The Health Impacts Of Mould And Renovators’ Responsibilities 

Hello, renovators, I’m just making it in by the skin of my teeth with this podcast episode. Just got back from our Wonder Women retreat in the Hunter Valley and still buzzing because we just had such an amazing time. There’s nothing like spending you know a few days with creative women, you come out with your head spinning and that’s exactly how I feel.

There’s just so much going on at the moment. We’re having an exciting time and I am just at the moment working on my second really exciting deal for the month. Yeah. It’s a couple of very interesting deals to share with you, but I’ll just wait until I’ve got them completely over the line and slightly left field. So yes, Alley Jurcic I am teasing, but all will become clear soon. 

So today we’re revisiting the topic of mould and the reason being is I’ve already touched on this once with the guest earlier, but I feel that knowing what I know as a result of one of our students’ experiences, I think it’s important to give this topic a little bit more time.

So What I have done is I’ve invited my student Tanya in to share her experience with mould. And then at the end of the episode, I’ll just give you some facts based on some research I’ve done, just to give you a few dot points so that you can have a little action plan for when you come across mould in your projects.

This episode is sponsored by our entry-level training, How To Replace Your Income With Renovating. You can join this free limited time webinar now and get the bonus three-step checklist and renovation success guide. 

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So if you would like to join this training, head over to www.theschoolofrenovating.com/theleap.

Okay, so let’s get into this episode.

Bernadette Janson: And so welcome, Tanya. 

Tanya Martin: Thank you. 

Bernadette Janson: Tanya Martin is a longstanding member of The School Of Renovating and a Wonder Women. She has been stalled by an incident that happened with her family home that created such an epic mould problem that it has permanently impacted her health and the building had to be demolished.

So she’s had a pretty terrible time with it. And I thought, what better person to have to… to fill us in on the details, than someone who has actually experienced it because you get super-duper interested once you are suffering the impact. So that’s what we’re going to be covering today.

Do you want to just start by just telling us a little bit about how you came to know so much about mould? What was your experience? And how have you come to learn all these? 

Tanya Martin: Ah, that’s a bit of a long story now. I can’t actually name names with companies, but in 2015 in the silver superstorms here in Maitland, we had three days of 6 or 7mm of rain a day, if anyone recalls. I live on a hill and thought I was fine, helping other people. 

As it turned out water had gotten high enough around the house that it leaked in through the weep holes under the house and were on active clothes. So it stashed under the house in a giant pool.

We went on a holiday a month or two later and locked the house up for a week. Came home from the holiday and our house was covered in mould. Everything. So I got on the yellow pages trying to find somebody to help me clean it. Luckily enough, I got a hold of one of two experts in Australia on the mould that’s Vince Neil at Mycotox. He came and said, “you’ve got to get out of here. This is dangerous.” 

Being a single mom with special needs kids, I didn’t have that capability. I was paying the mortgage. So we made the insurance claim and proceeded for the next five years to battle that insurance company to prove that it was the superstorm and because they don’t cover mould.

It went to the Ombudsman who determined in my favour, that was with a panel, which is quite unusual. It’s the first successful hearing against the insurance company because the mould was caused indeed by the storm. So be very aware of what you need to claim, but if it’s caused by any terrible event, you can claim it, but it’s taken us five years.

Bernadette Janson: You’ve certainly done the hard yard. So what’s been the impact? Let’s talk about your home first and then talk about the health impacts.

Tanya Martin: Okay. All the contents were covered in mould, which wasn’t visible. But if you get a camera and put it on a 45 degree angle with a flash, it will fluoresce. So, that mould is likely dangerous.  You’re probably picturing black mould on walls and ceilings, there wasn’t any. It was inside the walls and under the house. What had happened is the water that sat under the house, condensed up into the floorboards. 

Bernadette Janson:  You couldn’t see them all clearly?

Tanya Martin:  No. I could see it like it was on my leather shoes and leather things. 

Once he showed me how to see that lightroom mould, it was pretty much on everything and anywhere with dead space, like behind the headboard of my bed had mould in it, behind any way that air doesn’t circulate because it loves that environment. But the water soaking up into the floor, it’s not floorboards it’s-

Bernadette Janson:  Are they yellow tongue? Is that like chipboard?

