Podcast Transcript
The Human Powered Life
Mon, Oct 24, 2022 10:37AM • 42:09
Summary from the host:
Well… this may not be top of mind for most people. Mold can be tremendously detrimental to your health and your LIFE. I’ve personally had to deal with remediating mold from our attic which if not found before we moved in could have potentially gotten me, my wife, and my dog very sick. It cost the seller of the home we were purchasing at the time around $15,000 dollars to remediate. Thank god we had a friend come in after the home inspector left to look around. All he did was open the attic and said… YOU CAN’T BUY THIS UNTIL THIS IS FIXED. There was black mold throughout our whole attic from leaks in the roof.
The lesson learned was, when purchasing the house, find out if there was a GOT MOLD? test done recently that you can see the results of.
So now you get to learn about our great guest we have for you today. Jason Earle. Here’s a little about him.
Jason Earle is a man on a mission. An adoring father of two boys in diapers, incurable entrepreneur and indoor air quality crusader, he is the founder & CEO of mold inspection company 1-800-GOT-MOLD?, and the creator of the GOT MOLD?® Test Kit.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mold, building, musty odor, problem, dampness, home, symptoms, test, moisture, smell, put, vocs, created, apartments, feel, find, asthma, kit, lab, humidity
00:00
Oh here we go. You’re listening to the human power life podcast where we focus on helping you claim what’s rightfully yours, your health and your freedom, we explore the three main areas of health, the physical realm, the biochemical realm, and the mental and emotional realm. We also explore all the areas of lifestyle we can find that will help you live more abundantly, regardless of where you’re starting. And remember, in life, you’ll either make excuses or create results you choose. I’m your host, Dr. Josh hat. And I’m glad to be with you here today. Make sure to head on down to the show notes and click on the link to join our tribe of human powered life heroes, where we will update you on new shows, events, product launches, and so much more. Now, it’s time to enjoy the show. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the human power life podcast, we have an amazing guest today, Jason Earle. And we’re gonna be talking about mold, and a lot more. Jason, welcome to the show, sir. Good to be here. I’m excited to have you, in my poking around learning a little bit more about you. And we had a little pre conversation about mold, even in my life. And, you know, it’s really interesting to see the impact on mold and people’s health. And that’s why I really wanted to bring you on. And I agreed, say this is actually a really, really important story to hear. Because whether you live in a home in the suburbs, like I do, or whether you live in an apartment, in a city, are in an old farmhouse, like you said, you grew up in, you know, people have the potential to be impacted a knife and know, they’re getting impacted. Like it’s like, like a silent thing. So would you if you were to mind, I’d love to hear hear your and your version of your story here.
02:04
Yeah, first of all, thanks again, for having me. I also obviously did a bit of research on you and I, you’re an interesting guy, and I’m, I’m really grateful to be here. And, you know, mold is a funny subject, it’s, I often say that it’s a little bit like AIDS or cancer, it’s one of those things that won’t happen to me. And, and people mostly don’t think about it much until it does until it affects them or someone that they love. And then oftentimes, they either become evangelists, they want to make sure that everyone else is making better decisions about this, because they don’t want to see anyone else suffer through that. I put in, in almost all cases, it changes the way that they they view the world. And, you know, mold is a very predictable thing. It’s not something like lightning striking or like an earthquake, you know, it’s a very predictable byproduct of extended dampness. And that’s it. But, you know, it is one of those things that almost everybody I know that’s in this space that does good work, has a personal story. You know, they become they, they, they, they have this irreversible knowledge that they feel compelled to share. And so, you know, I’m no exception with that. My, my, my entry into this business was very accidental. It was it was actually after a successful career on Wall Street that I had experience, which brought my childhood into my awareness. And I had some significant respiratory illness as a kid such that when I was around four years old, I lost 30% of my body weight and three week period, and was having difficulty breathing. And my parents took me to the pediatrician who said, No, you need to take them to the hospital. And so they brought me to the Children’s Hospital, where they’ve got a renowned respiratory coach clinic, and their initial diagnosis based upon my symptoms, and based upon my family history with cystic fibrosis. And back then that was a death sentence. And it was particularly it was particularly disturbing to my father because he had four cousins who died from CF before the age of 14. So, as I’m told they spent the next six weeks crying while they were waiting for the second opinion. And they were they were grateful when they were told I didn’t have cystic fibrosis actually, I had asthma and compounded by pneumonia. And when they tested me for allergies, I don’t know how to do it now but they put put you in a toddler straitjacket like a pet pousse with an open bag, drug grid on on your back and then, you know, put all these antigens on to see how you react and like
04:47
your skin right as a kid. I mean, that’s why they put you in a straight shot. Yep.
