#32 | Ticking Like a Clock: What Hidden Mould Did to My Son

Jess Kismet (00:00)

Hello and welcome to The Building Sciology Poddie where we talk about better buildings to live and breathe in. It is becoming more widely understood that mould in our homes can have a serious impact on health and that some people are far more sensitive to it than others. My guest today knows this all too well. When her son began developing unexplained ticks and other symptoms Tracy Seymour spent two long years and a lot of money searching for answers and the root cause turned out to be hidden mould

Rather than stopping there, Tracy turned that experience into her mission. She founded Break the Mould Inspections, helping families across Sydney and surrounding areas identify and address mould issues in their homes. I first met Tracy through the Advanced Mould Testing course we're both completing at the Australian College of Environmental Studies as part of the Advanced Diploma in Building Biology. We share that same curiosity and passion for understanding how buildings impact health.

And today we're diving into exactly that, mould, health, and what to do if this becomes a problem in your own home. Welcome Tracy.

Tracey Seymour (00:58)

Hi, Jess Thanks for having me.

Jess Kismet (00:59)

No problem at all. So let's dive into what happened with your son. Could you tell us a bit about the symptoms he started to experience and ⁓ how you worked out what was causing it?

Tracey Seymour (01:11)

Yeah. Big question really. Okay. So my son was five years old at the time, you know, for lack of better word, completely normal, no issues, no health related issues. And we noticed that quite literally what felt like overnight, he developed neurological ticks. So it started with some hard eye blinking. That was just, it was quite repetitive. It was happening sort of, every few minutes.

Jess Kismet (01:13)

Yeah.

Tracey Seymour (01:36)

it then progressed to eye rolling, which then progressed to sort of more of a neck turn and eye roll. So these ticks obviously were quite confronting as a mom, sort of seeing these things happen. I took him to the GP and unfortunately the GP said, yeah, you know, he's developed a motor tick, just ignore it. And if it's still there in 12 months, he's probably got Tourette's. And I just sort of,

I think I just went numb and almost had a bit of an out of body experience thinking, what? Like this just doesn't seem right. But I left the office and sort of went home and talked to my husband and I was just, it just wasn't sitting right with me. couldn't just ignore that my son was ticking like a clock. And so, you know, I started the process of investigation and look, this really was quite a long journey to get to the point of connecting the dots to mould.

And I guess that's why I am so passionate about it and working with families and helping to educate them about mould and what it can do to the body so that hopefully someone doesn't have to go through the years and financial expense that we had to in trying to get our son diagnosed. apart from the hard eye blinking and the motor tics, which over the years they did transition. Sometimes they were a whistle, sometimes they might've been.

a repetitive motion like licking of an elbow or something quite random, really high frequency urination. you sometimes every 30 to 60 seconds he might need to go. We went to endless amounts of specialists who, you know, sort of threw everything at us, like put him on ADHD medication or diabetes medication, epilepsy medication, all these things, which to me,

just did not sit right. I felt like I was just being given a band-aid solution to something which, as I know now, if we had have gone down that route and giving him those things, not only would we have never addressed the root cause of what was causing the reaction in his body, but he would have had all these other side effects as well from the medications that he was not supposed to be on. Really amazingly, one day I, in I think sheer desperation, I put

out on a local Facebook group, mum's page to ask if anyone had had similar issues with their child. And one beautiful mum reached out and said, look, I'm on my way to do school drop off, but I'll private message you. And she sort of alerted me to an amazing doctor, pediatrician who she had worked with for her child. And I called the office and ⁓ sadly it was a 10 month wait to get in.

And I remember just feeling so discouraged and desperate. And I was crying of a nighttime because to see your child going through this, it wasn't just the tics, it was anxiety and OCD. So things that we thought might've been a bit cute at first, we quickly realized this actually is not. It's actually something going wrong with his brain. He was doing repetitive counting and would always have to touch smooth surfaces. If he brushed past something, he'd have to touch it again and go back.

So all these things, which were just little alarm bells and things putting together to go, is not quite right. As a mom, know, sort of desperate to find an answer, I spent, you know, every day and every night till all hours just sort of trolling through Google and Instagram and everything I could possibly try and absorb to find the answer.