Tanya Martin: Yeah. So you can imagine how long that set it for that to become saturated, which then wicked up the plastic board walls. Plus the boards, the worst thing you can do with your house because it’s actually food for mould. It wicks moisture, it holds moisture and it actually provides a moist-safe environment inside those walls for mould to grow.

Bernadette Janson: And you don’t know about it? 

Tanya Martin: No, I was lucky enough, oddly enough, to know what had caused my illness but a lot of people are living in mouldy homes, getting these symptoms and thinking they’re going crazy because they can’t see them. They don’t know. And they go on this series of specialists saying, “there’s nothing wrong with you.” 

No one in Australia knows how to test for it. I’m perfectly healthy on a normal blood test. 

Bernadette Janson: I first became aware of it when I listened to the Bulletproof podcast. 

Tanya Martin: Yes. 

Bernadette Janson: You and I spoke about him before. He was the one that first made me aware because I think his health was impacted by mould.

Tanya Martin: Big time.

Bernadette Janson: Yeah. He talks about upgrading, which I think is a term used for demoulding. Coffee beans and stuff like that. Do you have to go to that extent? 

Tanya Martin: Yes. I can’t eat corn. I shouldn’t eat corn because corn is always mouldy since it’s grown in those leaves. There’s always mould in it. The whole process of processing coffee creates mould. Peanuts grow under the ground and get mould in the shell. 

Bernadette Janson: Wow. 

Tanya Martin: It’s enough when you’re vulnerable to set you off. 

Bernadette Janson: Yeah. I guess I want to make the point that we’re not talking from a medical point of view, we’re really talking about your experience. And so you’re going to share some links that we can put in the show notes for anyone that wants to learn more from the sources that you’ve located.

So what’s your understanding of the health impact of━  firstly, your understanding and then your experience, I think would be really good. The health impact of living with mould and is it worse depending on how much mould there is? 

Tanya Martin: It depends on your own personal vulnerability to susceptibility. A third of the population lacks the genetic keys that recognise mycotoxins which are toxins released by mould, but don’t recognize those as a toxin. So two-thirds of the population will take that in the body goes, “that’s a toxin” and excrete it. For me, it goes round and round. My system is inflaming everything. Your whole body gets inflamed. 

Bernadette Janson: Okay.

Tanya Martin:  So imagine a tired inflamed body. So it depends. I was exposed to mould when I grew up. My house was mouldy when I was a child. And as my doctor said, my bucket was already half-full. 

My children aren’t showing symptoms now, but their bucket is now half-full because they lived in the house for 2 years as well. We were sleeping in the lounge room on blow-up beds in one room.

George was doing the HSC. Max’s autistic so it was a nightmare. I don’t know how I did it. But I was lying sleeping like a foot off the floor, which was the most contaminated place we later realised. I haven’t been able to work since. 

Bernadette Janson: Okay. And what sort of symptoms does it produce? Aside from inflammation, what sort of symptoms does it produce? Does it make you feel nauseous? 

Tanya Martin:  Any of the textbooks will just tell you bronchial issues. Tip of the iceberg. The absolute tip is the iceberg. Personally, I have friends who have used me like a canary, when they’re buying houses, my throat will automatically go like I’m getting the flu. It’ll get sore and I’ll get a headache. 

Bernadette Janson: Does it make you cough?

Tanya Martin:  No. I will get an enlarged and sore throat. And I would say, “I can’t go in there.” I also get that with chemicals too, in new shopping centers and stuff like that, chemical sensitivity. But at least I’ve got a three-page document with the symptoms and this is why a lot of people don’t get diagnosed because they suffer things like getting electric shocks all the time. 

Bernadette Janson: Electric shocks? Really?

]Tanya Martin:  Yes. I’ve got a biotoxin pathway. I’ll share because it shows how it causes these things. My hair stopped growing, eyebrows, legs weren’t a problem.

Bernadette Janson: That’d be right, wouldn’t it?