04:50
Yeah, no, it’s one of my formative memories. Yeah, it’s really I mean, it’s it might be my first actual memory that I can go back to and you know, I could still smell things from that memory, you know, the clinical nature, you know, there’s odors that the alcohol is like that. And my dad said I looked the ladybug back swelled up this big, red, bulbous back with dots all over it. I essentially tested positive for every single thing that tested me for every single thing. So grass, wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, even cotton, soybeans. And that was that was you know, really tricky because I grew up on a little nonworking farm, surrounded by grass, wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, soybean fields everywhere around me in cornfields everywhere around me. So I lived a very itchy life for itchy, Wheezy childhood, and mostly living on inhalers. And I spent a lot of time outside now that was, you know, I look back at that now, all these allergens outside and I was allergic to pollen and grasses. I still have some thermal stuff once in a while from grasses. But, but I had no no real problems that I could tell I felt a lot worse indoors. And now looking back at that my body was clearly signaling me that there was an issue with the indoor environment, you know. And so my folks split up around the age of 12. All my symptoms went away. It wasn’t immediate, but it was it was quickly quickly enough that everyone around me noticed. And they said, Oh, you grew out of your asthma just like Papa moving out of the farm. Moving out of the house. Yeah, it was just it was it was suddenly I was no longer allergic. Suddenly, I was no longer wheezing. I didn’t have the chronic coughing and sneezing and Flamie all that stuff. And again, it was just dismissed as me growing out of my, my my asthma, just some sort of like an adolescent sort of, you know, emergency. And so fast forward, you know, I had a series of circumstances that that probably are better for another podcast, but my mom committed suicide a year and a half after we moved out. And then I got diagnosed with Lyme disease. So I got nailed with a whole nollie home whole gargantuan doses of antibiotics because this is early 90s before there was any sort of like, established protocol was all kind of experimental. Back then Lyme wasn’t even really considered a real disease at the time. And, and then I missed a lot of school, because of all of those things. And I dropped that high school and through a series of crazy circumstances got recruited out of the gas station to go work on Wall Street. And did that for nine years, had a wonderful career and, and really enjoyed it and then the.com bubble burst, and I went backpacking. Looking for meaning really, truly looking for purpose, I had spent my entire life looking for purpose on Wall Street, because my mom had really impressed upon me this idea of service, she was a did she dedicated herself to others to her to her own demise as a nurse and as a health care provider, and a bed sheet but that that idea of services was something that was front and center in our world. And I always felt sort of hollow being a stockbroker, because the only people who benefited from my success for the people who own the stores where I work really, over the work was on the stores where I shopped rather. And and so when I was away, I was really looking for something that would that would enable me to do well, by doing good to be able to find something where I could improve the quality of other people’s lives and do something where they always say if you find something that you really love, and you know that you’ll never work another day in your life. And so, while I was in Hawaii, I was reading one of the local newspapers, and I had a lot of time on my hands. I was reading all the local newspapers. And this one story jumped out. It was about a gentleman who had gotten sick from the hotel where he was an employee. Back then this is 2001. She doesn’t to the Hilton Kalia tower, which is the Hilton’s flagship property on Waikiki Beach, had been shut down for a mold problem. And initially, they thought it was a $500,000 problem. And then as we began opening the walls, it went from 500,000 to 5 million to $55 million in total costs. And this had never occurred before. You know, it is headlines all across the world, especially in the real estate news. But the story that got my attention, even though I was interested in the business side was this one guy had gotten sick from the building. He had developed adult onset asthma, something I had never heard of before, as well as sensitivities to lots of different things that he had never had problems with. And it was deja vu moment. This
09:45
sounds like something we’ve heard before.