And then it was just something quite random that I came across that suggested the possibility of mould. Now mould wasn't something that I was very aware of. It wasn't something that I ever thought was dangerous. You I grew up in that sort of era of, just bleach it and it'll be fine. So it wasn't something that I was necessarily aware of, you the potential health issues. I raised it with our pediatrician. said, well,

do you have mould in the home? And I said, well, yes. I mean, there was a leak in our ceiling when there was some really heavy rains about three years ago in Sydney. And the solution at the time was to have it cleaned. Obviously the repair work where the leak had come in, it actually took a lot longer than what we had expected. There was lots of quotes coming through. But essentially we did not.

clean it or the company we got to do didn't clean it. What they did was bleach it. So I guess from anesthetics, it looked better, but we didn't know any any better. And, the mould was still very entrenched into that ceiling substrate. And consequently, all the mycotoxins and mould with things just proliferating throughout our home. And that's what he was reacting to. Now, our amazing doctor was a pediatrician. She was able to.

run some mycotoxin test and you know the connection there was the type of mould that was in our home after we got a mould test done directly correlated with the type of mycotoxins that was in his body and I think the rough guideline of what's normal was 7.5 and below for this particular mycotoxin and I think his was at like 366. So completely off the charts we'd gone through the process of you know sort of

Jess Kismet (06:29)

my goodness.

Tracey Seymour (06:35)

Goodness, so many things, but testing to see what was in his body, what's being impacted, how much has mould impacted his immune system, his neurological system, his liver, so many different things and so many ways that mould had just really caused complete havoc in his body. And I guess that's sort of what brought me to becoming a mould inspector and wanting to help somebody identify that stuff a lot quicker than what we were able to do or even

you know, allowing people to be educated on a topic that they can jump onto and make sure it doesn't become a problem for them in their homes. You know, you don't have to wait until you've got a child who's really, really sick. You can sort of action mould as soon as you know that it's a problem within the home. So, yeah, I think that's some of the some of the symptoms that we experienced from from mould and how we went about sort of addressing those.

Jess Kismet (07:26)

say the Tourette's type ticks is not a symptom that I've heard of before. That's a new one and quite a distressing one as a parent to watch these uncontrollable ticks. can't imagine, you know, respiratory issues and rashes is one thing, but to think that it's affecting your child's brain in such a severe way. Goodness.

Tracey Seymour (07:43)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's causing inflammation, you know, so that

inflammation and it's also mould wreaks havoc on the gut. So it's destroying the gut. It's creating that permeability, those leaky gut ⁓ issues. And therefore, when you get that cross between the blood brain barrier, you get inflammation. And when the brain's inflamed, that's when you're having these sort of OCD, you're having neurological ticks, you're having anxiety, those sorts of symptoms.

Jess Kismet (07:50)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Emotional responses to like that anxiety you were talking about. Yeah. So it took you two years to come to these conclusions. Your son is much better now.

Tracey Seymour (08:13)

completely.

Yeah, look, we still deal with ⁓ some of the, guess, want to say side effects, I guess some of the issues that mould did to his body. Unfortunately, our story goes a little bit deeper than that. And I'm not sure how much time you've got time for today, but we identified the mould and we moved out of mould and we moved into a new home. We stretched ourselves financially to go into a home that we thought was, you know, a beautiful new renovated home. And unfortunately,

we very quickly found out that that was not the case. It wasn't until I started studying to become a mould inspector or doing building biology that I sort of got a little bit more education on how to go about things. You we had a mould inspector come out to the house when we moved into this new home and her samples came back to say that, you know, everything was clear on an air sample. Unfortunately,

We had some toxic mould growing between our kitchen cabinetry and the walls and also behind the dishwasher. Now, unfortunately, she didn't go to the extent of pulling out the dishwashers and things like that. And I guess that's something that I'm quite pedantic about now is that I try not to leave any stone unturned because I was sitting there thinking why on earth is our sun not getting better? We are doing everything we're supposed to do. We've changed the diet. We've got the supplementations.

