Mold, an invisible killer

This is a story that needs to be told and read by everyone in the country, it has already been posted in e-zines and other sites on the web, and I am making it my goal to get the word out on mold and it's dangers. My family lost almost everything we owned to toxic mold growing inside the walls and under the floor of our farm house that we dearly loved. Now we have basically no furniture at all, very few clothes, the kids have very few toys anymore, (all left behind), family heirlooms were lost, and worst of all, our health was seriously injured. All because of mold. Mold is a very serious subject that everyone seems to want to sweep under the rug and ignore, but it is not to be ignored, it is very serious and is slowly killing hundreds of thousands of people and most of them don't even know it! Mold causes many diseases, like cancer, arthritis, fybromyalgia, MS, lupus, asthma, interstitial lung disease, and that is only a few, the list is huge. Mold is much more common than people think, and the town we live in (Shelbyville, IN), is FULL of it! There are very few buildings that I go into that are clean, 90% of every house or building I walk into I smell mold of some type. I am so allergic to the stuff after living on the farm, that just a few minutes in a moldy environment and I am sick, either with a headache, unable to breath, severe pains throughout my body, coughing, sneezing, or my face turns lobster red and begins burning and itching. How sick I get all depends on how bad the mold is in the building and how long I spend in it. A few minutes can be mild for me, but an hour or more and I am in misery for days. If I spend more than an hour or so in a moldy building, I can be sick for weeks, even months, all depending on how long I spend in the building. I know I am not alone in my allergy severity, but I also know there are not a lot of us. So far I have met no one with a problem as severe as what my allergy problem is now. The more I am exposed to molds, the worst my allergies get.

I try to inform folks of how dangerous it is when I know they have a problem, but most do not listen to me. I honestly do not believe that it is because they don't care, I think they do not believe that mold can actually make someone that sick. It can though, and worst yet, it has been the cause for many deaths in this country, especially in babies! I cannot begin to tell you how sick I get inside when I go into a house that has mold, tell the owner there is mold somewhere, and a week later a family with young children are moving into that house. I've seen it happen too many times, just in the past year! There is a trailer near my house that I've never been in, but was told by the gentleman working to clean it out, told me there was so much mold in the place, that it was growing up the walls and smelled horrible. He said it was so bad, that the trailer could not be rented out. That was about a month ago, and now someone is living in it. Not only is someone living in it, but there are young children, because today I noticed kids bikes against the side of the trailer. Come on people, WAKE UP!!! You are allowing families to live in conditions not suitable for a rat! I don't get too upset when people don't listen in cases where you cannot see the mold, because they honestly don't know, all they have to go on is some woman telling them she can smell the mold, (I can smell EVERYTHING even what no one else can smell!!!), but in cases where it is growing up the walls, and they rent it out to someone anyway, that makes me so mad. In my honest opinion, if you own a house, and you know for a fact that the house has a serious mold problem, and you allow someone to live in it, then you are premeditating murder of that person, or family. Sorry to be so frank and so cold about it, but I have lived through total hell for almost 4 years now, and watched my family go through way too much to just sit back any longer and keep my mouth shut. I am taking a stand against mold and I WILL one way or another educate as many as I possibly can and do my best to make sure others never have to suffer the pains that I have had to suffer and will most likely suffer until the day I am gone from this earth. Mold is BAD, mold is toxic, mold can and will KILL unless we educate and learn how to live with it. Mold is everywhere, but there are things we can do, simple up keep we can do to our homes, that will help keep it out of our homes. Think about this for a minute, Indiana is a very moldy state, as are many Midwest states, (remember the Histo at SHS a few years back?), we have a lot of moisture here, (mold loves that). Watch a house being built, it is built part way and then rains, and the wood gets wet, it's not allowed to dry out before the workers are back putting up tyvek, and other things over that already wet wood that is going to hold the moisture in. What happens to moist wood that cannot air out? It starts to grow mold! Yep, you got it, that new house starts growing mold before it is even finished! I My husband and I have done a lot of extensive research on molds, and have learned a great deal and we are now working on an easy to understand book that will help educate others on this very dangerous issue. If you would like more information, or want to be informed when the book is complete, you can write us at; PO Box 771, Shelbyville, IN 46176, or you can e-mail us at; admin@thegourdreserve.com

Our hope is to help others to not have to go through the pain and loss that our family and many other families have gone through. If we can save one life by sharing our experience and knowledge, then it will all be worth it.
Carmella Dunkin