Kendra Seymour: there's over a hundred thousand different types of mold. They can come in a wide variety of colors. Sometimes, that's influenced by species, but it could also be influenced by the building material it's eating or whatever it's digesting. sometimes people will say only black mold can hurt you. You've probably seen that in the media. Well, lots of molds can be black. Not just stachybatris, which is I generally what I think most people are referring to. It's a toxic and producing mold. But here's the thing: stachybotris can be colors other than black. It can be a dark green. So you never want to just look at a mold and be like, that's not the scary kind. Because here's here's the truth. Mold, regardless of the species, needs to be safely removed from your home. you're not killing it, you're not painting over it, you're not fogging it, you want to remove it safely.
Aubree Felderhoff: Welcome back to Mold Free Mom. And you guys, y'all are in for a treat. I am so excited. I have my friend Kendra Seymour here, and she is the co founder and executive director of Change the Air Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering families navigating mold, water damage, and Poor indoor air quality. As a mother of two, Kendra discovered hidden mold and water damage in her home were harming her family's health. After years of research into mold and indoor toxins and a lot of hard lessons learned, she became dedicated to helping others by building awareness in online communities and collaborating with fellow advocates to educate the public around the importance of indoor air quality. Kendra, I this is long overdue, and I'm so excited to have you. So welcome to the show.
Kendra: You so much. I'm I'm so excited to be here. I know you and I share such a similar history. I think which speaks to the fact that, our stories are not as unique as we like to think they are, which is why I know you do what you do to help raise awareness and help prevent people from going, through what you did and what I did. So I'm just I'm so thrilled to be here to talk with you and your audience today.
Aubree: I know the audience would like to know and hear more about your story because it's it's a rough story for sure, but
Kendra: Yeah.
Aubree: very powerful one. So please share how you got started into this industry.
Kendra: Sure, I'll make a long story short. I made every mistake in the book. so if you're going through this and you feel like you've hit a lot of dead ends or you've made some wrong turns, I want you to know there's hope and you're gonna get through this. So part of the reason why, I do what I do at the foundation is to help you and others avoid those mistakes that I made. And I know you and I share that philosophy, but What happened was 15 years ago, my husband and I, we saved, we bought our first home. We're in Northern Virginia. It's very expensive area. And when it came time to buy the home, we were so excited that we found this this home was at the top of our budget. There were two other offers in on the home, and ours got picked. And I was thrilled. we thought we did everything right. we hired the home inspector who went through the home. And had found some moisture in the basement. And so our realtor had arranged with their realtor for the homeowners to fix the water damage. Now, looking back, this was probably like some random handyman. And I remember our realtor called and said, Hey, they opened up the basement. Why don't you swing by after work, you and your husband, and take a look? So we get there. And I remember it vividly to this day. I'm standing there with my husband, my realtor, their realtor, and this handyman dude that ripped down this wall of drywall that had a bunch of mold behind it we're not wearing any PPE. There's no sort of containment. and I actually said to my realtor, should we be standing here? Is is this healthy? Is this safe? And their realtor overheard and turned to me and said, if this is gonna be a problem, there are two other offers who would be thrilled to see yours fall through. And of course I didn't want that. I was already like picturing bringing my future children home to the house. And so they, repaired it. we later ended up having to open up that wall and re-remediate because they didn't get to the underlying moisture source, which is another takeaway. when you do remediation, you wanna make sure you identify the correct moisture source and fix it. But we fast forward and it was basically lipstick on a pig. It was at the height of those HGTV shows where everyone's like flipping houses to make money. And so it looked beautiful, but behind the walls and under floors, there was just a lot of problems. And you can fast forward, I'm nine months pregnant with our first child, and I'm on bed rest and I'm in the bathroom and I notice just a little bit of bleeding of the paint. The drywall, and I thought that's weird. I didn't see mold, I didn't smell mold. the bathroom's above it. I'm gonna call our contractor. And he was a great guy, licensed contractor. And I said, Hey, I can't wrap my head around this. I'm nine months pregnant. Can you come over and take a look? He gets there, he takes a pencil, and he's able to push it through the drywall. That's how saturated the drywall was. Again, no visible mold, no other staining. Just a little bit of paint bleeding that no one else in their right mind probably would have noticed. And he ended up taking care of it for us. And