Jess Kismet (09:30)

Mm-hmm.

Tracey Seymour (09:39)

we've moved him out of mould or so we thought, but he was still so sick. And I guess for us, because that process was completely prolonged because we thought we'd gotten out of mould and we hadn't, he was still being exposed. His toxic cup was still just getting overflowing. And for us, think, you know, it's been a long journey because we had to go through the process of misdiagnosis and thinking we were in a safe house and out of mould. And it wasn't until

We moved to our next house that we truly got out of mould. And thankfully, by this time I was a qualified mould inspector, so I was able to go to town on this property and sort of make sure that we are 100 % free from toxigenic moulds.

Jess Kismet (10:19)

Yeah, yeah. And speaking of, this is actually a question I've got further down my list about moving house, because there'd be a lot of people in your position who need to get out of houses that are making them sick. But how do they know that they're not doing what you did moving into a new mouldy house And what are, I know that you've had experience with real estate agents doing things to kind of, yeah, yeah, it's fine. This is all good kind of, don't want to say.

Tracey Seymour (10:31)

Yeah.

Jess Kismet (10:45)

tricking people, you know, they have ways of getting around mould issues in homes that they're trying to sell or rent out. So could you tell us a bit about what people can do?

Tracey Seymour (10:53)

Sure, yeah, I mean, look,

there's definitely things that you can do when you're looking for a new property. If you think that mould or moisture might be an issue or you're concerned about it, both when renting and purchasing. The truth is that both are not without their limitations, but you can definitely help to quickly rule out some properties even just by looking online. If you're purchasing a property, so as part of your due diligence and

Jess Kismet (11:01)

Hmm.

Tracey Seymour (11:15)

the building and pest inspections and things that you're going to request anyway, you can book a mould and moisture assessment if the vendor is going to allow you to do that. Now bearing in mind, will take you, will take the inspector quite a number of hours. But, you know, sort of my thought process on that, if they've got nothing to hide and, you know, they want to sell the house, then it should be acceptable for them, for you to book a mould and moisture inspection. And in that instance, we're able to use things like your thermal imaging cameras, moisture meters,

Boreoscope cameras where possible, high powered torches, and these tools can really help to detect the hidden mould or some, you know, temperature anomalies that might indicate that there's mould behind the walls, under the floors or in the ceiling. You know, we can do some testing and things like that as well, but it's one of those things that when people are trying to sell a property normally, you're normally looking at it in its best light. It's just been freshly painted. Everything's

opened up and breezy, they've got beautiful candles going, that sort of thing. it's about trying to identify the things that are the telltale signs that might not be obvious to most people. So we're looking for things like, and you can do this yourself, go into a property and have a look for cracking or bubbling of paint, water staining. You're having a look at things like

Where is the property positioned on the land? Is it at the bottom of a hill where all that moisture during heavy rain is just gonna come in and flood that property? You're looking at, is there signs of water pooling around the outside of the building? Can you see that it's sloshy in some areas or that you can see that moisture has risen up around the foundation? Stick your head in if there's a subfloor, give it a smell. Does it stink under there? There's lots of different things that you can do. And I mean, it is easier.

in a pre-purchase inspection versus say a rental, especially in Sydney, rental market is crazy and you're going to turn up and you've probably got about 15 minutes and there's probably 20 to 50 other people all looking at that same property. So I suggest like looking for those red flags first. Have a look online. You can do a little bit of research yourself to see is there is it in a flood zone? Has there been floods in the past?

look at the neighboring properties, are they up higher and in heavy rain? Is that water gonna come down into the property? Look at the drainage around the outside. Take a high powered torch with you, shine it perpendicular on any sort of ⁓ cupboards and surfaces. If the tenants' belongings have mould on them, yes, they're gonna take that out, but those micro toxins and mould spores are circulating within that property. So getting that torch and sort of shining it around, you can do that fairly quickly yourself.

And again, looking for things like the exhaust fans in the bathrooms and the laundries, for example, just get a little piece of toilet paper and hold it up to the exhaust fan and see, is it actually sucking up? Does it seem like it's actually gonna be able to remove some of that moisture when you're using that bathroom and looking for signs of condensation staining? You can sometimes see moisture stains on the ceiling and things like that. So lots and lots of different things that you can do yourself.

