Mold Matters: Navigating Renters' Legal Rights, Remediation, and Air Quality with Jason Earle from Got Mold

WELCOME TO EPISODE 164

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Freddie Kimmel (00:02.066)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the beautifully broken podcast. We're here with my good friend, Jason Earl. Jason, welcome to the show again. Yeah, it's an honor to have you here. We, we could talk for hours and hours, but I had actually a deep longing, a deep knowing that within the collective consciousness right now, with all that's going on in the world, it's so important to understand air quality and

Jason Earle (00:08.588)
So good to be here, so good to be here.

Freddie Kimmel (00:29.618)
is we become these digital nomads and we start to travel around the country and explore different areas. And, and we're, we're looking, uh, what is the value of home ownership versus renting? My mind always goes back to, well, I've created this really safe environment in my home. I know my air quality. What happens when I travel? What happens when I'm a renter? What happens when it's a property that I don't know the history of? So I had this idea pop into my head. It's like the, it's like,

the renter's guide to mold management and avoidance. And of course, you're my person. You're my person to answer these questions.

Jason Earle (01:09.952)
Perfect, perfect. I love it. And by the way, we're here to talk about Rentr, the Rentr's playbook, if you will. But yeah, yeah. But I just got back from two weeks in Asia to move production of our air sampling pump over from China to Thailand. And while I was over there, I dealt with a lot of moldy hotels. And so it's an interesting conversation, because travel and mold and also renting and mold, they're different animals and for very different reasons. And we should focus on the Rentr's piece.

Freddie Kimmel (01:16.706)
The Renters Playbook.

Jason Earle (01:39.884)
for sure that the travel piece, especially with the digital nomad thing, you know, once you once you no longer truly own your abode, you then have stakeholders and permissions you need to get from people. And it's a very disempowering place to be. I'm an indoor air quality expert, and I couldn't find a place a safe place to sleep in two weeks, you know. So it's a challenge.

Freddie Kimmel (01:59.954)
Yeah. Hmm. Safety. What a great word to unpack. We could do, I have a billion ideas for different episodes, but we will to, to your course correction, we will stick with renters. I think that's a great, um, that's a great adjustment. Thank you for keeping me on task. So just Jason jumping in a mold 101. Um, it's all about moisture. Maybe we can just start there as far as a renter's application.

Jason Earle (02:08.875)
No doubt.

Jason Earle (02:28.468)
Yeah, I think that's probably the best place to start because I think when it comes to understanding what your rights as a renter, the fundamental confusion or the fundamental problem with that conversation, especially if you're gonna go out and start exercising those rights, is to be able to speak to them in a way that doesn't undermine your efforts, right? And so the first thing for people to understand is that mold is

not the problem. Mold is a symptom of a moisture problem. Mold growth is not something that happens accidentally. It's not like lightning striking you. It's not an earthquake, this sudden thing that just kind of like tears apart the space-time continuum and you're the victim of it. It's actually a very repeatable natural phenomenon that occurs when stuff gets wet and stays wet for more than a couple of days. And so mold spores are...

a natural part of our environment, especially of a healthy environment. In fact, what's really interesting is that kingdom fungi, every year, produces 50 megatons of spores. This includes macro fungi, so mushrooms as well as molds and yeast and stuff like that. Every year, kingdom fungi produces 50 megatons, which is the equivalent of 500,000 blue whales. Every year.

Freddie Kimmel (03:32.631)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (03:53.922)
Wow.

Jason Earle (03:57.62)
And mold spores are so ubiquitous on the planet that weather balloons will find them 13.7 miles above the Earth's surface in clouds, in their own spore clouds. And so when we talk about mold spores, they're often talked about as if they're these nuclear packets, these things that are gonna attack you as if they're pathogens. Some of them are pathogens, but very, very few. Out of the 100,

40,000 known and identified. There's only a few that can actually cause human actual human infectious disease and only about a dozen or so produce Mycotoxins that are worth talking about although the number

Freddie Kimmel (04:34.262)
Well, what are the spores that cause the overwhelming of fungi to grow throughout the body like the last of us on HBO?

Jason Earle (04:43.42)
You know, the good news is that that's a wonderful conflation of science fiction and science fact. And so cordyceps is actually a mushroom that's fascinating though, as it is in real life. It's called the zombie fungus. And it actually does pathogenically grow within ants. And so if you want to watch something really fun, just go Google cordyceps and ants.

And what it does is it gets in there and it infects them and it actually fills up their shell and it takes over their brain, their mind, and it forces them to go to the tallest piece of grass they can find in their environment. And then their jaw locks on to the branch, the highest branch or blade of grass. And then the fruiting body shoots out of their forehead and sporulates onto the colony. That is the cordyceps.

go to market strategy. Okay, this is it literally is body control, mind control, and then and then go forth and prosper. And so it's a remark. And by the way, the ants know when this happens, and they will grab they'll see the guy acting a little weird, they're like, Okay, he's got it. And they'll pick him up and they will sacrifice their own lives and carry him outside of the colony so that they'll die because they'll get infected too. And

And so yeah, no, cordyceps is real. It's just not real in that context. It would be scary if it were. And you know, actually truth is it would probably not. I mean, give us enough time, right? We're doing some pretty funny, pretty funky stuff with the planet. I mean, you know.

Freddie Kimmel (06:10.274)
Not yet.

Freddie Kimmel (06:17.962)
I know. Jason, back to moisture. So when I hear the idea of moisture that sounds like it's more of the base of the pyramid, which can create this true systemic problem. When I am a renter and I'm coming into a space, I'm examining a two-bedroom apartment I might want to take over, what are the places that I would identify to check for moisture as a renter, in your opinion?

Jason Earle (06:43.98)
Well, looking for moisture, I think that, well, first of all, the most common problems in apartments usually revolve around the ventilation systems. So in other words, bathroom exhaust vents, kitchen exhaust vents, if they even exist. This is especially a problem in older cities, where you've got a lot of older structures like New York City, where the building code also will often say that if there's a window in the bathroom, you don't need an exhaust vent. That's a very common code.

nationwide. And this is insane because that means that you have to open your windows to get fresh air when it's really humid or really cold or really hot. And just doesn't make sense. Um, and, and oftentimes what you're then doing is bringing in more moisture into, into the space that you're trying to ventilate. Um, so, you know, building code tends to lag common sense, uh, and certainly lags best practice by at least a decade. So, um, so, but the bottom line is the landlords will only in most cases, uh, build to or maintain to code.

Freddie Kimmel (07:26.924)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (07:42.604)
because the building, listen, let's face facts. A landlord's business model is invest as little as possible in the property and charge as much as they possibly can for rent. And so that means investing as little as possible in maintenance, get it done, but as little as necessary, right? This is the business model. So invariably, there are going to be corners cut, right? There's just no two ways about it. So you wanna understand that those limitations

come with renting. And so you're not going to get the Shangri-La, or more importantly, you're not going to get a house like yours or mine in most cases, unless you are very, very fortunate. So you have to just go flip the bathroom exhaust vent, see if it runs. And how do you test that, by the way? With a piece of toilet paper. Put the toilet paper next to the fan. If it sucks the paper up into it, then it works.

Otherwise, it doesn't work. Those common exhaust channels, or rather, they're passive. They're actually not technically passive, but the little square vents that you see in New York City apartments a lot, those are common exhaust vents, and so they have a fan on the roof. You can test those, because those usually don't work. Those have been disconnected, or the fans are turned off to save electricity.

Freddie Kimmel (08:41.819)
functioning.

Jason Earle (09:07.288)
So those are really important things because they are a building-related, they're a building maintenance requirement and they're a building maintenance issue, but they also have a direct impact on your ability to maintain a healthy environment. Because whether it's your exhaust from your kitchen, which is gonna generate moisture and pollutants from the cooking, or whether it be from showering and just breathing, or even if you've got house plants, they transpire, water comes out of them. Water goes in and water comes out.