I said to him, do I have to worry about mold? And he says, don't worry. The EPA says if it's less than 10 square feet, you can rip it out when you don't need anything. never mind that that rule is not based in any kind of health or safety standards. I think people think, well, that must be safe because the government says. And if you actually look into what the EPA rule says, it's actually meant for contractors who have some sort of training around PPE and some of these materials, not for the general homeowner. But alas, he tore it out without any containment, without any PPP. And I'm in the next room, nine ones pregnant. we had other issues in the home, I end up having my second kid now. Fast forward. And I'm in the kitchen and I look up at the ceiling while I'm cooking and I see a stain about the size of a quarter. And I thought, odd, that wasn't here before. And that was underneath the only other bathroom. So this time with two small children, I was like, it's not just me and my husband anymore. If there's mold, I think I wanna I wanna take a few extra steps. So I call a plumber and the the person on the other line, I was like, listen, if you see mold, what do you do? the receptionist, was like, don't worry, he'll just work around the mold and then you can fix it later. I said, but yeah, I have these kids. isn't that gonna spread it everywhere? And she's like, no, no, don't worry. And then my mom got, I thought, that's not right. So I lucked out after years of making mistakes, which jumped over a lot of the other issues we had, and I call her a mediation company and they were amazing. And the woman who answered the phone, her name was Lois, the caller My Angel to this day. And I said, hey, this is what's going on. And she said, Honey, I'm not your first call. Your first call is to an IEP. And I said, What's an IEP? And that was the moment that I started to realize that everything we'd been doing before that we thought was right was probably the wrong way.
Aubree: what a blessing that you were able to talk to the receptionists at the remediation company who said,
Kendra: Yeah.
Aubree: Hold on, you don't start with us because so many
Kendra: Yeah.
Aubree: people don't know that and so many people don't don't say that to the homeowner.
Kendra: Right, right. And I I glossed over. There were so many health symptoms and things like that. Everyone looked different. No one was connecting the dots. I was thinking I was young, a young, tired mom. But I was told for my kids, some kids are just like this. And it it was really a time in my life where if I had had different information, I would have made different choices. And I still carry some guilt to this day. I did the best I could with what I had. But it's really why I do what I do now, so that people can get the right information and make the best choice for them and their family.
Aubree: Yeah, absolutely. So let's let let that lead us into what do you do now? Because I am excited for you to share a little bit about Change the Air Foundation and what that is and and give us information on that.
Kendra: Yeah, so four years ago, a little over four years ago, I had the opportunity to co-found w what has changed the air foundation today, where 501c three nonprofit. And I came together with Brandon Chapo. He was an air traffic controller in Ohio who was at the prime of his life, moved into a new beautiful flipped apartment unit and no shocker there. There was a lot of moisture and mold and he got very sick. And so he started felt this call to work to change the laws because in the state of Ohio there was n no awareness. It wasn't like lead and radon, where there's at least some level of awareness. and so he it really upended his life. And he had connected with Michael Rubino, who is in the remediation space. And together we we spent probably seven or eight months talking about what would it take to change this problem on a large scale. when we launched, ultimately we we do three things. We are consumer focused and we start with education, empowering the homeowner and runner. So they can make informed choices based on science and what we know and based on what's best for them and their family. and so we have everything from free downloads to our own podcast. I know you're gonna be joining us shortly on that. To step-by-step support navigating that inspection and remediation process. And it's all written by me. What you need to know as a homeowner. And then because we know that this problem requires large-scale reform, we also work to change laws at the state and federal level. So for the last four years, we've been doing that. We've had, well over a dozen bill proposals, we've had several several pass into law, which is amazing. We have wonderful volunteers to help us with that. And then we fund small-scale research. So really came from a shared passion to change the way we talk about mold and water damage and pour under air quality. Aubree Felderhoff | Mold Fr...: if you or someone that you love is dealing with mold illness or symptoms that look like they could be related to mold, and you're not sure where to start, you're feeling overwhelmed with even the thought of what to do next, you don't have to keep piecing this together alone. I offer a free discovery call where we can talk through where you are right now and what would actually help you get unstuck and move towards healing. Head over to moldfreemom.com and grab a free discovery call. See you there.
