THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 205

[00:00:00] Hello, welcome back to the Accrescent Podcast. I’m your host, Leigh Ann Lindsey. Today we have PJ Harlow back on our resident mold expert. But before I get into our conversation today, I wanna take a second to give you guys a quick announcement. This episode is going live on Monday the 25th and Wednesday, August 27^th  I am hosting a free live webinar called The Science Behind How Past Trauma and Chronic Stress Can Contribute to Illness and What to Do about It. You guys know I am working with cancer and chronic illness patients every single day, helping support them through the diagnoses so that they can have as much peace, calm, and clarity as possible.

But really, I feel the meat and potatoes of what we’re doing is looking at emotional contributors to illness. And I think there is still sometimes this sense [00:01:00] of, yeah, that’s a good thought and it resonates, but is there really any science behind it? And so I really wanted to create a comprehensive webinar showing you guys all the latest research on how past trauma and chronic stress can contribute to illness.

So this is going to be science heavy, but I think I’m pretty good at presenting that science to you guys in a way that’s really palatable and digestible so that we can start to understand. How emotions aren’t just this kind of thing in our head. They are actually affecting the physiology of our body.

And I’m gonna highlight how that is happening in this webinar. So again, it’s a free webinar on Wednesday, August 27th. You can click the link in the show notes to register, and if you’re not able to attend live still register because you’ll, you’ll get access to the replay, but only if you register that way.

We are able to send that to you [00:02:00] after onto today’s guest. PJ was previously on the Accrescent Podcast to talk all about mold remediation, but integrative holistic mold, re remediation, and how it’s very, very different than conventional remediation. So I’ll make sure that our past episode is linked in the show notes, but I wanted to have her back on.

To talk to us about mold prevention and what are some of the things we should be doing for those of us who don’t have mold in our home? What can we be doing to be super, super preventative and proactive with mold in terms of lifestyle, habits, any products, tools, techniques, any kind of quarterly or annually checks we should be doing in our home?

To be able to prevent mold and or catch it as soon as is possible. She had so many wonderful, wonderful recommendations. I was like asking her for specifics on as many things as possible. So she gave us some [00:03:00] specific, you know, a good long list of very specific products she recommends. So I have linked as many of those as possible in the show notes from water monitoring systems to dehumidifiers, to air air filters.

I did my best to link all the things that she referenced, and I think this was a really comprehensive conversation. Again, for those of us who don’t have a mold issue, but you’re a homeowner, you never want to have a mold issue. This is absolutely a must listen conversation. So with that, please enjoy this conversation with PJ Harlow.

Well,PJ, welcome back to the Accrescent Podcast. Thank you so much for having me back. I’m pretty excited to be here and just kind of pick up where we left off and cover some things that, you know, can really help people, I think, across the board, even if you’re not necessarily going through mold. And I, and [00:04:00] I’m really kind of, uh, just totally stoked to jump in and and talk about it.

Yeah. Our last conversation a few months ago was all about. You really like holistic integrative remediation. So for individuals who do have mold in their home or wherever it might be, their office, and we were taking this deep dive into how might a holistic integrative remediation be so much more nuanced than maybe what’s happening conventionally.

So if that’s where you’re at, definitely go back. I’ll make sure it’s linked in the show notes to listen to that conversation. But I really wanted to have you back on because I’d like to think that there’s a good number of us who don’t currently have a mold problem, but also wanna be really preventative and proactive in, in making sure there won’t be a mold problem.

But also I, you know what, I’m excited to dive into so much more. You gave us a term in our last conversation, the home microbiome, which I just [00:05:00] loved. And so we’re gonna dive into. All the different things we can be doing to really make sure we don’t, you know, a mold problem can’t take root. Because I think if you listen to our remediation conversation, what you gather from that is remediation is such a process.

I mean, it just can be such a massive project. And so if there are things in our power to do, to be able to prevent ourselves from getting to that place, I think we wanna be doing them. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think, um, you know, we don’t wanna be, you know, remediation is expensive and I think one of the bigger things that I see is there’s just a lack of education and understanding.

I always say, you know, when we buy a home, we’re handed the keys, right? But we’re not handed like a manual on how to care for our home, you know? [00:06:00] So, um, I think that’s. We just aren’t taught how to be conscious homeowners is kind of the term that I am kind of using, right? Mm-hmm. And, and just understanding how to, you know, we’re taught to clean and things like that, but when you really sit down and think about all those things, they’re really based on like aesthetics, right?

Mm-hmm. How, how can we make our homes look good, right? Everything is heavily focused around that and not really how do we make our homes actually work to improve our immunity and our overall health, which is possible. Mm-hmm. Right? And what I’m excited to get into is I think the starting point has to be the difference between, maybe there’s some things and I don’t know, you’ll be able to tell us maybe there are some preventative things we can do that are kind of like a one and done, but I would imagine [00:07:00] it’s more about.

Lifestyle, it’s more about habits, it’s more about things we’re doing consistently or on some semi-regular basis to maintain that healthy environment. And I think that’s a little bit of a mindset shift there where I do think it’s easier to wanna be able to be like, you know, whatever. Great. I, um, I got a, a home air filter now.

I never have to think about that again. And to some extent, when you get some of these initial things, I do think you, you know, there’s certain things you can check off the list, but the, just the reality of it is anything we want to be good and healthy long-term must be maintained. Whether it’s a plant, whether it’s our kids, whether it’s our own health or our physical home, we have to be engaging with them regularly.

I think it’s that and also. You know, it’s not just one thing, [00:08:00] right? Mm-hmm. You know, when, when we talk about, you know, even just getting down to the basics, I have a, um, HVAC guide and I quote, uh, one of my colleagues, Corbet Langsford, and he always says, your home is a system. Right? And so when we’re talking about prevent prevention right, and, and being proactive and not reactive, right?

Which is the opposite. Um, we have to kind of look at our home like a system. Mm-hmm. And if you’re just applying one thing into that system, you know, there’s so many other things that you kind of have to look at. And so it’s kind of a collective. And the more layers you add into that system, the more protected you’re gonna be and the higher performing your home will be as well.

So tell us where to start, [00:09:00] because I imagine that there’s some things that are like lifestyle habits. Like for example, I’m making something random up opening your windows every now, every so often and getting fresh air. And those are, those are more like free habits. I imagine. There’s some checks we wanna be doing with some regularly, like checking the hvac, maybe checking our washer machines.

And then I imagine there’s also some products and things that we might want to work in. So I don’t exactly know what the best flow for us to go in is. Maybe you can kind of start us out of like, where do we start with all this? What might be where? Yeah, where do we start? So I think one of the most important things.

