A Fungus Among Us
by Patti Rosenbloom

In the dark stillness of night Ruth Topper bolted upright in her bed. The clock pulsed a neon green 3:57 a.m. Wide-eyed and disoriented, she tried to fight off that unmistakable feeling of having just been irretrievably launched off a cliff. As she tried to clear her head, she realized she was no longer at their wonderful beach house at Cape Cod, and that their tenth annual vacation, awash with sun, dry air and clear skies, was over. It had truly been a vacation to write home about.

At 3:57 a.m. it seemed a particularly cruel joke to Ruth that their return from such a vacation should have ended the way it had. As if to remind herself that it was not all a bad dream, she replayed in slow motion in her head her family's return to the house the afternoon before. She remembered how, as they approached home, the Hudson Valley felt shrouded in humidity—such a contrast to the crisp ocean breezes of Cape Cod. But it was only after the usual unpacking with kids and dogs, Dipsy and Doodle underfoot, Chinese take-out food consumed and laundry carted away for washing, that she had made her way into the dining room. While at first everything appeared the same, within seconds Ruth noticed a sickly sweet aroma she could not quite put her finger on.

Initially she dismissed the smell, telling herself it must just be the usual stuffiness that accompanies a closed up house. But moments later Ruth noticed a peculiar blood red pooling on the century-old sideboard. As her eyes scanned upwards to look for its source, she noticed web-like, silvery white streaks draped over a dense spray of dried eucalyptus. Ruth's breath began to quicken as her inspection revealed more of the streaky substance covering the undersides of furniture, books, the sofa, lamps, chachkas, wicker baskets and countless "good deals" she had picked up at yard sales and antique shops.

Then she saw the extent of it: the dining room set, the wooden picture frames, the windowsills and woodwork bordering 1,200 square feet of floor—all of it had also become laced in the substance's silvery, white grasp. To Ruth's dismay, even the dark, airless coat closet had become a cozy incubator for the same sickly sweet scent. Shoes, boots, Gortex, wool and leather coats had all become casualties of the unexpected scourge.

In a state of rising panic, Ruth went back into the kitchen and threw open the cabinet doors. Again she encountered the pungent white streaks. But it wasn't until she saw the small pewter-framed photograph of her grandmother standing in the doorway of her apartment—with Grandma's entire mid-section peeled back and fractured into tiny pieces—that the true horror set in. Sweet Grandma Yaffa appeared to look back at Ruth accusingly from the elegant pewter frame that had failed to protect her image. She could almost hear her say, "So, nu? You went on vacation for two weeks (without me!) and now look at me? What kind of a house do you keep here that my favorite dress, that I got for such a deal, should be exploding this way? When was the last time you opened a window or cleaned for that matter? I told you the dogs would attract terrible things... How could you do this to me?' Ruth closed her eyes and sighed.

Mold everywhere!
It was mold, and it was everywhere. Ruth could hear her own voice sound small and far away as she called to Paul to join her in the living room. In what seemed like an eternity of waiting, Ruth flashed back to the 18 months they had earnestly spent trying to find "the right" house. A house, free from mold, mildew and any other type of water "issues." How could this be happening? Paul's arrival was followed by a second lengthy inspection of all surfaces and interiors. Even the lush wall-to-wall carpeting was ripe with the stench. Exhausted and damp from their efforts, they worried themselves into a whirl of restless sleep.

Now, as Ruth stared into the darkness, she could still taste the smell of the mold from downstairs. In her absence, her house had become possessed—not by some digital poltergeist that could be terminated by a pulled plug, but another species altogether. A million questions raced through her mind: What type of mold was this? Was it toxic, like those TV stories where people lost their entire home to a colony of insatiable spores? Would they have to abandon their home and be left in bankruptcy? Visions of "Hazmat" crews and bulldozers loomed ominously in her mind. Ruth feared that soon she too would be covered with mold, unable to breathe.

The next morning the Toppers developed a plan to reclaim their home. First, they would look for the sources of any leaks that might have occurred in their absence. Their inspection turned up not a single offending pipe. Next, the insurance company was called: Yes, indeed, they had purchased a "golden " policy that covered everything from soup to nuts; no, the only kind of mold infestation covered would be one from a broken pipe with an obvious leak. Indeed, nary an insurance company in the USA wrote policies covering mold except for those resulting from a serious weather event.

