Mold: A fungus among us

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Posted on Sun, Oct. 09, 2005

R E L A T E D L I N K S

• Condo mold cleaup can be complicated, as one Aventura owner

found

• Mold: A fungus among us

• Avoiding mold

• Dealing with mold

• More information

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/home/12844358.htm

Mold: A fungus among us

It's a part of everyday life in hot, humid South Florida, but

experts recommend you clean it up quickly.

BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ

aveciana@...

For better or for worse, mold has become the new, nasty four-letter

word. Mention it in mixed company and you'll likely hear some horror

story about a homeowner battling the ubiquitous growth with goggles,

gloves and mask. Chances are you'll be exposed to plenty more mold

stories from the Gulf Coast, flooded with back-to-back hurricanes.

Truth is, mold has been an unwanted guest for as long as there have

been shelters to ward off the elements. It is particularly prevalent

in hot, humid places like South Florida, and if you've ever faced a

leaky roof, a bathroom flood or a burst pipe, you probably have

encountered mold.

''People have been handling simple problems of mold on tiles and

showers for years,'' says C. May, a Massachusetts-based

chemist and building inspector who wrote The Mold Survival Guide for

Your Home and for Your Health (s Hopkins, $12.89). ``It's part

of life.''

Mold is really another word for fungi, and there are more than a

million species of them. Fungi can grow anywhere they have the

necessary ingredients for life -- moisture, warmth and an organic

source of food. They like wallboard and wood, for example, but

cannot grow on glass and metal.

Their spores are always present in the air, even inside a house.

W. Kimbrough, a mycologist who has studied mold for the plant

pathology department at the University of Florida, estimates that

there are normally between 1,100 and 1,200 mold spores per cubic

meter of outside air. That's about five or six times more than what

the average house might have inside. These spores remain dormant

until the necessary conditions arise.

''Every house has a mold problem, but not every house has a toxic

mold problem,'' he explains.

HEALTH WOES

Yet, the sight of a fuzzy fungus climbing up a wall is enough to

send residents into a panic, namely because mold has been blamed for

various health problems. Publicity has also fed the panic. About

five years ago, a jury awarded Melinda Ballard $32 million after the

Texas woman sued the insurer to cover water and mold damage in her

22-room house.

Though the award was later reduced, it set off a frenzy of mold

stories and lawsuits, including one by celebrity emcee Ed McMahon,

who received a $7 million settlement after claiming his Los Angeles

home was overrun by mold that killed his dog. By 2002, with claims

skyrocketing, U.S. insurers had paid out an estimated $3 billion in

mold-related claims, more than double from the previous year. (Since

then, most insurers have excluded mold damage from their policies.)

As a result of those high-profile cases, ''toxic mold'' has become a

term loosely used for almost any mold that causes telltale cough and

shortness of breath. But toxic mold is actually a misnomer. Molds

are not toxic themselves, but the mycotoxins some of them produce as

they grow can cause allergies and compromise immune systems.

On its website, the federal Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention state there are ''very few'' reports of toxigenic mold

that cause unique or rare health conditions such as pulmonary

hemorrhage or memory loss. Still, homeowners continue to overreact,

confusing run-of-the-mill black mold with the more unusual

Stachybotrys chartarum, blamed for such serious health problems as

acute idiopathic pulmonary hemorrhage in infants. And even that

connection has not been proven.

LACK OF STANDARDS

Part of the confusion comes from the lack of any widely recognized

standards on mold decontamination -- or even what constitutes an

unsafe number of spores. In fact, a mold problem may affect one

member of the family severely but not bother others. What's more,

experts repeatedly warn that those well-publicized cases that send

people fleeing from their homes are rare.

''What makes the news and what makes good science are two different

things,'' says certified industrial hygienist Ann Latko, a mold

expert with the American Industrial Hygiene Association. But she

also cautions: ``If there are very high proportions of mycotoxins,

it certainly can be a problem.''

It's not necessary to determine what type of mold you have, adds

Latko. ``If you can smell it or see it, you don't have to test for

it. You've most definitely got it.''

By the same token, if you're suffering from headaches, coughs or

breathing problems with no direct explanation for your ailment, you

might have mold growing in wall cavities that you can't see. That

may be the appropriate situation to test for it.

Either way, ''don't ignore it because it will just get worse. This

isn't the type of thing that goes away,'' says May, the author and

building inspector. The more growth, of course, the more chances for

health problems, especially for asthmatics and others prone to

allergies.

INSPECT YOUR HOME

Another piece of advice: Maintain your home properly, regularly

inspecting for leaks or moisture problems. Mold is more of a problem

in modern houses because the energy-efficient homes of today are

more airtight, which allows spores to build up.

''The energy-efficient insulated buildings that we started to build

in the 1970s did save us on energy costs,'' said mycologist

Kimbrough, ``but they also created an atmosphere that is very

conducive to mold growth.''

In South Florida, running the air conditioner year-round can

exacerbate the problem because it provides little time for ducts to

dry out. In an AC system, mold can grow by feeding on the dust that

collects on the blower, the wet cooling coil and on both sides of

the ducts. In fact, a paper produced by the Institute of Food and

Agricultural Sciences of the University of Florida calls

ductwork ''virtual incubators for microbial pollutants such as mold

and bacteria.'' This can be particularly troublesome since the AC

blows air -- and spores -- all around the house.

Mold problems have also proven to be a problem in new homes in which

cheaper materials such as fiber board and pressed wood are used.

When they get wet, they stay wet longer and provide a perfect

environment for molds. Some builders, Latko adds, also do not allow

building materials, particularly wood products, to dry completely

once they get soaked in rain. Eventually mold can grow on these

substances.

Regardless of how the fungus got there or what kind it is, mold

growth should be treated promptly -- by fixing the moisture problem

that caused it, drying out the area and then getting rid of the mold.