Tanya Martin:  I thought my brain shrunken. 

Bernadette Janson: Really? 

Tanya Martin: If it’s someone I’ve known for 40 years and I’d forget the name, I forgot how to cook something. I’m getting much better now. But my liver’s overload, my thyroid isn’t functioning, my gut is a complete mess. I’ve got estrogen dominance and I’ve been menopausal for five years. 

Bernadette Janson: Wow. 

Tanya Martin: So I get breast pumps all the time and that can lead to cancer with estrogen dominance. I’ve got all this fat because the toxins are stored in fat. So when the kidney gets overloaded, this is my understanding, it pushes it away from the organs in fat around the belly, but the body won’t burn it because it’s toxic.

Bernadette Janson:  The author I mentioned is Dave Asprey who talks about brain folk. 

Tanya Martin: Yeah. It’s really difficult because I might not have 80 days off, but my brain is going all the time. I’m moving all the time. I need to be doing it all the time. And for two years, I walked from my bed to the lounge in the lounge to the bed. That’s all I could manage. 

The chronic fatigue was horrific, but my brain still wanted to go. Depression, anxiety… I went to all these specialists. They couldn’t tell me because they’re not looking at the right things. 

Bernadette Janson: The damage that the mould causes, is that curable?

Tanya Martin: Yes. Some people stay in wheelchairs or sell-off. Some people die. There are young people ━ We have a Facebook support page in Australia that’s known internationally because it’s got such good support. And there are young people who have killed themselves because people don’t believe, their parents don’t believe, my family doesn’t believe. “It’s just mould, clean it.”

“It’s just mould. It won’t hurt you.” And when you’re a young person and you literally fall apart in your world… you can’t function and people just think you’re putting it on and I’m making it up. Especially if you’re going to doctors who are saying, there’s nothing wrong with you. They ended up getting sent to a psychiatrist because people think they are mad.

Bernadette Janson: Oh, that’s really sad. If you do the right things, get out of the mouldy environment and do the right thing.  And look after yourself. 

Tanya Martin: But the right things are terrifying. The right things are leaving everything you own behind. 

Bernadette Janson: Okay. Cause that’s got all the mould in it and you can’t remove it. 

Tanya Martin: Glass and steel are the only things that moulds can’t live in but to anything that has pore gets the high thing, which are the roots and stuff in, it can be activated as when these items moisture. You can’t clean mould. If it’s in your roof, you have to rip it out and replace it and look for the leak.  If you’ve got more mould in a wall or something, go for that leak. There is water there somewhere. 

Bernadette Janson: So are all moulds the same? 

Tanya Martin: No. 

Bernadette Janson: Okay. So what’s the difference? 

Tanya Martin: The plants. So think about how many different forms of plants there are.

Bernadette Janson: Okay. So obviously they have different impacts. 

Tanya Martin: Yes. Aspergillus the black mould, nasty, that’ll kill you. Some people have such a reaction to it. Some people can on one exposure be absolutely floored. Vince told me about a young guy. He was 16 or 17 librarian for a guy, cash pulling a pardon kitchen that had old linen, all mouldy underneath with the newspapers and stuff. And he was using PPE…all that, just ripping it up and tucking it out. He went home and he didn’t get out of bed for a year. 

Bernadette Janson: Really? 

Tanya Martin: Yeah. It’s devastating. The number of experts who came to me and from the insurance company, just said, “it’s just mould, just clean it,” just look at it as nothing. And these hygienists to come and go, “just bleach it.” I said bleach doesn’t kill mould, it just lessens it. And the toxins it gives off because if you try to kill a plant, it releases seed. If you try to kill mould, it releases mycotoxins. So when you clean it with bleach, you are in the hailing cloud of toxins. So it’s probably not the bleach making and you seek when you clean in your bathroom. 

Bernadette Janson: I know the building industry is aware of it because Stephen, he’s fully well aware that mould is a problem. And if they come across mould, it needs to be dealt with properly and professionally. 