And especially if you've got more than one person living in the apartment, people generate moisture. You know, we are mostly moisture. And so making sure that ventilation works is key. Number two, you want to look for any visible signs of moisture, right? And so you're going to look at window sills to see if you've got condensation. If you've got black mold growth around the perimeter of the windows, that may indicate that the building has a humidity issue and it's manifesting as mold and mildew on the window sills.

And you want to look around baseboard trim also if it's peeling away. I'm not talking about a little tiny gap or the paint You know, I'm talking about you mean you see really see that the building materials have shifted Which is usually a sign that there's a moisture problem which causes expansion and contraction and when two different materials get wet They will expand and contract at different rates and that's where you'll get the trim will shift and you'll see gaps and you'll see wavy gravy stuff also flooring that's cupped buckled warped

Freddie Kimmel (10:22.215)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Earle (10:35.736)
things like that, do you want to, you know, if it, the flooring is not, sometimes it's designed to be that way. It's been scraped and it's got character. That's not what I'm talking about. A water damaged floor has its own signature kind of, you know, dead giveaway. And that tends to happen towards the perimeter of the floor, again, near windows, right? And near porches, balconies, these are real serious points of entry, we see that all the time.

And then lastly, you want to really look at the HVAC system. Oftentimes these are heat pumps or they are in wall, what they call P-TAC units. And these units are notoriously problematic from the perspective of getting dirty. And so when they get dirty, which means the filters haven't been cleaned enough, they will get moldy because dirty HVAC systems get moldy because the dust is what supports the fungal growth. So,

these things have to be cleaned very, very regularly. And it means swapping out filters and then they should be at least annually maintained, if not before the beginning of the cooling season and at the end of the cooling season.

Freddie Kimmel (11:45.954)
Can you, can you just insert an explainer? Why does dust to support fungal growth?

Jason Earle (11:52.612)
Ah, excellent. Yeah, so going back to mold 101, right? Mold requires just a few things to grow. Mold is, and actually even back up further, mold is nature's digestive organism. Mold is the great recycler. Mold's job is to turn things that were at one time living back into dirt to support further growth, right? So that's what mold is here to do, is just to continue that.

without mold and without fungi, we would have piles of dead plant matter all over the world. In fact, we did have that. And that's why we have oil and coal and all that stuff. Because before we had fungi on the planet, that stuff accumulated. And then eventually that got buried. And then that's why we have that is because it was pre-fungi. And so now, it's doing its job, if it's doing that to leaves and twigs and sticks in your yard, but not so much when it's doing that to the wall board or carpet or carpet padding in your living room.

And so that's where we end up with the problem. So when we're talking about why mold grows on dust, well, dust is essentially broken down material from our living spaces, right? Some is oftentimes skin cells, human and pets, as well as pests. And of course, you know, stuff that comes in from, also building shedding, so paint particles. You know, when you have to repaint, why do you have to repaint? Well, where did that paint go? When you have to refinish your floor, where did that finish go?

Well, it went into the dust in your house, which is a good reason for you to use HEPA filters and HEPA filtered air cleaners anyway, because that's chemicals. That's just not, that's not just mold. That's really concentrated chemical and VOC, concentrated VOC. This is really nasty stuff. This is the stuff that cancer's made of, you know? So we wanna mechanically remove those things from our house. But the dust that accumulates in our HVAC systems and in our filters is like pre-digested.

It's already played pre chewed for mold, you know, it's very easy mold spores are already in there because mold spores Like we said are so ubiquitous If you look at dust you'll see skin cells spores pollen and building material particles And then you'll see hair and all that kind of stuff with macro But like but like really in the micro side what you'll see is basically biological particles And and lots of little bits of buildings

Jason Earle (14:12.316)
and mold loves that stuff. It's like, it's like, it's so easy to eat. It's like snackables. And so, and plus it absorbs moisture really well. And so it's perfect. So when we say the healthy home mantra or the healthy apartment mantra, it's to stay on point, stay on a topic here. The healthy building mantra is clean and dry. Because when mold requires these back to requirements,

Freddie Kimmel (14:18.11)
Yeah, understood.

Jason Earle (14:36.992)
when mold grows and only requires a few things the spores of course, which are like the microscopic seeds that contain all the DNA. Um, and then it requires oxygen. These are, these are aerobic, uh, microbes. So they do require oxygen, uh, a comfortable temperature. And which is interesting because they basically like the temperature that we do. Uh, that's why they grow in our houses. Um, right alongside of us, it's, you know, evolutionarily speaking, you know, this, we're, we're kind of, we're very similar. We actually have a lot of, we're very related to fungi, by the way. That's.

Antifungal medications actually harm human tissue. So we are more closely related to fungi than we are bacteria. And so they like our conditions too. And we cohabitate with them, so to speak. And most of the time without any ill effect. But when it starts to grow, it also needs a food source. And that food source is anything that was at one time living, anything that's organic. And I don't mean that in the whole food sense. I mean that in the sense that carbon based. So from former living cells.

Freddie Kimmel (15:31.818)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Earle (15:34.42)
And so, and that's where it drives this nutrition. And of course it also requires, lastly and most importantly, moisture. So you got spores, temperature, oxygen and moisture. Now you can't control the oxygen, because we need that too. You can't control the temperature, because we like to keep our temperature, you know, comfortable for us too. But what you can control is food to some degree, you can keep it clean, although sheet rock supports fungal growth really well.

And moisture, and moisture is the one thing you can and must control because again, we build our buildings out of mold food and even the cleanest building, if there's enough moisture, will support fungal growth. So the key element here is always moisture control, but then to reduce the likelihood when a moisture problem does present itself, and it will because this is, we live in a water planet and we all have running water and we all live in places where it rains occasionally, so we will deal with moisture issues. You must also keep things

dry or clean rather to reduce the likelihood of immediate colonization. And that segues into the next part, which is very important, which is that mold growth occurs very quickly within, according to the EPA, within 24 to 48 hours, mold will grow if the conditions are right. And what are those conditions? The ones I just outlined, food, water, air, and nutrition, food, water, air and moisture. And so, uh, so you got two

Two days, according to EPA, according to the IICRC S520, which is the mold remediation standard, you have 72 hours. Actually, the S500 water dammer standard says you have 72 hours. Otherwise, you have to go to the mold remediation standard. So 72 hours is the standard, 48 hours is the EPA. So two to three days is all it takes for mold to begin to grow in the event that you have a moisture problem that isn't dealt with proactively. So this requires vigilance.

Freddie Kimmel (17:29.298)
Yeah, yeah. What about do you, are you a person who do you believe in operating a dehumidifier in your home or a basement area or such to control the ambient moisture in the air or keeping that at a certain percentage?

Jason Earle (17:43.456)
Yes, and it depends on the, so it depends on the environment. So like in an apartment, I would say no, because they generate a lot of heat. They're also very expensive in terms of electricity usage. In apartments, your best bet is to use your air conditioner as the dehumidifier that it is. And the key to that is of course, like I said, making sure that the filters are clean. And making sure that the unit itself, the A coils, which is what allows the air to get cooled.

is actually are clean as well, because air is being passed through those. And that's what gets dirty, and that's what gets condensation on it, and that's what gets mold growth on it in an HVAC system most of the time. But you wanna use that, and you wanna keep your AC on all the time on a lower setting. And I don't mean lower temperature. I mean, you know, as warm as you can tolerate it, but running and...

consistently. And the reason for that is because when HVAC systems turn on and off, when AC systems, I should say, turn on and off, when it turns off, all of those surfaces in and around the unit are cold. And if they're dirty, or even if they have even just a slight dusting on them, moisture will accumulate. You'll get condensation, especially if the building has, if it has not effectively dehumidified, right? And air conditioner is a dehumidifier.

That's why you have a condensation line that comes off of that unit and drains to the outside. And you know this is the case when one of those fails, because it creates a flood in your house, right? So it's pulling moisture out of your air and it's depositing it outside or into a sump or into a pump or something like that. And so that is doing its job. And so you, but when it cycles on and off, you're stopping the dehumidification process.

Freddie Kimmel (19:16.939)
Yes.