Aubree: it's amazing, amazing resource. And, I didn't know about it when I was going through my own mold struggle, but wow, what a blessing, that you guys can provide to others. I'm just thankful that there are people like you
Kendra: I basically wanted the resources that I wish I had had when I was going through because it was almost fifteen years ago when our journey started and there was even less awareness and less people talking about it. And and I am like, happy to see so much changing in the last few years with just the number of people talking about it, the number of doctors talking about it, but we still have such a long way to go. So I'm I this is why we keep doing what we're doing, right?
Aubree: Absolutely. Yep. So I want to talk a little bit about the backside of change of the air. How you were saying just a handful of states even require any sort of license for a mold remediation company and inspector, which when I first learned that, it blew my mind. I'm in Texas, so I'm one of the
Kendra: Yeah.
Aubree: very small amount of states. But can you walk us through it a little bit of what does that mean for families in in the forty two other states?
Kendra: I think the the takeaway for people here is that by and large this industry is really unregulated. Even in the states with regulation, it's minimal, right? Sometimes it'll require some certifications or licensure, and we can dig into that a little bit more later. Those are absolute bare minimum starting points. and so there's this large regulation gap, right? There's a lot of missing consumer protections. I'll give you an example that I think nails the point home for people. My molder mediator, the one Who finally showed me the way 10 years ago and how the right way to do things? He had said to me early on, I said, Yeah, I've just been having these guys like rip it out. And he's like, You don't do that, right? It's not a cosmetic issue, it's a health issue. And I said, Well, how come everyone isn't doing it the way you're doing it? That makes so much more sense. And he explained, that my hairdresser. the person who colors my hair has to have more training and certification than the person tearing out mold from my home. And that's true just about everywhere else. And if you think about other professions, teachers, plumbers, electricians, we require a certain amount of training because there is a safety and a health component to the work that they do. If they get it wrong, if my hairdresser doesn't mix the chemicals correctly, and then you burn. there's a health and human safety component here that's just not in place in terms of protections for remediation. So it's one of those things that you as the homeowner or runner, you have to learn about this. And then you have to take time to vet the people that you hire. And we can get into some of the red flags because unfortunately there are a lot of red flags out there.
Aubree: Yeah, I would love to because I know as someone that had gone through this originally, A, I was dealing with immense amount of brain fog and my own sickness story and my entire family was sick. And so you you throw that in and then you're trying to navigate who do I trust? What's a red flag? What's an IEP? what is remediation? Can we spray bleach? there's so much misinformation out there and it's understandable, as you said, a lot of it's not regulated. So why don't we break down first maybe some red flags for my listeners to know, this is this is a no-go. you've mentioned before three different types of IEPs. And I think that probably falls in. So can you can you break down in simple terms, Kendra? Because I know you're a wealth of information. just average me at home who's sick,
Kendra: Show
Aubree: who do I go to? Who do I not go to?
Kendra: Yeah. my story illustrated it perfectly. She said your first call is to an IEP and I went, what in the world is an IEP and why am I hiring another company first? And the reason why, and I say this all the time, you don't call a remediation company first, which is like the logical step, right? I think I see mold, I'm gonna call a remediation company. Is if you call a remediation company first, you're basically asking for a sales pitch to buy their services. The other thing to think about, and this is we see this sometimes with runners too, the person that's gonna come there, it's not regulated more than likely in how the the mold is addressed. They may exaggerate the scope of the problem, they may downplay it. See that happen all the time with landlords and rental property. it's not that bad. sometimes they'll sell you a service that's best for them or fastest for them or cheapest for them and not necessarily what's best. and cheapest for you. So this indoor environmental professional, I'll say IEP for short, is a person, a third party who's gonna come in is going to do a thorough inspection of your home top to bottom, inside and out. Now I do want to say that IEP is a general term, So it's not a certification. You're not gonna go to Google and type in IEP near me. you're gonna call this third party, they're gonna come in. The reason why, and these aren't real types, you said three, it's it's something I use a lot, is these are the types of experiences I see most often. And the most common one, the one that breaks my heart, is what happens the vast majority of the time. You call someone, they come in, they look around for 45 minutes, most of that time is spent setting up and taking down maybe some air testing equipment. And then they're like, hey, I'll call you in a few days with the results, and that will tell us if there's a problem. You don't want to hire the IEP who only does like testing and doesn't do the thorough investigation. And part of the reason why is every test has specific strengths and limitations. And testing