Is conceptually to understand a little bit about what you’re preventing because most people come from, uh, a, a, a, a kind of emotional fear of mold. Mm-hmm. And we kind of need to take that [00:10:00] emotion and try to set it aside a little bit. Come from this, from a more realistic, um, kind of more factual, uh, you know, I hate to say heady, right?

But we wanna kind of get away from the scary part and remember that mold is a byproduct of moisture. Mm-hmm. So we don’t really wanna prevent mold as much as we do prevent moisture. Mm-hmm. Because when you get into preventing mold, this is when you get into products and things that aren’t really gonna serve the actual health of your home.

And then we get back into that cover up type mindset, right, where we’re just aesthetically trying to make things look pretty. This is where we see things like these antimicrobial paints and fogs and things that are, you know, again. Often in that reactionary world, but they’re often, uh, you know, [00:11:00] marketed in the prevention world as well.

You know, even, oh, let’s paint this wood with a special antimicrobial paint and then you won’t grow mold. But that is just not true. Yeah. I’ve seen mold grow on it. I’ve seen that actual paint backfire and will, you know, cause the, the mo the water, or I’m sorry, cause the wood not to be able to dry if it does get wet.

So you’re almost increasing the opportunity for mold to grow in those situations. So that would be, yeah, it’s almost like you’re treating the symptom, not the root cause. Yes, exactly. The mold is a symptom. Yes. So we wanna first get that out of the gate. Mm-hmm. Um, and so when it comes to moisture, you know, we need to be checking.

Any area in your home, you know where there’s gonna be potential moisture, and in those areas you’re gonna have a little bit of a higher fungal ecology. [00:12:00] Mm-hmm. Now, the objective is not to, as we talked about last time, that home microbiome, we’re not trying to sterilize our homes and make a hospital-like environment.

Mm-hmm. We’re trying to keep a nice, balanced, diverse microbiome. We are microbial beings. We’re supposed to be exposed to bacteria and also mold, believe it or not. Okay. There’s a difference though. We have to remember that there’s a very wide spectrum of exposure types. Mm-hmm. So oftentimes we get caught in this black or white where it’s like it’s either nothing or.

Really terrible. Mm-hmm. And that’s not really the reality of the circumstance. So we’d start there with just those kind of basic concepts and from there we can move into really kind of maintaining our home. Yeah. I would [00:13:00] say that one of the bigger areas that we see mold problems in homes is in HVAC systems and ventilation systems.

And, you know, unless you live in an area where you don’t have heating or cooling, um, you know, but most people do in the United States, I would say, you know, the majority of homes have, um, some type of heating and cooling, whether it’s mm-hmm. Window units to cool. Whether it’s mini splits, which a mini split is kind of like a, um.

It’s kind of like a, a rectangular unit that hangs on the wall. Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. And you don’t have ventilation. The the cool and the heat, uh, are the air is coming out of the actual machine. Mm-hmm. Um, they’re pretty popular. Um, we actually have one in our house, but they’re very high maintenance.

Understanding that would be key. Mm-hmm. Like you have to [00:14:00] remove the interior filters, which are kind of permanent and you have to clean them every two weeks. Like Oh wow. People don’t realize that at all. Yeah. They’re very high maintenance. Right. So, um, that’s something important to remember with your HVAC system, which is kind of like the big air handler unit.

I think even understanding. What the different parts are, because most people, when I ask where their air handler is, they’ll say, oh, it’s outside, and that’s your condenser. And, but I’m not shaming anybody. I used to think the same thing. I’m like, oh, it’s a big thing. The square thing outside. But that is your condenser.

Your air handler is oftentimes, sometimes people will call it a, um, furnace. Um, they’re usually in basements, crawl spaces, attics, sometimes you might even have it in your garage. Some people may have it in a, in a [00:15:00] dedicated closet or mechanical room. But understanding where that is, knowing where your filter is, and recognizing that these machines need love and attention, right.

They’re very needy. Mm-hmm. So you wanna make sure that the exterior is nice and clean and, and recognize. Where yours is, because if your air handler is in an environment that is not heated and cooled you, it can create more problems. Mm-hmm. Like if it’s in an attic or a vented crawl space, very easy to have a mold problem when they’re located in these spaces.

Yeah. Um, I actually, uh, you know, HVAC is a little complex and it’s a complicated topic, and let’s face it. It’s totally boring, right? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it is not [00:16:00] glamorous or sexy at all. No, it’s not any type of conversation I would want to be like, Hey, let’s go out to dinner, let’s talk about duck work.

Like, you know, and um, but I tried to kind of like think of it, you know, I’m always trying to think of like creative ways of like how we can make this information more accessible. More easy to take in. You know, I think we’re overloaded with information and, you know, oftentimes if things are too heavy and educational for me, like I get like this kind of analysis paralysis, like a DHD where I just can’t absorb the information.

Mm-hmm. Um, I created an HVAC guide, it’s called The Pretty Little Guide to hvac. It’s designed for women, uh, because, you know, I feel like there’s enough, uh, information out there for men. Um, and this is a [00:17:00] very male dominated field. You know, it just statistically is, this is nothing against women. I’m sure there’s, you know, a handful of, of female HVAC technicians, but predominantly it’s a male field.

Mm-hmm. And, um, so I created a guide. It’s a real easy read, but it has everything you’d need, you know, because there’s. A lot of context that goes into this as well, right? Like I could sit here for an hour and go through scenarios of like, well, if this happened, this is what you do, and this happens and this is, but Right.

I think it’s better to kind of understand the, the kind of general broad brush strokes. Yeah, exactly. And, um, I’ll put a discount code for your audience, so, um, that would be awesome. Awesome. But it’s very, it’s very affordable. It’s like 68 bucks. Um, and you know, that’s less than a dinner out and it will save you from.[00:18:00]

Having mold, you know? Yeah. Which is, can be in the hundreds of thousands for some homes. You know, some homes have four HVAC systems. Yeah. Oh wow. And you know, to replace each of them, it’s about 20 grand to a place replace one HVAC system. Mm-hmm. But, you know, it has, there’s also different types of servicing that you should be doing depending on where you’re at in your homeowner journey.

Right. Everybody’s in a different stage. Some people maybe just bought a house, some people maybe just have been there for 10 years. Some somebody is maybe a renter. And so there’s a lot of different aspects on how you should be navigating that. And, and I wanna touch on renters as well. You know, gone are the days where we can depend on our landlords to take care of all of the things, you know, in our homes.

