Cleaning the Environment: When you Suspect Mold in the Home

Mold is sneaky—it doesn’t just grow in obvious damp spots. It hides behind walls, inside HVAC systems, under kitchen sinks, and even in your attic insulation. In this episode, we walk through the most common (and most overlooked) places mold can thrive, the varieties that are most toxic, and the questions you must ask when hiring an inspector. 

You’ll learn why not all “black mold” is the same, how the wrong inspection can miss the real problem, and practical steps to take if you suspect your home is making you sick. Your healing journey isn’t just about your body—it’s about the space you live in, too.

Please note that transcripts may contain minor errors or inaccuracies. We hope you enjoy reading them and find them helpful.

Hey friends, welcome back to Hey, You're Gonna Be Okay. I'm Elizabeth and today we're moving into part three of our mold series. We've talked about how mold can affect your health, we've talked about what happens in your body, and now we're gonna focus on something super practical. What can you do if you suspect mold in your home? Where do we start? First we gotta start with some testing, okay? There are a few ways that you can do this. Mold plates are some of my favorite because they're really inexpensive and they can give you a yes or no. But that's about all they're good for. Some old plates are simpler, they're low cost option, but they definitely don't give you as much of a complete picture. Even those ones that get sent off, not a big fan.

Microbalance Health is who we partner with and really like to use. They have really great mold testing plates, really great information around those. And I think it's like $35 for a set of five. So grabbing those, putting them around your house, the directions can help you see if mold is growing. ERMI testing is our next favorite. This is probably the best starting place because it gives you a breakdown of the types of mold in your environment. It is absolutely the quantity of mold in your home that's going to affect everyone, but the types of mold are really important to understand because different molds are more toxic than other molds. We have a great link on our website to Enviro and Biomics, which is where I found to have the ERMI at the most inexpensive. We've also got some good video teaching about how to collect an ERMI appropriately so that you get really good and accurate results. It's super easy. You use like a Swiffer and you collect dust around your home or you can use a little attachment that goes in your vacuum cleaner and sucks up dust around your house. You send it off and they send you back your report. 

Now remember, not all black looking mold is that famous black mold or sacubatris. Other molds can be black too. Testing is what helps us know exactly what we're dealing with and that's what makes it so important. Some of the other common molds that we see, aspergillus, penicillium, fusarium, alternaria, I can never say this one, chadamonium, I'm just gonna tell you right now I said it incorrectly. Sacubatris, Walla mia, you know what mold isn't like a new thing right like it exists in our environment mold is there to decompose dead things. Even the Bible talks about it in Leviticus 14. The Bible describes scraping the inside of a contaminated house and taking the debris outside the city to an unclean place away from where the people were and I don't know to me it says mold's always been there it's gonna continue being there. Things don't change, but how we deal with them maybe has to change. 

Remember our airtight homes, that's a big part of why mold has become more of an issue and just lots of building practices and things like that. What does mold look like in our homes? Where are we gonna find mold in our homes? Let's walk through kind of room by room where we need to be thinking about. Bathrooms, this one's easy, Low hanging fruit around your showers, around your tubs, around your sinks, especially if there's crack grout or caulking, you're gonna see it on the ceilings or the walls where steam is collecting. You're also gonna see it underneath or around leaky toilets. I learned the other day that you're supposed to replace the wax seal in your toilet every five years so there's no leaking going on.

Yes, I'm getting mine replaced, but it's so important to think about too if a bathroom is like on a second floor or above another floor because where does water go when it leaks down? It goes down. Gravity pulls water down, so then you can have not only an issue in your bathroom, but now an issue in your basement or your living room ceiling. So really important to think about those water areas from bathrooms. Overflowing bathtubs too. Our kids, they do unintelligent things sometimes. Overflowing a bathtub or kitchen sink is another place. Kitchens-other water source right under sinks from past or current leaks I love when my clients put it on those little lunch trays underneath your plumbing you put a little paper towel down there and you can always see if there's been a leak really quickly and easily because under sinks from past or current leaks is a big place where mold can hang out. Behind refrigerators with water lines be careful when you're replacing your water line. Be careful when you're replacing water filtration we want to make sure that mold is not back there around dishwashers where moisture can collect either from condensation or leaking. Think about both of those things, okay? 

Let's move on to the basement. If you've had a basement or a crawl space where there has been a water intrusion, where you've had flooding, where there's high humidity, we have to mitigate humidity, okay? So dehumidifiers all the time. Crawl spaces, if there's not an adequate vapor barrier under your home, if the vapor barrier is old, we gotta check the humidity down there. If the humidity is really high, then we know that that trapped humidity can cling on to building materials and start mold growth. A lot of clients here in the Kentucky area-we have cave systems have an amazing amount of moisture under their homes and no idea that it's there. So really really important to monitor that if you're on a crawl space.

Stored items like cardboard, wood, fabric, your Christmas decorations that came off the roof in the middle of the snow that you threw in a box. Those sort of things can have moisture and harbor mold too. And like I said, those crawl spaces with poor drainage, I guess those are two separate issues, right? If we have downspouts that are pouring water in towards the foundation of our home, or if crawl spaces are staying a little bit too wet around the edges, they don't have great drainage from downspouts, gutters, water issues where the house isn't level, all those sort of things, really, really important to know that those crawl spaces under the home are big areas. HVAC systems are another one. A lot of times you'll have your main system in the basement, so if the basement is humid, your HVAC system can be trouble. Wear air ducts and dust and moisture meat. That's the recipe for disaster, right? A lot of times in the South, we'll talk with clients and their duct work has been run through their attics. Their attic is in air conditioned and it's upwards of 90 to 100, low hundreds in the summer with high humidity. Ductwork through the roof and it's very very cold it's meeting with the very hot air and you get all this condensation so those sort of things are really important to consider any ductwork that has condensation in and around it we want to be noting paying attention to that dehumidifying giving it a check there because you've got a little dust in there you've got enough for mold to lash on and grow on coils or drip pans of AC units, a lot of times your AC unit, I think always, I'm no HVAC girlie, but you're gonna have a condensation line where there's natural condensation that's part of an air conditioning unit, especially in summer because the air in the unit is gonna be colder than the air in your room by some degree and it's gonna create some condensation and there should be a drip line that runs to the outdoors or to a sump pump, something like that. We wanna make sure that those things are able to flow, that they're getting dried out at some point.