09:47
Yeah, I was vaguely familiar. And so I immediately went and called my father from a payphone which probably isn’t there anymore. And, and said, Hey, do you think we had a mold problem? It’ll turn around And he just laughed at me. He goes, of course, we have all the mushrooms in the basement. Oh, why do you ask? And it was that that that it just is so flippant. In a way, it was just like so dismissive. It was like, of course, we had mold. And keep in mind that they also smoked indoors in the car, even with the windows closed. And that’s the 70s and 80s. It wasn’t for lack of love, it was just really for lack of awareness. And, and so I asked him, I said, Well, do you think it might have been, you know, contributed to my my illness as a kid? And he goes, I certainly couldn’t help. Just, you have to know my father really appreciate this. But it’s also really just it was It’s so typical, you know, the basement smell, is this the basement smell? No, that’s mold, right like that we were our entire culture, just woke up to this reality, that stuff gets wet gets moldy and indoors, that’s not good. That just became something that people are aware of. And we’ve been living on a water planet in buildings since the beginning of time. Right. So it’s just a remarkable time to be in this in this business. Because as as the, you know, the climate change, and all of these other factors that are contributing to more dampness, and more flooding, and all those things, it’s now being brought up so that no one can avoid the subject anymore. It is now you know, it’s always been a four letter word, but it’s one that is now being spoken a lot more often. Yeah, it’s
11:29
interesting, you know, I was telling you, when we bought the house that I’m in right now that we’re sitting in, we’re recording in, you know, we had a friend come over just to he worked with homes, and he’s like, let’s just do a walkthrough with you just to make sure everything looks good, because I know inspectors are inspectors from time to time, and they miss things. So he opens up our attic and literally, like pitch keys, a coat goes come up here. Just don’t breathe too deep. Just come up here and look. And it was pitch black. I mean, like not lighting, like he put a light up there. But the walls were black. The insulation was shrunk. Like it was just just like, what is that it goes to that mold. He goes, you need that fixed? I’d never $55 million problem like you did. I think it was not you. But the hotel, I think it was something like 15,000 and a small ranch and old home. I’m like, holy crud, that’s nuts. So neither. It’s a, it became very aware to me that it could be a problem. And when they have to have a special group of people come in to get rid of it, pay a ton of money to get rid of it. Because it can be that detrimental health and like, Oh, all right, well, it’s a good thing we didn’t live here and just, you know, experience, potentially what you had, you know, as a child.
12:43
And it’s so common that people live in these environments without any awareness of it, either because they lived there for a long time, or because during the home buying process, their inspector overlooks things. And or, you know, it’s just, it’s just really, I think my job is really just to raise awareness about this, just to share with people what they need to know, to better arm themselves, because I look at mold as it’s up there with death and taxes. It’s a guarantee. If you haven’t dealt with it yet, you will. It’s just inevitable. And so I feel like it’s important that people are armed with the with the knowledge, you know, if you know how to I don’t even know if people balance their checkbooks anymore, but people write checks, but you know, it’s the basic thing changes tires, you know, be able to do the basic things, boil an egg, you should know how to deal with a moisture problem, so that you don’t have a multiple, because it’s that simple. Mold moisture, mold is a moisture problem. And, and moisture problems are really easy and cheap to fix. Usually, mold problems are are incrementally and even geometrically more expensive, right? So you end up with, you know, and it’s just a matter of days between free or cheap, too cost prohibitive. And that’s that’s the that’s the big lesson here is that mold is a moisture problem, and you only have 24 to 48 hours to respond to one before it becomes an issue that you have to bring in potentially professionals for you know, significant sons. Yeah, there’s no shortcuts on that, unfortunately.
14:11
Yeah. So you know, before we’re gonna get into what you what you’ve created and what you’ve done, but what did people used to do? Like, I mean, like, what did like the Hilton, like what, like, what do people do to find out besides getting like a random illness, like how would they be alerted to be like, Okay, we have something going on, and who do I bring it to confirm that?
