you are not alone, and there are other people who know the loss you are feeling.
Keep you chin up, don’t be angry it doesn’t help, I’ve learned this because for the longest time that was the strongest emotion I felt. And I guess be patient. God will guide you and help doors open to help you. I tell myself these same things every night, waiting for the guidance which I know will come at some point in time. In the meantime all you can do is make decisions on what you feel is right, and pray it all comes together in the end. Also be thankful for the help you do receive. Our community helped us with new clothing and other things, the amount of care from complete strangers was overpowering. And I do believe from this that there is hope, and things will get better. My prayers are with you and your family.

Jennifer Jakubowski

RECOMMEND:
Even if it is new construction hire a inspector, we were told that we didn’t need one due to all the the inspections that we would have to have to get the certificate of occupy. Had
I know that they would just sign off due to new construction I would have done an inspection on our own and the inspector would have found all these problems and we wouldn’t have closed on the house. Now we are stuck in it as we can’t sell it in the shape it is in and we will loose a
lot due to the disclosure laws. I Pray that they will by the house back in the litigation.