Tap water gets moldy only by using the toilet or touching faucets???

December 5, 2005

A few weeks ago I posted a method by which it is possible to

decontaminate tap water in case it becomes contaminated from the

outside, e.g. by using the toilet while you're contaminated or while

touching the opening of the shower, faucets etc.

was the only one who responded. However, in his post he mentioned

an example where the whole pipe carrying fresh water was severely

contaminated, so much in fact that the mold was visible. Therefore it

is not clear if the contamination came into the said pipe from his own

house/dwelling place or penetrated at some other point on the way to

his place (the latter is I think more likely).

In my case this phenomenon is unfortunately very frequent (it plagued

me 10 years ago, and now it began again). For instance, someone comes

to my place and is only moderately contaminated. If he/she uses my

toilet (for peeing) there is approximately 80% chance that the water

coming from ALL the faucets in my flat will become contaminated. And

will remain so for an indefinite amount of time. This water

contamination can become so debilitating that common contamination of

objects might seem negligible in comparison.

I was wondering - are there other mold sufferers who have experienced

the same thing? Or am I the only one? Actually I thought it was pretty

wide-spread, this water plumbing contamination, but now I am not so

sure. Of course, the whole thing sounds totally ridiculous to most

people and seemingly defies the laws of physics ( " how can anything

float against the stram of fresh water?), but my body tells me it IS

happening!

Perhaps it's possible for mold to build some kind of colonies that

span several meters in length through the pipes even though those

pipes are carrying water under pressure? Usually people say that

nothing can survive chlorine in tap water but from personal experience

I know mold sure can.

If there are others who have suffered from this disaster, PLEASE do

share your methods for decontamination!

My 'recipe' with probiotic bacteria can work but it is very

time-consuming, wearying, and when I'm under the barrage of mold hits

(as it is the case now) I can hardly perform such precise operations.

(As a side note: I noticed that putting and rubbing some crushed

garlic into the toilet sink can sometimes improve things, but not

always.)

I have been under severe mold hits for the last 3 days or so, which at

first appeared to be quite harmless so I didn't pay much attention,

but then the water got contaminated (after nearly 7 years of being

resistant to this way of becoming contaminated) and now I am seriously

considering moving out to a cousing of mine, at least while my mind

clears up a bit. But the question about this whole horror-movie-like

phenomenon remains: how does one deal with it?

December 6, 2005

" Branislav " wrote:

> I was wondering - are there other mold sufferers who have

experienced the same thing? Or am I the only one? Actually I thought

it was pretty wide-spread, this water plumbing contamination, but now

I am not so sure. Of course, the whole thing sounds totally ridiculous

to most people and seemingly defies the laws of physics ( " how can

anything float against the stram of fresh water?), but my body tells

me it IS happening!

>

After being " triggered " , hypersensitivity ramps up to a higher stage.

I'm having a tough time making sense of cross contamination working

its way BACK through the pipes against the flow. Do you think it may

be possible that your water supply is already " somewhat bad " and that

the cross contamination that was carried into your bathroom

upregulated your immune response to the point that the pre-

existing " water badness " becomes readily apparent to you?

-

December 6, 2005

Hopefully, anyone who came in and used your bathroom washed their hands before

they left. I can't prove it, but I think that if you are that reactive, a

" contaminated " person just touching the taps or flush handle or a bar of soap or

a towel might be enough to set you off and maybe make you think it was

" something in the water " .

That's pretty much the idea I've had about the way the business of spotting

hits works. If you are always reactive, you'd have little chance of

differentiating between things you react to. If you are seldom reactive, you'd

have little trouble at all finding what set you off. And then, there's that

scale of reactivity in the middle, where you might spot a place but not a

person, or a person but not an object. I've noticed that when the weather

changes or I change locations and there's more ambient spores around, I have

more trouble picking out exactly what I react to (and avoiding it, of course).

But when I'm not reacting to much of anything, I can easily tell you something's

up from 40 paces and then zero right in on the offender, however small or

non-obvious. It's not a constant. It changes right along with the general level

of background exposure and my own level of reactivity.

You see what I'm saying? Instead of trying to bend the general laws of physics

to match your experience, you simply recognize that your own abilities are just

as variable as spore counts - and those will change all the time. It doesn't

invalidate your experience, it just means that your perceptions might be more or

less exact in any given situation.

erikmoldwarrior <erikmoldwarrior@...> wrote:

" Branislav " wrote:

> I was wondering - are there other mold sufferers who have

experienced the same thing? Or am I the only one? Actually I thought

it was pretty wide-spread, this water plumbing contamination, but now

I am not so sure. Of course, the whole thing sounds totally ridiculous

to most people and seemingly defies the laws of physics ( " how can

anything float against the stram of fresh water?), but my body tells

me it IS happening!

