Contents

Okay, so one more post and then hopefully I have gotten it all out … for a while 😊  

The infamous house with the impossible attic and leaky basement.  We used to think it was cute and had character ... now we just think it was painted yellow because it's a lemon 😁😭

The biggest thing we’ve been working on these past weeks is how to sell our house… spend the money to get rid of mold and hopefully recoup that, or give full disclosure and take the hit on sale price.  While trying to work through that, we’ve also been wrestling with the whole contents issue and the difference of opinions on whether your contents are effected or how effected they are.  The Dutchness in us balks at getting rid of so much stuff, but the desire for full health keeps the tug-a-war going.  We want to do what’s best, but when it comes to physically having to throw things out we struggle with whether we are doing so unnecessarily since there as such differences of opinions.  But, if we take the stuff with and health issues don’t resolve will we constantly wonder whether we’re still being exposed … or whether it is simply something else causing the problems.  Way too confusing 😒

We have sort of come to a conclusion.  Due to the reality that there is a high amount of environmental mold in our current area, we feel it would be less of a problem to take our stuff with and are thinking we will take the approach “wash everything and get rid of what you cannot thoroughly wash”.  We realize that each home has different molds, we seen this on four other tests.  But the tests also showed they all had lots of mold, and it seems that the second we open our windows or go to someone else’s house, we are likely to pick up these mold spores.  While we haven’t made full decisions yet, we are thinking along the lines of getting rid of (or putting into storage) the worsts items that are known to carry spores or spores are too deep for cleaning.  This would be anything upholstered or anything cloth that is not washable or more than ½” thick – so things like boots, coats, sleeping bags, comforters, couches, mattresses.  And then there is paper, – yes, all of our books (and we have many of them).  Documents can be photocopies or scanned, but for the rest most paper has to go or needs to be kept outside of the house in a contained area.  We also plan to make the bedrooms “safe” areas.  We spend 8-10 hours sleeping and breathing in our bedrooms, so this should be the cleanest area of the house.  This will mean metal beds, metal cupboards/armours, no books in rooms and no clutter so air can move well.   All other items we would be washed with borax or Dawn dish soap before being brought to a new home in order to reduce the amount of spores we would take with.  This precaution is especially because our house has high amounts of Stachybotrys, which is one of the most toxic black molds and was not found so much in most of the other houses we tested.

Unfortunately, we’re not really sure if we will be staying in the area.  We are strongly considering relocating to Alberta, but find it a bit rash to pick up and do that without knowing for sure if the mold and air quality is actually a problem. At the same time we really think it would be pointless to go through treatment only to return to the toxic house.  What if the kids are now hyper-sensitive to mold (which they likely will be if that’s what’s bothering them), then does it make sense to come back to an area you know has higher levels of mold?  Rob is quite willing to go and has been ever since we did our road trip in 2016 and my allergies went away.  Two of the kids are okay with the idea, one is not so happy with the idea.  If it were just Rob and I it wouldn’t be a hard decision, but when dealing with kids and the adjustments and emotions that come with moving during your teenage years it’s a bit harder to decide what to do.  This decision really can’t be made until we’ve been on our mold sabbatical and seen if that makes any difference.   If we were only going on a mold sabbatical and then coming back it would probably be a bit easier to process all this, but since from there we are going to Edmonton for the summer it makes it a bit harder to figure out what to do and be prepared for September when it’s time for the kids to return to school.

I am really hoping to have our house packed up before we leave in June so it’s not left for Rob to figure out while we’re in Edmonton.  But should we decide to live in Alberta, I need to pack it different then if we stay here.  We have read good reports about mold levels in Alberta, so if we were to go there it would NOT be wise to take along our stuff and bring along all our lovely mold spores and toxins.  If we go to Alberta we would only take items that are could be safely cleaned.  This would be non-porous items such as metal, glass, ceramic and porcelain items … still debating on things like washable clothing and electronics.  We’ll definitely cut down on moving costs this way ;)

We haven’t quite worked out the logistics of this yet, for now we’re thinking two storage bins/trailers – one for Alberta safe items and one for Ontario items, that can later be sold if we decide not to stay.  Or maybe we’re better off just unloading it right away and saving the storage cost considering we don’t exactly own anything all that expensive … these are all things we have to figure out.  For the time being we have to figure out what’s going on with our house – fix or sell as is -  and then we can determine the next step. 

