Bad Reaction to Washed Clothing (and our story)

[Guest guest]

All,

I'm new to the board. For obvious reasons, I guess that's not a good thing, but

I really do appreciate this resource. I can't imagine what we would have done

without it. I'll start with my story and then I'll pose my question about our

clothing.

We've lived in our house for about 2 1/2 years now. I've had ongoing health

issues for some time. We've spend many thousands (probably tens of thousands)

on inconclusive medical tests. I've changed my diet and am now gluten free and

sugar restricted, which has helped, but I still deal with bouts of vertigo,

joint/muscle pain, GI issues, headaches, etc. I have a wife and two children

(girls ages 3 and 6 months) and thankfully, they " seem " O.K. with the exception

of general allergies.

We live in South Carolina, and for the past few years we've been in drought

conditions, but about 2 months ago we were deluged with lots of rain. A week or

so into that rain is when our story begins. One night my wife and I both

started to notice a metallic taste in our mouths. We thought it was odd, but

blew it off. After a few days of the taste, and the start of a burning

sensation in our throats, we decided to evacuate the house. After a few weeks

of uncertainty we ended up having our HVAC system replaced (it was ~ 30 yrs

old). Upon removal of the unit in the crawlspace, the contractor began coughing

and having problems breathing. The entire unit and duct work was infested with

mold. The old furnace in the crawl space had been installed in the " mud " and

there was a foundation leak that was caused by hole that was knocked into the

block to allow for a gas line to be run about 10 yrs ago. That gas line was

rusting out due to improper taping, and the hole in the wall was never sealed.

The water was draining right into the furnace and it provided moisture for the

mold.

We also came to find out that our hot water heater (gas) was improperly vented

and was blowing post combustion products into our crawl (think carbon monoxide

and carbon dioxide). Long story short, we have a number of problems with the

house. The HVAC system was replaced with a high end York unit that allows for

humidity control and has a nice media filter (Merv 11). The hot water heater

will be replaced and I will have a new unit installed outside to help with the

venting.

We had mold testing done on the house (a number of air samples and an ERMI

test). The air samples in the crawl revealed that 80% of the spore count was

Asperigillus/Pen. The outdoor count was 0.2%. The indoor air of the house was

composed of about 30-40% Asperigillus/Pen and about 50% Caladeosporum. We also

had 0-1% of Chaetomium in two rooms. From what I've read, this is a big no no.

The ERMI test confirmed the air samples and gave the house a rating of Level 4

(with a number 6 total). The Level 4 is the highest level they assign and

indicates a mold problem.

We are in the process of interviewing remediation companies to see what help the

might be able to offer, but I'm afraid of our house, and I'm not sure if any

amount of remediation will make me comfortable putting my family back in that

environment.

So here we are, 2 months later, living in a hotel and going deeper into debt .

It's been a hard road so far, but it seems that many of you have had it much

worse, and I take comfort knowing that there are others who have walked this

road before.

Our main concern at the moment is an odd one. The metallic taste/burning mouth

problem that we were having is still a problem with us. We cross contaminated 2

other environments prior to moving into the hotel (both of our parents houses

). In each case, we were fine for a few days, and then we began to notice the

symptoms again, slowly at first (taste) and then progressing to the burning

mouth and numb tongue.

We noticed that washing clothing seemed to make the problem worse. When

" infected " clothing was washed, it became more potent. I remember sleeping on

bed linens one night that were washed in a load that was separate from any

" infected " clothing and it felt like I had put my head over a bowl of bleach and

was inhaling the whole night. It was horrible. We've tried all number of

detergents. We tried extra rinses, using bleach, not using bleach, using baking

soda and vinegar, using clear ammonia, etc. Nothing seems to help, the reaction

is immediate. If the clothing is being washed or dried and we are around it,

our throats burn immediately. The same is true after the fact. It's at the

point where we are buying new clothing every week. I don't see how we can keep

this up.

I even had a cleaning service that specializes in removing mold from clothing

try to clean some of our clothes. They used dry cleaning (with Perk?) and

special enzymes when doing normal washes. Neither seemed to help completely.

They do seem somewhat reduced, but I still notice the " taste " and burning. The

lady that runs the company says that she's never seen this type of reaction in

20 years of cleaning contaminated clothing. Obviously, that was disheartening.

So here we are, 2 months later, deeper in debt, and not much further along that

we were when we started. We just moved to a new hotel room since the other one

started getting to us (bought new clothing ... again).

Does anyone have any thoughts?

We'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Mike