If you are a health-focused, holistic [00:19:00] minded renter, you are gonna need to invest in some of these things. And so it’s good to have these conversations with your owners and your landlords and kind of say like, Hey. Um, you know, we’re willing to pitch in, you know, and, and if you get kickback, certainly say, well, you know, how about we’ll pay for the whole thing?

I mean, a, a a technician visit’s about 150 bucks, you know? Mm-hmm. It’s not that it’s not gonna break the bank. We’re not saying redesign all the duct work in the, in the whole home. Yes, of course. That’s, that’s extreme. But, you know, as renters, I think we need to just kind of know that, that we can’t just say, well, the landlord didn’t do it.

Right. Right. Because that’s not good enough anymore. I’ve done so much research over the years into different nervous system tools, techniques, modalities, and honestly, the Apollo neuro wearable is the one that I come back [00:20:00] to again and again. It’s powerful, practical, and so easy to integrate into everyday life.

What I love about Apollo is that it works through gentle, soothing vibrations. You can wear it on your wrist, your ankle, or clip it to your clothing. You don’t have to stop what you’re doing. I wear mine while working. I wear it while I sleep, and I love how their results are backed by real science. In a number of published studies, Apollo users saw a 25% increase in heart rate variability, one of the strongest markers of nervous system resilience.

They experienced up to 40% less stress and feelings of anxiety, and 19% more time in deep. Apollo also can help people fall asleep faster, feel more focused during the day. It can support an uplifted mood. Apollo is something I use every single day to support my nervous system, to make sure that I’m giving my body gentle safety [00:21:00] signals all throughout the day to help me be more resilient, to help me recover faster, to help me sleep deeper.

And it’s something that I recommend to clients all the time because it’s so gentle. Non-invasive is backed by science and is so, so accessible. Click the link in the show notes below and you’ll get $60 off your Apollo or use discount code the Accrescent for $60 off. Well, it sounds like we could do a whole podcast just on the HVAC so we could Yeah, I think it’s for the listener, it’s, this is a key, a big area of concern when it comes to mold.

At a starting point, getting that HVAC guide that can really walk you through what maintaining your HVAC to be preventative actually looks like. Yeah. But broad brush strokes are, hey, if you’re wanting to be preventative with mold in your home, HVAC is one of those areas we need maybe a little bit more particular emphasis on.

[00:22:00] Yes. I would say one more thing. Your team is really important too, and you know, you should have established relationships with certain. Types of contractors, if you own a home and just like, you know, the good old days where we have like a little piece of paper, you know, when I was little my mom had a piece of paper on the, on the refrigerator with like emergency numbers.

And I know we have like everything in our phone right now, but it’s good to have that on your fridge still, just in case. Um, and your HVAC tech should be on there because, you know, we don’t just wanna wait again, this is, this is what we’re talking about. We don’t just wanna wait until something breaks.

Right. Yeah. Because then that’s when you find bigger problems. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, that’s a big one. Are there other areas in a home that tend to be particular hotspots or concerning points we wanna give extra emphasis to? [00:23:00] Yes. All those areas that are connected to plumbing. I would say you wanna get a moisture meter that should be in every homeowner’s toolbox.

Mm. There is a really affordable one on Amazon called the General, and there’s two types of moisture meters. There’s pinned moisture meters, which kind of have these little pins on the end of ’em. We don’t want those because they’re very, you know, they’ll destroy your drywall and leave holes everywhere. Um, but there’s one that lays flat and you can just pick it up and move it.

Don’t ever slide it. You could just pick it up and move it. Just make sure that it’s on the right setting because it will say like wood or masonry and you wanna make sure whatever you’re measuring, um, that you’re, and, and try to, you know, they can be a little tricky to use. Um, and so, because you can pick up false positives if you [00:24:00] hit metal, you know, if you’re going around a window and things like that.

So. Um, we actually have, um. I’ll be putting out another one, but we have like an old post where I go over like how to kind of use ’em on my Instagram. But that is a really amazing tool. You wanna look like a flashlight and a moisture meter and look under your sinks. Believe it or not, using your flashlight is something that needs a little bit of love too.

Not just straightforward. You wanna kind of like put it up, like, if this were a wall, you’d wanna put the flashlight against the wall so it’s shining down or up, or just move it all around in different ways because just straightforward, you don’t always see anything. Mm-hmm. And we’re, and we’re looking for like, you know, any type of bubbling discoloration, anything that may look furry or you know, anything [00:25:00] that, that could show you that water has dripped or leaked somewhere.

And we, we wanna try to. Kind of redesign under our sinks a little bit. I have like little Tupperware bins that I put my stuff in so you can easily take things out. Or if something gets wet, you can kind of have some visual back there. I like to put water alarms back there as well. There are these little tiny water alarms by the company Govi, and they just ring locally.

They have like ones that connect to your phone if you, but that does, you know, it’s got Bluetooth and wifi. Yeah. So that’s mfs. Uh, but it’s up to you. You know, everybody kind of lives different lifestyles and has, you know. Different levels of, um, how they view home health, so. Mm-hmm. But they have saved, saved me a few times because there’s been [00:26:00] times where, like behind my washers and I, and we found a leak back there.

So they absolutely work. And I’ve had many clients who are like, thank goodness we had the alarms back there. Mm-hmm. So I would put them like, ev we have them under our dishwasher, behind our refrigerator, under every sink, behind every toilet, um, you know, any, even by under our HVAC where your drip pan is, um, anywhere where there’s water because mm-hmm.

That’s potentially where you, you’d want to look. Um, yeah. I love that as a prevention mechanism. And to that end, just for the audience, that’s one of those things that, you know, there’s an, an initial energy and time and probably small financial investment, but that’s one of those things that once you set that up.

It’s there. Yeah. It’s good to go. And I don’t know, maybe, maybe you do have to replace those every now and then if they need it, but it’s one of those things that you can do once and invest the energy to do it, and then you just have that [00:27:00] peace of mind knowing that that’s there. It’s not something you have to be thinking about or maintaining every single day.

Absolutely. I think, um, another thing I would recommend is just randomly doing perimeter walks. If you have a basement, you should be doing a perimeter walk inside your basement, just kind of walking around the perimeter of where it kind of, um, you know, the outside. If you have a finished basement, pay real good attention because you must know that, you know.

That’s one of the bigger areas that we see a lot of problems because the problems stay very hidden for a long, long time before they start peeking their way out. It takes a, a, a serious long time for those leaks that come through to make their way through the drywall or into the carpet. So, you know, if I were to do a finished basement, I [00:28:00] would do it kind of like a room within a room so I could walk the ex, the outside of the drywall, um, to, to, to make sure that I could.