Jason Earle (19:33.396)
and you're creating all of all these cold surfaces which are, which allow condensation to form. And so this is why, by the way, this is goes back to the hotel conversation. This is why you get all these moldy hotels because they put the key card in the door. You know, when you walk in, you put the key card in and that allows your lights and AC to operate. And then when you take the key card out, they turn off. Well, guess what happens? All the warm moist air from the hallway or from outside comes in and then you get everything gets damp.

Freddie Kimmel (20:01.323)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (20:01.664)
Same thing happens inside an AC unit. So when it comes to apartments where you really wouldn't want to put a dehumidifier in a space, I am a big fan of them for basements, crawl spaces, spaces that are out of sight, out of mind, especially if you could set them up so they automatically drain into a pump or a pit and then you don't have to worry. And you got sensors set up so that you can know when you've actually, when you're in the safe zone, which by the way is 40 to 60% relative humidity. The safe zone, according to ASHRAE, which is the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers.

Freddie Kimmel (20:16.348)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Earle (20:31.676)
is 40 to 60% relative humidity. That's RH is the acronym for that. 40 to 60. It's a wide range, but 45 is the target. And the reason for that is because below 40, and it's hard to manage that in the winter because most places dry out pretty aggressively in the winter. Below 40, your mucus membranes dry out and you can get sick from that alone. It allows direct access to microbes, right? So, and then,

Freddie Kimmel (20:39.734)
40 to 60 percent. That's good to know.

Freddie Kimmel (20:56.631)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (21:00.968)
And then, and dehumidification, I mean, dehydration is a clear path to disease, you know, to illness and malaise. On the upside, 60%, it's not just mold, also you start to get dust mites and you start to get other allergens that start to grow and proliferate. And so, you know, it becomes an allergen stew, if you will. So mold is growing, allergen, you know, dust mites are throwing off their lovely stuff. You know, we're allergic to dust mite fecal pellets. Did you know that? Isn't that a great little fun fact?

Dust mites themselves are not so much of a problem, but their poop is. And because if you look in dust mite poop, you know what they have a lot of? Mold spores, they actually eat mold spores. Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (21:33.387)
Hmm.

Freddie Kimmel (21:39.966)
Yeah, it is the lion king. It's a cycle of life. It's fascinating. If I were a renter and I had a unique history, like maybe my own, would it be, would it be overkill to say, well, I'm going to keep my AC running constantly on a low flow and I'm also going to do a dehumidifier if I'm not so concerned about cost, but I'm more concerned about keeping that target.

Jason Earle (21:44.759)
It really is.

Freddie Kimmel (22:09.258)
relative humidity around that 45 to 60%.

Jason Earle (22:15.372)
I think you'd probably find it would be overkill. I think you can accomplish it. Put it this way, if your AC is not able to get your humidity down to 45% or so, it means that you've got air coming in from outside. You know what I mean? You've got infiltration, significant infiltration happening, which is a whole different conversation. That's a whole different building science discussion. So you're.

Freddie Kimmel (22:17.986)
Mm-hmm.

Freddie Kimmel (22:35.146)
Yeah, that makes sense to me. So let's just say, let's just say you've got this all cut. You know, you've, you understand, you've basically, you've done your walkthrough, you've done your examination of your part apartment. Um, and then we're, we're almost gonna, if we keep walking through this pathway, we're, we, if we were to transition off of this mold 101, I'm a renter. Um, how, how do we draw a line in the sand or how do we differentiate my, um, my rights as a renter?

reverse the implied responsibility and ownership of the person supplying the domicile. Whose responsibility is it to keep that thing clean and habitable and me healthy? I might know the answer to this.

Jason Earle (23:21.041)
Yeah, it's just, you know, it's really, it's a fascinating conversation. And it's one that fills up courtrooms, you know, nationwide every single day. And because there's so much confusion about the subject, both from the perspective of the renters and the landlords, everyone's confused about it. The judges are confused about it, right? They have to bring experts in who also disagree about these things in many cases, depending upon who's paying them. And so

The key here is there is something, there's legal doctrine that underlies nearly all property leases. Specifically, we're talking about residential. And I'm not a lawyer, I've never played one on TV, and if you have a concern about this, I highly recommend that you get in touch with a lawyer that specializes in landlord-tenant rights, or landlord-tenant disputes. However, ask them about the implied warranty.

of habitability. IWOH is what you'll see the acronym for it. And what this says, and this is something that's a blind spot for so many people, in fact, many lawyers that I've spoken to are even unaware of this, it says that landlords' primary obligation is to provide safe and clean housing, safe and clean. That's primary. In fact, it's so primary, it's so basic that it's implied.

and it's not even in the lease. It's the legal doctrine, it's the bedrock upon which lease agreements are written. Okay, that's how fundamental it is. And so how do you define safe and clean? Well, it's pretty safe to say, not to overuse safe, but it's easy to understand that mold indoors is probably not clean, right? Clean, you wouldn't think molding environment, that's not a clean environment, right? But what's safe? Well, safe is a little bit.

a little bit more nebulous, right? Because then you start getting into this idea about what's the toxic mold conversation, which is just that nobody wins in that discussion. But what you can say is very simple. Do you have a, or do you fall into the high risk categories? Are you very young or do you have very young children? Very young, very old? Do you have a compromised immune system? Do you have preexisting condition of any sort of kind that would be high risk? Are you dealing with, do you have,

Jason Earle (25:43.064)
Any sort of respiratory issue or environmental sensitivity specifically to give asthma allergies chronic sinusitis You know any of these any of these issues would allow you to be able to get quickly and easily get a letter From a doctor saying that my patient is under my care and moldy environment is deleterious to their health And so that then makes it's not safe. This is no longer safe prima facie on its face It's not a safe place for me, right? And so you

when you have a situation where you've got a moldy environment, the implied warranty of habitability protects you from a landlord who doesn't respect the fact that that's their primary responsibility, is to provide a seat. And so, by the way, in California, it's very clear, if you have a broken window, if you have any sort of entry for wind or rain, a building's primary purpose is to shed wind and water. That's it, right? If you really think about it, that's

The two primary purposes, the shed, wind and water. And if it fails to do that in any way, then the building has failed. And so basically a landlord's responsibility is to make sure the building continues to shed wind and water in a way that does not allow for fungal growth or to create an unsafe or unclean environment indoors. So now we got that. Now the question is, when there's a mold problem, whose fault is it? And that is a really big question. This is what fills up the courtrooms, right? Whose fault is it? Everyone's pointing fingers.

Freddie Kimmel (27:04.898)
That's big.

Jason Earle (27:11.372)
Well, it depends on the source of the water.

Freddie Kimmel (27:13.695)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (27:16.052)
it depends on the source of the water. And this is where you get into hiring guys like me, because figuring out where the water comes from is not always super straightforward, right? Water can be tricky, because water comes in at least two forms, and the three really technically if you live in my climate, but it comes in liquid form or vapor, and it moves steadily between those forms, right? We have ice here a lot.

but also you don't have ice down there. Have you seen ice recently? I don't think you've. Oh, that's true, yeah, that's right, but for like a minute.

Freddie Kimmel (27:47.658)
We have ice, we had crazy ice storms, crazy ice storms. And we had such a bad ice storm. It's funny. I just had an incident. Cause I, I will reference this. I have to say, if anybody wants to get the background on Jason, your story, your body of work, your qualifications to speak about mold, uh, fungus, not so much fungus apocalypse, but more just fungus in general.

Then you can go back to episode 142 with Jason Earl and it's an excellent episode, but we do reference that I was in a large court case that I won. Uh, one of the rare ones that I actually won all my money back from my remediation. And I had an incident recently as a result of an ice storm in which two months after the ice storm, the trees were weakened around the home. So.

these large oaks that cover, it was eight in the morning, no wind, no rain, no nothing. This tree dropped out of the sky, hit my car, crushed all these chairs, scraped down the side of the building. And luckily, it's so funny, it's where we, it's not funny, it's where there's like a men's circle out. So, I mean, literally people would have died, massive, massive branch. And it just was like, but from...

