Didn't mold exist before air-conditioning? WTH did people do in NO,

[elehhhhna]

Houston, etc. before a/c? Why is mold a big fat deal now? If it's so deadly, what did people do to combat it, say, 75 years ago?

I'm not trying to mix it up w/ mold allergy sufferers--I really want to know.

[skids]

1. Built their walls from plaster.

...not cardboard-coated drywall.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. the type of wood, especially in the shotgun houses

prevented mold. plus, the houses breathed, and were built with heavy seasons of rain in mind.

[tjdee]

3. Yes, but now like, half the house has mold on it.

The mold levels are very, very high. Remember, the water was very high, houses were built differently,etc. Now that the floodwaters are gone, the mold has grown. I wouldn't be surprised if some houses are completely full of it on the walls, etc. You can see some of that on the networks.

It's the levels of mold and the kind of mold growing that create the problem.

I recently heard a talk by someone who remediates mold, and he said it was really bad in NO (he'd been there) and he couldn't believe they were letting people back in to some places.

He said that mold is the new asbestos. First they said it didn't make you sick, then they said it might make you sick, and now they say it *will* make you sick.

[yellowdogintexas]

4. before AC, the windows were open all the time

which allowed more air circulation

Yes they had it but it wasn't recirculating in the interior air continuously, and the older homes are build on pier & beam foundations which also allow airflow under the house, and make the underpinnings accessible for cleanup.

"Rising Damp" is just another term for mildew anyway.

Probably they just made sure they attacked it with vinegar or bleach the minute they saw it. If it invaded the wood, they would replace the wood.

Modern construction also does not allow air circulation from the natural porosity of the building and this also encourages mold. Air tight windows, slab construction, brick and mortar walls allow less air to move about.

I am sure others have more information but that is what comes to mind immediately.

[Captain Hilts]

7. That's right, windows you can open solve mold and smoke problems.

Well, they diminish those problems.

And a lot of carpeting nowadays is toxic also, especially with the scotch guard type stuff that's sprayed on it.

[Coastie for Truth]

8. We kept the windows open all the time

but laminated an extra ply of heavy duty window screen to the screens - to keep "Coast Guard Admiral Puss'N'Boots" from clawing her way out to chase and dispatch birds. or attempt to explore (harvest? forage?) the fragrant garbage from Commander's Palace.

We had a lot of cockroaches - and good old "Coast Guard Admiral Puss'N'Boots" regularly dispatched them.

[longship]

5. People are afraid of everything now.

Mold isn't the only thing. It's just the fad thing of the day to be afraid of. My step daughter is terrified of all molds because of the irresponsible media coverage of some bad molds. She's positively obsessed with it.

It's like people who are afraid to fly, the safest mode of transportation on the planet.

Mold has always been around. It's irresponsibility of news media and people positively obsessed with minutia of health matters which gives rise to this kind of over reaction.

[idiosyncratic]

12. You've never lived in a mold-infested apartment. It makes you very sick.

Blaming the media . . . :eyes:


It isn't a fad. Modern, poor quality construction and construction materials make the growth of mold more of a problem than it used to be. The heating and air conditioning ducts distribute the symptom-causing spores from a minor mold problem in one part of a building throughout the entire building or home.

If your step-daughter becomes ill in the presence of mold, she has a reason to be "obsessed" with it.

[longship]

15. Nobody in my family, or anybody I know

has ever gotten sick from mold. It's a stupid, narcisstic fad.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. Nobody in my family has ever had AIDS or brain cancer or dengue fever.

So is it OK for me to dismiss those afflictions as stupid, narcissistic fads? The fact is that some kinds of molds (obviously, not all) ARE toxic and DO cause serious respiratory problems -- and I am personally acquainted with a person whose very expensive, tightly-sealed new home became so infested with mold, and his young son became so sick, that they had to move out and have the entire house gutted and substantially rebuilt. That kid's illness is not imaginary.

[longship]

22. Let's see.

I am sure that there are dangerous molds, just like there are dangerous mushrooms, dangerous bacteria, dangerous virus, dangerous insects, and dangerous animals. Just as I do not let a fear of elephant stampedes rule my life, I do not let a fear of mold. Both are completely unwarranted.

Brain cancer and dengue fever? Who in the hell goes around worrying about that? Gees! Might as well worry about elephant stampedes.