Check all of that. Mm-hmm. Uh, but I would also do an exterior perimeter walk and just look at your foundation. Um, oftentimes another big thing I see is sprinkler systems that damage the exterior of your home because, you know, sprinklers are going off at like three in the morning. We’re not out there and they’re beating up against the, the home.

Um, and they can cause really significant water damage, especially in places like Texas. Um, in Florida, anywhere where stucco is really big in homes, we see a lot of water damage from these sprinkler systems and you’ve got to make sure that. If it’s your [00:29:00] gardener or you know, you are controlling them and kind of setting ’em up, make sure that they’re not pointing at the house.

Mm-hmm. Um, because they can cause a, a significant, very costly amount of water damage. Um, I would also say, you know, to have just even the exterior checked, like your roof, you know, look at your roof and, you know, every penetration that’s in your roof is an opportunity for water to go in. Mm-hmm. So if you have a chimney.

If you have a skylight, you know, if you have an exhaust pipe coming out, you know, all of those things, um, need to be flashed and waterproof properly. And that’s one of the weak points in a lot of construction that we’re seeing is that things are not being waterproof and flash properly. And so moisture wakes it makes its way in.

And so this is another area that you wanna [00:30:00] look on the exterior and the interior. We never wanna get in our attics. I mean, obviously this is like not the best time of year to like get up in your attic because it’s probably, you know, 150 degrees up there. But maybe when the weather starts cooling down, that’s kind of your opportunity to get up there, be careful, you know, walk around and just start looking, you know, are you seeing anything happen?

Especially we’ve had some bad storms Mm. Uh, this past summer, especially here on the East coast, um, you know, all the way down to the southern states. We’ve had an abnormal amount of rain and just a lot of, you know, really strange gusts of winds that have, you know, kind of moved things around. And so really important to get into those spaces that we don’t spend time in the attics.

Yeah, I know it’s gross, but if you ever crawl space, if. Somebody’s gotta look at it, [00:31:00] somebody’s gotta like, and not just peek your head in, somebody’s gotta like, get an outfit on some overalls, um, a mask and, and just get down there to, to, to look and make sure that things are dry and that mold isn’t growing.

You know, especially if it’s vented down there. And, um, so that’s another key area that we see a lot of mold problems, crawl spaces and attics are big. I know it’s probably hard to answer this, but what would be like a minimum regularity? We’d wanna be doing those perimeter checks? The checks of like our skylights, our roof, you know?

’cause I think I, I hear the audience being like, oh my, I can’t, I can’t do that every single week. Walk my whole home. Sure. No, that’s too much. What is like a minimum regularity? So I would always do it after a, a, a big storm. Not just like a sprinkle, but if you’re like, wow, that was like. That was a really bad one.

Definitely look around your [00:32:00] windows, make sure no windows are leaking and once it dries out, you know, a little bit, kind of just do an exterior check and check all those things. I would say for the average person, you know, every few months, you know, is a good start, you know? Um, I know everybody’s lives are busy.

Uh, but especially if you can’t even do that, then at least do it. Try to just remember when we change over to heat and when we change over to ac, those are two, two times that you can kind of like, Hmm, I really need to do a check. Right. Um, preferably I would like a little bit, at least quarterly to get up there and look around.

I think that’s, um, a, a great kind of like realistic goal for people. Mm-hmm. It’s not obsessive, you know, oftentimes Yeah. Especially people who’ve gone through mold. There’s kind of a little bit of a transition period of trying to find that balance [00:33:00] between hypervigilance and balance. Yeah. And discernment, I would say.

Totally. Yeah. So I, I do feel like there’s two things I’m hearing in this. One is all the things we can do to prevent moisture. And I wanna get into that a little bit more, but a little bit of what I think we’ve spent some time on is also prevention in the terms of detecting a leak as fast as possible so that it can’t become a bigger problem.

And I think that’s a lot of what you’ve just spoken to. And that’s huge because if you’re, you know, if you install these little water detectors and you do find that your sink is linking you, great, you’ve detected that day one, you have someone come in and fix it, it can’t become a bigger issue. That I, I love that you said that because you know, when we’re talking about this topic of water damage and mold.

There’s an urgency that always goes with it. Right. And I get it. It it’s [00:34:00] terrifying, you know, especially when you see all these things on social media, like people had to get rid of everything and people are so sick and just all these very extreme things. And I’d like to just clarify with people when we’re talking about water, a water event.

And, and to kind of preface for a second, even when we’re talking about the I-I-C-R-C, um, which is one of the institutions, um, that has a lot of certifications for remediators and um, water restoration. They have two books. One is for water restoration, the other is for mold remediation. They’re two totally different things.

Mm. And they require two certifications. They also have two levels of urgency. When we have a water issue, it’s absolutely yes, very true. We need to get somebody out there as soon as possible. You should have that relationship established and that number should be on your [00:35:00] fridge, right? You should know who you’re gonna call.

It should be somebody local. They usually have like 24 hour, but they should be able to get out there immediately. If you walk in your basement and you find mold, but not water, as much as that feels urgent. It, it’s not an urgent situation. We have time to kind of evaluate, you know, try to, you know, really kind of ground ourself a little bit.

Um, but it doesn’t require that same, like, we need somebody in 24 hours because the longer that water sits there, the more opportunity we have for mold to actually start growing. And once it does, the whole operation changes and we need to have containment and suits and all this stuff like that. Mm-hmm.

So important for you to, to, to bring that up. You guys know I have loved SymbioticA supplements for years. I had to jump on and share with you guys a couple brand new products. They just came out with [00:36:00] their liquid colostrum. And they’re liquid. Sheila Geet complex. But I also wanted to point out some of the general benefits we colostrum, I think has been such a hype right now.

It’s amazing for gut health immune resilience repairing at a cellular level. Colostrum has over 200 different functional nutrients that help with growth factors, antibodies, peptides that seal the gut lining, help balance the microbiome and even support skin health. But most colostrums come in powder form.

In fact, SymbioticA is the only liquid colostrum on the market. It is so easy to just grab a packet, take it on my way to work, have it at some point throughout the day. And then there’s the Sheila Jett. If you’re not familiar, Sheila Jett is a mineral rich resin from the Himalayas that’s been used in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years.

Their liquid Sheila Jett Complex contains 84 trace minerals. It’s known to [00:37:00] boost cellular energy, mitochondrial function, hormone balance, and detox pathways. Giving your body a lot of the raw materials it needs to be able to run better at every level. I have been loving taking both of these. Like I said, it has been so easy and seamless to work these into my daily routine and they taste delicious.

