Buying a house

[Guest guest]

Oh, boy, am I confused! I have been doing web research for a few hours, and

came across this egroup. so I hope someone can give

me some suggestions. I have various allergies, including mold. My hubby did

not have allergies until the last few years. Occasionally,

his eye would swell up, for no apparent reason, and he would get swelling in his

finger joints. And, when I say " eye swelling, " I mean

*severe*! It looks like he lost a fight with Mike Tyson. Anyways, he has been

to various allergists, etc., and after gobs of tests, he

wasdiagonosed as otentially having lupus. (I guess that lupus is difficult to

diagnose....) So, we have been instructed to kind of wait

and see if other symptoms present themselves.

OK, here comes my question. I realize that there is mold just about everywhere.

I imagine it is somewhat like dust: just because you

dust today, does not mean that there is no more dust in the room, nor does it

mean that there will be no more dust tomorrow. But---if

you went into a room, looked at a table and it was coated with white, you'd say,

" Wow! That's dusty! " I know that there are currently

no guidelines as to how much mold is too much. Since that is the case, how can

one make a decision about how much mold is

unaccpetable?

We are relocating due to a job change. We have bid on a house that we like, and

had home inspections performed, including mold

sampling from the basement. Our results: cladosporium: 9,555 spores per

square meter; penicillium aspargillus (my apologies if

I'm misspelling these), 1,176; aureobasidium, 21; drechslera-bipolaris group,

21; arthrinium, 14; stachybotrys, 5,145; chaetomium 14;

pithomyces 7. Is that a very high number for the stachybotrys (5145

spores/cubic meter)?

Is this typical of basements? Would I find this anywhere I went, or are these

numbers alarming? It's one thing if you own a home, and

hten discover there is a mold problem. But, would you buy this house with the

above-mentioned mold levels? Do most houses have

similar levels?

Thanks,

dsal