U of Ideas of General Interest -- February 2000
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Melissa Mitchell, News Editor (217) 333-5491; [email protected]
HEALTH AND HOME
Anxiety about presence of household molds frequently unwarranted
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Most people know that locking doors and windows and installing security systems are front-line defenses for keeping burglars at bay. Yet, according to University of Illinois building researcher William Rose, few homeowners are as vigilant when it comes to defending their homes from a more insidious, potentially harmful, intruder: mold.
"Homes shouldn't be moldy places," said Rose, a research architect with the U. of I.'s Building Research Council who is overseeing a moisture-monitoring project that is part of a new
three-year study funded by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Rose, who has been charged with monitoring the demonstration-research project in homes in the Cleveland area, concedes that "there is always a little mold everywhere -- in the air and on many surfaces -- though surfaces ideally should not support mold." A "little bit of mold is OK; a lot is bad."
And some molds are definitely worse than others in terms of health risks for people. Nonetheless, Rose believes that media reports about deaths and home abandonments attributed to a toxic variety of mold, known as Stachybotrys atra, may be setting off unnecessary panic attacks among some homeowners. Documented incidence of Stachybotrys is fairly rare, he said. Further, he maintains that allegations linking new-home construction methods and materials to a higher incidence of deadly mold growth aren't necessarily supported by fact.
"Part of it is paranoia," in essence a rerun of an episode from the annals of home-construction and maintenance history that occurred in the 1950s when the home-insulation industry warned of the "evils of moisture," Rose said. Illustrating his claim, Rose points to pamphlets with Cold-War cover graphics that personified moisture as "the pernicious Bolshevik that kills." The industry "scared people into buying different products and caused them to lose their confidence in their ability to monitor their own homes effectively," Rose said.
That's not to say, however, that moisture -- especially when it collects behind walls, in crawl spaces and other areas typically hidden from a homeowner's view -- can't create headaches for homeowners. Mold can damage surfaces, and likely contributes to human respiratory ailments.
Rose said researchers have yet to determine a single cause for a worldwide increase in the number of asthma sufferers, but common household molds frequently turn up on everyone's short list of suspects.
To avoid all manner of problems, Rose advises homeowners to "go on a crusade to visit all those places in the house they rarely visit or inspect -- particularly crawl spaces and access panels for plumbing."
Additionally, he said, "if there's an interior finish on basement walls, and the basement has a bad odor, remove the finishes." And if you just can't live with bare concrete walls, Rose suggests using Velcro to install rigid insulation panels, with some sort of finish, which can be removed to accommodate frequent inspection and cleaning.
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