I feel like I’m in a little bit of a phase in life where I need things to be. Easy, accessible, practical, or they’re just not gonna be worked into my daily routine. So I have their liquid pouches stashed all over the place in my office. They’re so easy when I travel, they’re in my fridge. But I also love, a lot of us are sometimes taking so many different capsules that can be difficult for the stomach to break down, or the powders which are messy and annoying to mix.

And so these liquid supplements are just so easy for my digestion. It’s a nice break from all the capsules. So check the show [00:38:00] notes below for a link to learn more, and you can use discount code Lee and Lindsay in terms of moisture then as this kind of real root cause to why mold is able to actually thrive, what are some of the other things we can be doing to maintain a.

Maybe adequate moisture. What does that even look like? You mentioned the moisture meter. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to get a sense of, is there a particular number or maybe like spectrum we want our home to be in and how, how do we keep it there or do that if it’s maybe consistently out of that spectrum? Sure.

So a moisture meter is to measure the amount of moisture in surfaces. Now when we’re talking about moisture as in humidity in your home, uhhuh, that is something that we wanna to make sure that we’re monitoring as well. And there’s a different kind of little, um, monitor you can get called a high urometer.

And they’re very affordable. They’re like $20. You can get [00:39:00] one that’s like a little magnet for your fridge, and we wanna try to be under 50. Okay. And that’s humidity? Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. And so, you know. Obviously if you’re in Florida and you’ve never dehumidified your home and you buy one small little dehumidifier, it might not get it to 50 because your home could be in the eighties and it might not be enough, you know, for the whole home.

So, just remember, if you’re in a really super hot climate, you know, Houston, you know Fort Lauderdale, you know Orlando, even Georgia, the Carolinas, you know, really hot places that are very humid too. Just, just try to stay realistic. You’re not gonna get it down to 40, it’s just, it’s too much. Mm-hmm. But we can get it to healthy levels.

The most affordable way to start is just to buy individual dehumidifiers and make [00:40:00] sure that you get, you can just get like a cookie sheet, like a half sheet cookie sheet to put under it as some type of drip pan. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Mm-hmm. And you are gonna need to empty the bucket probably about one to two times a day, depending on where you live.

Oh wow. Yeah. And is this like maybe when you’re first getting started, you won’t have to empty it with that regularity all the time or, no, that’s pretty standard mean. We empty ours about once a day and Okay. We have multiples in our house. I have one in the living room, they’re in our bedrooms. We have it in our garage.

Mm-hmm. In our basement now. If you own your home and you want to kind of do something a little bit more less, um, re re not requiring you to do so much, you can get what’s called a whole home dehumidifier. Okay? And this would have to be hooked up by a professional, but this can work to. Dehumidify a larger space, uhhuh.

Sometimes you might still need an [00:41:00] individual one in like a certain pocket of the house. Sometimes I even use fans to try to pull in some of that dehumidification into certain. You know, areas in your house. Mm-hmm. Um, but there’s ways that you can, you can try to do that, but this will help to bring the humidity down so it won’t be so sticky.

Mm-hmm. If you ever notice, sometimes if you live where it’s hot, it can just feel like, man, I just took a shower and I already feel like I’m sticky. Uh, yeah. Or just that kind of heaviness in the air sometimes with the humidity. Yes. Yes. So, um, you will need to clean out the bucket of the dehumidifier though, because it will grow biofilm.

And so, um, you wanna try to at least rinse it maybe once a week when you’re dumping it out, and maybe deep clean it every two weeks. But again, if you don’t have air filters in [00:42:00] your house. And you’re just using dehumidifiers, you mi your bucket might get a little dirtier than per se, someone who is using air filters.

Mm-hmm. Like we have all of these gadgets all over our house, so I never really have to clean mine. Um, but for somebody who doesn’t have those things, you know, just, I was saying earlier, you can start out by getting all of these things, you don’t have to get everything at once. Mm-hmm. A lot of these things are not cheap.

You know, a dehumidifier can be $300, uh, an air purifier, these can run anywhere from 400 to a thousand dollars, depending on what size and what type. So just take your time. You know, even when we talk about health, you know, I remember when I first was sick, it was like I would see all these biohacking devices and I would be like, oh, I, I need that and I need that and I need that.

And I would be like. [00:43:00] Trying to figure out which one I could afford first and which one was gonna really move the needle and mm-hmm. You know, we get it. Just, just try to do your best. But there are some more lower like, affordable things that you can do as well besides kind of buying these bigger gadgets, but those would be really important on the list.

Dehumidification Yeah. I find does a lot because sometimes mold just grows from humidity in homes. Yeah. And we, and Right. Not that there was a particular big leak or something, but just like a chronically humid environment over time. Yeah. Can be a very hospitable environment. Yes. Are, are there, um. I’m, I don’t have, I don’t know anything about de dehumidifiers.

Are there per, you know, is there a brand you really like? Are they all pretty standard? Is there anything we should be looking for just so the audience has a general idea? Sure. This is something I’ll probably wanna get for my home ’cause I live right on the coast. Yeah. We get pretty humid summers. Yeah. I like, but what do I look for?

I [00:44:00] like the brand home labs. Um, that’s probably one of the, the most, um, better performing ones. Dehumidifiers, you know, they sometimes are hit or miss, you know, uh, and they, they work very hard, so they don’t last forever. We’ve been through quite, quite a few of them, but that’s a brand that has performed the best for us.

It’s not too crazy loud. Um, you can get ’em on Amazon and they’re, the only thing you wanna look at is how big of a space that you’re planning to use it in. So Uhhuh, usually there’s like a 3000 square foot one. There’s a 4,500. I just have the bigger one in my living room just because it’s more powerful.

Same in my basement. Yeah. And is that the kind of thing that you have one in, like essential area, or is it where you, you maybe you have one in essential area and then you have a smaller one, like in your [00:45:00] bathrooms? I, or is one usually enough for a home? So I have, like I said, I have one in my living room.

I have one in my bedroom. All of our bedrooms have them garage. Uh, and don’t have them in the bathrooms just because we have a fan that works really well in our bathroom. And I would suggest if you’re not using, I was surprised. I was talking to somebody the other day and they were like, I never use my fan.

I thought that was for like, you know. Smells in the bathroom. And I was like, no, no. You’re supposed to like, turn it on when you take a shower and then leave it on for about 30 minutes and shut the door and let it take all the humid air and expel it, you know, out of the house. Um. Mm-hmm. So, but if you don’t have, uh, a fan, you could get a, a very small one for mm-hmm.