should always answer a question you have about your home. So it should be very specific and targeted the type of test you do, when you do it, how you do it. And if you don't do that investigation, They're disgusting. Well, you hang out in the family room, let's do one here. It's really not helpful. And chances are you end up spending 500 to a thousand bucks to not get an answer. The other type, this is number two that I don't want you to hire, is the person who comes in and they're like, No, I'm just gonna look around. And again, they're in and out, they're not really looking underneath your sinks or in your closets, they're not going outside like, well, I'm Really see anything that looks like mold. the problem with that is mold and moisture is often hidden. It's behind walls, under floors, and hard to reach places like attics and crawl spaces and, basements. So the trick to looking for mold is actually to look for moisture. And so sometimes that person isn't going to do the best job. we again with runners, sometimes it's like, I don't see anything and I don't smell anything. Well, newsflash, my story is a perfect example. I didn't see anything, I didn't smell anything, or we had a ton of problems. so sometimes that person also will be like, I'm just gonna take a thermal imaging camera around the home. And if you don't know what that is, it's a tool that actually shows temperature differences and so uses color contrast and it's almost like you're peeking behind the wall. It's a very neat tool. But I think people think it's like a magic mold finder tool and it doesn't find mold. Again, it finds temperature differences. Well, what are some things that cause temperature differences behind your walls? It could be moisture, but it could also be missing insulation. Or maybe you have cold ductwork or a warm appliance. And so you never want to hire someone who only uses a tool and doesn't apply some of that like critical thinking that we're talking about. which leads me to the third thing. This is what you want. The person you want to hire is gonna do a multi-pronged inspection. and we talked about that, top to bottom, inside, outside. It's multiple hours, even for a small space. And I tend to think about it in in four distinct areas. They're gonna do that thorough investigation. They're gonna use testing and tools strategically. so there's all different kinds of tools that. They can use it from boroscopes to the thermal imaging to moisture meters. I own all these tools and they're great, but you have to know how to use them as part of the bigger picture. The third thing a good IEP is gonna do is they're gonna ask you about the history of the home. And this part gets overlooked so often that it's so important. sometimes the history isn't always known, but even with the time that you're living there, you're gonna be the one who notices. that stain wasn't here last month, or gosh, wow, there's a weird odor every time it rains. Or, last year during that storm, we did have water come in. Or yeah, the washing machine overflowed and we fixed the leak, but we didn't dry out any of the building materials. That history is so important. And then the last thing that they should do is ask you, Is anyone in the home experiencing health symptoms? They're not a doctor, but that's gonna clue them into, hey, Maybe something is going on here. Sometimes, hey, we just moved into this house and within a month, some of us started having these symptoms. Or sometimes people be like, I go on vacation and I feel better. And then I come home and my God, the migraines come back. Or, stomach aches for my children or whatever. So a good IP is gonna do all of those things. but you had asked me about red flags, so I'll just throw in a couple more and then I promise I'll stop. But the big
Aubree: Okay.
Kendra: rec flags are they won't go in your attic or crawl space. They'll say things like, mold behind a wall can't hurt you, which drives me bonkers. they'll say things like, that's not black mold. It's not the dangerous kind. Well, newsflash color isn't a great indicator of the toxicity. If it's producing mycotoxins, color is a poor indicator. I always say a red flag is if you ask them questions and instead of answering, they say something like, I've been doing this for 30 years. Trust me. It's not that you shouldn't trust your professional, but you should verify what they say. so those are just some red flags like off the top of my head. And and we have some resources on our website that dig into a little bit more and what those starting certifications look like and the questions to ask. I know you have great questions to ask when vetting someone.
Aubree: that was amazing. And a really great breakdown. If I was in the starting position of this and overwhelmed, and someone says, get a qualified inspector. anyone can quote unquote be a an a qualified IEP in certain areas, right? And so that's really helpful to look at. They don't just use one testing device and they don't just spend 45 minutes going through and taking a few photographs, but really that top to bottom building envelope investigation is so important. So I want to ask you a couple questions about, myths that are out in the industry, things that I've heard from my clients coming in who have previously worked with maybe a remediation company and yet are still sick, right? One thing that I've heard a lot, and you alluded to it, but often a IEP or a remediator will say, well, it's a just a little bit of mold. it's not black. And it's just a little bit. So it's nothing. I heard this recently from a client I was on a call with. They had an inspection and nothing done because the inspector said it's a just a little bit of mold and it's not concerning. Can you help us navigate that and what someone should take away from that?