14:32
Well, so in the Hilton’s, in Helens case, it was a maid that just one of the housekeepers saw that the wallpaper had been peeling, and they had been getting complaints too. And they’re building the back was they put a vapor barrier on the wrong side of the wall assembly. So in other words, it’s very humid there. What are we getting the water got trapped, and it was the entire building so is a systemic building defect. This is not uncommon in residential structures as well, that there will be a systemic build In the effect, and especially, it’s especially
15:05
prevalent in newer homes, this is counterintuitive, most people think I’m an old house buyers, mold, new houses are more prone to mold problems because of the type of building materials, poor construction, let the art the artists and is dead. So they labor, they’re just not skilled. And they’re using cheap building materials that are essentially mold, mold food, we build buildings out of mold food. And, and I could talk more about that whole thing about why modern construction is the is the recipe for this, we can talk about that a little more later. But the but the first clue for her was was the peeling of the wallpaper. And and then as is typical with these problems, as it begins, you begin opening up the walls, and it becomes this Pandora’s box, the more you open, the more you find mold loves to hide, it likes to it tends to be in places that are out of sight out of mind. And because because of course mold really likes poor maintenance, right? Mold really loves deferred maintenance of all of the things that we do as humans, for maintenance is as high on the list. And and so those tend to be that that tends to occur in places that are sort of out of sight out of mind. And so it’s not that mold is hiding from you, per se, but it’s going it’s going to it’s going to proliferate, where people aren’t paying attention. And so, as they began opening it up, they kept finding more and more. And in, in all cases, what I suggest people do is, is engage your senses. You know, if you see something, smell something, or feel something, do something. And so what does that look like? Do you see something any indications of water staining, leaks, blistering paint, trim pulling away those kinds of things. Water bugs, spider webs are indications of dampness. By the way, most people think that spiders are friendly, but they’re eating something and that the little bugs, little bugs need to eat little bugs and little bugs eat mold spores and mold spores like water. So you got a whole chain of events, for a whole ecosystem nesting ecologies, actually, if you will, that all require a moisture source. So if you’ve got a moisture problem, you will see the critters come. It’s a pool party and everyone’s invited. And so, so that you see something, do something if you smell something, and this is a big one. The musty odor is the dead giveaway. Mold produces this this distinctive odor, which has very powerful health effects. The data and the research is coming out on the musty odor alone is remarkable. I’ve seen this anecdotally for 20 years where buildings that don’t have any visible mold. Even air samples come back clean with normal spore counts, but there’s a musty odor, and people are really sick, and remediated. And again, there’s their musty smell goes away spore counts are the same. And and the moisture problem is corrected, and they get better. And I’ve seen this not once or twice but 1000s of sick building investigations. And and I’ve seen this hundreds of times and documented as many as well. So if you smell something that is the that is the hallmark of active mold growth, and I will also mentions just in terms of research. musty odor, is the musty odor in a building is the second leading indicator of childhood asthma behind maternal smoking. Wow. And in fact, there’s another study that showed the exposure that infants exposure to the musty odor increases their likelihood of developing asthma by 250%. That was out of the UK. I can also tell you that there’s a correlation between mold and dampness and depression, according to a large study that was done by Brown University 6000 participants in that study. So really statistically significant. Yeah. And and there has been interesting studies done with a by my friend, Dr. John Bennett or Ruckers, who who use the special fruit flies that fluoresce when they produce dopamine that you can buy these by mail order, which is pretty cool. And she tested the musty odor actually a specific mushroom alcohol that’s, that’s in this musty odor. And they stopped producing dopamine, they stop reproducing, they fly down instead of towards the light and they develop Parkinsonian like symptoms. And the most common complaints that people have from exposure to the musty odor which are also called microbial VOCs. Is headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, brain fog, all that stuff. general malaise, depression. And so the Brown University study found a correlation. But Dr. Bennett found a much more direct link in terms of the animal studies and that’s since been replicated and expanded upon by numerous other researchers throughout the World musty odor is a big deal. And people have often I mean, our entire lives have just dismissed that as an uncomfortable aesthetic as it just as an aesthetic nuisance is crazy, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Almost produced by the way. So the mycotoxins, which is the thing that most people worry about. Most Molson produced them. And even the molds that do produce them don’t produce. And very often, they produce them when they’re under threat when they’re under stress, either because, you know, they’re drying out or because there’s competition. And basically, it’s chemical warfare on microscopic level.
20:31
Hey, we’ll give you a short break here, where you can head down to the show notes or lifestyle locker.com and join our tribe of human powered life heroes, you’ll be the first to know about new shows, events, product launches, affiliate specials, and more. And now, back to the show.