Tanya Martin: And David said at the conference. I was talking to him and he said that he’d been to like five different seminars on mould. So it’s at the top, it’s just, how long does it take to filter down? He did say that they’ve changed the reeds with bathrooms now have to be ventilated to the external. We’re the only country in the world that allows us to ventilate moisture into our roof cavity. That is insane. I won’t get a plump refrigerator ever. 

Bernadette Janson: Really? So you’re talking about refrigerators with ice water and ice makers?

Tanya Martin: Yes. Notorious for leaking. Anything with that flexible hosing? Breaks down.

Bernadette Janson: Well, Stephen will be very happy because we haven’t done well with chilled water. And I said to him, when we redo our kitchen, which is happening soon, I want a fridge with an ice maker and he didn’t think we needed it. So he’ll be very happy to find this information. 

Tanya Martin:  The insurance company wanted to remediate my house initially, but it got to the point where they were having to replace the baseboards. So they were going to have to jack up individual panels of wall, pull the baseboard out, and replace the baseboard. It got to the point where it’s actually cheaper to knock it down and rebuild it. And to rebuild it with the chemical, because now I’m chemically sensitive. It was 1.15 million, the quote that came back.

Bernadette Janson: And so in terms of getting quotes for that, what impact did that mould have on the demolition of the house?

Tanya Martin: $60,000.

Bernadette Janson:  Extra? 

Tanya Martin: That’s what it costs. That was triple the average amount. And all these cowboys who said, “we can do that blah, blah, blah,” had no idea basically when it came down to it.

Bernadette Janson: And what special precautions did they have to take when they were demolishing the house? 

Tanya Martin:  Full PPE, seal everything off. Water spray to keep the dust down because mould spores are in the dust. I had to keep the dust down. I’ve got neighbours. I don’t want that blowing across them. 

Bernadette Janson: And so what could they do with the material? 

Tanya Martin: It needs to be double-bagged and taken to the dumpers contaminated area.  

Bernadette Janson: Okay.  And did they have to excavate down?

Tanya Martin:  10 centimetres on the footprint of the house because the water had set this long, there were actually legionnaires in the water under the house. 

Bernadette Janson: That was a lovely little cocktail, Tanya.

Tanya Martin:  It was delightful. 

Bernadette Janson: I don’t know why you didn’t want to stay there. Can you just tell me, if it was on a hill, how did it flood?

Tanya Martin: Let’s talk about building rigs. 

Bernadette Janson: Okay. Yeah. 

Tanya Martin: It’s bridged to the ground with poles’ standard height, but because they excluded water from the floor underneath the house was flat, there was no drainage. It’s on reactive clay. So once it was saturated, that water was going nowhere. 

Bernadette Janson:  Okay.  If a renovator finds mould, I’ve seen black mould on a bathroom ceiling. So the ceiling has to be dropped?

Tanya Martin:  Gone. Yes. And look for the leak. It’s not coming from nowhere. There’s a leak somewhere.

Bernadette Janson: Yes. Water is the home’s biggest enemy. It causes the foundations to sink if it’s lying around the footings and rust out the down parts and the roof.

Tanya Martin:  And if it’s bad enough, we’re talking rafters, we’re talking how the frame is coming out. It’s not just linings. That frame, if it’s a middle frame, you can clean it but that was my problem. 

Bernadette Janson:  Plenty of rental properties have mould in them and that’s going, I think that’s a little problem that might be brewing as well.

Tanya Martin: There’s actually been a parliamentary inquiry because Lucy Wicks who is a politician on the central coast got sewers from the 2015 storms. And pushed and they had an inquiry and they’ve had results for rentals and Victoria has passed a way and it’s illegal now to paint over mould.

Just to paint over it and get someone else. If it’s being reported to you, you’ve got to fix it and you can’t fix it and kick someone out. “Oh mould, out you go,” painted it, next person in. They’ve actually started to put that into the rakes and people are starting to claim against it because particularly in places like up North, just a nightmare, I could never go to Bali because it’s just mould everywhere.

Bernadette Janson: Actually, we lived for two years in Darwin and all our shoes used to go mouldy. We used to always have these things dehumidifiers in our wardrobes and so on. 