Jason Earle (28:56.17)
Oh wow.

Freddie Kimmel (29:09.41)
From my understanding and my educational process alongside my legal team, we learned that we were looking for these, an incident, i.e. a storm, an injury from a fallen tree, a strike of lightning, a hurricane passing through. I was in New York City at the time. So they were always, they were like, did it happen in Sandy? Did it happen here? And then you've got a window within that incident to address said problem. So please, please go on.

Jason Earle (29:38.176)
No, sorry, I forgot about the ice, because you guys, obviously Texas was crippled by not just one ice storm. This has happened twice in recent, yeah, right?

Freddie Kimmel (29:46.154)
Just it. Yeah. Every year it's happened. They've had an awful and it's been, and it's been weeks of recovery, weeks of getting electricity back on. And obviously with that comes moisture management.

Jason Earle (29:58.528)
Right, and so this is where it gets messy sometimes. If you've got power outages and you've, you know, that changes things because now whose fault is that? And you know, like, so basically this is what, you know, the blame game is really where it's problematic. Who's actually really responsible for the moisture problems? So here's a really simple thing, okay? Like one of them, basically they refer to it as lifestyle problem. So like if people are,

They have too many people living in the apartment. This is a common problem. They will blame the tenant. If you're exceeding the capacity of the apartment, this happens a lot. And you're not running your exhaust fans when you're taking showers, baths, cooking. A lot of people cook all day in those, if they've got a lot of family. You know, this is also very common. You have five or six people living in an apartment and maybe grandma stays home and she cooks all day for everybody. You know, this is very common.

And I wish I had a grandmother cooking for me all day, but the point is that there's lots and lots of steam that's being produced in that, and oftentimes they're not running exhaust fans. And then that manifests as a moisture problem and a mold problem. People like to dry clothes indoors. Don't do that. That moisture has to go outside. A lot of people, actually, I've seen dryers that exhaust inside. People will do that intentionally to heat their house.

Freddie Kimmel (31:23.363)
Hmm.

Jason Earle (31:25.356)
They'll put a panty hose on the end of the line to capture the lint and let that heat and quote unquote humidify and they over humidify. One of the key elements here, and let me back, is to, don't do that. This is not, that's a hose job. You don't wanna do that. You're not gonna stay away from that. I couldn't resist.

Freddie Kimmel (31:39.778)
Don't do that. Don't, no, but don't, don't do that. Now that's not, we're gonna label that as bad.

Jason Earle (31:53.536)
But you want to get yourself a humidity gauge. This is one of the key tools. These are really low cost. Get yourself a good humidity gauge, ideally with multiple remote sensors. And the remote, you want to make sure that it gives you a good relative humidity and temperature. I like the base station with remote sensors so you can put them in different areas. It's especially good if you've got a single family home with a crawl space or a basement where the stuff's out of sight, out of mind. You want to be able to look at that stuff without having to go down and look.

But for apartments, just knowing in general what your ambient humidity is will help you a lot in terms of whether or not you've got a, I always say don't modify what you don't quantify. If you're gonna be adding moisture or taking moisture out, don't modify what you don't quantify. People do this all the time with like this, lick their fingers, stick it in the air to see which way the wind's blowing. That is not an effective environmental control tool. There are devices that are really low cost.

Freddie Kimmel (32:49.706)
Yeah. What did you say the one that you like is, what's it called?

Jason Earle (32:52.056)
that give you the insights that you need. I've got a bunch of them. Oregon Scientific makes nice, like, you know, these units that have a base station and that have remote sensors. But there's another one that I've been using. Sensor Push has a really cool low-cost sensor. These are little, like, keychain sensors. And they are, they're really cool. And I put them all over the house. I've got them outside. And they have a nice little app on your phone.

So if you don't wanna have like a physical dashboard, I kinda like that stuff. But for people who just wanna be able to check on their phone and check wherever you are too, you can be out of town and take a look. I like the sensor push units a lot and they're on Amazon. Yeah, yeah, I like those a lot.

Freddie Kimmel (33:35.996)
sensor push units. Wonderful.

Jason Earle (33:41.789)
So whose fault is it? Well, if you're drying your stuff clothes inside and you're not using your bathroom exhaust vents and you're taking forever showers and you've got six people living in a one bedroom apartment, chances are they're gonna point to you. If the water is coming from the roof, a leaky window.

Um, you know, water is building up around the foundation. It's making its way into the basement and that moisture is making its way up into your place because that's what happens. Moisture rises through a building. A damp basement will manifest on upper floors and in many cases, especially addicts and, um, where there's a, you know, really in a cold climate, but the, but the most important thing is to, is to basically say, is the water coming from outside, that's the landlord. If the water is coming from inside, it's you.

Freddie Kimmel (34:16.802)
Mm.

Jason Earle (34:29.888)
Um, and, and it's, it, that's, that's the, that's the hyper reduction. Now there are, there are nuances of course, right. Uh, that, that could be argued around some of those things. But the bottom line is, for example, if the moisture is coming from inside, but you don't have a bathroom exhaust vent. Well, you know, is that the landlord's fault? Well, it depends on what the building code is. And he's going to say, I don't have to do that. Um, is it a best practice? Yes. Is it easy required to know? So that.

Freddie Kimmel (34:57.782)
Well, this, this would be a great template also for people examining places because you know, you do sign a lease, which is the agreement. So it's, you know, it comes back to a very simple, am I, what am I agreeing to? Right. We, you, these are things to look for when you do a walkthrough on a home. That's what I'm hearing anyway, the functionality of not just that the fan has, uh, an exhaust in the bathroom, but that it functions the toilet paper test. I thought that was great.

Jason Earle (35:21.676)
Yes. And does it go outside? Because a lot of these bathroom exhaust vents, I have opened these things up and they're going right into the ceiling. You know, like, that's not gonna work. In fact, it's gonna work directly against you. So

Freddie Kimmel (35:25.767)
Mmm.

Freddie Kimmel (35:30.024)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (35:34.762)
You actually make a Petri dish with the drywall. It's actually a great, you know, again, fungus apocalypse. You're going to build one. I was in a, um, I went out to a, sorry to, sorry to interrupt. I went to a conference in Vegas at the hotel Excalibur and it was a, they had just, it's a dumpy hotel in Vegas and they had done a botched job and done this renovation and, and of course they had built the exhaust fan right into the ceiling.

Jason Earle (35:41.94)
Absolutely. No, I used to

Freddie Kimmel (36:04.806)
And I went in there to took a shower and I got just eyes went crossed. Uh, unbelievable. And the woman and the, we had the team from the hotel come up. They're like, they literally, they were like, we don't smell anything. I was like, this is unbelievable. I've never smelled anything like this in my life. Anyways. Yeah.

Jason Earle (36:25.9)
No, I had the same thing when I was in China two weeks ago. And I was at a Grand Hyatt, you know, I mean, an American brand. And I walked into my room, and I was like, whoo, nope, can't do that. You know, I get night terrors. I have really bad sleep disturbances. I can't, I've done this too many times. I know, I know how this ends.

Freddie Kimmel (36:43.504)
Mmm.

Freddie Kimmel (36:48.422)
Interesting sidebar you and I both need to do if you're up for it. This is my mid podcast invitation. I keep, I keep hearing great subjective experience from people doing these extended dry fasts. I'm a faster, I know you're a faster, but I've had several friends at this point go do these 10 day extended dry fasts in the Mediterranean, in Russia, not Russia right now, but.

getting amazing results, deep cellular clean out, and long-term reduction of symptoms from a previous mold exposure. I'm really, I'm intrigued, man. I don't know if it interests you or I would go with you.

Jason Earle (37:29.676)
Me too.

