subject: Health Risks that Mold Can Pose to Your Family [print this page] Health Risks that Mold Can Pose to Your Family
A lot of us don't realize that mold spores are present in nearly every home, and that good sanitation has little to do with their presence. According to Robert Weitz, owner of RTK Environmental Group, mold can cause numerous health problems, from minor respiratory complaints to bleeding lungs.
There are more than 100,000 different types of molds. Mold affects health by releasing spores into the air to seed new colonies. When inhaled mold spores can cause chronic allergies, headaches, fatigue, skin rashes, throat and eye irritations, wheezing, and many respiratory problems.
Widespread
Mold propagates by releasing new spores into the air to populate new colonies. Mold spores are present in nearly every home, even in North Eastern United States. They enter your home through windows or air conditioners, or are carried indoors on your shoes and clothing. Once inside, spores need only two things to colonize: a source of moisture and something to feed on. Your home has plenty of both. If there is trapped moisture, a leaky pipe, or a flooded basement or bathroom, mold is able to feed on carpets, wood, fabrics, and other common materials. It takes less than 24 hours to establish a new colony.
Nuisance and Toxic
The way mold poses a health risk is when someone inhales these mold spores. These spores can be toxic to the human system, or they can act as allergens. Mold that is an allergen is also called a "nuisance spore" type. Nuisance spores are not necessarily toxic, meaning they are not poisonous, but they can cause sneezing and respiratory symptoms. That's why they are called nuisance spores they are still significant to our health and well-being although they are not toxic.
Toxic molds are more dangerous than ordinary molds because their spores contain poisonous mycotoxins. Their effect, particularly short-term, on a human being is more significant than an allergen would be. In concentrated amounts, mycotoxins can cause skin blistering, nosebleeds, asthma symptoms, or chest pains, among other things. In extreme situations, they can even cause shock and death.
Mold can be identified in more severe cases in the bloodstream. In a surgery suite or hospital operating room, when mold spores are evident in the air, this can create infection that can possibly even result in death. In the United States, there are thousands of people who die in each year in hospitals as a result of mold being prevalent in surgery rooms. In a Midwestern housing project where mold was widespread, toxic mold was attributed to bleeding lungs in infants and their untimely deaths.
Airborne
Mold spores become airborne, and through a process of migration or cross-contamination, they can travel to other unaffected rooms in a dwelling or building. For this reason, we always want to take air samples in different rooms away from the mold source when we perform mold inspections.
That makes the importance of those air samples more vital, as very often, mold remediation may include not only the removal of the mold area, but also the cleaning of adjacent rooms to bring mold and air levels back to normal. That cleaning is performed with a process called HEPA vacuuming and damp-wiping in conjunction with the use of air cleaning devices.
It is important to note that all people are affected differently by mold. Some people may have no ill effects at all from exposure, while some people may not be able to tolerate the area infested by mold at all they may sneeze and cough so badly they would have to leave that area. So there is a wide variability of how people are affected. To be safe and to protect your family, ask or hire a professional to locate and identify the mold in your North Eastern United States area home.
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