>

After being " triggered " , hypersensitivity ramps up to a higher stage.

I'm having a tough time making sense of cross contamination working

its way BACK through the pipes against the flow. Do you think it may

be possible that your water supply is already " somewhat bad " and that

the cross contamination that was carried into your bathroom

upregulated your immune response to the point that the pre-

existing " water badness " becomes readily apparent to you?

-

FAIR USE NOTICE:

December 6, 2005

>

> A few weeks ago I posted a method by which it is possible to

> decontaminate tap water in case it becomes contaminated from the

> outside, e.g. by using the toilet while you're contaminated or while

> touching the opening of the shower, faucets etc.

NOTICE: potty talk ensuing......

After you posted this, I started opening my little capsules of acidophilous and

putting

them in the drains.

If the contamination happened by the toilet water, you could put the probiotics

in the

same water and clean it up that way. Very easy to do that.

Oh, and I noticed a couple of weeks ago after I had defacated, I started

reacting to it. I

have candida, and I am assuming I was reacting to that. I burned matches to get

rid of the

smell, and then turned on the fan to the outside.

I always feel better after I sweat it out in a bath with some salt. Maybe you

could put some

probiotics in bathwater too? I drink only purified water I buy, most of the

time. My body

does not like the tap water here. I even put a filter on it, and it still

doesn't like it, even

when filtered.

I don't know if this is common or not, but if you are feeling something, then

something is

going on. Maybe leaving for a week would help.

Good luck with it.

December 6, 2005

SERENA EDWARDS

> That's pretty much the idea I've had about the way the business of

spotting hits works. If you are always reactive, you'd have little

chance of differentiating between things you react to. If you are

seldom reactive, you'd have little trouble at all finding what set you

off.

Yes. That's where my mobile mold decon camper comes in.

If I am unsure about the location or intensity of a hit, I simply

decontaminate and wait to " break the response " .

By " getting clear " I can locate areas of contamination more easily and

make better decisions concerning the degree to which I am being

affected - and what I want to do about it.

-

December 6, 2005

>After being " triggered " , hypersensitivity ramps up to a higher stage.

I'm having a tough time making sense of cross contamination working

its way BACK through the pipes against the flow.<

>Do you think it may be possible that your water supply is already

" somewhat bad " and that the cross contamination that was carried

into your bathroom upregulated your immune response to the point

that the pre-existing " water badness " becomes readily apparent to you?<

No , that is not possible. I fully understand your bafflement with

anything going against the flow of water in the pipes under pressure.

I was also sceptical, it took me several months to acknowledge the

situation. The very notion of fresh water becoming contaminated from

the outside due to some potent but miniscule contamination went

against everything I learned as a chemist and biologist.

The feeling/sensation which the contaminated water has on me (once it

becomes contaminated) is quite clear-cut and distinct. That feeling is

a lot different to, say, the feeling of touching a contaminated

object. One interesting feature is that such water causes more

problems if it is left on skin (due to washing the hands for instance)

then if it is drank. If I drink such water, the only unpleasant thing

might be the feeling of some tingling in the throat, as if there is

some dust in the water. Also, the laundry washed with such water

usually doesn't cause much trouble provided it is well dried and

exposed to sun. Very weird, isn't it? There are a lot of things I

can't even begin to explain either.

If the water was always contaminated in my flat, I would surely be

completely unable to live here.

I live in a building with 6 floors. The building itself is not moldy,

it is not a sick building per se. I suffer exclusively from the mold

hits that I and other people catch while being outside (e.g. moldy

areas in the downtown, moldy products bought at flea markets or

imported without proper sanitary inspection etc.). There has never

been a mold problem with our building whatsoever, no leackages, no

moldy appartments or hallways, and no moldy basements. I don't have

any problem when I go to the basement, heck one family even lives

there. No, the building itself is not the culprit. It was well

designed and is not prone to mold infestations.

10 years ago the water contamination in my flat was very frequent. It

was the time when my bathroom got contaminated by a very moldy soap

about which I spoke in another message a few weeks ago. On average,

there was one water contamination in every 2 weeks or so. When the

water was contaminated (for me at least, nobody else could perceive

it), and if I would go to a neighbour upstairs or to the neighbour

living next to us, their water would always be okay. So, my guess is

that the contamination of this kind is contained to a very small area

in my flat, probably only a few meters in the pipes. The further you

go from the place of contamination, the less it is felt.

Once I also contaminated the water at my aunt's place, because I was

foolish enough to bring a very contaminated object (a large paper

dictionary) with me there. When I paid her a visit a year after that,

her tap water was still significantly contaminated, almost unbearable

for me, but all the other objects in her house were okay (she sticks

to very strict hygienic rules lol). Only after five years (!) did her

tap water become non-reactive (clean) for me, and I spent several

weeks at her place last year without any problems.