I just always say to people, if you're looking for a property and it's a rental and you've got like a short amount of time, you just want to try and do as much as you possibly can before you even get there. Drive past the property and have a look, you know, sort of have a look at the land, have a look at what you can see around you. You know, do you have a creek right next to you? All these sorts of things that you can actually look for yourself. Has the property got a really good hat? Does it have good sort of eaves covering over?

the windows, is there window protection? Does the gutters and things look full and overflowing or do they look like they're sort of functioning really well? So trying not to, when both purchasing and renting, trying not to be swayed by the aesthetics, trying to look more at the functionality of the property and the structural integrity of the property, I think is probably my biggest recommendation.

Jess Kismet (15:09)

That's a very comprehensive list of things to look for. Really awesome advice. Thank you. So now let's move on to your official mould inspections. What's the typical process when you go into a house and what are you looking for?

Tracey Seymour (15:20)

Yeah, I I mean, I told you earlier, I got into this industry because I want to help families. So even though I do do some commercial work and some sort of other mould inspections for people, my passion is for helping families to connect the dots from health issues and things like that. So when any client calls me, one of the first questions that I ask them is, you know, what's been the trigger? Why are you looking to get a mould inspection? And is it because

they've got lots of visible mould and they want to know where it's coming from or how to remove it. Or is it because they have health issues and they sort of got no idea why and they're just trying to connect the dots somehow. So that's really important. The process obviously is going through all of the building history and what the property is made of, where it's located, etc That's the fundamental stuff that you do at the start to get a good history on the property.

Have they had furniture from a previously water damaged building that they're bringing into this space that could have contaminated it? Is there a history of leaks from a dishwasher, a washing machine, bathroom, etc? All of those sorts of structural and functional fundamental things, that's sort of a given at the start. But when I go into a property, it's about looking for the things that people don't necessarily see with the naked eye. Because I know personally when things are overlooked,

that can keep people sick for a long period of time. And I've seen some very random situations. A whole family, for example, had no idea that their teenage son had built a false room within the house. So they basically built themselves a little storage area within the house when ⁓ the family went away and provided a fake wall. growing in behind that was all sorts of nasties and they had no idea. So I think

You know, I definitely have seen a lot when it comes to the process. I'm trying to find what people aren't seeing. I'm getting there, which is not my favourite thing to do, but getting in under the sub floors and having a look with the torch to see, you know, is there mould on the underside of those sub floors that's coming up into the bedrooms, for example, I'm pulling out the dishwashers. You know, I'm getting up into the attics and seeing, you know, I literally had one lady who had no idea that in her attic space.

There was a complete set up with a little light on up there and someone had a painting easel and everything going on up there, quite creepy. But people don't know so much about what's going on in their homes. And I think that's probably one of the most fascinating things. And if I can identify those things for them, you know, it goes a little bit beyond just finding the mould. It's like finding obscure things as well. And I think that's part of the fun of the process, finding those things that people don't

know are happening within their home and helping them to then come up with a plan for remediation and then to be able to help them to actually finally fix their home to help them to heal from mould.

Jess Kismet (18:15)

Yeah, wow. So that house with the easel and this roof, this is from the previous owner and they just left it there.

Tracey Seymour (18:20)

Well, I mean, I don't know. ⁓ They had no idea when I went down and I said, what's going on with the easel, the painting easel and the little light upstairs? And she said, what do you mean? said, you don't know that that's up there and the light is on and it's all set up. She goes, no, rang her husband and he had no idea either. yeah, creepy, but people have no idea sometimes what's going on in and around their home, which I just find completely fascinating.

Jess Kismet (18:23)

Was somebody crawling into the roof space at night and painting?

my goodness. my goodness.

it's not possums in the roof.

Yeah, they thought it was possums, but actually it's a lady doing some painting. wow. That's cool.

Tracey Seymour (18:51)

I'm painting. Yeah, who knows? But yeah, crazy.