Kendra: Yeah, I get as the homeowner or renter being like, okay, I want to believe that. It's easier for me to believe that it's not a lot and it's not bad. May maybe it is just a little. Or maybe it's not. But I think that's where we need some data and some information to support that. Because like I said, usually what you see is just the tip of the iceberg. So I have a mentor, his name is Michael Pinto, he's been in the industry a long time and he has a great book, but he talks about how For mold, especially if the moisture source is is on, in between the walls. Maybe you have a leaky window or a hose bip, that what you see, like I did with my bathroom, what I saw, you can probably expect to find anywhere from five to ten times more mold on the back side of that wall. So you may look at that corner in the bedroom of the closet and think, it's only a little bit. but there's a lot more going on behind the wall that you can't see. And so that is part of the reason why. I always like my stomach drops when I hear that. The other thing, I think you talked about color, there's over a hundred thousand different types of mold. They can come in a wide variety of colors. Sometimes, that's influenced by species, but it could also be influenced by the building material it's eating or whatever it's digesting. sometimes people will say only black mold can hurt you. You've probably seen that in the media. Well, lots of molds can be black. Not just stachybatris, which is I generally what I think most people are referring to. It's a toxic and producing mold. But here's the thing: stachybotris can be colors other than black. It can be a dark green. So you never want to just look at a mold and be like, that's not the scary kind. Because here's here's the truth. Mold, regardless of the species, needs to be safely removed from your home. you're not killing it, you're not painting over it, you're not fogging it, you want to remove it safely. So that that's sorry, the end of my ti rate. Those I hear all the time and it does such a disservice to the consumer.
Aubree: It does and it's confusing and misleading. And you actually lead us straight into my next question, which is I have people coming to me and I'm sure you've seen it in in the past. the spray and pray method where remediators are, like you said, painting over, or I get this a lot from clients. well, they sprayed, bleach on it, or they sprayed this non-toxic thing on top of it that that kills the mold. And Tell us the danger in that and why that's not an appropriate form of remediation.
Kendra: Yeah, that is probably the one that bugs me the most. I finally wrote an article about it because it's just so pervasive in the industry and among consumers. you can walk into a Home Depot or Lowe's and there's a half an aisle of products marketing towards mold and water damage. as a consumer, you hear, let's kill the mold. The consumer's thinking, yeah, kill it. I don't want it. Let's get rid of it. That is never the goal. So let's talk about some of the science behind that, right? No, no one product will kill all types of mold, but there are products created by mold that aren't even living, so can't be killed. So if you've been in this space long enough, you've probably heard of something called mycotoxins, which are secondary metabolites produced by certain kinds of mold. mold people think like mold poison, right? Those are chemicals, they're not living, so you can't kill it. MVOCs, those are the gases that are produced. It's what we associate with the musty odor sometimes. Those are gases, they're not living, they can't be killed. The fungal fragments that break up that are so much more prolific than even the number of spores can't be killed. Killing, not useful. But I think there was the part that really like hammers at home, especially if you have a landlord or a And spouse who really just wants to put the bleach on it, is there was a great 2013 study, and it was called Evaluation of Five Antifungal Agents in Mold Remediation Against Six Common Indoor Molds. And basically, what this study did is it took isopropyl alcohol, it took hydrogen peroxide, it took bleach, and it took two brand name products And it inoculated wood with mold, and then it applied these products. And what they found was that while some of these products were able to bleach the color from the surface so it looked like it was gone, it wasn't able to penetrate far enough below the surface to impact those root-like structures that grow into whatever the mold is growing on. Why is that a problem? Well, once they found the moisture source source returned, the mold was able to regrow. So a lot of these spray and prey products, they end up just bleaching what's on the surface. They don't really get below the building material. If you have something that's like hard, non-porous, right, then that's a different story. But our homes are built out of things like drywall. And OSB, which if you don't know what that is, that's like the wood that looks like a bunch of pencil shavings shoved together. and so your home is built with these materials that if mold and water damage get on them, it's gonna grow below the surface. And so if you need some of the science, if you need to convince someone, that's a great research study to pull. it's the same thing with fogging I don't have a problem necessarily with fogging. What I would caution people against though is hiring someone who says, we're just gonna fog the house, you don't have to open up a wall, you don't have to remove anything. Well, how are you supposed to correct the moisture source? And we already talked about the goal being removal. Well, the fog doesn't remove it. There's some claims that things get denatured, and I think there's a lot of research that still needs to be done to to support some of those claims. But yeah, the spray and prey is pervasive. And the last thing I'll say is. If you find mold, just stop. you're better off not disturbing it than panicking. And I guess I've been there and be like, I'm just gonna wipe it off real quick. I just want it out of my house. Just stop. You're better off leaving it than you are disturbing it.
