Tackling a mold problem:THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Tackling a mold problem

By BRUCE MEYERSON

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

On the Web

www.epa.gov/mold/moldguide.html

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

AID=/20050921/BUSINESS01/509210304/1066

(Original publication: September 21, 2005)

NEW YORK — The asbestos problem seemed pretty scary until the crew

we hired to remove it from our new home pointed out the fuzzy black

mold growing in the closet.

I tried to take the news calmly, hopeful the harrowing stories I've

read about families being forced to flee their mold-infested homes

were merely the exceptional cases that make for headlines.

The inescapable reality, however, was that I planned to move my

family, including a newborn and a 3-year-old, into a potentially

hazardous environment.

So, heart firmly planted in stomach, I set out to supplement my

recent crash course in asbestos with some postgraduate cramming on

fungus and a little-studied health scare that's spawned lawsuits,

insurance claims and an unregulated cottage industry of mold testers

and remediators.

" Mold is the new asbestos, " said Repole, the younger half of

an earnest father-and-son company named Alltech Environmental

Services that we eventually hired to attack our problem.

Government resources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and

the Environmental Protection Agency, were calming, though not enough

to ignore Web sites warning of neurological damage, pulmonary

hemorrhage and cancer from strains such as Stachybotrys and

Aspergillus.

There was only one area of absolute agreement: Mold is everywhere,

an essential player in our ecosystem. It eats dead organic material

like the paper coating on the Sheetrock used to build walls in most

homes. But since it only thrives where there's moisture, any mold

cleanup will likely prove short-lived unless you first eliminate any

leaks, condensation or excessive humidity.

But that's where fungal certainty hits a dead end. There are no

broad medical studies on the risks from inhaling the airborne spores

and toxins produced by mold, no definitive methods to test for mold

concentrations and no established yardsticks for what constitutes

acceptable and dangerous levels.

" Some families and individuals have gotten very sick, and some of

them have had trouble recovering and we don't understand why that

is, " said Dr. , an allergist and professor in

environmental health at the University of Texas in San .

She's disappointed the government isn't pushing for more extensive

research.

Though asbestos removal is governed by a raft of regulations,

treatment protocols and licensing authorities, no government agency

has attempted to monitor or assess the varying methods and

substances used to kill mold.

Not surprisingly, with homeowner fears percolating and no one

keeping watch, the free market has produced a mold rush of

specialists looking to tear up your walls and slather antifungal

agents around your home.

As a result, prices and methods vary widely.

Many of these remediators struck me as sincere professionals who

nonetheless speak with more authority than the scientific realities

dictate.

" This is worse than I thought, " was the alarming refrain that the

first mold contractor we hired kept repeating as he went from room

to room taking samples on a sticky tape.

The problem with surface sampling, many experts say, is that there's

no measurement of the airborne spores that may be floating around,

ready to be inhaled.

The lab results from those tape samples identified just one family

of mold named Alternaria, which registered an ominous " heavy, " the

highest of only four concentrations on this lab's scale. Heavy was

defined as anything greater than 200 spores.

A later air sample sent to a different lab produced a long list of

molds in varying concentrations as high as 160,000 spores per cubic

meter. It would appear that " greater than 200 " can have many

meanings.

And yet even a specific count holds only limited value without

established standards. So when the remediation in our place reduced

the Aspergillus count by more than 99 percent, it was still unclear

whether the remaining concentration might still represent a health

threat.

Amid such uncertainty, the EPA and others view testing as an

unnecessary expense.

Our first mold inspector sent a cleanup proposal spiced with scary

medical terms — our mold " colonizes the paranasal sinuses " and may

cause " meningeal tissue damage " — and a detailed outline of some

widely adopted procedures: Seal the work area, take out contaminated

material, scrape and sand remaining surfaces and wash with an anti-

microbial disinfectant. While all that's going on, and for a period

afterward, vacuums and air scrubbers are used to suck away microbes.

Though it's best not to hire the same firm for testing and cleanup,

we were anxious to go with the first contractor until we saw the

price. At $17,500, it was four times as expensive as some of the

other bids we received, including the unorthodox treatment proposed

by Alltech.

Rather than a disinfectant that kills mold, Alltech uses a cleaning

solution containing garden variety enzymes they say " eats " the

fungus. Then they fumigate the entire home so the enzymes can mingle

in the nooks and crannies where renegade spores may be lurking.

But because some spores surely evaded capture, we're taking other

precautions: waterproofing the wall behind the closet, rebuilding it

with a moisture-resistant wallboard that contains a fungicide and

mixing our paints with a mold-resistant additive. And since this a

ground floor apartment, we've bought a dehumidifier.

In discussing renovations, contractors have rolled their eyes at all

these highbrow replacements for a bucket of bleach and a fresh coat

of paint. No doubt our emotions have been ripe for exploitation, but

what's the alternative?

" From a practical standpoint, remediating, fixing the mold makes

sense, " Dr. said. " You don't want to wait 20 years for the

data to come out. "