Tanya Martin: I have. Between 30 and 60 degrees, relative humidity is ideal. I run two dehumidifiers 24 seven, and I’ve got a giant air filter. It was horrific, but it’s a way of managing, this is an old building. It’s a rental. It’s a way of me managing internal humidity. 

Bernadette Janson: Let’s move on to the happy ending. Tell me about your new house.

Tanya Martin:  Jo Vadillo, God bless her soul has been holding my hand through this. I’m building a property on the place. It’ll be worth about a million dollars when I’m finished. 

Bernadette Janson: Awesome. And so then you will have an income and a home.

Tanya Martin: Yes. A healthy home. It will be wonderful. Yes.

Bernadette Janson:  And so how many bedrooms is it? And do your kids still live with you? 

Tanya Martin:  They do. Two to three-bedroom units, with two bedrooms each. All good size rooms, cause it’s an 800 square meter block on the corner. So it’s perfect. It’s the last block in the suburb.

Bernadette Janson: That’s amazing. And it’s so smart to produce an income out of your investment as well as a family home. 

Tanya Martin: Yes. And I’m in a good area so I can get optimum tenant rentals here. So yeah, it has worked out well. The challenge has been finding materials that might make me sick. So I have to get special flooring, which is a timber that’s specially heat-treated and apparent, I don’t know the science that is science, but it actually filters heat. You don’t need to finish it, but it’s waterproof.  

So it’s timber flooring put in the bathrooms. But there’s no gas. It actually does the reverse magnesium oxide boards instead of gyprock. I have to put a ducted air system in with the giant filter in it. So it’s a HEPA filter, carbon filter and those yeah, that’s not cheap.

 No carpet or anything that holds dust or possible moisture. I’ve been recommended to have copper piping all the way through it. So there’s no chance of all that minimizes the leakage possibilities. But it’s endless,  you could go on and on, or you start talking about design.

 A lot of these new places, these kinds of mouldy before people move in because the rooms are just built to such a way that the condensation hits it runs they’re not ventilated. 

Bernadette Janson: You  need ventilation.  I think you deserve to have a really good life. And it sounds like that you’re back on track and you’re onwards and upwards, and I can’t wait to see your new home. And of course, when it’s finished, I’ll be taking a visit.

Tanya Martin:  Yes. 

Bernadette Janson:  Yeah. So if you would like to send me the links that you have for anyone else that’s interested in knowing the impact of mould. And I think it’s a really timely reminder for renovators because we do come across it quite a lot and we’ve got to get the impact that it has on the inhabitants of the home. And so make sure that we were factoring that into our due diligence so that we’re not taking on sort of death traps for one of the better words. 

Tanya Martin: And legislation could change who knows when where you could be caught out with the builder’s warranty and with children particularly behavioural issues.

Bernadette Janson: Yeah. That does not surprise me. Yeah.  On that note,  thanks for coming and you’ll send the links through and I will look forward to seeing you next week.

As promised, I want to just give you some quick points on mould and your responsibilities. 

1. Mould’s colours

So firstly mould comes in lots of colours, commonly black, blue, grey, red, yellow, orange, and the colours depend on a few things and don’t necessarily reflect its level of toxicity. Factors that affect the mould’s colour are its food source, the humidity level, and its light exposure.

Now black mould typically is believed to be quite toxic, but not all black moulds are toxic. And I guess the smart way to deal with this there’s this humidity is until, you know otherwise of course, we’re all really familiar with the blue mould in blue vein cheese. My absolute favourite. Obviously, that’s not toxic because we eat it.

My understanding is that some of the blue and grey moulds can be very harmful. And the only way to really know if a mould is toxic is to have it tested. Now, the thing is with mould that we have mould and it spores some in our environment all the time. 

2. How do moulds become a problem? 

It becomes a problem in two situations. Firstly if it grows in number, so it grows unchecked and you get a lot of mould or the second reason is if the inhabitants of the home are particularly sensitive and there are lots of reasons for that. 