Aubree: That's such a good point. And I find this a lot with my clients that maybe the husband has found, some mold and they don't want to spend. And I understand it's expensive. They don't want to spend the money to get a qualified IEP in a remediation company. And so over the weekend, they'll just go in and rip out, with with no containment and the no kind of similar to your story in the beginning
Kendra: Yeah.
Aubree: of them just ripping that wall down right in front of you. and hauling some some contaminated items out and then just letting it be and and spraying afterwards.
Kendra: and when you do that, there's so many things that can go wrong, right? good remediation has engineering controls like containment that separates the area that's being remediated from the rest of the home, right? not to date myself, but that movie ET with all the plastic sheeting. and there's other engineering controls, right? Often they're putting the area inside containment under negative pressure that's helping to move the air that's inside outdoors. your workers should be in full PPE head to toe, not just wearing street clothes with a little face mask. That's always like a little hint I tell people. if they're not protecting their workers, they are not protecting you. so your your person in your home who's doing the work should be fully protected. You would want that for them and you'd want it for yourself too. so just it it's unfortunate because there's no other industry. where we would tolerate such inconsistencies and and practices that put people's health at risk. But unfortunately that's the state of the remediation industry right now. And it's it's something we're working, hard to change. But it's a slow process. So in the meantime, consumers do your homework. we have a lot of resources, I know you do too, about about what that should look like.
Aubree: Absolutely. Kendra, I'm gonna ask you a loaded question, but why
Kendra: Sure.
Aubree: do you think we don't have regulations around people's health on the mold industry? you talked about plumbers and teachers and hairdressers have these certification requirements and hours of training. Why is it, in your opinion, I know don't have the answer, but why do you think mold industry in general does it?
Kendra: So I have a lot of thoughts on that. And I I think it is multifaceted. It's not one thing. I think part of it comes down to lack of knowledge. I don't think a a lot of these remediators are I don't think they're malicious. I just think they don't know better. I even when we go to Capitol Hill or we're meeting with state legislators, a lot of them actually assume that there are laws on the books protecting people, and they don't realize that there aren't. And so Some of it comes down to lack of awareness, lack of education. And there's a very real financial piece there, which we can just highlight and it's the cost to the homeowner or renter. Well, who's gonna pay for this? Because it does cost more, costs more to, to remediate mold correctly to fix the underlying source, and then you've got to build it back. you have insurance that most people actually don't have coverage for mold. If you do, it's typically capped at 10,000. And so that provides challenges. If you're talking about public spaces, again, it comes down to well, who's gonna pay for this? And when you think about it, mold isn't the problem. mold's the problem, but it's the underlying root cause is moisture. So then where is the moisture coming from? Right. I talk with parents all the time in schools. Most of our school buildings. are over the age of 50. Those are aging buildings that have failing HVAC systems that aren't properly, working, ventilation's not great. they need building upgrades. And so the there's just so much cost, I think, to fixing this problem. And when we talk with with legislators in particular about why we need this, it's because there's actually a cost to not doing it. Right. You and I know what it means to be sick or to have your family member sick. It's missed job opportunities. It's, missed childhoods if your child's impacted. It's draining your bank account. It's borrowing money. It's going without. And so there's a very real economic cost to not fixing these problems. And so while yes, there is a cost, there's a cost to not doing it. And that cost is often greater.