I could also tell the story of a little experiment which my father and

I conducted 10 years ago… he took 20 identical empty plastic mineral

water bottles. Then into one of them he poured the tap water from my

flat while I claimed that it was contaminated. In another he poured

the same water while I claimed that I decontaminated it (with the

probiotic bacteria). So two bottles contained the water from my flat,

but the samples were taken at different times. In the remaining 18

bottles he put the water from his flat. Then I examinded the water

from each bottle by washing my hands with it. Only he knew what bottle

contained the `contaminated' water.

Well, I DID detect the bottle which contained the water from my flat

while I claimed it was contaminated. All the other samples, including

the one which was taken from my flat while I claimed that the water

was fine, were indistinguishable from each other. I could not detect

any difference between them. Needless to say, he was surprised, but

not convinced AT ALL, and considers my " success " to be pure luck.

December 6, 2005

>I can't prove it, but I think that if you are that reactive, a

" contaminated " person just touching the taps or flush handle or a bar

of soap or

a towel might be enough to set you off and maybe make you think it was

" something in the water " .<

As I said in the previous message, altough your guess sounds

reasonable I am sure it's not the case here. I could bet my life on it.

>>That's pretty much the idea I've had about the way the business of

spotting hits works. If you are always reactive, you'd have little

chance of differentiating between things you react to. If you are

seldom reactive, you'd have little trouble at all finding what set you

off. And then, there's that scale of reactivity in the middle, where

you might spot a place but not a person, or a person but not an

object. I've noticed that when the weather changes or I change

locations and there's more ambient spores around, I have more trouble

picking out exactly what I react to (and avoiding it, of course).

But when I'm not reacting to much of anything, I can easily tell you

something's up from 40 paces and then zero right in on the offender,

however small or non-obvious. It's not a constant. It changes right

along with the general level of background exposure and my own level

of reactivity.<<

Oh yes, definitely. I absolutely agree with you about this. If I am

exposed to a lot of hits in a short time span my `mold sense' will

become confused. But the water contamination is very distinct, it

feels very unique.

Incidentally, there might be a scientific explanation for this, albeit

with the help of a theory which still isn't accepted in the wider

scientific community. It was discovered by a French biologist and

allergist Batist. He noticed that some substances (I think he

experimented with some antigens) which were so diluted that the

solution could not contain even one molecule of the diluted substance,

still retained the properties of the diluted substance. He called this

phenomenon `the memory of water' and his work was published in the

prestigious British scientific magazine " Nature " . However, when the

scientific establishment realized that his discovery might have

far-reaching and for them negative consequences (think big Pharmas

losing a lot of money), the magazine hired the infamous debunker

Randi (who is not a scientist at all) to supervise the next

experiment. This was very unusual for the people of science, because

Batiste had already been a recognized authority on allergies, not some

quack and fraud. In short, they ruined his career, but Batiste claimed

to the end of his life that the phenomenon is real, that it is

reproducible as an experiment and that there's nothing magical or

supernatural about it. The BBC made a TV show about this ( " Horizon " ,

the episode about homeopathy). For Batiste this theory was just an

extension of the current theories how substances interact with water.

I am not claiming that this phenomenon (if it's real) is the

explanation for what happens with the tap water in my flat, but it's

the best guess I've found so far.

Also, Serena, I'd like to thank you for the advice you gave me some

time ago, about how to dispose of the contaminated chair. You advised

me to let someone demolish it rather than setting it on fire. I have

successfully done this and now at least I don't have that mold reactor

in my flat anymore. Unfortunately the other three dining-room chairs,

which stood next to that most contaminated one, also got

cross-contaminated .. .. and they are in fact the prime source of

contamination for the tap water now. They'll have to go too. It's very

hard when one has to do all this dirty job by himself, despite being

so reactive to the offending substances. Nobody wants to help because

what you complain on just doesn't make sense to them.

It is really interesting how people are conditioned to sympathize with

you when you have some recognized and well-known disease like common

cold (I got flu last Friday and was literally overwhelmed with well

wishers, from friends to distant cousins, all of them offering plenty

of advice on how to get better), whereas those same people will roll

their eyes in disbelief if you tell them anything about a serious

mold-related problem, which is always SO MUCH WORSE than any flu or

cold. In that case you're gonna hear " Oh well, it will pass, just

think positive " type of consolation response, at best. Much worse

responses can be expected, of course.

December 7, 2005

hi all--got a call from a friend of mine who is also sick from our former

workplace. he went back into the building this past week to visit people

from his church--he's a part time pastor now. he said after visiting those

people, for several days after, he felt sick or bad again. he made the

comment " oh it was just psychological. " i don't believe that for a

minute......i think he had another true " mold hit. " right or wrong?

comments, that i can forward to him, please? thanks!

victoria

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or touching faucets???