mold-symptom.com

Aleak in Stuart and Susan Muszynski's dishwasher led to a flood of anxiety, displacement from the family's Lyndhurst house and a tsunami of ill will toward their insurance company.

Aleak in Stuart and Susan Muszynski's dishwasher led to a flood of anxiety, displacement from the family's Lyndhurst house and a tsunami of ill will toward their insurance company.

The persistent drip soaked into layers of kitchen flooring, turning it and its adhesive into a subterranean swamp spawning a mold colony that secretly crept under cabinets, up walls and beyond.

Contractors tore into it and found telltale slimy black stains among the debris. The Muszynskis, aware some molds cause illness, grew concerned.

They wanted their kitchen cleaned, purged, restored. Delays and contractors' missteps made restoration a much bigger job than anyone imagined.

Now, eight months after the mold's discovery, the couple, in the hole for tens of thousands of dollars and living with their son in a Beachwood apartment, say they had considered suing their insurance company for delays that allowed the mold to spread.

But since insurer-authorized crews in hazmat suits and respirators hauled out eight 12-yard dumpsters-full of contaminated wallpaper, plaster, flooring and carpet, sealed rooms with plastic sheets and installed whirring three-stage air filters, the couple has acknowledged progress in their now-gutted home's cleanup.

The Muszynskis' plight is extreme but instructive.

The visibility of such cases has made finding mold in living spaces one of the great fears of American homeowners, especially since researchers, including a team at Cleveland's University Hospitals, began establishing connections between certain mold species and a range of physical ailments, some mild but others quite grave.

With all the public discussion about household mold risks, ordinary homeowners and even experts remain perplexed about how to respond when mold colonizes a home.

Scientists and officials who have the most experience in Greater Cleveland with mold-related illness and mold infestations agree that homeowners should repair sources of interior moisture and consider signs of mold infestation seriously, seeking expert advice.

"They don't need to panic," says John Sobolewski, supervisor of healthy homes programs for the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, says medical problems from living with mold might include allergic responses, including hay fever symptoms (sneezing, runny noses, red eyes and skin rash) as well as asthma attacks and irritation of eyes, nose, throat and lungs among even those without mold allergies.

Medical studies have linked some forms of household mold, notably Stachybotrys chartarum, with often-fatal respiratory bleeding in infants, says Dr. Dorr Dearborn, a University Hospitals pediatric pulmonologist and researcher. And other researchers are examining a possible connection between exposure to certain molds and brain damage in adults.

Most agree homes with in fants or elderly or ill residents should do all they can to control mold. But danger reports have resonated through the media like thunder, unduly frightening many home owners.

Meanwhile, some in the home-building and insurance industries consider the public response a kind of hysteria and have launched information campaigns aimed at calming fears.

Their big concern is cost. Homeowner policy claims over mold damage and cleanup have "increased dramatically" to $3 billion a year since 1999, says P.J. Crowley, vice president of the New York-based Insurance Information Institute.

So though "mold has been around forever," Crowley says, insurers have become more focused on it. One response is to raise homeowner's insurance premiums, expected to increase 8 percent in 2004. Another is to tighten new policies so expensive mold-abatement programs are only covered under special riders, costing an extra $150 to $250 a year.

Concern over mold in homes has "become hysterical," says David Jaffe, a lawyer and vice president of the National Association of Home Builders, in Washington. The trade group, he says, has been reminding builders to tend carefully to potential moisture sites in houses they build.

But the NAHB also is aggressively fighting what it considers the growing "litigation sentiment" it says trial lawyers have engendered among those affected by mold in homes. Jaffe says a $32 million judgment (later reduced) in Texas over mold "got some lawyers and homeowners thinking mold means gold" in the courts, a notion he says spurs more lawsuits.

"Mold has been with us for millions of years," Jaffe says. "Now it's this big health issue." His organization urges home buyers to "calm down" about the issue.

With conflicting messages coming at them, no wonder people who find mold in their homes become paralyzed with uncertainty. Should they ignore it? Clean it themselves? Summon remediation teams wearing space suits and respirators, as the Muszynskis have done?

It depends. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency explains that mold is a natural biological feature nearly everywhere. Spores "float through outdoor and indoor air" without causing damage, though very high concentrations in indoor settings can be dangerous.

Because mold can decompose wood and other organic material and may harm humans, EPA publications say, it's best to keep it from growing inside houses. It blossoms when spores land on wet surfaces. Biologists say mold won't flourish without water.

Experts like Dearborn say controlling dampness in a home is the first line of defense. "If you dry up all the moisture, you won't have a mold problem," the physician says.

Indoor moisture comes from many sources, according to Stuart Greenberg, director of Environmental Health Watch in Cleveland, a mold-reduction program that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development finances.

There's rainwater through leaky roofs or from the soil through porous basement walls and floors. There's airborne moisture not properly ventilated from cooking, bathing and clothes drying. There's gradual accumulation of moisture from plumbing leaks, like those from dishwashers.

If mold infestations from such sources are relatively small (say, a few square feet on mostly hard surfaces), both the CDC and EPA advise, homeowners can clean up these areas themselves with detergent or fungicide.

"Damp furniture or other soft material that you have any doubt about?" Sobolewski says. "Throw it away."

For cleaning up big infestations, the EPA has protocols, including sealing affected areas with plastic sheets and removing contaminated debris carefully in plastic bags through outside doors or windows.

"That helps keep the high-concentration mold spores from spreading and contaminating the entire house," Greenberg says.

Sobolewski points out that Ohio has established no state licensure procedures that certify contractors actually know what they're doing in mold cleanups, and the county will not recommend companies.

"But we do have a list of individuals," he says, "who have worked with us in the urban mold and moisture program, and we'll share their names and numbers."

(Cuyahoga residents may call county health officials at 216-443-7500.)

The EPA also has rules about monitoring mold concentrations and about the types of protective gear that cleanup crews should wear, including gloves, goggles and portable respirators.

It's no surprise that large cleanups can be staggeringly expensive. Greenberg says, "It's always tough to strike a balance between prudent compliance and unnecessary alarm."

His message: Homeowners can work themselves into a frenzy fretting about whether mold hidden in a basement will make them sick or kill their babies. But before embarking on a costly repair blitz at the first sign of alien organisms, they should consider what they're up against.

Biologists identify more than 100,000 kinds of mold, most benign. Greenberg and Sobolewski consider mold an issue that homeowners should better inform themselves about by reading HUD's and EPA's free booklets about healthy homes and then keeping on top of any home moisture problems.

The Muszynskis' home, Sobolewski says, "is at the far end of the problem. But any home can have moisture. That's the first thing to look for in reducing the risk." And homeowners with mold should call city or county boards of health for advice on how to proceed.

The cost of the Muszynskis' home restoration probably will be in six figures. Stuart hopes it will end his family's nightmare so they can return to a safe, refinished home cured of its out-of-control mold infestation.

For most homeowners, simple vigilance and quick responses might be enough to protect a house.