20:49
But the musty odor is produced by all molds, and so so worrying about Toxic Mold or Black Mold is a fool’s game. It’s a fool’s errand. You worry about dampness because all molds produce these musty smells. In fact, Dr. Bennett now wants to call she wants to call the volatile organic compounds, the VOCs, which, by the way, believe alcohol is a voc right bleach has VOCs VOCs are common formaldehyde, VOCs, man named VOCs are all around us. And they’re, they cause other problems. But the microbio VOCs have, again, long been dismissed, and she wants to recall, rename them, instead of volatile organic compounds, she wants to call them follow toxins. pretty brilliant. And so see something smell something and then feel something feel something as symptoms, and people generally know if the building is causing them distress because they leave and they feel better. And and so, you know, if you if you’re having symptoms that range from I mean, mold is the is the great mimicker really, it’s it will it sort of nebulous symptoms, but upper respiratory, dermal headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, things like that, that I mentioned before. But there’s all sorts of other things that mold aggravates, it aggravates inflammatory, it triggers other other symptoms in people that might be latent, ate sometimes brings out sensitivities like it did with me, where I was suddenly allergic to all these other things. But suddenly, when I’m no longer being exposed to this, this great aggravator, this great inflammatory agent, all those other latent sensitivities simply fell back and they self suppressed. And so the symptoms part is a little bit more nebulous. But again, see something smell something, or feel something, do something,
22:36
do something, you know, it’s interesting, and I’m thinking, you know, it with my chiropractic mind, I always, always bring everything back into the nervous system and my thought process. And you know, when we teach people about what we do, it is physical, chemical and emotional stressors that impact people’s livelihood, because whether your body’s experiencing something from the external end or internal environment, and mold is that is that perfect, or imperfect toxin that can really, really screwed that central nervous system, which, like you said, it’s a great minute, Mecca can give all of these little symptoms. So some of them may get like I’m gonna get, I get headaches, and they just live on Tylenol, or they get wet or whatever. And then then they script their liver and they cause something else from the Tylenol, but they never really getting to that root source. And I tend to go it’s, it’s an it’s a Now currently, we don’t have you share with us, it’s a much more inexpensive way to find if you have a problem, but I love that I love the find the dampness thing, it’s like, I feel like I have to go to Costco right now and go buy like six dozen dehumidifiers, like, everywhere in that, not that I’m going to get on it yet. But like, it makes me really start to think, you know, obviously, bathrooms and things like that we’re showering, like these are areas that can definitely potentially be, you know, hazards to your home, if not taken care of.
23:53
No doubt about it. And so I for that reason, I encourage people to arm themselves with simple tools. You know, trust your senses, like I said, you know, see it, smell it, feel it. But get the data, get the data. Because we were very lousy humidity gauges humans are not good. We actually literally don’t have the sensors for that we only can do hot and cold, we think we can feel wet, but we can’t actually shows up as cold. And we interpret it based on the context of the of the environment as wet. So we’re not good at measuring humidity or even dampness you put your hand on a wet wall, you can’t tell the difference between a wet or a cold wall even if you think you can. And so you use devices for that. And so humidity gauges are your best friend. When it comes to monitoring the indoor environment, you know that you get the wireless ones with an app on your phone, you can set an alert so that if it goes below 40%, which is ashtrays minimum, ASHRAE is the American Society of Heating and refrigeration and air conditioning engineers so they’re the guys that make the guidelines on these things. And so if it goes below 40% You’re gonna get the you’re gonna get dehydrated and you’re going to be susceptible to because your mucous membranes will dry out. You’re gonna be susceptible To direct exposure to airborne microbes, yeah. And if it’s above 60%, you’re at the risk of developing condensation and also other what they call water activity, which contributes other allergens too, like dust mites, and book lights, and all the other critters, like I said before, this whole net, these nesting ecologies they’re all come from that one, that one moisture source, but you brought something up about the inflammation about people treating the symptom, the headache, for example. And I have been playing with this idea of mold, not as the enemy. But actually the messenger. So the building that you live in, is a lot like a body, it’s kind of system, it’s a system of systems, it’s got, you know, circulatory systems, it’s got lungs, so to speak, you know, it’s, and we’re essentially like, kind of like the mitochondria, where the powers were kind of making stuff happen in the house, the building needs us to survive, and we need the building to survive, there’s a mutualism, you could even argue a symbiosis, right. But they’re both playing with the building as a body as a metaphor. You know, when the building has a moisture problem, which is the first thing that happens when when there’s a maintenance