Aubree: Yep, absolutely. You can never make more time. I always say that. You can get any other commodity. You can get get a new mattress, get a new house, even. it's not fun, but you can get all of these things, but you can never get back your time. And so that to me, there's just no better gift than the time, in your life and we we can't make more of it. So that's a great, great point. For someone that's a renter, I see this a lot. People that are in unfortunately a situation where they don't own the home and maybe they don't they're not able to bring someone in and do an invasive investigation. What are the rights there for someone that's renting and what do you suggest if they're if they're trapped and I I feel for them, but what what can they do right now?
Kendra: gosh, yeah, that could be its own episode because you have runners, you'll have families, and yeah, military housing, which is
Aubree: I can't see how you can have. Yeah.
Kendra: managed differently. So we do have some resources, but I'll highlight a few. it's the hardest situation, I think, when you're a runner. So if let's start with if you are in a place and you suspect that there is an issue, document, document, document. And when you notify your landlord. And I would do it in writing, so you're creating a paper trail. I think you can offer a couple of things. Say, hey, I have I think there's a moisture and mold problem here. I wanted to let you know, in terms of next steps, I'm happy to find and vet an indoor environmental professional in IEP. would that be helpful? and you can try to do some of the laying work and offer up somebody who you know is going to do it the right way, not the five minute air sample. Now, sometimes, and I find this sometimes with just if they own one property and maybe they're like, we want to retire back to that home one day, they might put a little more love and attention into it. Oftentimes, though, they'll try to send in a handyman, and
Aubree: Yes.
Kendra: you want to be clear that you don't want it sprayed, wiped off, or anything. You can say no to that and be clear about it. In terms of your rights legally, I'm not a lawyer. But unfortunately there aren't a lot of protections in place for runners when it comes to this. Part of that, is for the reasons we spoke about because it's not even regulated how it's removed, right? So even if you put in a regulation in the UK did this passing law saying landlords have to inspect or remediate in a certain period of time, if they're just then sending in unqualified people, people who are gonna do it worse, people who are just gonna spray it, that's not solving the issue either. And so, Renters have to decide if the landlord isn't going to handle it well. Then the next step is like, are are you comfortable breaking the lease? And this is where you can try to negotiate, right? become a pain in the butt. listen, here's my document of these issues and we're having all this health stuff. Will you let me out of my lease without penalty early and I'll find another place? That's unfortunate that a renter would maybe have to leave. But at this point, you don't have control over it. and so you're gonna have to decide, well, what is the next best thing? And and part of that's protecting your credit, not having to pay out the rest of your lease, things like that. it is an unfortunate situation, but you can always start with trying to, work with your landlord, educate them, be willing to take the brunt of the work. The last tip I'll give, and I've I've worked with several people who've done this, is, they'll they'll say, listen, I think there's a problem in this home. I will pay to have the townhouse inspected. If they find nothing, I will eat the cost. If they find something though, will you reimburse me? Sometimes that can be like a middle ground, but then again, you as the homeowner have to be, or as the renter, excuse me, have to be prepared to eat some of that cost up front, which isn't fair either, but
Aubree: No, it's not. But it's I guess best case scenario that you would then get to bring in your own IEP that is qualified and not just, Uncle Bob down the street that says I'm an instructor.
Kendra: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of that too then, is, it can be hard, maybe there's not a lot of inventory, so you move. Well, move where? How do I know that the next place isn't worse or the same? And so I'm not saying any of this is easy, right? And maybe you want to keep the kids in the same school or maybe there's a divorce and there's restrictions on where you can go. I so much about this is hard. It's costly. It's physically challenging if you're being made sick. It's mentally and emotionally draining. And your job, my advice to people, is like one foot in front of the other. I think sometimes we're looking like ten steps down the road and it becomes overwhelming. And your job is to focus on your next step sometimes. And and for renters that, is even more true. And then you go to look for the next rental place and this time you're looking and you're looking for that moisture and you're looking for that mold and you're gonna say, I'm gonna pass on this place, for all the reasons why. But it's it's certainly not easy and I I don't I wanna honor that for people listening.
Aubree: Yeah, that's just such a great point. It's it's complex and it gets you in every area of your life, but not just the financial, like you said, the emotional, the mental, the spiritual, the sometimes marriages and parenthood, friendships. It's isolate.
Kendra: Yeah.