Your bathroom. Um, but bedrooms definitely, and living room would be okay. You know, I would [00:46:00] start maybe with your bedroom. Your bedroom should be kind of like your oasis. You should, you should try to, to make one room in your home, the healthiest room, and that’s the most, that room, the room that you spend the most time in.

So I would start there if you, if you want a starting space and, yeah. Yeah. I love that. It’s funny, I live in an, a pretty new apartment complex, but all the fans in the bathrooms go on automatically Mm. All throughout the day. Which at first I thought was kind of annoying, but they, you know, they’ll turn on at like a random time in the day and I’m like, oh, it’s sensing moisture.

Like, it’s, so, it’s turning that fan on and that’s been kind of interesting for me. I, I live right by the coast. I love airflow, so I have most of my windows open all day long, but that’s, that is also humidity that’s coming in, so it is just interesting to see that. These, these apartment buildings now are so concerned about mold and I’m sure there’s things that they should be doing that they’re not.

But now these fans, like, I don’t even have control [00:47:00] over the fans. Mm-hmm. They go on and off automatically whenever there’s moisture sensing. No, that’s amazing. I think that, uh, you know, also while we’re talking about fans, also another important thing is to use your exhaust when you’re cooking as well. Oh my gosh, yes.

That’s another, you know, I know it’s loud and like, you know, but that’s another important part that, you know, not necessarily mold, but I would say be cautious though. Some kind of, um, uh, exhaust fans that are over top of, uh, an oven or stove are the microwave. And just be careful because. They aren’t necessarily exhausting out like a regular exhaust.

Mm. It’s just really the fan kind of blowing. Within the microwave. And I’ve actually had a case [00:48:00] where it was causing moisture inside the back of that wall, um, because it was pulling so much of that hot air, um, and just the moisture and steam from the food and it was going right into the wall. So just be a little bit more careful and cognizant if you have one of those types of exhaust where it’s your microwave right?

Over top of Yeah. Your, your burners. Um, and if that’s the case, I mean, what, how do you check that? Is that something like you’re putting your moisture meter against the wall there? Are you having someone come in and check things? You’d put your moisture meter against the wall to kind of just check it, but depends if you own it.

If it were me, I would probably remove the microwave. Mm-hmm. And I would probably install a, a regular kind of exhaust system there. And I would check that out. If you’re in a rental, sometimes you gotta pick your battles. Right, right. Because you don’t wanna be like that renter. Mm-hmm. Um, [00:49:00] and you know, you have to just be careful how you’re navigating and you know, what you’re choosing to.

Um, I would more keep an eye on it. There’s also, um, there’s a little kind of fan that you can get from, oh, what’s the company? I’ll have to think of it. I can’t think of it. Right. Air, air Ethereal is the company. Okay. Uh, and there’s like a little side exhaust fan that you can purchase that you can put ripe on your counter and it will kind of mm-hmm.

Pull it into the fan. Um, and so it’s kind of like a, like a individual unit that you could get. So that could be maybe something that you could offset if you felt like the risk was really big there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then I do wanna understand a little bit deeper. So there’s dehumidifiers and then there’s air purifiers and, you know, our air purifiers and important part of mold prevention.

And if so, how? [00:50:00] So? I would say yes. Um, and here’s why. So they’re not gonna get rid of a mold problem. Mm-hmm. But they’re more of a prophylactic in a way where. One of, you know, when we look at like the components that feed mold, water is number one, and we kind of talked about that, but dust is, is another one, which dust is a food source.

Right? Got it. It’s, it also kind of a taxi for mold to kind of ride around on travel around. So we wanna try to keep our dust levels down and when we look at even like, what, what makes us sick in a home, right? It’s, it’s a, um, you know, uh, fragments and little particulates from mold colonies. So this kind of moves into air purification and cleaning, right?

Mm-hmm. Those dust, the dust is like a big thing that we wanna work on. Um, and. Air purifiers can [00:51:00] also, you know, technically they can, you know, capture mold spores, so you’re gonna have less opportunity for mold to grow because there’s gonna be less spores. Again, we’re not trying to eliminate every mold spore in the house, and this is where we kind of cross into the very complex topic of air purification.

And when we start talking about. The different types of air purifiers, because there’s either, to put it very simply, um, for, for, for anyone new, there’s two types of purifiers out there. There’s ones that are removing contaminants and particle pollution from the air. Mm-hmm. And then there are ones that are actually changing those particulates and they’re, they’re adding something into the air to change those particulates or bacteria or fungi.

Mm-hmm. I’m not, [00:52:00] I don’t live in a land of absolutes. I think some people think I do. Mm-hmm. But it’s just a very complex, nuanced, contextual type of, you know, when people ask me a question, it’s like, well, it depends. Right. Exactly. When you know so much you, you just like. You cannot authentically give a blanket answer.

Yeah. Because you know how misguiding that can be. Yes, exactly. So, you know, when it comes to that, I think that a lot of people think that I either, I, I like hate certain brands, but that’s not true. It’s just in general, when people are talking to me on social media, you know, the answers I have to give are, are just very general in that sense.

Where, you know, I’m not against PCO, which is called photo catalytic oxidation. It’s probably one of the higher technologies that is used by a lot of, [00:53:00] uh, brands out there. You know, a oasis has photo catalytic oxidation, um, you know, um, there, there’s a ton of like blue. Um, I could probably, if I had a list in front of me, there’s air doctor molecule.

Air doctor has ionization. Um, and molecule has ionization as well. They ha they have a different type of PCO, I’m sorry. Molecule is not ionization, but those are two types of technologies and those are adding either ions or oxidation. And so, but they can also, um. You know, create other byproducts, formaldehydes, aldehydes.

Mm-hmm. They can also, uh, ions ionization, kind of clumps particles together. Yes. And so they’ve even done studies where, you know, if it’s negative ionization, they can stick to your lungs. [00:54:00] So, I mean, that’s what’s in air doctor. So, um, oftentimes a lot of people will turn that button off Okay. On the ion, on the, um, machine.

But, you know, again, you could use these in a targeted way, but personally I prefer to use straight filtration, which is HEPA filtration or even carbon, which is an AB absorption. Mm-hmm. So, um, but if I were in a hospital or something. I might want to use some of those higher tech, you know, technologies because we have to kind of sterilize all the time.

Mm-hmm. And we want to be killing bacteria because it’s, people are very vulnerable in these environments. Yeah. But in our homes, I don’t really want that type of home environment. We don’t need a sterile home. Yes. In fact, we don’t want a sterile home. Yes. Because it, it, it strength ultimately, if things are kept at an appropriate level, it actually [00:55:00] can enhance and strengthen our microbiome.