issue or for damage, the first thing happens with a moisture issue is you get mold growth, that happens very quickly, again, 24 to 48 hours, and the mold sends you a signal, it sends you a signal on that musty odor. And much like the body, when you have a problem sends you a signal, inflammation, pain and inflammation. If you don’t listen to that, it will become chronic inflammation, that’s its own disease, right? That’s the body, the building does the same thing, it sends you a signal, mold is telling you, it’s here. If you don’t listen to that, it will get worse and worse and worse until you it will ultimately wants to take over your house. But if you if you answer to that you deal with that, that as inflammation in the building as a pain point and you fix it. First of all, you’ve saved yourself a lot of time and money. But also when the building heals, guess what happens, the people got sick from it, they’re gonna get better too. They heal too. So there is a real mutualism, that if you care for the building, I would even argue the building’s got a birthday. And a death day potentially. And its longevity is determined by how well you care for it. I mean, this, this metaphor plays all the way through. And it’s and it’s powerful, because people tend to think about mold being the enemy. And actually mulch is doing its job. It’s just trying to digest things and turn it back into dirt. And that we need that otherwise, we’d have piles of dead stuff everywhere. But it’s not doing its job when it’s doing that in your house. And it gives you the signals and it’s up for you to listen, and then take the necessary actions.
27:41
Yeah, in the in the chiropractic world is the same as his nature needs. No health just needs no interference. But in this case, there needs to be that interference to nature taking place in in the home, so we don’t create that mold. So I love love to you to share like you have you’ve created a solution for people. Share, please, I think this is this is we’re definitely there at this point, because people are like, Alright, come on. Tell me more. I need to know more. I’m saying that to
28:07
Gotcha. Okay, well, so. So from Hawaii, I came back, I’ll just quickly get into how there’s a solution. But there’s an important part. So I came back armed with a lot of curiosity, and I took a job working for a mold remediation company. There wasn’t really a mold remediation company. They were doing mold remediation as part of a another contracting firm. And I quickly saw that they were not doing the right thing. And then I looked at the industry and saw almost nobody was there was no industry standard. There was there was no no sort of guidance. I created a Mold Inspection Company to help protect consumers from that this is my way of creating a service business to answer that purpose, that itch that I that I was seeking. And so we’d heard about a guy who trained mold sniffing dogs and I went and saw one it was immediately enamored and, and partnered with a dog named Oreo who was so so incredible. She and I did some really great work together for about 12 years. And we’re on Good Morning America and Extreme Makeover Home Edition and hundreds of newspapers and magazines. We helped a lot a lot of people, but the in that company became one 800 Got mold. We used to call it lab results, because we use Labrador Retrievers, and did laboratory testing. And it was cute, but the company became one 800 got mauled, which is still 20 years old. And, and we serve a very affluent clientele single family homes mostly. And our average inspections around $1,500, including lab fees, they can be more or less. And interestingly, cost prohibitive for many people, especially renters except for maybe in Manhattan, but it’s it was it was something that over the years we’ve taken 10s of 1000s of phone calls and many many people said I would love to hire you but I just can’t afford it. And the the sad irony of that is that my own parents could not have afforded to hire my company which I created to help families not go through what my parents went through. So and that always bothered me. And about four years ago, it’s actually I started this in 2000. I started this, the experiment that I’m about to tell you about in 2007. But about four years ago, I dusted off some prototypes, because I felt like the marketplace is ready. But basically, what I wanted to do is figure out a way that we could take the ethics the poor ethics out of the spec. Right now, it’s hard to find a qualified contractor, a qualified inspector, and also to give people scientifically valid results that are that are that are cost effective. So I put together a dream team of scientists and engineers and designers to create a do it yourself test kit that allows people to test their air for mold, without any of the costs or hassles associated with trying to find and hire a qualified, independent, reputable professional. And so that is the got Mold Test Kit, which we which which is got mold.com. And with that kit, you can collect air air samples using a device called a spore trap, which is around specially engineered cassette that captures airborne particles, it interfaces with an air sampling pump, which we created, which which replaces $1,000 Professional device. And we make it for a lot less than that, obviously, what you get to keep by the way, when you buy a test kit, you get to you get to keep it and retest we now offer, you can test your air one, two or three rooms. The test can start at 149. Here’s our air sampling pump. And the cassette that goes on top, they take they run for five minutes each, you take an outside sample, you take the inside samples in areas that your concern with our saw, you said you submit the samples back to our lab partner in a prepaid mailer. And within two days at the lab, the report is released. And it’s very clear, easy to understand report that makes that compares to the samples automatically. So you get a green, yellow, orange red indicator on the upon this various puts found, you also get the actual lab report. So professional looking at this would actually be able to make sense of it. And then and see if if our interpretation if they agree with it. And then of course, there’s also action steps you can take in terms of you know how to find a qualified inspector how to find a qualified remediator, we have an e book that we called How to find mold, and a variety of other