[FlaGranny]

48. Several small children died from a mold.

I believe it was in Chicago, but not sure. Saw a documentary on it a few years ago.

[elehhhhna]

62. Cellphone users in the tropics?

lol

[benddem]

19. Sorry but you are WRONG

It isn't a fad. A school in IL was built with no windows. So it was a completely closed system. Teachers and Kids got sicker and sicker. When they went up into the crawl space it was just full of mold. Just because no one in your family has become sick from mold doesn't make it so. There are lots of families that because of genes don't react to mold and pollen.

[longship]

24. What? I'm wrong to not obsess about mold?

When I see it, I clean it. In the meantime I don't think about it. Not at all. Mold fear is a media creation which is totally unwarranted. You are being manipulated.

[idiosyncratic]

26. I was never sensitive to mold until I moved into that mold-infested

apartment. Just because something doesn't affect you doesn't make it a "media creation."

In fact, now that I think about it, fuzzy thinking and irrational conclusions are symptoms of exposure to toxic mold.

[longship]

30. The mold isn't a media creation.

The *fear* of mold and the obsession of that fear is what is the media creation.

Apparently you have a reason to fear it. Then it's very good and entirely appropriate for you to have that fear and to take appropriate precautions.

I don't. Nor does anybody in my family.

[SpiralHawk]

36. Right - your family doesn't suffer, so it's all BS

Well I have suffered horribly from mold, and so have other members of my family.

I guess we all imagined it. Now that you have the TRUTH I guess we'll all just have drink a nice glass of Kool Aid and join you in A JOLLY GOOD DENIAL OF REALITY.

[longship]

38. I never said that mold isn't a problem.

I said that the media is puffing up the problem. My step daughter is a good example. She has no reason to believe that mold is a problem here. She has no reason to believe that mold would affect her adversely. But any mold, even cheese mold (actually cheese == mold), sets her into a tail spin.

I see this same thing in other health areas and of course in terrorism, WMDs, etc. The media are playing us all like a harp. We're not getting good information with which we can make rational decisions about our lives. We're living unnecessarily in fear of too many things.

People should fear Bush and they don't. But mold is a horror. I guess it sells more household cleaner. Brand X kills mold 43.57845% better than the best seller.

I'm sorry I'm sceptical about this, but I suspect anything on the news these days.

[elehhhhna]

63. Tell her 'bout penicillin. mold can br your friend!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. Sorry, I was diagnosed with mold allergies through a skin test back in

the 1950s. I was having persistent allergy symptoms, so they did a scratch test in which they drew a checkerboard pattern on my back with ink and injected a different allergen into each square.

Mold was one of the things that came back positive.

When I lived in Portland, I was on allergy meds all your because the damp, relatively warm winters keep the molds growing.

[Mr_Spock]

47. Um, even I've gotten sick from mold here in NH

It's easy to get the spores lodged in your sinuses or lungs and get chronic sinusitis of bronchitis. Just build a workshop in a basement that has even a small amount of mold in it. It can take a year to completely heal from bronchitis - I hope it doesn't happen to you - it was awful for me.

[highplainsdem]

6. Modern building materials and construction are the problem. Link:

http://www.ebuild.com/guide/resources/product-news.asp?ID=156201&catCode=13


From this article on mold-prevention for builders:


The idea of prevention is easy to get your head around–keep the water out–but implementing sound practices may require re-evaluation of how you detail. And, there's one more thing to remember: No matter how hard you try to keep water out, it will probably get in anyway.

This is where a new specialty–building science–is playing a larger role on the jobsite than ever. Building scientists have concluded something many builders thought otherwise: Buildings–no matter how conscientiously sided, papered, flashed, and caulked–leak water. They always have, and they always will. But it's a more dangerous dilemma than it used to be because we demand more from a home than ever.

Older buildings that leaked have proven no real problem, historically, because those buildings also leaked air. For example, they had less insulation than today's homes or were sheathed with 1-by (skip-sheathing), which allowed air to circulate through stud cavities, drying them out. Since mold requires three things to exist–a food source, warm temperatures, and moisture–removing moisture from the picture effectively starves it to death. Houses, obviously, are tighter now and more thermally efficient than ever, which means far less air passes through the wall cavity. And, we're packing them with modern building materials that also provide a greater abundance of food for mold spores, such as organic paper?faced drywall instead of cementitious plaster. These materials, combined with heat flow reduction in tighter houses, changes the drying rates of buildings, according to Mark LaLiberte, a building scientist with Building Knowledge in Minneapolis. So, we're packing our buildings with more free food for the mold, then locking the doors until the smorgasbord is over.