As an additional note, before I end off, we have moved back to our home.  This was a difficult decision to make and we’re not really confident we made the right decision but it was somewhat of a logistical decision.  My parents’ house was one of the homes that was ERMI tested and failed.    We debated returning home when we first got the test results, but decided to stay there because our home was higher for a couple of the more toxic molds, especially stachybotrys.  We also felt that if there was going to be work going on in the house we’d have to move out again anyways, so we might as well stay at my parents.  But as time kept going and things were moving rather slowly, Rob and I found it hard to get anything done with regards to the house if we were never there.  I would get short little spurts at the house every few days, but wouldn’t get a huge amount accomplished and was often just trying to get internet related stuff done  since we did not have WIFI at my parents but only data.   The girls had not seen any improvement in their health, but we did see some improvement in Matthew during the last days before we left (which made me doubt our decision again).  We had the kids do a test run to see how they reacted to being back in the house after being away for three weeks and we did not notice any immediate or obvious symptoms.  Rob sealed up all the fixtures and attic hole to keep attic air out of the house and we purchased an Air Purifier to help reduce the mold spores and bacteria.  With spring around the corner we hope to soon be able to have the windows open regularly.  “What?” you say, “and let all the outside spore in?”  There’s no avoiding that, and outside air is better than our inside air, since stachybotrys is only found in water damaged buildings.

And so now I better get off my computer and use this time that I have at home to get some productive things done here 😀  Please continue to pray for us as we try to work our way through the decision that need to be made in the next weeks. 

Edmonton

Many are wondering whether we are still planning to go to the Apothec Wellness Clinic in Edmonton this summer.  As my last post indicated, yes, this is still the plan. 

The questions play in our mind about whether the treatment is still needed.  If mold is the problem then maybe we don’t need to go for this Lyme Treatment.  The literature shows that mold and Lyme attack the immune system similarly, are often found together and have many overlapping symptoms.  But in the end we realize we are still in the same position as we were before we found mold – we need to start treatment to see how Rebecca reacts and whether she has a Herxheimer reaction to indicate Lyme Disease.  We are thankful that in the decision which we had to make with regards to the type of treatment she would do, we chose to do HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen treatment) as this treatment is also being effectively used in people with mold disease.  The clinic that we are going to is not only familiar with Lyme but also with mold illness since they often go together.

Since Rebecca was “diagnosed” in January, I have been quite busy trying to keep up with getting kids to school, home schooling Matthew, playing doctor and nurse and taxi and all the other regular things mom’s do, that I really have not had time to look into making plans for the summer.  I did get about a week before Matthew became worse that I had a chance to look at housing ideas.  In that week the light bulb went on that Rebecca is still considered a child and so maybe we would qualify for the Ronald McDonald House (RMH).  But since the treatment we are doing is a private clinic I wasn’t sure that it would meet the qualifications.  I looked it up and applied and then the clinic connected us up with their Social Worker who filled out the application for us.  We have been informed that we are on the waiting list. 

Unfortunately, you cannot reserve a spot at the RMH and you don’t find out until 1-2 weeks before your scheduled arrival date if they will have anything available.  Having stayed in a RMH before, we understand why this is, but it does make it difficult to make plans.  We did some searching around sites like Airbnb and VRBO, but we run into the problem of cancellation fees, especially for Airbnb which charges you a one month fee if you cancel on a long term rental.  Some owners will adjust this, but mostly you they want firm arrangements, which we can understand.  We have found a website that will likely end up being our backup plan:  https://www.edmontonfurnishedrentals.ca/  I have contacted them and they said that they usually have something available and they have worked with people before that were not able to get into the RMH.  This might mean we won’t get the cheapest deal around, but we won’t be homeless 😊