Attics, back to the old attic, for different reasons. On the roof, the sheathing or insulation, if there's a leak, if there's any water intrusion, you can see mold growth there around any vents or chimneys. Again, think of anywhere a bug can crawl through, water could also maybe crawl through, and so we wanna think about those areas. Attics are tough too because a lot of times humidity there is rough. There can be a lot of humidity, and of course you have building materials, you've got insulation. Another important thing to talk about is spray foam insulation. It's beautiful and it's wonderful. A part of my home has it in it. The issue is the breathability of the spray foam. Sometimes you can have the spray foam trapped against building material and then you've got shingles, but you're holding moisture in between if the shingles are not in great condition.

I'm no roofer, but I know that many of our clients who've had spray foam have had moisture issues, so that can be one like sneaky place. Windows and doors, really easy place to think about. On the window seals, where condensation collects. Any window seal that's squishy, dirty, gathering yuck. Any door frames with water intrusion. Any door or window that is wrinkly, warped, et cetera. Also think about your wallpaper, ladies.

If the home doesn't breathe well or if wallpaper is on a wall that faces morning or evening sun, can be major heat changes and therefore condensation trapped moisture behind walls. So around windows and doors we see that a lot because the wallpaper will run up to the window or door. There's more condensation, water intrusion issue there and then you can have mold growth. Hidden areas. This is what we think of. This is what we really think of when it comes to mold is behind walls, under flooring, in the walls or the siding is damaged or the plumbing leaks slowly those sort of things hidden areas are really important and you can use a moisture meter But remember if it's not wet right now, but it's been wet and had issues before there can still be mold growth in there causing issues. 

So what should you look for in a mold inspector? This is really important because a good inspector can make all the difference. We're gonna talk to a really good inspector and get into this more on the next episode but you want to ask about their process you want to ask how long are they gonna be on site? Will they inspect your crawl spaces? Attic's, HVAC, Appliances, remember the refrigerator, the washer machine-that's a lot of water right. Will they provide a full report with photos and clear next steps for remediation and what kind of testing will be included we want outside the air? Outside the home air testing we went inside the home air testing in many different rooms. What tools are they going to use you're looking for somebody who's going to use moisture meters? Maybe thermal imaging fine particulate meters some of our mold inspectors have a little camera that they can drill a small hole in the wall and go in and look on the inside of the wall without really making a lot of damage. So that can be really, really important. It's important for you too to think about the building materials and age of your home. Some homes that have plaster on them, you're not gonna really be able to get in behind the wall, because the plaster is traditionally adhered to brick. Homes that have drywall, you've got some air space there. So important to think about that. You want them to ask about your home's history. How old is it? Who's lived there? Has there been flooding? Was it ever used for anything else, etc. We want to see if they're familiar with the ERMI and EMA and testing for bacteria that's related. again, terrible pronunciation. Actinomyces. Do they understand different molds and how the mycotoxins can impact your health? If they are telling you that mold doesn't really impact your health, it's no big deal. We'll just encapsulate it and move on. Huge red flag. 

So we definitely want them to have an understanding of molds connection to the body. Now when it comes to the HVAC system this is critical and sometimes you almost need an HVAC inspection depending on your issues on top of your mold inspector depending on their skill level. Someone who is addressing your HVAC system they should know how to properly shut off the air handler, swab the inside of the unit including your coil. Okay really really important they should check your duct work, they should remove a few vents to swab inside of your work. If you have ducks running through your attic, really really important. Why does this matter? We just talked about this because mold in your duck work can spread spores and mycotoxins throughout your whole home, right? Say there's mold in the duck work, the air blows through and it's literally like a blow dryer to just stay in the mold and mycotoxins around the house impacting everybody's health. So of course we need to make sure that this person is going to help you address the source of moisture so that there's no more mold growing when there's moisture, right? If there's moisture, mold can grow. If we don't fix that, we will keep chasing symptoms the other thing that's really important is a remediation plan a good mold inspection should give you a very thorough step-by-step process for removing the mold for how to do it safely for what things need to be checked afterwards in any places where there could be water intrusion risks to your home. So say there's a gutter that's looking like it's a little sketchy that should be listed in there those sort of things that could become issues or threats to your home are really important. 

So to kind of sum it all up who inspects, how they inspect is really important. You can go around your house and think about mold. I have a really great article on our blog on heyheymay.com, just search mold. It brings up a really calm, easy way to look for mold and mycotoxins in the home before you get into the whole full-blown mold inspection. So, if you're listening right now and you're thinking, this sounds like my home, take heart. You don't have to figure this out alone. Testing your environment is a powerful first step towards healing. Don't put it off. It can affect your health. Don't be like, that's super overwhelming. I can't even do it. I just don't want to know you gotta know okay. You gotta know if I could get back the time that I push back mold inspection and mold remediation gosh I could probably get back some really healthy like life adventures and some health in general But look if you guys need help or guidance or you want to learn more about how we support families through mold illness and other chronic infections and chronic illness issues visit heyheymay.com. There's tons of info there. Thanks for being here today. You can tackle more with your family remember hey you're you're gonna be okay.