Jason Earle (37:33.972)
Yeah, I would go with you too. And I do think that would be welcome because I'm still dealing with, you know, all of my allergic and hypersensitivities that I developed as a child, most of them have gone away. But the other day I was outside and I'm allergic to some grasses, you know? Like there are some things that were relics from my history that still present joint pain, things like that. And my sensitivity to the musty smell, which I think by the way is an evolutionary advantage. I honestly think mold sensitivity,

Freddie Kimmel (37:49.728)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (37:56.16)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (38:02.764)
is a, in fact, I think sensitivities in general are a sixth sense. I think it's a superpower that people relegate to a weak, they think it's a weakness because society marginalizes people with sensitivities. But the truth is that everybody is, it's bad for everybody. The stuff that we're sensitive to is bad for everybody. It's just that we get the signal first. We're the canaries. And that means we can leave the mine and the others can die at their own discretion.

But for me, I look at this as a strength, not as a weakness, although I would prefer not to have certain pain associated.

Freddie Kimmel (38:36.301)
This is a belief system we share. What joint, when you say you get joint pain, what joints?

Jason Earle (38:42.292)
mostly my left kinetic chain, you know, a wrist all the way up all the way down my shoulder back all the way down joint, you know, throw my old left kinetic chain all the way down to the bottom of my feet. But it's almost all my left side and wrist, elbow, shoulder, you know, ribs. But mostly it's out wrist and elbow.

Freddie Kimmel (39:02.474)
Okay, I'm not gonna say I'm excited for you, but I am excited to do this experiment at some point.

Jason Earle (39:09.064)
I would love that. I welcome the opportunity to do that. I think it would be a lot of fun to do it together. Absolutely.

Freddie Kimmel (39:13.206)
Amazing. So we established life, we walked through lifestyle, the idea that lifestyle can generate excessive moisture within the home. And then we obviously have these outside factors that could be more or less the landlord's responsibility. Regardless of what the moisture is, what can we do to protect ourselves?

Jason Earle (39:33.068)
Well, so going back to lifestyle for a half a second, because that's where a lot of the responsibility on how you protect yourself lies. You know, a big part of my message here is, you know, is that what I want to do is empower people with the tools and knowledge they need to make better decisions about the air they breathe. Which means to let them know, you know, what actions are yours to take and what actions are someone else's to take and how to, it's like the serenity prayer, right? I feel like the serenity prayer helps people get sober. It also helps people stay healthy indoors.

Freddie Kimmel (39:58.288)
Mmm.

Jason Earle (40:00.888)
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And that is renting an apartment. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. So how do you know the difference, right? And so in a case like when you're dealing with, when you've got a humidity issue, and you know you've got a humidity issue, it's showing up as condensation on your windows, you know that there's dampness in the building, you've got your humidity sensor, and it says you're at 65%, and it shouldn't be that high.

Well, are you using your bathroom exhaust vents? Are you using your kitchen exhaust vents? Are you running your AC on a consistent basis to dehumidify that space? And if you're not doing those things, then shame on you, right? That's really where your responsibility lies. The other thing is that when you see moisture coming from outside, whether it be a leak or a flood or any sort of incursion, your other responsibility is to notify the landlord. And this is really important.

important, okay? This is kind of where the rubber meets the road because, and this is where most tenants fail and this is why most of their cases also fail too. You have to let your landlord know in writing. I tell people to get a journal and it's just for communications with your landlord. Handwritten is best. Don't be afraid to use different pencils and pens. If you ever go to court, they like to see that. It shows that you've taken the time to, in real time, to write down.

Freddie Kimmel (41:03.817)
Mm-hmm.

Freddie Kimmel (41:29.682)
Mmm, that's a great point

Jason Earle (41:30.872)
what's going on, right? Very, very important. And a dedicated piece, don't do it on a scrap of paper and write it on a note in your phone and then another note in a never note and another one on your notepad and then all over the place. You get a little notepad and just write on the front, you know, indoor air quality log or building or apartment log, whatever. And write down every single time that you've noticed any of the moisture issues, any of your symptoms, any of the odors, where you noticed them.

you know, get detailed about this stuff. This is like your personal injury log. You know, but you basically you want you want to really document all of your interactions with your landlord, hey, I let them know I told them in passing verbally. And then you want to write a letter to them and explain to them what you've found. What you when you want when you ultimately want to do is make sure that you've got good documentation. If you've got a medical condition, you got to get a letter from your doctor.

And then you need to let them know if you see a mold or moisture problem in writing. Here's what I saw, here are the dates. And then you can say this needs to be corrected. And this is important too. According to the IICRC S500 water damage standard and or the IICRC S520 mold remediation standard. And...

And what happens is you let them know that this is a problem that needs to be corrected and you give them usually a week for it to be corrected. If they continue to drag their feet, then you can then be in some cities. And again, this is why I'm not practicing law and this is why you should get, you should research the statutes in your local area for these things. But the implied warranty of habitability will often allow you to begin paying your rent into escrow.

and sending a copy of the bank statement to your landlord. And you basically have to, again, you have to let them know exactly what's going on and that it needs to be corrected according to standards and that you need to be involved in the selection criteria of the remediation contractor. Oh, by the way, that you have to have proper testing done. It has to be done. But again, you have to be able to vet these contractors and inspectors. And then you can pay rent into escrow and the release is contingent upon

Jason Earle (43:48.088)
the successful remediation of the property, including third party verification of the air and surfaces that were remediated and cleaned. And the underlying repairs have been completed and the water problem has been stopped. And if they don't complete it within a certain period of time, some people give a 30 day, 60 day period, you can then do something called constructive eviction, which is where you can terminate your lease without any negative consequences on your credit, and they have to release your security deposit. And you get to keep the rent that you paid into escrow. How do you like that?

Freddie Kimmel (44:17.046)
Hmm. That's a flex.

Jason Earle (44:18.285)
And so, so big time. Big time, big time.

Freddie Kimmel (44:21.622)
That's what the kids say. That is a flex. What are the two policies? You said the IIRC S500?

Jason Earle (44:29.604)
IICRC is the industry stand, is the committee or the trade association that is essentially our standards committee, standards body. So IICRC is the International Institute of Cleaning and Restoration Contractors. And they have a number of standards that are sort of the, they're the only consensus accepted standards in our industry. And so it's the S500, S is in SAM, as in standard, actually.

Freddie Kimmel (44:52.824)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Earle (44:58.58)
500 and that's water damage. And so that clearly articulates how water damage is supposed to be handled and at what point water damage needs to be handled like a mold job, right? And like I said before, that's the three day mark, right? You can deal with water damage until three days and then it becomes mold. And then you have to bring in the guys in the moon suits. And those rules, the guys in the moon suits have to follow or at least they're supposed to follow. There's no regulation that mandates this.

Freddie Kimmel (45:01.035)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Earle (45:25.464)
This is this is an elective thing, which is why it's problematic. And there's a lot of company not yet.

Freddie Kimmel (45:29.138)
Not yet. Maybe this is something, maybe this, have you ever been to Washington to lobby for anything?

Jason Earle (45:36.552)
I have not. I've been invited to do so. And in fact, recently by a nonprofit that's dealing with the army mold issues. And we may be very well going down for that. But yes, no, I believe there's a lot of room for legislation on this to mandate best practices. And the other one is to make it illegal to put building materials in occupied buildings that are comprised of carcinogenic chemicals. That's a big one for me.

Freddie Kimmel (46:04.834)
That's huge.

Jason Earle (46:06.116)
huge. It's such a common sense thing. Like who could disagree with that, right? But the people who make those decisions are the chemical companies that make our building materials, not us, right? And it's an innocent until proven guilty formula in those. Same thing with big pharma, same thing with big food, same thing with big education even. It's guilty. It's an innocent until proven guilty.

Freddie Kimmel (46:15.67)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (46:27.216)
And there's no onus for them to prove that what they're doing is in our best interest until and then they're until they're proven that it's wrong, like asbestos or PFAS, or some of these things are happening right now. You know? Um, so, so the, uh, but the bottom line is that, uh, that the, the standards are, are very effective if followed. Um, and the companies that do follow them tend to do much better work. Um, so the S five 20.

