Help! I Think My Home Is Making Me Sick!

Read on for tips if you think your home is working against you (BTW it is not!).

We all get winter colds and can come home from work with a cold “caught” in the public arena. But the home is a sanctuary, and it is the place where we go to get comfortable at the end of the day and to heal. If you have had mold in the home, it is not going to help you, it might be the reason that you are feeling sick. Here are the reasons why this might be the case.
Mold illnesses, or better yet, illnesses experienced by people who are susceptible to mold, are common today for anyone living in a home. Homes these days are much more efficient at keeping out drafts then in years past. The homes are less drafty, windows are more energy efficient and air-tight, and there are fewer opportunities for fresh air to “leak” into the home than in the past. That means that in modern homes, we need to guard the safety of our air quality, because that air is literally locked in – it is quite frankly the only air we’ve got in a modern home today!
When mold grows in a home, there are going to be associated health concerns. There are thousands of types and subcategories of molds that can be found to create a health hazard for humans. Most people forget that one mold found in the home can be cross-contaminated with other molds quite easily. For this reason, it makes it generally difficult in some circumstances to identify molds on your own. You need a professional to tell you exactly what type of molds you are dealing with in that case. This is because one mold may not affect a person in the home, but the second person’s eyes may water as a mold symptom when in close proximity to that same mold colony.

The health effects that someone experiences from mold will also depend on the length of time the individual has been exposed to the mold. If mold is in a basement area of a home, and the washing machine and dryer are there, then exposure to family members doing laundry tasks in that area of the house may be high. But if mold is growing in a small area of the home (such as a closed closet area) that is less frequented by the family members, then the mold colony bay be growing out of control, and still not affect anyone in the family.

If a person has asthma, a compromised immune system, is elderly or has other chronic health conditions, it may be the case that the individual will be more likely to be susceptible to developing an illness from mold exposure as well. When mold spore counts are measured in the air of a home, it will determine how much mold is in the home. But these mold counts may not be the most accurate measure as to how sick someone living in the home will be, because of exposure to breathing the mold.

Remember, a person can become ill from breathing in mold, having physical contacts with mold by touching it, or have mold spores travel to areas where food is being prepared and ingested in the home. Don’t forget that even “dead” or dormant mold can also be a health hazard for humans and pets living in a home with mold.

Finally, mold can only grow where conditions exist for it to thrive. If there is no water source, there will be no mold, end of story. Homeowners should always be on the lookout for leaks, cracks, dips and seepages of water in and around the home – to help prevent mold from taking hold in the living environments of a home.