[malaise]

10. I have always wondered

why people don't open windows in the US. I mean it saves energy and lets in fresh air. Why would people use airconditioning in the fall or in spring when it's so cool anyway.

[RC]

16. Because the humidity is 85 to 99%

Makes the air sticky, swells the wood in furniture so it is wobbly in the winter when the humidity is low.

[SoCalDem]

18. It always cracked us up when people would bring their tropical-wood

furniture back to the states, and within one year it was all cracked and ugly.. humidity year round is the only safe environment for tropical-made furniture

[malaise]

23. So what happened

before air-conditioning?

[JVS]

33. People went north for the summer if they had any money

Or they were just miserably uncomfortable.

The point is that opening a window in many kinds of weather here really fails to make things much better.

[malaise]

35. OK then

You must know more than I do on that subject.

[ovidsen]

44. You can't miss what you never had

I'm old enough to remember when a/c in homes, offices, stores and schools was rare. You didn't know any better and you just dealt with it.

[pitohui]

27. it isn't cool in the fall or spring

you don't live anywhere near the gulf coast, do you?

it is cool december thru february

sometimes at a stretch there may be some cool days in november or march

but i sure wouldn't count on it

new orleans likes to brag it's the town where ppl often wear shorts on christmas day

[2bfree]

57. I live on the gulf coast and it was cool today...............

Got down to 90 today and will maybe be in the upper 80s next week when the cool front blows through. Time to break out the sweaters!

[notadmblnd]

43. I'm a window opener

my husband gave me a choice of AC or a pool. I choose the pool.

[BrklynLiberal]

11. i.e. We are building our own hi-rise, insulated, ac'ed death-traps.

[idiosyncratic]

9. Even Erin Brokovich had to deal with toxic mold in her house

because of poor quality construction.

Link

In the past, contruction materials and better construction methods helped prevent mold, but nothing can prevent its growth if a house has been flooded for weeks in such a warm climate.

[SoCalDem]

13. and who knows what is really in the "new" flood water?

In times past, the flood water was yukky, but it was mostly just river-goo..These waters have so many toxins in them, who knows how they react with the mold-causing stuff..?

We lived smack dab in a jungle.. Know how our house was built?

One story concrete stilts (pillars)(the carport under the two-story house)..concrete with terrazzo tile throughout the house.. concrete walls, no glass in any windows or door..

We had industrial strength metal louvers that went up the windows & doors until where the roof overhang ended.. Just heavy duty chicken wire from there on up.. The wind BLEW though the house.. The furniture was bamboo or wicker.. It actually got better every time it got wet..

When a huge storm came through, we used a squeegee on the floors upstairs..pushed the water down the stairs, and right out the front & back doors..

[sweetheart]

14. Airflow, a house is like a lung

It needs to breathe constantly, as much as whatever air is contained is
breathed by the human occupants. Many people have already pointed to
the sealed houses and low air turnover. When a central air conditioning
system is installed properly, it has a recycling percentage, so say that
70% of the air is recycled. Increasing the recycle rate is a standard
way that building operators save money on running buildings, so beware
on rentals.

I think that feact that old houses breathe and leak air is not an
accident at all, as old houses heat by stove and chimney, needing the
in-flow to replace the air gone up the chimney.

In britain its the opposite, the OLD buildings are usually the ones with
damp-problems, because they are not heated the old-ways, or that
old buildings have had all their holes pluged up with silicon seal.
Mold and dust mites grow, even more with carbon dioxide poisoning,
and britain has a much higher incidence rate for athsma than other
nations with better housing stock.

Its the probem with design and architecture as a narrow discipline, as
who would learn building and architecture taking mandatory courses on
rot and microorganisms in air flow design.

[benburch]

20. My shack might be very expensive to heat...

But we don't need to worry about radon or mold!!!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. Same here -- 120-year-old house, drafty and poorly insulated,

but has lath and plaster walls and windows that open. No mold.