Freddie Kimmel (46:36.908)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (46:56.36)
is the one that I hammer home. And it also advocates, it also says don't use chemicals during remediation, which is a huge thing that most people don't realize. It also advocates the independence between the contractors and the inspectors. You should never have the same people doing that work. It's a conflict of interest in this room for lots and lots of abuse. So you want to make sure you have independent inspectors that have no financial relationships with your contractor. And you want to select your own inspector if you can afford it, even if you're a renter.

Freddie Kimmel (47:13.848)
Mm.

Freddie Kimmel (47:18.656)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (47:23.904)
because whoever's paying that inspector is who he's biased towards. It's just human nature. There's no other way about it. And so if the landlord's paying for him, he's gonna work for the landlord. That's not your friend.

Freddie Kimmel (47:29.494)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (47:34.818)
Jason, what's the S520 again?

Jason Earle (47:37.612)
the IICRC S520 mold remediation standard.

Freddie Kimmel (47:40.954)
Oh, but we set an S500 and an S520 different, correct? Okay.

Jason Earle (47:44.34)
Yes, yeah, S 500 is water damage. And then S 520 is when you haven't gotten to the water damage fast enough, then you gotta pick up the 520. Yeah, and that talks about all the environmental controls with related, as it relates to containment, negative air pressure, all the cleaning procedures, all that kind of stuff. What materials can be cleaned, what materials have to be disposed of, that kind of stuff. Yeah, all the.

Freddie Kimmel (47:52.994)
That's the mold remediation.

Freddie Kimmel (48:01.866)
Yes. Yeah.

did that. I got great pictures of that. I'll never, I'll never forget it. It was so heartbreaking walking in and you're like floors are ripped up and the walls are stripped and there's these big scrubbers and everybody's in there. And you know, we did the disposable suits and the things and it was, it was wild, man. Yeah.

Jason Earle (48:22.696)
It's trippy. It's trippy. It's very, it's very, uh, it also makes you realize how these buildings are built. It's kind of, you suddenly realize that we build buildings out of paper mache, you know, these, these flimsy buildings that are basically, yeah. My, my mentor says that we build self composting buildings, just add water, you know,

Freddie Kimmel (48:31.938)
Mm-hmm. That's a thing.

Freddie Kimmel (48:38.994)
Yeah. It's happening in Austin. It's unbelievable how fast the buildings go up. And I watched these buildings go up with plywood, you know, you see that. And then the, and then they sit for a month and then they put a moisture barrier up and then they sit for another two months and then people. I mean, dude, I just like, what are they? What? This doesn't make sense to me, but you just watch it happening again and again and again. And.

Jason Earle (48:57.664)
While it's getting rained on, by the way. Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (49:08.934)
Yeah. You know, it's unfortunately the way information moves and it, the way action is driven. It's, it's usually not until somebody is deeply affected on a, on a level. And, and if it's not you, it's hard because unless you felt it in your body, unless you experience these symptoms from going through a really bad mold exposure, you'd never know. I just had a, I just had Chris Irwin who you guys should talk. He's a retired Navy SEAL commander and he had rented a.

after going through really bad PTSD, he had rented a power washer and he had a moldy garage and he had went in the garage and power washed it and just nebulized everything. And then the next day he was in the, you know, get start the movie like in the emergency room and thinking they had a brain tumor and there's can't see anything on a scan, the inflammation, he was just like, you know, on the floor in a ball, just crying. So

Jason Earle (49:49.944)
Hmm

Jason Earle (50:06.452)
Yeah. Did he end up with hypersensitivity pneumonitis? Because that's usually, I mean, you get a big long fall of that and that'll change your world, you know?

Freddie Kimmel (50:14.494)
Yeah, I don't know if he's, you know, he's like 80% back. It was an amazing conversation. And again, there's other, you know, we talked about the idea that the human is, we're like a Jenga piece. And so there were other things happening in his life and his terrain that came before that incident, but there was a clear line in the sand. This happened, then life felt like this. So it's just, yeah.

Jason Earle (50:39.304)
Yeah. And it's not always like that. A lot of times it's more, it's a slower, you fade into it and then you're like, how did that happen? But it's a really, when you have that bifurcation, you're like, boom, I know when this happened. In a way, that's a gift because it makes it easier for you to pin the tail on the donkey and then go about fixing the consequences of it.

Freddie Kimmel (50:45.536)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (50:55.76)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (51:03.646)
Yeah. Well, Jason, that's a really good, it's a good walkthrough of how to protect yourself. I mean, those are, I think that's quite clear.

Jason Earle (51:14.812)
I might actually interject a couple of things there though, really, because, yes, yeah, thank you. So, the first thing you want to do is you want to document, okay? And by the way, I have an article I wrote about this on our website, in our learning center, which I'll make sure to send you a link to. And it expands upon this in some detail, so I won't have to waste a lot of breath or take any more time, because we're a little over our intended window here.

Freddie Kimmel (51:16.58)
You're allowed.

Freddie Kimmel (51:26.474)
Yeah, we'll tag it in the show notes.

Freddie Kimmel (51:37.846)
We intended for 30 minutes, we're at 52, but I...

Jason Earle (51:40.904)
Yeah, but this is it, Freddie. I mean, this reality is I don't think we've ever been able to have a brief conversation because there's just so much to talk about. It's like every single time we get, whether it's in person or otherwise, it's like, okay, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go. But it's always such a pleasure. And I get as much out of this as I hope our listeners do. Yeah, absolutely. So the other thing you wanna do to protect yourself is you have an obligation to mitigate damages.

Freddie Kimmel (51:57.026)
This is the gold. Yeah, this is the gold. I love it. Please interject.

Jason Earle (52:09.568)
that you have an obligation to protect yourself. When I say damages, I'm into the building is one thing, but also to your physical health. And so you wanna make sure that you're doing, again, protect yourself using the ventilation and cleaning up moisture problems as they, if you see a leak, if the tub is overflowed, clean it up quickly. You don't leave damp towels all over the place. It's just common sense stuff. But this is not, don't, by the way, also note wet heads on the bed. This is just a side note.

Freddie Kimmel (52:31.824)
Ugh.

Jason Earle (52:38.348)
You know, dust mites grow like crazy, wet heads in bed, no wet heads in bed, no towels, wet towels on beds. This is what grows those things. So if you've got sensitivities around allergies and allergens, don't do stuff like that. Dampness is in general something that you really want to control and minimize. But when it comes to protecting yourself on an ongoing basis, especially as a renter, getting yourself some really good air purifiers is key because A, they work really well in small spaces.

Freddie Kimmel (52:52.855)
Hmm.

Jason Earle (53:07.476)
And B, you can take them with you when you leave. You do not depend on filters that are in HVAC systems because they are actually not for your air, they're for the equipment to keep the equipment clean. What you want are really good HEPA filters, ideally that have a lot of carbon in them. And so HEPA filters are a dime a dozen these days. Ones that have a lot of carbon in them.

tend to be more expensive and they're a little more problematic because they cost more money to maintain. You have to swap out those carbon filters more often than you do the HEPA filters because they get saturated. But the HEPA filter will take out particles like spores, pollen, building material, dust like I talked about earlier. And then the carbon filters will take out VOCs and buildings that are rental buildings are almost always loaded with VOCs. Why?

Freddie Kimmel (53:58.274)
Hmm.

Jason Earle (53:59.18)
because they use the cheapest materials they possibly can to build and then also to, when they go to repaint, that's another pro tip. If you're gonna have a landlord, this is really just came, if you're gonna have a landlord repaint your space before you move in, which is something that's required in many cities, mandate as part of your negotiation that they use no VOC paint.

Otherwise they're painting your indoor environment with petrochemicals and you're gonna move in and breathe that and it's gonna off gas for longer than the term of your lease. And you'll be breathing that stuff and you'll be saying, I've got headaches, I've got fatigue, I can't get out of bed, I feel like crap, why is everyone so low on energy here? I've got emotional dysregulation. And by the way, that also is a prelude to, if you're already teetering immunologically, it's a...

a good entryway to cancer too, right? You don't need to be breathing that shit. It's bad news. So you really wanna make sure that you've got, if you wanna make sure that you can intervene early in that, but then also get yourself some good air purifiers. You know, IQ Air makes a really big one, it's expensive. Jasper makes a really good one. They're also on the high end. Air Doctor makes good units with lots of carbon in them.