I did also have a chance to post something on our extended churches mom’s group and received some amazing responses from complete strangers who offered their homes.  Some of these were to stay in their home while they were away on holidays, and others were for us to stay with them in their homes for the treatment time.  While we stand in awe of the amazing benefit of the communion of saints and love, and appreciate the generosity of these people who offered for us to stay with them and will graciously put themselves out to have complete strangers staying with them for two months, we decided that since this is for a longer period of time, and since we are coming as a family because of the state of Marietta and Matthew, it would likely be best if we had our own private space.  I have yet to follow up with the people who offered their homes while they were away on holidays as we have not completely ruled out this option.  The hesitancy of this is that they were not near the clinic (one was in Devon, which is a 40 minute drive), and we had hoped to be in the city so that Marietta and Matthew could use the bus service while Rebecca and I were at the clinic … but those plans are possibly changing.

In February, shortly after Matthew became much worse, we decided to send his blood work away to Arminlabs in Germany to test for Lyme and Co-Infections since he too had a tick attached to him a while ago.  While his symptoms started off differently than Rebecca, they were beginning to show more signs of similarity, including dazed look and the flush/pink cheeks that they would get when the dizziness is bad (it’s not that they feel hot and flush, they don’t realize that their cheeks are flush, but it’s a sign to us).  With Rebecca already lined up for treatment in June, we decided it was better to get him tested sooner than later.  Matthew’s tick history is not as clear as Rebecca’s.  The first time I ever seen a tick in my life was a fully engorged one that came off of Matthew from just above his ear.  So I know he had a full engorged tick on him sometime before Rebecca, but I have no idea if it was the same year or already the year before.  Matthew has also at some point been in the hospital because he could not walk.  I had completely forgotten about this, but Marietta reminded me of it when I was trying to track down the date of when this happened with Rebecca.  Once Marietta said this it came back to me.  I had taken him to the local hospital, but whether this was before or after his tick bite I have no idea.  So I really cannot say if it is related at all.  His Lyme test results came back without any positive bands or antigens.  The perplexing part was his immunology results, which were very similar to Rebecca’s.  All the same things Rebecca had out he also did and his CD57+ was even lower then Rebecca’s.  The CD57+ is used by some doctors to determine if your Lyme treatment is effectively helping … but like everything else Lyme, it is a debated test. 

Matthew’s results left us a little unsure what to think as we know that there are many false negatives with Lyme and so we talked with the clinic in Edmonton and they are willing to put Matthew in a chamber with Rebecca if we do not find another answer before June.  Whatever is going on with Matthew and Rebecca, we strongly think it’s the same thing … whether it’s Lyme, Mold, Lyme and Mold or none of the above.  So now we have two kids booked for HBOT and supporting treatment and Marietta is sort of an unknown/undecided right now.  Last week the clinic called and so I explained a bit of our current situation.  They are very familiar with mold illness (CIRS) and when you first start at the clinic they run a complete work up to check not only for Lyme and co-infections but also for mold build up in the body (the urine test we sent away), heavy metal build up, toxic non-metal chemicals, and lots of other tests to check how your body is functioning.  They want a good picture of your overall health and how to work with each individual and are not just looking to treat the Lyme bacteria. Once I receive our urine tests back I will forward them to the clinic and we will discuss what they are telling us and how to go forward.  In the meantime we were told by the clinic to definitely consider taking the time to try breath some air outside of Ontario for a period of time before we start treatment.

We were originally scheduled to begin treatment on June 20^th.  The plan was for Rob to drive with us to Edmonton and then he would fly back home once Rebecca had started treatment.  We were thinking to leave on June 13^th and take a bit of scenic trip, making it a bit of a holiday as well, but have pushed that back to June 14 or 15^th.  Because of her concussion, Marietta is behind a year in school so she is still in Grade 11 and will not be graduating, but her class is graduating and this just happens to be the year that they changed graduation from September to June.  She really wanted to participate in this, but we came to an agreement that we would stay until her last day of school and leave after that.  The last day of Grade 12 usually involves lots of good-byes and class pictures and signing shirts, etc and she really wanted to be there for that. While she would love to be there for the actual ceremony, she can live stream it and still see how it goes.  Since graduation is in the evening the class will not be going out afterwards like they have done in previous years, so she will not miss out on that activity (although she wasn’t sure if she could really be included, since she isn’t graduating).  So for now, we plan to leave June 14 or 15 and we’re not actually sure when treatment will begin.  The clinic is flexible with our start date and we still need to determine how much time we want to take for our mold sabbatical before treatment starts.