[pitohui]

25. it just isn't that deadly

i was listening to a radio program abt it today

mold hysteria is being promoted by unscupulous businesses playing on fear to rip ppl off

they said there is quite a bit of litigation going on to stop these businesses from lying abt toxic mold, which is v. v. VERY rare & unlikely to be in yr home

i think they need to put some of these frauds in jail

ppl have enough crap to deal w. as it is w.out unscrupulous liars & opportunists trying to create new fears to cash in on

[idiosyncratic]

32. Maybe not, but it can make you deathly ill!

I moved into an apartment that had been added on to the back of an older house. The construction was substandard and the roof leaked. The pipes in the shower also leaked.

When the green board finally failed causing the ceramic tile wall to buckle, a handyman took the shower apart. It was absolutely black with mold all around the entire shower and up the wall about three feet. No wonder I always felt ill when I took a shower. That also explained why when I returned home, after being away for several hours, the place smelled like a swamp.

After finding another place to live, I was packing my stuff. I took down a paper calendar that was tacked to the wall. There was mold behind it! . . . And this was in Southern California!

Would Erin Brockovich have moved out of her home and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars if the house was not making her and her family sick?


Even if there are some unscrupulous people taking advantange in the face of this very real health hazard, that does not negate the fact that toxic mold is a very real problem.


P.S. I'm curious which radio program that was . . . ?

[pitohui]

34. the new orleans radio stations are putting out a "united" product now

they can't get to their stations, so they have a combined product, called "united radio stations" where you can hear discussion of recovery from the catastrophe

i am sorry that anyone is allergic to mold & has health issues

i have a very severe allergy to cats, as does my brother, who has developed asthma & high cholesterol as a result of prolonged exposure to his allergen

that does not mean we relabel cats as toxic or we seek to have homes & bldgs condemned where cats have left their dander

when i enter a dwelling infested w. cat dander, i leave

i think this is a better way to handle it than to create a destructive hysteria that threatens ppl's ability to recover their homes & their financial futures

every time you condemn a home, you are having a significant impact on a REAL LIVE BREATHING HUMAN BEING, who is just as real as you or i, & some of those ppl will NEVER recover financially from the loss of their home

it is not right to create fear for profit

clearly you have a genuine problem, but this is what the mold exploiters are doing, they are taking a v. RARE problem & trying to create a hysteria for profit, there is not enough business doing it the honest way, because true "toxic mold" is v. rare & most ppl are not allergic to mold or mildew, they can clean it just fine themselves w.out incident -- as i did

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

37. How can a poisonous bird from New Guinea

be allergic to cats? :p

[pitohui]

40. it's a long story

:-)

but if the cat ever tries to chow down on my giblets, it's TOAST

:-)

[Boomer]

42. My partner is sensitive to mold

When we lived in a rental house with a moldy basement, she was constantly ill and her health immediately improved when we moved out.

Even now, spending more than a few minutes in our basement -- which is fairly dry and not obviously moldy -- will leave her feeling sick for hours.

I'm not affected, so obviously mileage varies from person to person. But it's an often overlooked health issue.

[nonconformist]

28. Plaster walls and drafts were common in older homes

Now, homes are built with paper-coated drywall and they're virtually air-tight. So now the humidity just sits stagnant and it's got more materials for mold to "eat".

I'm one of those odd people that believe that having a perfectly sealed, air-tight home is a bad thing. Homes should be sealed and insulated for comfort and energy savings, but like all good things it can be overdone. If you have a newer home, it's important to open up windows and let it air out often.

[pitohui]

29. not too many "tight" homes in new orleans area

i think the "tight" home phenomena took place in more northerly regions where heating during winter is a concern

my home sure ain't tight!

& a great, great many of the homes in question are "older" homes, they are not "tight" modern homes

[nonconformist]

31. True, but I think it leads to the issue

These homes were empty. No electricity, no air conditioning running. Probably no windows open. When someone is living there, they're opening and closing doors, opening windows, running the A/C, using fans. Since these things weren't happening, it caused stagnant, humid air which caused mold to grow.

[notadmblnd]

39. my momma always learned me that.....

bleach is my friend. She always said "baby, you can't use too much bleach in your cleanin".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. Japan is very hot and humid in the summer, and before the days of

air conditioning, people lived in drafty wooden houses with sliding doors. During the summer, they kept the outer doors open during the day, which, among other things, let sunlight in. (Mold does not grow in direct sunlight.)