3. Health consequences 

In either of those scenarios, it can cause really dreadful health consequences. So one in four people have mould sensitization which basically means it makes them sick and the mould gives off mycotoxins that cause respiratory problems such as;

• asthma 
• Bronchitis 
• chronic fatigue syndrome 
• brain fog 

and a multitude of specific and non-specific symptoms. So often people with this disease caused by mould have a lot of really strange symptoms, but can’t really pinpoint it. And it’s hard to diagnose. 

4. Renovators and landlords’ responsibilities when dealing with moulds 

It’s really important that renovators be aware of the impact of mould and stay up to date with our responsibilities, both as renovators and landlords. It’s also important that we monitor the development of legislation relating to mould. 

And so you want to make sure that you are being responsible in how you are managing your buildings. Now, I’m going to put some links in the show notes because I really think that it is best that you read up on your own state, but basically in short;

• landlords are required to provide habitable premises and take proactive measures to prevent mould. This means preventing moisture build up through rising damp, trap moisture by installing passive and mechanical ventilation and fixing and sealing leaky roofs, gutters, pipes, windows to prevent water penetration.
• If mould is present at a time, anytime during a tenancy, it’s a landlord’s legal obligation to treat the mould and its costs.
• Tenants also have an obligation to keep the premises ventilated by opening windows and doors and to report mould and dampness to the landlord. So it’s one thing to make sure that the home has good ventilation, but if you’re a tenant and you are locking up all the windows and doors and hanging your wet, washing inside and creating a mould problem, then you run the risk of being the person responsible for fixing it.
• If the mould is severe, the tenant may immediately terminate the lease without paying a break fee and be reimbursed for moving out expenses. 
• If the mould is severe, the tenant may be entitled to claim the cost of decontamination of personal positions and compensation for damage to clothing and goods.
• Landlords should replace carpet, which soaks up water and is prone to mould with timber floors, vinyl floor coverings, or tiles when renovating. 
• Where the premises are a townhouse or a home unit and water is entering from outside, the owner’s corporation should be notified and requested to fix the water entry.

These are recommendations made on a website called Real Estate Excellence talking about tenants and landlords’ responsibilities regarding mould. It states four separate case studies regarding tenants making claims because a property was affected by mould. And I would suggest that if you are a landlord that you follow the link in our show notes and go and read that page in its entirety. 

5. Test the toxicity of moulds 

Now, if you do have mould and you would like to  get it tested, you can do that. You can just Google mould test kits online because there are quite a few organisations that supply them. They’re not that cheap. They’re around $200 to $300 to test a couple of rooms, but I personally think it’s your responsibility to do that if you own the property and you’re suspecting that it has a toxic mould. And once you get it tested, then you’ll know what you’re dealing with.

6. Common sense 

I do really think it all boils down to common sense. If you’ve got water lying around, we all know that water is your building’s biggest enemy. So if you’ve got water lying around, it’s going to create a problem. If you’ve got mould marching up the walls, you’ve got to fix it. It’s just, as I said common sense, which apparently is not that common.

7. You the welfare of the people that you impact your top priority 

Just remember that particularly in plasterboard, it may require you to replace the plasterboard.  That would be preferable to making someone very sick because you were trying to save a few dollars on the repair or the remediation.

Our little mantra is “Renovate like nobody’s watching” and it may affect your bottom line, but seriously I think if you are, you know this of a similar mindset as Wonder Women. Then your top priority would always be the care and welfare of the people that you impact. 

Now we’re just about to the end of this podcast, and I don’t want you to be left with unanswered questions. So what I want you to do is to come over to our completely free She Renovates Facebook group where 1000 members strong of savvy women renovating their little hearts out and join, if you’re not already a member. And then ask, comment or whatever you want to do. 

And finally, I have a personal message for Liz Gordon. I saw her renovation. She’s a listener of the podcast. I saw her renovation on the weekend and she told me that she’s been meaning to leave a review for some time. 

So Liz, this is your cue. Please go off and leave me a review. And for anyone else who hasn’t done so yet, we would love to hear what you think of the podcast. If you’ve got a topic you want us to cover, please mention that. I will do my best to answer your questions. Now, next week I will be back with the last instalment of our kitchen series. And so until then! Have a great week!