Testing wall cavities of house

[Guest guest]

I haven't ever brought this up before but can't see what inside walls and that

is a real worry, but can't a person take the wall sockets off walls and put one

of those devices that suck air from area into it and impact what is ever in air

onto a petri dish and test air inside walls that way?

I have thought about this for one reason. I think what happened to my house is

that it is an old house that was built so that air completely circulated

throughout structure, throughout basement and attic and rooms too. It was not

intended to have insulation or VENTS in roof, so what happens is it was

'updated' to what the new housing industry is doing, i.e. person who had house

before me added insulation in attic and wherever they were able to put it. That

cut back on air circulating as it was designed to but still much more air leakie

and much more mixing of air than modern houses are. THEN a roofer was here

doing work and said " YOU NEED ROOF VENTS " , you don't have any vents in your

roof. Well, I realize now that he is looking for business and is not an

architect or builder, so I shouldn't have taken his word for it, and added them,

sounded as if roof vents would help the house to be cooler in summer. In fact

I'm such a fan of " fresh air " and liked the idea so much, I added more than he

recommended. He didn't say that was a problem, but later talked to someone else

that had problem after adding venting and they had added more vents than

recommended also, so quantity of vents could have added to degree of problem.

Anyway, what happened is that outside air was able to come into attic and ***get

into house interior VIA wall cavities that it was never meant to carry outside

air!! ...so outside air was able to mingle with inside air in the wall cavities

of house and over time problem developed (with my health) and later realized

with the house. In addition to maybe growing mold and bacteria, which we were

never able to locate, but tested in dishes, it dragged into the interior of

house, dirty insulation from attic which caused my skin to itch terribly and I

sometimes scratched so much, I scratched open my skin, giving me a constant rash

(which could have allowed any kind of bacteria or mold direct contact with

blood).

ANYHOW, I closed up vents, cleaned attic and took out dirty insulation. However

I don't know if there is any substantial water damage inside of walls and if so,

where. Has anyone done this, suck air out of the walls and onto petri dishes

and tested the dishes.

I thought the attic was source but when we got up there to clean up, noticed

there was no odor at all and professional cleanup service I hired saw no water

damage, just alot of soot. There was a bird nest and dead bird up there and

insulation was old and was good to get out since air can move down into house.

We do have more plans to do some 'air sealing' to prevent air from mingling but

just closing up the vents did alot.

Forgot to add, the outside air coming into house did cause much water

condensation on windows, so I think that was evidence of condensation occuring

with outside dry cold air and indoor warm moist air in the winter. It didn't

condense in the attic apparently, so I'm thinking condensation may have occured

inside the walls. Any thoughts on this mode of testing?