They also aired out their bedding (they still do) in the sunshine and dried freshly laundered clothes in the sun.

However, they still are unable to keep mold from growing entirely, and during the rainy season, people have to keep an eye on their clothes and shoes and the darker corners of their houses to prevent the mold from spreading. I don't know what they did in the old days, but these days, there are several anti-mold products available in the cleaning supplies section of stores.

[leftofthedial]

41. but mold has spores, like on Star Trek

it just HAS to be bad

[Mr_Spock]

49. Yeah, those spores were bad!

Did somebody say Star Trek? :D

[leftofthedial]

51. those nasty spores even made you go goofy

as I recall

[Mr_Spock]

52. Yeah, I got all lovie-dovie

Ewwwwwwww x(

[JanMichael]

50. Remember that houses weren't climate controlled back whenever.

They were open door and open window cooled. There was external circulation.

So mold was there but it wasn't in vents and tubes and being blown around the rooms in a relatively sealed evironment. Newer houses are a bitch to cool sans AC. There's no natural circulation.

[lithiumbomb]

53. mmmm, mold

Mold is a problem in a house that's been flooded. It has nothing at all to do with whether the house has a/c or not. A house simply without power for a while does not break out in floor to ceiling mold, unless you have explosive rotting stuff in the fridge, but then you have other problems.

[monstaman]

60. The ice box

My fridge actually HISSED at me as we tossed it over the front stoop railing. Never emptied it ... just duct taped the sucker and got it out. One month ... and it was FULL when I evacuated. We had high level FEMA masks on with charcoal ... it did NOT help.

[monstaman]

54. Mold

Big fat deal? BIG FAT DEAL? You come to your home one month after a foot of water in your home and see what the big deal is. Wet mold .. much different than plain ole' humidity. Think about those who lost EVERYTHING (like myself) related to the BIG FAT DEAL mold.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

58. I'm sorry you had to go through that, monstaman

Don't mind the people who belittle your experience.

And welcome to DU!

[monstaman]

59. Mold

Thanks again for the welcome.

[idiosyncratic]

64. After reading about your experience

I feel like crying again. This whole disaster has put me in an emotional tailspin and I'm on the opposite side of the country in a dry house.

Learning what you and all the other victims are going through makes me terrifically sad.

I hope you get all the help you need to recover from this. :hug:


Oh, and welcome to DU. :hi:

[CardInAustin]

55. Well....

First off, there is a difference between run of the mill mold, and the "black" mold that you hear so much about.

Second, yes....people have always had trouble with mold, even before A/C. However, their houses normally weren't submerged under water for days or weeks at a time.

[justiceischeap]

56. The mold and smell

I cannot even begin to describe the smell down there. And don't forget, the mold is being caused by flooding, not humidity and we'll probably never know what was in the flood waters, hence, the mold is caused by different things I'm sure.

I was in NOLA for 5 days and came back very itchy, some houses you're in, you just start coughing, feeling a tickling in your throat and I don't have allergies.

I can't say how bad the smell is and the mold is growing up the walls. You'll see the flood lines inside the houses and then the mold is just creeping up to the ceiling. So it's a whole different discussion with the oil, sewage, etc in that water.

[NuttyFluffers]

61. *sigh* before we wouldn't give a perfect system to blow spores around.

before air conditioning only the air that circulated around could access places that had mold, agitate them and spread their spores, but not too heavily far from where they were growing.

after air conditioners you often have an ac reservoir that people do not have easy and casual access to, so if any mold or mildew is growing there it will go undetected. then grab this reservoir of undetected mold and force a fast steam of air over it, thus disturbing the mold. as the spores are kicked up into the now cooled air it is systematically disbursed to *each and every room* of the house.

that's bad. very bad. nobody back in the day before air conditioners grabbed moldy bread and held it up to their face as they hyperventilated. that would be stupid. as it is to have air conditioning reservoirs placed out of sight so one could never find out if the source was developing "unpleasant organisms." there should be easier access or better models. kinda like using swamp water for your humidifier, leaving your ac by itself to develop mold is a bad thing.

hey, we knew back then that breathing deeply of rotting things is a bad idea, we should still know that now.