Aubree: Yeah, there's a lot. So definitely acknowledging that it's not easy, but it's not impossible. And so that needs to be said as well that, Kendra, her family has made it to the other side. I've made it to the other side. It is possible. And so we hope with this that you feel empowered to keep going and keep holding on to hope on the hard days because we understand there are there are many hard days, especially in the beginning. So on that note, Kendra, I would love if you could share maybe the single most empowering thing that a family could do right now to protect their home and their health moving forward. renter, homeowner, college student, what is that single thing? Which I know that's hard to narrow it to.
Kendra: Yeah. It is. So I actually think the single most important thing, it takes you back to the beginning. And if I said, here's the thing you have to do, number one, it's you need to get into a relationship with your home. almost get to know your home intimately, inside and out. Right. You need to be going up into your attic periodically and checking. are there new leaks? did something happen with that storm last week? peeking into the crawl space if you don't want to crawl in, which I get. You need to be, looking underneath your sinks. a great tip that I have for people is, at least once a month and do it the day you pay your mortgage or you pay your rent. So it's like top of mind. Walk your home. Check underneath every single sink. Pull out everything, right? I want you looking on closets like declutter, declutter, declutter. because you're you want to know early if something starts to look weird, smell weird, something changes. So you can address it when it's a small issue instead of waiting for it to be a big issue. And adding to that is in your budget, just like you'd get your HVAC maintained or an appliance serviced. Consider starting with a good indoor environmental professional who's gonna do that thorough investigation top to bottom. So you get an idea of what's going on in your home. I get it. You wanna I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know, I wanna keep my head in the sand. But once you get through it, there's so much promise on the other side, feeling better, the health. And and just peace of mind that knows like, Hey, I took care of that. That's no longer impacting my family. And so yeah, I would say get to know your home. You need to be in a relationship with your home.
Aubree: Love that. I've never heard that before of the idea of getting into a relationship with your intimate peek behind the curtains type of thing.
Kendra: Yeah.
Aubree: Let's look and and not turn a blind eye because you're so right. It becomes such a bigger problem. And not just in the form of mold growth and spreading, but the financial, the the time that you lose, the health impact as it continues to spread. And why turn away? Because eventually you can't, right? Eventually we all get to that point where we've got to fix this. And so that's a A great idea. It's free. It costs nothing but a few minutes to 30 minutes, a month. And it could be such a massive difference for you and your family. So great advice. I love that. is there anything else that you want to share with us? Maybe last parting words.
Kendra: I think the my parting advice to people would be to give yourself grace because you're gonna make mistakes on this journey and that's okay. And that was something that was really hard for me to to understand and grapple, whether it was with navigating doctors and being gaslit to hiring the wrong people. give yourself some grace and research before you react. that's one of the reasons too why Change the Air Foundation. All of our resources are free. We don't sell anything ever. we empower you. So you can head on over to change theairfoundation.org. everything from step-by-step help with our start here feature will take you through exactly how to find that IEP, how to find that remediator, what does post-testing look like, what is cleaning the rest of my home look like, how do I navigate HVACs, to re-downloads, things you can print off and and tan to your spouse or take notes on. and so everything is free. We have a great newsletter too and a great podcast. Aubrey is going to be on that. So you're going to have to come back and check that one out on our channel. But I want everyone to know that healing is possible, a healthy home is possible. And you don't have to do it all right now perfectly, but I want you to take that first step, whatever that looks like for you.
Aubree: I so appreciate you guys doing what y'all do, Kendra and just the massive impact you've had. I know one of your resources has had over seventy five thousand downloads and it's free and available.
Kendra: Yeah, yeah. I appreciate you bringing that up. I just I want people to make smarter choices and better decisions than I did. And those resources are meant to be downloaded and uploaded and sent to your healthcare practitioner and shared in Facebook groups. However, we can get the information to more people.
Aubree: I cannot thank you enough for coming on. It's been just a joy to have you. So I really appreciate you coming on.
Kendra: My pleasure. Thank you.
Aubree: Thanks for listening to Mold Free Mom. If this episode has helped you make sense of some of your symptoms, diagnoses, or why nothing has worked in the past, please make sure to follow the show and leave a quick review so others who are struggling can find it quicker. If this episode brought someone struggling with unexplained sickness or mold to mind, please share it so they don't have to waste years of their life chasing the wrong answers like I did. Remember, you're not broken. You can get your life back. You just need to be shown how.