So in the meantime, I’ll just keep watering that money tree out back. J

What's Up With Your House?

It’s been four weeks since we received our initial mold test back from the lab and then proceeded to vacate our house.  During the past four weeks it almost seems like we’ve gotten nowhere, but in reality we have made it through some mentally taxing times and while we don’t have a solid game plan so far, we have learned a lot.  We have spoken to a variety of people/professions  - mold abatement/remediation specialists, home inspector, occupational hygienists, etc –  and gotten a large variety of answers/opinions ranging from one extreme to another, often just making us more confused.  We have scratched our heads, pulled our hair and yes, even some tears have been shed out of pure frustration and exhaustion.

We’ve heard everything from just seal up the attic and light fixtures so the attic air can’t get into the house, to the other extreme of ripping off the roof, taking out the upstairs ceiling, removing the trailer part of our home (our house was built around a mobile trailer), waterproofing the basement  … basically pretty much strip it down and start over (can you say “bulldozer”?).  We’ve been told the contents are all contaminated and we need an occupational hygienist to evaluate what can be cleaned and saved and what needs to be thrown out … to the other extreme of the contents are all fine, except when you start inquiring about mattresses and couches, they begin to falter and suggest that you might want to have them replaced, or at least buy new mattress covers.

So what have we learned?  I’m just jotting down some things in randomness, because that’s pretty much the extent of how my brain works right now. 

What we have learned:

• There is mold throughout our attic.  There is mold in the roof/insulation of the den. There is mold in the basement.    But how long have they been there?   The attic appears to be an old problem due to an improper roof design, likely from before we moved here, the basement is an ongoing issue since it is not a dry basement (even though we were told it was), the den could possibly be recent as we had water damage to it in the fall when we were re-shingling it (synthetic underlay not waterproof as we were told), but we’re not sure if the problem was already there before.
• The attic is only about 12 inches high, no one can get into it to do anything about the mold – hence the challenge of finding someone who will be able to rectify the problem.  Either the roof has to be opened from the outside or the inside, or according to some, both.  The roof is not properly insulated nor is it  properly ventilated, creating a perfect place for moisture to collect and for mold to grow. 
• There are two camps in the mold world: those who think that the worst that mold can do is be an allergen and cause respiratory issues, and those who support the fact that mold produces toxins that can have many adverse effects on humans, causing kidney, liver and neurological issues as well as cancer. 
• There are many different suggested ways to treat mold and many arguments on which way is effective… if any method is truly effective. 
• Mold needs three things to grow – spores (mold seeds) food (wood/paper, etc) and moisture.  We cannot do anything about the spores, nor about the food part, but we can (try) do something about the moisture aspect.
•  There is no perfect way to test for mold problems.  Each testing method has its pros and cons … most have more cons than pros.  We have done the DNA testing via ERMI as well as had a hygienist in to do air testing and VOC testing as well as a few other things.  These tests each have their issues and are not helping to clarify how we need to move forward.  We wanted to avoid the large expense of testing ourselves for toxicity via urine (which would indicate whether we are processing toxins in our bodies), but since we weren’t getting accurate help through house testing, we gave in and sent our urine off to be tested for the mycotoxins that mold produces.  It will still take another 2-3 weeks to get those results 😧
• The best way to find out if a home is really the problem is to leave it for a period of time and then return and see how you do.  When leaving the home it is best to leave the entire area, (since there’s mold in the outside air) taking none of your current belongs with so that you are completely removed from all the common allergens/spores, etc in your current area.  The very best is to tent camp in the desert (no thanks). 

What we have learned needs to be looked at in light of the few things that we do know at this time.