Yes. ’cause then we’re getting small exposures and our immune system’s able to tag those things and go, great. I know how to respond to this now. Exactly. Versus a sterile environment actually creates a weaker micro microbiome long term. Correct. You got it. We all know we need to stay hydrated, and yet it’s still something that most of us struggle with.

And for many of us, it’s not because we’re not drinking enough water, it’s because we’re not getting enough electrolytes and without replacing them. And here’s the thing. Dehydration isn’t just uncomfortable in the short term. Over time, it can start to impact your focus. Slow down your recovery, strain your heart, and even contribute to inflammation throughout the body, which is why I’m obsessed with buoy electrolytes.

Most electrolyte drinks are full of sugar. Artificial sweeteners, dyes, synthetic minerals grown in a lab, but buoy electrolytes are [00:56:00] completely different. They’re clean, zero sugar, zero calories, zero dyes, and made with full spectrum trace minerals sourced directly from the ocean. I love that they come in tiny travel friendly squeeze bottles so I can stash them.

I have a bottle stashed in all my main places. I have one in my office, one in my bag, and one at home. But you can add these electrolytes to any drink so it works seamlessly into your daily routine. Your water, your smoothies, your tea, your coffee. No ripping open powders or dealing with nasty ingredients.

And do you guys know, I love brands that are willing to. Invest in the research to prove the impact of their products. And buoy is clinically proven to be 64% more hydrating than water alone. 49% more hydrating than leading electrolyte brands and delivers 10 times more positive fluid balance. They even have [00:57:00] specialized blends that support more specific areas of health beyond just hydration, like their brain health drops, digestion, immunity, and energy.

Click the link below to learn more and receive 20% off your first order. Are there any, and it’s, I know you’re, are there any, uh, air filters that you do recommend? And if you don’t want to label one, that is totally okay. Oh, yeah. But I just know the audience is gonna wanna know. Oh, absolutely. My, uh, I guess the premium model that I love would be Jasper, uh, and.

I also really love, um, a company called Mila, M-I-L-A-A. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen them. Uhhuh. Yeah. Mila Air three is a really affordable, um, and they have different filters that you can use. Um, so I, I really like their brand as well. Um, I actually have a best in air, uh, list that I do every year. Oh, awesome.

And the best [00:58:00] in Air 2026 will be coming out, uh, late October, November. It usually comes out right before Black Friday, so, oh my God, that’s. So cool. Kind of prepped for the sales, but I have like awards that I give and I have like a whole huge list of purifiers that are fitting for different circumstances that people need.

Mm-hmm. And I’ve done this for the past two years and it’s been very popular. And this one’s gonna have even It’s free too. Yeah. So you don’t have to buy it. So, um, definitely if, um, you’re, you’re not a follower, just even for that, that’s gonna be coming out as well. So. Yeah. And is that just something where, you know, if they follow you on Instagram, you’ll be announcing that and telling people how to get access?

Yep. Yep. Awesome. It’ll usually be like, comment air on my, you know, and you’ll get access to it that way. Yeah. I love that. To that end, something that I’ll pair with that though is it’s, it’s, I think it’s fun and powerful to talk about products we [00:59:00] can buy that aid in everything we’re trying to achieve.

And then also coming back to what are, you know, the free or almost free things I can do. And so even just talking about dust, dust feeds, mold, great. A free or almost free thing you can do is making sure you’re cleaning your home regularly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Even just those dust on surfaces, you know, I, I keep so many windows in my home open all day, and I do, like, I will see the dust on my surface.

I, um, I pick and choose the things that I do myself and that I. Contract out to have people do. So I have cleaners who come in every other week and do like a deep clean of the entire home. But, um, that’s just, I just wanted to say that like, yes, we can get the air filters. Is that something we wanna work towards eventually?

Sure. And if you can’t get an air filter right now, you can be a little bit more proactive with like, keeping your home clean. Mm-hmm. Regularly. Mm-hmm. Cleaning is a big thing. Uh, and. You know, we a, I actually, um, I [01:00:00] hate to be keeping talking about all these guides and everything, but, um, I, I’ve been, my audience has been asking me and asking me for years now for a cleaning guide, and we just made the announcement yesterday that, uh, we’ll be dropping that in the fall as well.

So our big announcement will be coming on October 1st. So I’ve worked very hard on that. You know, it’s kind of an offshoot of my decontamination guides that we have, um mm-hmm. For our members that they get access to in our library. And, you know, it’s really health focused, you know, because there’s a difference between what I would consider to be traditional cleaning and then Right.

And then cleaning for health, you know? Yeah. There’s, um, a definite. Methodology that goes with it and how to really balance that microbiome and make sure that you, your cleaning practices aren’t harming [01:01:00] because mm-hmm. You know, it’s so easy for us to live in this, like, fear of mold and we’re marketed all of these products from essential oils to peroxides, to, you know, disinfectants and, you know, all of these things.

And sometimes we get caught up in thinking like, well, but it’s non-toxic. Right? Uhhuh and I can just kill mold with it. It’s natural. Yes. Yes. And that’s not really what we want to be doing, you know? Um, I think that they even did, um, you know, a study, uh, you know, most people also look at probiotics, you know, too, as well.

Mm-hmm. Um, and it sounds good. And I was a proponent of probiotics when they first came out until I really started learning a lot about the microbiome. And when you look at the ingredients and a lot of these probiotic cleaners, it’s [01:02:00] usually like one. Type of bacteria. One strain. Yes. One strain, maybe two.

Mm-hmm. And they’re usually very secretive about it. It’s like proprie, you know, the proprietary blend. But there was a study done in 2020 where they looked at cleaning. I think it was like soap, water and a disinfectant and like probiotics. And the probiotics ended up kind of creating a monoculture type situation.

Mm-hmm. And really affected the diversity on these surfaces. Um, and of course the disinfectant, um, created a pathogenic environment on the surface because that’s ultimately the byproduct. This is why, this is why we don’t abuse disinfectants guys. Um, and. The best one was soap and water. You know? And, and it’s almost like too simple that I feel [01:03:00] like we want that like, shiny thing, right?

And, and I get it. Like I love cleaning. It’s very cathartic for me. You know, I try out all different types of products. I kind of look at it like market research, but, you know, I feel like for some people, you know, I mean, look at, look at TikTok. There’s like literal as m is it as SMR or ASMR cleaning videos or something.

There’s like so many cleaning videos that are, you know, just, I think it’s even turned into like a culture, uh, to some degree. Um, but I just have always felt like it there, there’s. What I’m looking for is missing. Mm-hmm. And I’ve always been a proponent of, well, if I, if I can’t find it, then I need to create it, you know?

