Moldy Computers

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

My situation is that my wife and I have been trying to escape from mold for the

last 11 months. Last December we had a roof leak, which when you live in Maine

can be a serious problem to fix, because of weather and temperature concerns.

After numerous attempts to stop the leaking, our home was seriously contaminated

with mold. My wife, who already had MCS, became progressively sicker and sicker

as the winter went along. We did finally stop the leak in March. We considered

remediation, but decided that it would just be best to leave the house with

everything we own and move on. We left everything and bought new clothes and

move into a rental house that we thought would be safe. We liquidated the

contents of the house and sold the house in April of this year.

The rental house we moved into was 3 years old and was thought to not have a

mold problem. We quickly found out that of course there was a mold problem.

There was rotten wood around one of the doors and water had infiltrated into the

walls around the door so that anytime it rained, the mold became active. The

other problem was that the house that was advertised as having been newly

furnished, was in actuality newly furnished with moldy second hand furniture and

rugs, much of which must have been stored in a basement for some time.

Everything looked OK, but after you sat on the sofa for a while, then the smell

of mold would begin to appear over the top of the cleaning products that were

used to cover up the smell. We had the furnature put into a garage for storage,

and we began to look for another place to live. It took another 5 months before

we could find a place to live that was not already saturated with mold. We are

now in another rental house for about a month that is unfurnished and we are

trying to obtain a few minimal possessions. This is proving to be much more

difficult than I could have imagined. More than half the stuff we purchase ends

up arriving with mold contamination. Electronics seem to be particularly

problematic. Specifically computer equipment is a real problem.

I work through the internet and require the use of a good computer. When we left

our home last spring, I bought a new HP pavilion Elite desktop PC with an I-7

processor. I think it was moldy when it arrived. I know for certain that the

mouse had a bad moldy smell. My wife started reacting to the computer almost

immediately, but because of the other mold problems in the rental house at that

time we couldn't isolate any particular cause for her reactions. When she is

exposed to certain molds, she experiences prickling throughout her body, which

advances into neuropathy and icepick pains. Exhaustion, depression, mind fog,

and cardiac symptems then begin to unfold if the exposure is intense or

prolonged. We went through numerous keyboards and mice over the course of the

summer thinking that this would help. Nothing helped.

When we left that rental situation and moved into our current situation, I got

rid of the HP machine and bought a Dell Inspiron laptop and had it shielded

against EMF radiation, thinking that perhaps EMFs might be a contributing

factor. The company also treated the laptop with ozone to get rid of the new

computer smell, which should also have killed mold.

It was probably ok when it arrived, but since we did not have any furniture when

we moved into this house, I put the laptop on top of a box that contained a HP

printer that I bought when I bought the HP desktop machine last spring. Shortly

thereafter, my wife began reacting to the laptop. I wasn't using a computer

desk, because the new desk I ordered from Target arrived reeking of mold. We

didn't unpack the printer last Spring because we thought we would be moving at

any time and wanted to keep it clean until we made our next move. Well, when we

finally unpacked the printer we found that it was reeking of mold. Actually

it seems like the plastic bag that the printer was in might have been the worse

part of the situation. However, since the laptop was sitting on the box and

sucking up air from the box for a couple weeks, it seems that this might have

caused contamination. I don't actually use the keyboard on the laptop because I

prefer a larger keyboard. I am now on my second keyboard because the first one

grew mold rather rapidly. I never eat at the keyboard and am rather perplexed as

to what is going on here.

The crazy thing is that my wife did not react to the old laptops that we had in

the house that we owned, which had the roof leak. We had old grungy external

keyboards and didn't seem to have this type of problem.

I am now beginning to search for another computer and feel like I am playing

Russian roulette. I have purchased telephones, keyboards and mice that were all

very moldy. They were so moldy that I actually never used some of them, I just

put them back in the box and sent them back to the vendor. I went through a

series of Microsoft Natural Keyboards purchased from different sources and all

were moldy. So, I am looking for advice. The longer I keep using this current

computer, the more my wife seems to be reacting.

Do you recommend any particular brands that might be less likely to already be

moldy when purchased?

Which brands would be the least toxic in terms of chemical exposure?

How would you take care of them to prevent mold contamination?

I am wondering if the new computer technology is somehow causing this situation,

since our old computers didn't seem to produce this kind of problem. The guy who

did the shielding of the laptop said that the new processors emit EMF radiation,

which is very similar to cell phone radiation. Older generation PCs apparently

were not as bad.

Thanks,