What we do know:

• We have three sick kids – two have very similar symptoms, the other is not able to get better from a concussion over 14 months ago.
• Home insurance DOES NOT cover structural or maintenance damage on a home.  Our problems are because the roof was neither built nor ventilated properly, and because the basement leaks – these are structural problems.  So far we have also been advised that Title Insurance will not cover these issues … we are still trying to make sense of the legal wording in the policy, but we’re 90% sure that there is no loophole or coverage through this insurance.
• In 8 weeks we are supposed to leave to spend 10-12 weeks in Edmonton for Rebecca’s Lyme Treatment and we haven’t had any time to really think about or plan for this.
• Lyme Disease and Toxic Mold Sickness (CIRS) are often seen together as they both attack the immune system in similar ways. It is because of our reading about Lyme Disease that we learned one needs to deal with mold before dealing with Lyme.  This in turn made us investigate the mold situation in our home as we would get reoccurring mold growth in certain areas upstairs … we just didn’t realize how much more mold we would discover once we started actually searching for it. 
• Thankfully HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen treatment) can be used to treat both Lyme and Mold and the clinic Rebecca is going to is experienced in both as they often see a combination of Lyme and mold sickness

If I started a list of the things that we don’t know or haven’t figured out, I would be here for a long time.  So I will just try my best to try summarize where we’re at now.  The joke around here right now is “Ask me an hour from now and I’ll probably give you a completely different answer”.  Sad, but true.  We really are not able to make up our minds on what to believe or what to do half the time.  We have to factor into our decisions the fact that the kids are sick. The thing is, we really don’t know if mold has anything to do with them being sick, as probable as it looks.   We may have just stumbled across a problem in the home that isn’t actually affecting us.  But given that we now know there is mold throughout the house, we need to consider this a high possibility.  Hopefully the urine tests will give us some indication on this aspect. 

Just before we got the mold test results, we were at the Pediatrician and she had been doing her own thinking and researching into whether there is a link between all the kids being sick.  Her advice was to suggest that we try to spend the summer away from our home.  We didn’t get into great depth of what she meant by away from home (in the same area, but just not our house? far away from here in another area?) as we explained that we would be doing this by spending our summer in Edmonton.  It is a bit of a peace of mind to know that even a doctor suggests we try leave the home and see if there is improvement, maybe we aren’t completely crazy?!?.  Since then we have also been in contact with the clinic in Edmonton and were advised to take 2-3 weeks before treatment to go elsewhere and see how the kids feel in a new environment prior to treatment.

With regards to the actual house, we have been thinking to sell prior to all this, simply because the house does not suit our family for a few different reasons.  We had already concluded before the results came back that we wanted to move and the results just escalated that desire to sell, but now we don’t know how to sell with a clear conscience.  Do we need to fix our house to the standard that we would if we were living in it?  Or do we fix it to the standard of the general public since we are not planning to live in it again?  We are trying to taking into consideration that the average person does not end up with weird and difficult health issues like our family seems to.

A factor that really sent us for a loop was that fact that we had ERMI test results from four other properties in the area, and sadly they ALL failed the ERMI test.  Part of this test also includes a HERSTMI-2 scoring, which gives you a score based on the most toxic molds, and only one property came back borderline, the others failed.  Is there something in our general area making moldy environment? 

Prior to doing the ERMI testing on our home we had done reading on different testing methods, and on the support groups people would often post their results and ask for advice, so I had looked at a fair amount of test results.  I had never seen a test on the groups as bad as ours or with as many numbers in the 1000’s like ours.  We were truly shocked when we got our results back.  When we got the results back from the other places we tested we were even more shocked.  The results of our home made us investigate, and from that we found mold problems.  Two of the other houses which we tested, we visually inspected for mold extremely thorough prior to sending the tests away, because we were thinking of renting the one that came back with the best score.  We found a tiny bit of mold in each home, one on a window and the other by the hot water tank, but no signs of water damage in the past (keep in mind, mold is a part of life, and not all mold is toxic). 