Yeah. Um, and so that’s what I’ve really done to really help people kind of balance and, and what to do in these scenarios, you know? Um, and, and so I’m super excited [01:04:00] for it to launch. It’s, it’s been like a labor of love. It takes me a really long time to create things. Um, yeah. Just because I, I, I just, I take my time researching.

Yeah. And yeah, the attention to detail. Yeah, for sure. Completely. Okay. I have one more question that I think is really, really important. Do you have a second? Yeah. Okay. Um. One question then one maybe like thing like big takeaway, but a question I really wanted to get to is what do factors like having pets, you know, using essential oils, having indoor plants, how does that affect that home microbiome?

And again, kind of things we can do to maybe mitigate or support that. So it’s probably different for each of those things. They, there has been studies that have been done that show that having dogs, um, especially, uh, actually. It [01:05:00] increases the health of occupants, especially young children. They’ve actually shown that the, the dog’s biome will actually become a part of the internal microbiome.

And there were, um, uh, a better diversity but reduced levels of, uh, autoimmune illness. I think it was asthma and allergies in the home. Um, so, you know, dogs are really amazing. I’ve seen a lot of studies on dogs that really do amazing for the home. What was the other one that you asked? Um, essential oils, indoor plants.

Oh, yes. Um, so I’ve seen the big study with plants that goes around mm-hmm. Where it’s like there was a NASA study and the plant, these are the plants that really move the needle for indoor air and they really don’t. You’d have to have like so many plants, so many for it to really, you know, make [01:06:00] a substantial difference in your indoor air.

However, I am a proponent of plants, but you have to take care of them properly. Because they can cause mold, you know? Mm-hmm. And it’s usually the soil of where the problem is, or underneath the bottom of your pot. This is where we usually find even some stacky borus, uh, if we do a little sample underneath the pot.

So if you have a whole huge area of plants and you’ve got surs or mold toxicity, it might not be the greatest idea for you for to have that exposure right now at this point in your life. But it doesn’t mean you can never have plants in your home. Mm-hmm. But you need to be careful of how you’re watering them.

If you’re over watering, that can cause like root rot, and you can get problems that way. But yeah, if you have also. I do find that around your house on the outside, it really [01:07:00] works to have indigenous plants that are gonna play into your internal microbiome, especially for someone like you who opens your windows.

So I try to have a lot of indigenous plants in my garden. I love gardening. Um, as far as essential oils go, I am an absolute advocate for using essential oils topically or, you know, in, in health for the body. But I am not a fan of using them, um, in kind of those diffusers. Because mm-hmm. They have done studies that have shown that it actually, uh, is very poor for air quality and Yeah, essential, essential oils are VOCs, you know, when you really break them down, that’s what they are.

They’re volatile organic compounds. Yes, yes. And so, um, they cannot be always healthy in that sense. You know, they’re, they’re a [01:08:00] hard topic and again, mm-hmm. It’s so like, it depends on how nuanced nuance and so nuanced, you know, there’s camps that are like for them and then there’s camps that are absolutely against them.

And I try to just try to be realistic and balanced with it. Um, you know, certainly I know that there’s cleaning products out there that’s kind of like the go-to in the holistic kind of crunchy community is, you know, products that have essential oils ’cause they want a little bit of scent. Um, but just be careful because some of those essential oils can have antimicrobial and antibacterial properties and we don’t want to be constantly.

You know, overs, sanitizing our home over sanitizing our home because this is where you run into problems. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I feel like I could ask you a million questions. It’s so much fun. But I think this is such a good [01:09:00] broad brush strokes overview that also gave people enough of a foundation.

Like for me, the two biggest takeaways from this are one. I gotta keep moisture low in my home. And we gave people a few really specific ways to do that. But then like they also now I think, have enough of an information that they can go do their own additional research too, which I’m all about here. It’s use your critical thinking.

Get involved, take ownership of this. And then the second big takeaway for me was also implementing some things that help you detect water leaks as soon as possible. Yes. Those for me, I think were the two big takeaways. Yeah. And it’s good too, you know, if you are able to, I think that I often get the question of like, well, what if I have mold, what can I do?

Right. And, um, you know, opening your windows for short spurts maybe in a short period in the, in the early morning when it’s not too hot. And then after the sun goes down, but make sure that you have a window open on one [01:10:00] side and a window on the other. So you can have a nice cross, cross breeze. Cross breeze of ventilation air to come in and air to go out.

And we’re trying to get that, that air change to change over all the air in the house to kind of provide a little bit more, um, of, you know, to kind of. Pull down that risk level a little bit. Mm-hmm. Um, but I’d also say, you know, declutter, that’s another thing that mm-hmm. Can really kind of, cause I mean, people wouldn’t think of it, but when you think about dust, you know, um, some homes that have a, a high level of mold often have a lot of clutter, uh, everywhere.

So, you know. Yeah. Oh my gosh, pj well thank you so, so much. I’ll make sure, you know, we’re gonna link as much as we can in the show notes, especially those guides. I think it’s so amazing that you, that you provide that because you could just talk, you know, you. The guides are gonna help so many more people versus you [01:11:00] one-on-one explaining all of that to, to everyone to be able to have the autonomy to go Amazing.

She’s made this super comprehensive guide. I can go get that immediately. Yeah. If I want. It is actually such a gift you provide, so that’s awesome. Yeah. I would say, you know, I think every woman should own the pretty little guide to hvac. It is that essential. I see mold in HVACs every day that, you know, it’s almost a given.

Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, especially since we’re building our homes tighter and more energy efficient, you know, just remember HVAC professionals are not mold professionals. So it’s important to make that distinction because you can’t depend on what they say as like, oh, but my HVAC guy said it was no problem.

Right. You, you can’t use their personal opinion. Mm-hmm. You have to just kind of use them for the facts, and then you need to kind of be [01:12:00] proactive to, you know, know how to handle that. They see mold every day of their life, so of course they’re gonna say. Totally no big deal. Like mold can’t harm you. They don’t understand health.

They don’t understand what this actually does. And just, I would say to everybody, keep that in mind. Mm-hmm. And, you know, not that I’m trying to sell myself or anything, but you know, this is what I wrote this guide for was because it’s so, I see it so much and you don’t want to, as this whole, this whole episode has been about being proactive and you know, if I, if, if, if I, I had mold and I am in my hvac, had I known what I known now, like I would’ve bought that in a second because it would’ve prevented my family from getting very deathly sick.

Um, and so, um, I’m always trying to make things that I wish I would’ve had. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so [01:13:00] much. You’re welcome.