Freddie Kimmel (55:20.342)
I have an air doctor. Is air doctor going to be sufficient for the VOCs as well? I know you had said our good friend Lev had got that massive one, the square one, that I had rolled into the apartment and I tried it over here for a while.

Jason Earle (55:26.814)
It depends on the unit.

Jason Earle (55:38.496)
Yeah, I'd have to see the actual unit, but basically you want, when you look at air purifiers and you look at carbon, you wanna look at how many pounds of carbon they have. This is not the inch, not measurements like a quarter of an inch, an eighth of an inch. The IQ Air Unit has eight pounds, right? So like that's, right? That's a lot of surface area inside to.

Freddie Kimmel (55:49.408)
Okay.

Freddie Kimmel (55:57.559)
Wow.

Freddie Kimmel (56:02.53)
Bye.

Jason Earle (56:05.44)
absorb, adsorb to capture those VOCs. It's a big deal. So you also wanna get yourself a HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner, because any other vacuum cleaner just distributes microscopic particles, breaks up allergens into really deeply respirable particles and spreads them all over your house. In fact, you'll often notice if you use a non-HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner that you have to dust the next day. Well.

Freddie Kimmel (56:17.902)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Earle (56:33.648)
Why is that? Well, because you created a microscopic dust cloud. And so a HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner is your friend when it comes to these things. So protecting yourself is a combination of awareness and action. First, you have to have the awareness, and then you have to take the action. And sometimes that action means that you have to have the right tools. But the best tools for this are a humidity gauge, HEPA-filtered air cleaner with carbon, and HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner. Those three things.

Freddie Kimmel (57:00.438)
Wonderful.

Jason Earle (57:01.94)
are like the triumvirate of healthy indoor air. And then if you wanna take it up a notch, you could do things with putting allergen encasements on your bed and those kinds of things, which are just sort of like general preventive measures, especially for people that are atopic or allergic. But really it's that humidity gauge, HEPA filtered vacuum cleaner, HEPA filtered air cleaner with carbon. If you have those three and you use them and then you use the tools in the building,

you will give yourself at least a head start. And then if you ever have an issue whatsoever, document, and communicate in writing. And if you do that, you are head and shoulders above the rest of the pack.

Freddie Kimmel (57:43.134)
Yeah. Well, we left off a big one. What about what about testing?

Jason Earle (57:50.668)
Yes, well, so testing. I mean, we left a big one, which happens to be, you know.

Freddie Kimmel (57:53.982)
I mean, it's the biggest one. It's like what Gotmold stands for. I have two kits in my home. I'm like ready to do it. I've had two days of no rain, so I'm ready to do my Gotmold test.

Jason Earle (57:58.273)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (58:04.544)
Yeah, so what's interesting about testing is, testing is, it's very important to focus when you're dealing with landlord-tenant issues, to focus on mold, but most importantly, moisture. Because moisture is what's, moisture intrusion, moisture problems is actually what will get you, which will win your case when it comes to this stuff. Believe it or not, mold doesn't win the case. Well, mold, when you document the presence of mold, through a test kit or otherwise, photos, or,

Freddie Kimmel (58:26.71)
Mmm.

Jason Earle (58:34.528)
testing and we can talk about the test kit for a hot minute. But what you're really doing there is demonstrating that you have a moisture problem. Because when you get into the mold conversation, a lot of lawyers will balk because they'll say, well, that's a personal injury and you're gonna have to have lots of experts, it's gonna be very expensive. And what you want to do is steer away from the idea that mold is making me sick. You want to stay focused on the fact that the building has an unhealthy condition and it's not safe or clean.

See, this is very important. You start getting over into the mold conversation, it feels very convoluted, and then that's where things flap in the wind and you lose. It's safe and clean. Implied warranty of habitability, safe and clean. Well, what makes something safer? Well, absence of moisture conditions. You cannot have a moisture problem in a building. How do I know I have a moisture problem in a building? There's mold growth. That's the proof. Not that the mold is making you sick. That's not the argument. The argument that the building is not safe or clean. See what I mean?

Freddie Kimmel (59:22.304)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (59:30.38)
Yes.

Jason Earle (59:30.524)
reel it back in, reel it back in. So as you get back out and making this a personal thing, it's not the point, it's objective, safe and clean. Mold is the symptom. So how do you document the presence of mold? Okay, there's a few different things. First of all, there are surface tests that you can do, and people often go to swabs, don't do swabs. If you need to document the presence of actual mold growth on a surface, you wanna get a tape lifts. We don't sell them.

but they do, they're effective at proving the presence of mold growth on a surface. Okay? And that's what you need because it'll actually pick up the fungal structures, the mycelium, the actual, so you can say that's mold growth as opposed to swab, which just picks up spores and then they culture that and that just shows that there's spores everywhere. Well, we know that, right? 500,000 blue whales every year, 13.7 miles above the earth's surface. We know spores are everywhere. Swabbing surfaces just proves

Freddie Kimmel (01:00:18.614)
This is the ecosystem we live in, yes.

Jason Earle (01:00:21.076)
It just proves that mold spores are ubiquitous. Great, you've just done a sixth grade science experiment. What you need to do is document the presence of growth on a surface, and you do that with a photo and a surface test, and a tape lift rather. Now, if you wanna test the air for mold, that's our specialty, and so at gotmold.com, we offer a very, very high quality, low cost, do it yourself air testing kit. And it uses a device called SporeTrap.

or it uses devices called spore traps, which capture the airborne microscopic particles using an air sampling pump. And that pump pulls air through these cassettes. They're kind of like a filter. And it captures the pollen and the spores and any of the airborne microscopic dust. And then it goes into a prepaid return mailer. And that goes to our lab partner, the number one lab in the country.

And they analyze it. Within three business days, you get a really nice color-coded, easy to interpret report, and you can speak to the ease of use on that. And so you get a green, yellow, orange, or red indicator, plus you can see at a glance whether or not you've got something that's alarming. And then you also get the actual lab data, which is really useful, because a professional can look at that and go, oh, I agree with that. And now that interpretation.

And then thirdly, it includes a number of follow-up recommendations, things to do next, resources, how to find an inspector, how to find a remediator, some self-assessment tools and an e-book that we produce, which helps people a lot with frequently asked questions and inspection checklists. And a lot of the stuff we talked about today is actually in that e-book called How to Find Mold, which you can also, by the way, find at enterfooter at gotmold.com.

Freddie Kimmel (01:02:07.15)
We'll link that in the show notes. Jason, what is your test testing for?

Jason Earle (01:02:12.992)
Yeah, so a test for ambient mold spores. So again, spores are a normal part of our environment. What we want to see with our test is we want to see the types of spores that are present in your air and quantities. So it begins with an outdoor air sample. All reputable air sampling has to involve an outdoor reference sample because spore types are different in every climate. And also even within that climate, they change from day to day, minute to minute, season to season for sure.

but literally minute to minute based upon outdoor conditions, whether it's raining or hot or humid or cold. So it just ebbs and flows. It's like a kaleidoscope. And so the spore kaleidoscope. And so that air will invariably infiltrate into a building. And so when we test the air in a building, we want it to look a lot like what we see outside. Otherwise, if there's different types and different quantities, in other words, high concentrations of different organisms in the building, that's a clear indication that something's growing in the building.

