As many of you know, the house my mother and I bought underwent mold remediation. We got vinyl plank flooring put in last week and had some painting done. We are slowly getting what we need to be able to move in.

I do have the Surviving Mold Surviving and Thriving manual but find it overwhelming. I want to avoid contaminating the house as much as possible, but that is going to be very difficult in regards to managing my mother’s actions. She constantly does things I have told her not to because she forgets. Trying to manage her reminds me of herding cats😜. (If you’ve never seen the video I posted the link for your amusement)

Shoes -

I plan for us to take our shoes off in the house, but I don’t know what to do with them. If we keep our shoes in the garage, won’t the heat and humidity ruin the shoes?

I’ve read before that the best way to store shoes to keep them in good condition is to store them in their original boxes. I used to do that for all but the shoes I wore regularly.

Here’s where mold exposure and chemical exposure kick in. Paper products of any kind are prone to mold and mycotoxins. This includes shoe boxes and the paper inside them. I thought about buying new “shoe boxes” sold wrapped in plastic. However, I find those are inferior paper quality and smell more chemically toxic than original shoeboxes. And, of, they’re still paper (mold food).

Plastic is supposed to be bad for shoes because it’s not breathable. Shoes that are worn, of course, pick up mold spores, mycotoxins, bacteria, germs, etc from everywhere they go and would track all that into the air and surfaces of the house.

So . . . . for those who are trying to avoid mold, what do you do about your shoes?

Clothes worn out in moldy places can be removed and thrown in the washer when returning home, but shoes are a conundrum.

Window Blinds -

I know about the Earthshade company and their aluminum blinds, but they are very expensive. My mom likes the look of wood blinds, but wood warps and is expensive. Faux wood and some composite are PVC. Anyone know of composite blinds that do NOT have PVC? Aluminum blinds don’t look as nice but may be all we can afford. We need Home Depot cheap and non-toxic. Pretty sure that doesn’t exist, but open to suggestions.

I really prefer blinds over any other type of window treatment. Hunter Douglas makes aluminum blinds, but they are expensive, too. Everything is expensive. It’s blowing my mind how much everything costs. Even little items add up to hundreds if not thousands very quickly.
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Cowboys Herding Cats video - it’s a hoot.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pk7yqltmvp8

Hey, Sara! Thank you so much for reading and responding to my long winded post. We haven’t moved in yet. Should be in by the end of this month.

There is a tiny coat closet inside the entryway. I thought about putting one of those round metal shoe trees in the closet. I think I could fit one in there. I could vacuum off the boxes of dress shoes and keep them in their original boxes on the closet shelf.

We got a whole house UltraAire dehumidifier installed in the new HVAC system along with an Aprilaire filter in the HVAC. I have it set to where humidity stays around 47 or below. I’m not worried about humidity, as the system works great even when doors have been left open while contractors were going in and out.

What brand/store did you find the paper shades? I need to look into that. That might be a good option for temporary window coverings until we know what we really want/need. I just worry about paper because I know how much they absorb mycotoxins and microbial VOCs. I can smell mold/mycotoxins on paper products. Honestly, I am shocked that I can even go inside the house, as sheetrock walls are paper products. I was afraid the toxins would be so ingrained into the walls that it would not work. I really think using the Aerosolver Pure fogging and wipedown likely made a big difference in cleaning the air.

I know the house isn’t mold free. The remediator did his own air and surface sample testing and said it came back nothing or light. I think the air sample test came back at 13, which sounded artificially low. I don’t know how he did the test (how long he ran the air sample or if he stirred up the air before taking the sample or if he ran an air scrubbier just before or during testing.

I did have the mold dog come back after the work was finished, and he did not detect any remaining sources of contamination, so I feel confident the sources were adequately removed. I don’t know how clean the air actually is, though. There is still mold inside in some places that were not cleaned - insides and edges of window frames, on the surfaces of the plastic toilet flanges that the toilets will be mounted on, possibly on plumbing surfaces. I will have to clean all those myself, which will send spores airborne. I don’t have a new air purifier yet. I do have a HEPA vacuum and have been using it.

I can’t wait to get into our house, but I’m nervous, too.

Hey Girlie!

No, it wasn’t huge amounts of mold. When the inspector did testing of mold and mycotoxins a couple months after the big leak happened, it was elevated but mild-moderate. Normal people would not have detected it, although everyone who came out of the attic coughed while they would tell me they didn’t smell or detect anything, LOL!! People who aren’t mold sensitive don’t know when they’re being exposed or recognize their own body’s responses to exposure like coughing, sneezing, or headaches that come later.

Before the remediation, I couldn’t even check the mailbox at the curb without having reactions and walked around the perimeter of the house and could detect reactions around a certain section of the house. At times, I can still smell mold/mycotoxins around the outside in areas.

The leak happened in early May of last year. In early July, the leak was found in the relative’s house I was living at. That exposure gave me MCAS and severe reactivity to mold and chemicals for many months. That only got better in mid-February of this year after I started TUDCA Plus.

It has been a long, tough road. I really hope I will be okay living in the house. I have been spending time there every day, but there is a smell and I do have reactions in there. It is most likely from the new sheetrock or the drywall mud they used. The paint was fine. I used Benjamin Moore Natura.

As far as getting a house 100% mold free, no. However, there are CIRS people who keep their ERMI score below zero. They do this by removing ALL sources of mold contamination in the house, using dehumidifiers and air purifiers, removing shoes and changing clothes before coming inside, religious cleaning and decontamination rituals of themselves and anything they bring inside the inside, testing their reactions to individual items one at a time instead of just bringing a bunch of stuff in, and not allowing visitors in their home. I can’t live that strictly, especially not with my mother. I can’t manage her that well.