At first we were just frustrated with these tests and wanted to dismiss them, but with time and deeper thought and some consulting with the support group we have come to realize that these test results are likely an indication of the *great* quality of air that we breath here in Southern Ontario.   We continue to hear about how asthma, thyroid, Parkinson’s and cancer rates are higher in our area, how air quality is poor, and we all know how humid it can get, making it a prime area for mold to produce.  Being sandwiched between lakes seems to have some sort of factor in these air quality issues and more than once we have heard how being near fruit farms can be an issue due how they spray the crops.  Two years ago we did a road trip to the west coast, during that trip my allergies were gone until a day after we returned to Ontario. We were still further north in Sault Ste. Marie when they returned with a vengeance, so I can’t even blame it directly on this specific area, but I can definitely say I was better outside of Ontario.  In the past few weeks we continue to hear more stories of people that have left this area for the better air in the west (usually Alberta) or who immediately suffer from the air quality if they are visiting this area.

The ultimate test is to leave the area for a period of time and test for ourselves if it makes a difference.  This is our plan for the summer.  We are planning to drive to Edmonton for Rebecca’s Lyme treatment and are considering taking a bit longer than originally planned for that trip and possibly postponing the treatment for a week to see whether air from elsewhere will do the kids any good.  So in the end the ERMI tests continue to be an extreme disappointment, but also a reality check.  We were taking into consideration that we did not want to spend a huge amount of money on treatment for Rebecca, only to return to a problematic house, but now we have to think further about the fact that we don’t want to spend all that money only to return to an area that will now be problematic for us 😟 

After much tugging and pulling back and forth we made the decision to follow the Hygienists report once we got it … which we finally received on Monday. At one point we were thinking the money spent on this report was a waste, but in the long term it will serve its purpose.  Hygienist reports seem to be the gold standard in the home inspector and mold remediation world.  There are different levels of mold remediation and mold abatement/remediation companies want to see a third party report from a Hygienist once they have to deal with Level 2 or higher (which ours is).  So at least we have the report done and ready for whoever wants to know what the verdict is.

When the Hygenist visited he told us it was okay to just leave the mold up in the attic since it’s considered outside space and shouldn’t get into the house and all we needed to do was seal up the light fixtures and attic door and it would all be good.  In his opinion it wasn’t worth the money and effort to actually get rid of the mold in the attic.  We weren’t impressed with this suggestion since it seems ridiculous to be leaving mold up in an attic that is not insulated or ventilated properly so that it can continue to grow and rot the roof … never mind that many argue that it can still get into the house.  This is where we felt so much frustration with so many different ways of looking at it.  But when we received the actual official report it came back singing a different tune with the suggestion that “for the best possible air quality inside the residence, mould growth inside the attic should be removed and or chemically treated” and then goes on to say that because of the type of roof it is the only way to do this is to remove and replace insulation, plywood and the shingles (that we just put on in October 😒).  While we agree that this should be done, we were a bit disappointed that his verbal message was different then his actual report.  Included in the report was also a suggestion on how to remove the mold in the basement, something we can likely do ourselves.

So now we have to decide whether to fix the roof or take a cut and sell the house “as is” with a copy of the Hygenist report and allow the next person to decide how they would like to tackle this.  We are DIY type of people, hiring someone to do the work is not in Rob’s character, (nor our budget) but right now there just seems to be so much going on that he’s finding the idea of taking on this project a bit overwhelming. There’s so much to co-ordinate… roofers, abatement crew, insulation crew.  So here we go again with arranging people to come look and give us quotes.  At least now we can just ask them to follow this report, although I’m sure we’ll still get opinions.   I have a feeling once the quotes come in Rob will revisit the DIY theory.  Ultimately we’ll have to decide whether it’s just best to cut our loses and unload this headache, selling it “as is” and let someone else deal with it since we have too much going on right now to try get it fixed, sold and packed up before the kids and I leave in June … did I mention it’s only 8 weeks until we leave ... and that Rob doesn't want to pack up the house on his own while we're gone 😕??

This post is getting extremely long, so I think I’ll have to tackle some of the other issues (contents, treatment, new home, etc) in another post.