32:18
potential next steps that are informed by the results. And then once you collect those samples, you get to keep the pump. So if you want to retest, you can just buy refills, and then it’s only 99 to test one room 149 to test two and 199 to test three. beyond that. So that’s that’s the solution. So it’s not it doesn’t replace a professional inspection, let me make this clear. No tests should. But what it does do is it gives you the ability to do this in the in the in confidence in your own home without getting permission from anyone without having to schedule appointments, and you get the same quality results that you would get from a professional if not better, because we partnered with the number one lab in the country MLF tienen. Que, so you’re getting a true accredited analysis from the top lab in the country. And then from there, you can determine whether or not you need to make that investment. Because oftentimes people need a little validation. Oftentimes, they just need to be to know that they’re not crazy, especially if someone in the house is disagreeing with their assessment of what’s going on.
33:24
Yeah, I mean, this would be you know, I’m thinking that not my business, but I’m thinking holy cow, like, if I was a home inspector, and I came into your home with your kit for like every room, and like it’s gonna be a little more expensive, but we’re gonna know, right now, within three days, if your house the house you’re looking at is worth buying or not like that, like holy cow. Like that’s, like such a value add. Because I hadn’t had we had that done in our home. I would have known that before we put a bid in right off the start. Right? Yeah. But like before we went to contract like, yeah, so it’s a it’s a powerful thing. And obviously, you know, I’m just thinking in my house now that we had all that stuff done. I wonder if there’s anything that’s lurking?
34:05
Well, we’ll find out. Yeah.
34:07
Right, exactly. Right. Like it’s like Oh, really. So this is really neat. So I’m glad this actually have you show it like so for those of you that are watching the video, you know, I’ve watched the video online of you sharing and going through the whole process, but it’s really neat just to see that it’s this tiny thing, it’s like the size of you know, half of like it’s like a coffee mug. You know, it’s something that’s simple. So that’s that’s great, right? You know, for those in New York City or any other city where you have you know, storage space is small. It’s not going to take up a ton right?
34:40
Right actually, we thought the way the kit is designed where it comes in at seven inch cube but then this is what you get the pump actually comes in this box with the handle Yeah, so you can store it nicely, easily. Or you can share it with someone else and they can just order supply. So this is especially designed for are, you know, I lived in New York City, for the last seven years, we just relocated as mentioned before we were hopped on, on the recording here. And a lot of our business for winning Hunter got mold was actually in Manhattan, you know, apartments, apartments have terrible problems with mold, mostly because landlords don’t, don’t maintain as they should, and also dismiss it. Because many mold problems in apartments are actually caused by lifestyle, true, you know, people drying clothes indoors and not venting, you know, a lot of Manhattan apartments don’t even have proper ventilation, they just have those silly past events. And in the kitchens and bathrooms, they’re oftentimes not even connected to the roof. And so So humidity is a major issue, a lot of those buildings are also, you know, the the seats, it’s got, they’ve got their problems, but they’re also in renters don’t have the ability to take action on these things. They don’t, they can’t bring in a contractor, you know, they can, they gotta wait for the building maintenance staff who’s just not informed on these things, they’ll come in and spray some bleach and paint over it. That’s what they’re trained to do that generational ignorance is really the best way to describe that.
36:08
Yeah, I like that. Unfortunately, it’s makes sense. Yeah. And
36:12
so we created this kit, in large part to serve that audience of the the people that are renting, they’re on a budget, you know, single moms come to mind, my mom comes to mind, she would have loved a product like this. And so, so this is really designed for but you know, there’s a lot of people that live in big single family homes that just don’t want to deal with all the nonsense, and they don’t want to spend 1000 bucks to have somebody come over and be worried that they’re going to take the data and use it against them to, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these inspectors are also remediators on the side or their brothers in the remediation business, and you just don’t know. And once they have data, man, it’s really easy to get scared into doing something that you might not normally do.