While recovering from this crushing information, the Toppers resolved to methodically "remediate" the mold. First and foremost, they completely dismantled the kitchen. All utensils and other things "kitchen" were washed, dried and boxed up. All food and anything made of cardboard, wicker or any porous organic substance was tossed in the garbage. Conversations with friends and Internet research yielded several more-than-adequate possibilities for eradicating mold: while Paul was partial to the Borax, vinegar or lemon juice solution (three tablespoons each), Ruth went for a combination of tea tree oil (2 teaspoons to 2 cups of water), remembering that it had to be kept out of reach of small children and away from all four-legged animals. Bleach, most neighbors' first weapon of choice, turned out to be far too toxic to work with for protracted periods of time, and unless properly measured, might prove ineffective. Armed with gloves, respirator masks, cleaning solutions and flashlights angled against every inch of every surface, and giving new meaning to the expression "no spore left behind," they wiped away billions of the still-reproducing organisms.

Day Two
On Day Two of their race against mold every item of clothing was examined, bagged and carted away, to be laundered. Nearly their entire book collection was painstakingly sorted and disposed of at the local dump: not all the fear, furies and forces of evil contained in their complete hardcover collection of Stephen King novels were a match for the expansive grip of the mold. Finally, after great debate, they decided their couch and dining room set were beyond salvation, to be followed by nearly every other piece of semi-porous furniture. After years of flirting with Zen Buddhism, the Toppers finally attained their moment of letting go from "attachments."

The Toppers had learned more about mold and its mitigation than they ever wanted to know: that mold is a fungus present everywhere, indoors and outdoors, all of the time; that of more than 100,000 known species of mold, at least 1,000 species are common in the US, including Cladosporium, Penicillium, and Aspergillus; that mold is most likely to grow where it finds a poorly-ventilated spot that is moist or damp which also offers a "food" source—which can be anything from bookbinders' glue to dried flowers to wicker baskets, houseplant soil, un-popped popcorn stuck between couch cushions, or dust-mite-infested fur balls from the family cat; and that the distinct smell that Ruth could taste was actually the "metabolites" produced by the mold after it consumed its meal...

Who would have thought that mold could be flatulent? That it could merrily explode from its spore any old time the conditions were favorable?

Room to breathe
The next six weeks became a blur of data from health agencies, an entourage of experts, and a "celebrity" mycologist who had been involved in assessing water damage incurred to apartments near to Ground Zero after the 9/11 tragedy. The Toppers' heads began to spin after hours of consultation with hygrometer-totting representatives from companies with names like "Mold Away" and "Ready Clean." Estimates for corrective procedures and intervention strategies—including the complete bagging and wipe-down of all contents of the house, Heppa-filtered vacuuming systems, and treatments with negative ion machines, dehumidifiers, and Cal-brite—ranged from $2,500 to $10,000.

By the end of the six weeks the Toppers were able to conclude that, despite having to throw away a great many of their treasured possessions, they were actually pretty lucky. While the Toppers' house was home to five different types of mold, most types of mold are harmless, including almost certainly theirs: no one in the family was at high risk for illness. Also, although their first floor was a bustling mold factory, on the Richter scale it rated only a 1 1/2 or 2. The only reason the mold had invaded so overwhelmingly was an unusual constellation of conditions that had occurred simultaneously: the Toppers' long absence from a house needing more ventilation, the summer being so wet, a too-great tolerance for errant popcorn kernels and fur-bunnies from Dipsy and Doodle. All they had needed was to reduce the level of mold concentration in the air inside the house to one lower than the level in the air immediately outside. A simple dehumidifier would have licked the problem . . . although the celebrity expert also cautioned them that one more week away and they might have needed a full-scale "Haz-Mat" clean-up. Luckily the infected areas measured under 10 feet in diameter, so it was safe for them to do the clean-up themselves provided they wore gloves, masks, had good ventilation and a strong sense of humor.

After six weeks of feeling invaded, shocked and disrupted the event had left Ruth and Paul feeling oddly relieved. As they looked around their sparkling clean, relatively empty and mold-free home, they now had space just to "be." No longer would there be an excuse not to do yoga, wrestle with the kids and dogs or meditate undistracted by the clutter of home. The Toppers had their health and family intact and did not have to walk away from their home. The silver lining brought by the mold attack: a portal into the abundance of less.

Mold & Your Health

People seem to get into health troubles with mold usually when they put off clean-up and they have pre-existing respiratory conditions, allergies or their auto-immune system is somehow compromised. The type of mold most associated with health effects in people is Stachybotrys chartarum (aka Stachybotrus atra). It is a greenish-black mold that can grow on materials with a high cellulose content such as dry walls, sheetrock, dropped ceiling tiles and chronically moist or water-damaged wood that is concurrently exposed to excessive humidity, water leaks, condensation or flooding. It can only be positively identified by specially trained professionals. According to the literature from the NYC Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology, symptoms of overexposure include cold-like symptoms, inability to concentrate, fatigue, rashes, sinusitis, conjunctivitis and aggravation of asthma. Infants six months and under appear to be most at risk for developing more severe conditions that may include pulmonary bleeding if exposure is prolonged over long periods of time.