And it's very important to also say that mold spores are not just a regular part of our environment. They're an extremely important part of a healthy environment. So the data is very strong on this. You want lots of different microbes in your house. In fact, the higher number of microbes you have in your house, the higher diversity you have within a building, directly correlates to lower.

cases of asthma, allergies, autoimmune disease, and now they're saying even autism and things like that. And when you've got a low microbial diversity, which is usually caused by too much HEPA filters and HEPA vacuums without ever opening the windows, so sterilizing the environment mechanically or sterilizing the environment chemically, so too many antimicrobials, too many bleach wipes, too many hand sanitizers, that stuff.

has a direct correlation and the numbers are outrageously distinct. Very high spike in asthma allergies, autoimmune disease, and of course they're saying now autism and other neurological and developmental issues too. And so we know this to be true in our gut, diversity is everything. We know this to be true in our microbiome. It's also true the microbiome in our building, as above so below. These are nesting ecologies. This is the way I like to think about it. And so we're like

Jason Earle (01:04:34.104)
building ecology in the outdoor environment should look a lot like the indoor environment without having, you know, with some exceptions. And then the same thing on our body. We want to have that high microbial diversity. We are microbial. 37 trillion microbes, or we are 37 trillion cells and then we have 36, 35 trillion microbial cells in and around us.

And so we don't need to kill these things. What we need to do is create a healthy environment for them to prosper. And as soon as you have a high concentration of any organism, that's a clear indication that there's an imbalance in the environment, whether it be in you, on you, or around you. Does that make sense?

Freddie Kimmel (01:05:14.118)
Yeah. Well, it's, it's echoing, you know, we just had Kiran Krishnan from microbiome labs. And we, we just talked about alpha diversity and he went through every single health condition and how an amplified alpha diversity within the gut is less long-term chronic disease. And this is the research they do again and again and again. So it's just looking at this, this hyper sterility, it's a message that comes across through

different speakers such as yourself or Kiran and it's, and it's echoed throughout the community, the people who are experiencing robust health, they're, they're living this, they're looking at the whole picture. So I just think, uh, you know, summing it all up to look at this, um, it is, it is our relationship with moisture, our relationship with mold, our relationship with the outside world that, that we can always interpersonal communication.

It is how we are in relationship, which defines our emotional health. You know, and that's for me, you know, if we were to look at all the things we have control over, it's creating this shared reality with whether it's the mold or the moisture or my neighbor.

Jason Earle (01:06:13.569)
Indeed.

Jason Earle (01:06:24.736)
Indeed, and I would even say the relationship with your building. You know, I look at the buildings that we live and work in as an extension of our immune system, like an exoskin or an exoskeleton. We wouldn't do too well without them, kind of like a hermit crab, you know, we kind of need that shell. And the health of that shell and how well it's maintained directly impacts our health. I mean, a sick building creates sick individuals. And when that building heals, so do the people that live within it.

Freddie Kimmel (01:06:37.611)
Yes.

Jason Earle (01:06:48.8)
And so I encourage people to really look at the buildings, not as these static boxes, these inanimate things, but really as an extension of your immune system. And your relationship, you know, I don't suggest that we have to be house whisperers, but you should be in tune with it so that you know, you should be looking around the same way you look at your body. If you see a red spot or a mole that's turning into this really weird thing, you're gonna take action on that. The same thing should be done with your building, whether you own it or rent it, doesn't matter, because it is whether you own it or rent it, still your shell.

And it still is the protective mechanism around you that should be a source of safety and rest and rejuvenation, not a source of illness or discomfort.

Freddie Kimmel (01:07:25.13)
Yeah. It's amazing advice, Jason. I honor your time here. I honor your information that you bring to the table and what you're doing in the world. It's really clear. And we will put all the links that you mentioned so people can do a deep dive on the article if they want things written out in black and white. But what I'm hearing from this podcast is you owe it to yourself to understand the relationship with your home.

and whether it's making you healthy or supporting robust health or it's making you ill. And this seems very clear to me. So I'm really excited for people to take action on this one. Let's, we'll really push this podcast hard. I think it's just, it's so important and it's so, it's relatively simple. It's not overly complicated.

Jason Earle (01:08:11.448)
It is. If you get rid of the misinformation and the myths and you're willing to sort of like, you know, what we think you already know prevents you from learning, right? And so people come to the subject matter with all sorts of preconceived notions that they heard from their uncle, their mom, their grandmother, what they found online, or they heard from the local remediation contractor who came in for a free inspection to give them to bid on the project. You take all that stuff and then you go greet this new information that we're providing here, for example.

Freddie Kimmel (01:08:19.758)
Hmm

Freddie Kimmel (01:08:32.446)
Yes, those.

Jason Earle (01:08:39.36)
And you go, but that's not what I heard before. Take all that stuff, put it in a box, and burn it. Because what you're dealing with there is a lot of conflicts of interest, a lot of misinformation. I'm at 30,000 feet on this stuff, because I get to see all these buildings and see all these lab reports. I know what works. And I don't sell solutions. So I get to be in this really cool place where I can just go, hey, this is what I know that works. It has nothing to do with what I'm selling, because all I sell is a tool that lets you quantify the stuff. So I get to be agnostic.

Freddie Kimmel (01:08:59.263)
Yeah.

Freddie Kimmel (01:09:03.892)
Yeah.

Jason Earle (01:09:07.624)
on these things, which gives me this really objective view and allows me to not get caught up in all the rigmarole and all this, you know, he said, she said stuff. No, this is a clearly defined thing. And it's a lot simpler than people think, to your point.

Freddie Kimmel (01:09:20.074)
Amazing. We are going to close it down. We did pretty good. An hour and 10 minutes. I'm impressed. No, it's great. Oh, please. I've held back so many. There's so many times I've held back. Yeah, it's a topic I love to talk about. It is. It is so, we just need mental clarity. We need cognition. We need access to the right words at this time in humanity. How important to be able to express yourself without

Jason Earle (01:09:26.292)
Not so bad. Yeah, we could have gone two hours on this thing, without a problem, a couple of vignettes and... Yeah, me too.

Jason Earle (01:09:47.725)
Yes.

Freddie Kimmel (01:09:49.45)
wandering all over the place. Um, so we're going to cut it down there. We'll do more. I there within the thing I was like, oh, we can do one for there's definitely like a why I can't get better episode. Because what I'm, I also hear, you know, the things we just walked through are often steps. People are not looking at they're jumping to, I'm going to go do all these fancy IVs with this person. I'm like, well, have you looked at the, you know, order of operations? There's a why I can't get better episode. There's definitively a travel episode.

a mold avoidance or mold management travelers, which I just think is shit. How important. And then there's a couple other. Design your dream home that's living in resonance with the environment. If you just have money's not a thing, you got a magic wand, what are you building? How are you building it? What materials are you using? That would be a fun thought experiment.

Jason Earle (01:10:18.7)
Yes.

Jason Earle (01:10:31.563)
Oh yeah.

Jason Earle (01:10:43.284)
Yep. Yeah, and funny enough, just as a quick side note, I'll plant seed here. We can revisit that. I'm working with a developer. We're looking at property right now in a few different states, particularly in Arizona and the Tucson area, to build a healthy apartment building that we will potentially condos where we'll lease with a purchase option for people who are getting back on their feet after toxic exposures. But it would be completely made of inert materials, EMF shielded, hardwired internet.

with that Wi-Fi, rainwater capture, all that kind of stuff. So we're building something that would be truly the high-end property for people who want that, who will invest in that with a certain amount of subsidized sort of like lease with purchase option to help people who are seeking this but have lost everything, which is unfortunately, all too common, all too common. Yeah, yep, so there's a lot here.

Freddie Kimmel (01:11:17.315)
fun.

Freddie Kimmel (01:11:21.398)
Mm-hmm.

Freddie Kimmel (01:11:32.462)
It's a lot of people. I could have sent you 10 people last year for that. Yeah. Yeah, there is a lot there. Oh, there was a question in there in that building that ideal dream structure that is amplifying health. I'll think of it next time. Jason, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And till next time, everybody, you can get Jason's test, Got Mold.

Jason Earle (01:11:54.113)
Likewise, my friend.

Freddie Kimmel (01:12:00.546)
on the beautifully broken store. It's beautifully broken dot world. It's in our store. It's listed there with the discount code. I believe it's beautifully broken, but I'll drop that at the front of the episode. And until next time, love you guys. Namaste.