36:53
Yeah, and I would, I would tell everyone that, you know, if you, you know, get to the point where our house we were in now, like if you get to a point where you have that your attic, or your basement is has filled black mold, you know, and this is not even like even idea this is, I think the main section of our house, the roof is like 1300 Square, does it get 13 or 14 square feet? That was more than $1,000 a square foot to fix. And that’s not including re insulating. We found out that the hard way after our first power bill when the remediation didn’t put insulation in, like, why is our heating bill? 600 bucks for one month? Yeah, it was going right, I was literally going out the roof was great. I mean, there’s no snow stain on our roof, but but nonetheless. So I would urge everybody to definitely check this out. Because this is this could save you health time. And definitely money, for sure. You know, in the long run, because if your health goes bad, you’re gonna spend money on that too, not just your building your home or apartment. I’m the first to see it. I take care of tons of patients in my practice, and I think this now may be something that we’re just going to, you know, recommend people at least check out for sure. Because I think it’s a big piece of the puzzle. And you said New York Cities is, is riddled with moldy apartments and buildings. So where’s every city is? I
38:16
think, yeah, yeah, I
38:17
imagine every city is I mean, it’s, like you said, it’s old, like what you just said before, but it was great line. But, you know, it’s like that, that age old, like, alright, we’re just gonna put bleach in and paint on it, and it’s done, then you won’t smell anything anymore. But the problem is just now a layer deep. It’s gonna find generational ignorance, generational ignorance. I mean, that’s like the line of the day here. So Jason, where is the best place for people? To find out more? I know, you mentioned it a couple of times, but I want to make sure people you know, have a pen and paper handy and get this down or just put this right in your phone.
38:51
Yeah, but by all means. So we actually made a special page for your listeners at got mold.com/human power, which should be pretty easy for any of your loyal listeners. And on that page, you’ll find a link to the ebook I mentioned earlier, how to find mold, which is about 45 pages of an inspector inspection checklists and, and FAQs. And it’s something we get a lot of positive feedback about. It’s especially helpful for anyone who’s looking at this for the first time, that’s having a hard time finding anything they trust online. You know, if you’re getting your mold advice from Facebook, watch out, right. It’s all fear. If you’re getting it from the internet in general, I would I would caution you because there’s just a it’s just all a lot of junk science, a lot of misinformation out there. So we tried to create one that was distilled it doesn’t we’re not selling anything in there. We’re we’re this is really just our way of, of helping to cut through some of the noise. And so you can find that ebook there. And then also there’s a link to to the gmail.com directly to the shop page there if you wanted to use the Human Power 10 coupon code for a 10% discount on any of the kits. So and of course, you could just go straight to gmail.com if you wanted to and use human powered 10 as well. But that’s all right there. And then if you want to, if you want to get in touch with me, if you’ve got questions, you could go directly right to gmail.com. And then bottom of the homepage, there’s a little field there where you can ask questions, I see every single one of those. And alternatively, we’re just getting started on social media. We’ve been in sort of in stealth mode as we develop this. But now that we’re out of stealth mode, if you want to post questions on Facebook, I love to answer questions publicly, so that everyone else can get the benefit of the answers. So I’m pretty accessible. I’m not that hard to find. Good,
40:46
good. Well, everybody, Jason Earle got mold.com This is awesome. Jason has been an awesome conversation, I want to thank you, first and foremost, and for all of the listeners that are, you know, have your earbuds in or in your car, you’re going to head down to the show notes, you’re going to click the link and over the website here at Lifestyle locker.com. And you’re gonna be able to see the video, the whole thing, and then the video that’s going to be happening after this conversation. So Jason, thank you so much.
41:12
Thank you very much.
41:20
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the human-powered life podcast. Make sure to head over to lifestyle doctor.com to check out all the details on the show. And to watch part two of this episode, which is only in video format. We also have this audio portion in video format if you want. Once again, I’m your host, Dr. Josh Han to the human-powered life podcast, and I’m looking forward to staying connected with you as a human-powered life hero. Remember to join the tribe. And we’ll see you soon. Goodbye