Jess Kismet (18:54)

So when you're actually looking for mould in a home, how do you find it?

Tracey Seymour (18:58)

I mean, sometimes you can't find it in the sense that it's not visible. You've got to find it through the testing, through either air samples or tape samples, for example. Quite often I find that an air sample is great for quantifying.

Jess Kismet (19:03)

Hmm.

Tracey Seymour (19:15)

what's going on in the air at that time and giving our clients, you know, sort of an indication of the levels of contamination that are currently at the time of testing going through the air. But sometimes it's really good to be able to do a tape sample, say for example, on the top of a ceiling fan or on the top of a bookshelf, for example. And I find those sorts of things good when it comes to, say for example, a pre-purchase inspection.

where the owner or the vendor or the real estate may have opened everything up and made it all quite diluted in terms of the air sample. And I find if I can just put a tape sample somewhere that's high up and maybe wasn't expected to be sampled, I can get a lot of information from that tape sample. And it's really good for helping to identify the condition of something as well because it's a NATA accredited lab that we use and it's able to say condition one, two or three.

which helps me and my clients to work out what they need to do in terms of remediation of their property and their belongings. I find sometimes we have visible mould in a section of the home and the client just wants to know what type of mould it is. And I find that really helpful just to be able to do what we call it out a loud sample. And that's where we put the tape directly onto that mould and it will tell us, you know, what type of mould is present.

Jess Kismet (20:13)

Mm-hmm.

Tracey Seymour (20:30)

And that can help with other things in terms of identifying, you know, is this a prolonged moisture issue? Is this just some humidity or condensation? So there's lots of information that we can get from the air samples and the tape samples as well.

Jess Kismet (20:44)

Yeah, so there's a couple of things I want to raise there. So condition one, two and three, could you quickly just tell the listeners what that means?

Tracey Seymour (20:50)

Yeah, sure. So condition one is your normal fungal ecology. Mould is everywhere. Everywhere has mould, but everywhere doesn't have toxigenic water damage building moulds. So condition one, normal fungal ecology is when we take an air sample or a tape sample and you might have a little bit of mould on there and that's fine. It's within the limits of what is normal. Condition two is where a large percentage of the tape or the air sample has been

contaminated or showing contamination and it's normally from a nearby active mould source that you can see. So I might do a tape sample on a bedhead for example. I can't see any visible mould there but it's being contaminated by the large-scale visible mould that might be say in the other room for example. So that's your condition one and two and condition three is where you see the visible mould.

Jess Kismet (21:42)

Yep. Okay, thank you. And a loud sample. You mentioned a loud sample. So there's a quiet sample and a loud sample. Could you tell the listeners what that means, please?

Tracey Seymour (21:50)

Sure, so a loud sample is quite literally where we put the tape straight onto the mould. We know it's there, it's not hidden, it's there, and it's just going to help us to identify sort of the type of fungi that's present. And then a quiet sample is where it doesn't look like there's anything suspicious there, but we're gonna pick up what's maybe invisible or what's hidden in the dust on the sample, and that can help us to sort of sometimes find and identify that there's mould within the premises.

that's not maybe so visible as in it's not shining nice and loudly on the wall.

Jess Kismet (22:22)

Yep, yep. So you wouldn't typically test a loud sample because you can see it. So you don't need to test for it, right? So you would typically do...

Tracey Seymour (22:26)

Not really.

Yeah, it's generally only

if you're trying to sort of quantify some data. For example, like I said before, some of my clients have asked me to do it because they just want to know, they want to know what kind of mould it is.

Jess Kismet (22:40)

Yeah, yeah, and that's, would, I want to know because, you know, we've got, ⁓ there's five main types of mould and there's the Aspergillus penicillium, which is the most common type of mould found. And then there's the other types that indicate that there's been longer, a longer term water damage issue. So what are those types?

Tracey Seymour (22:59)

Yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, Aspergillus, mean, I'm based in Sydney and Aspergillus is pretty much the most common and I guess most detrimental in many ways because it goes unseen quite often. People don't know that their, their belongings are covered in Aspergillus until we sort of shine the torch perpendicular onto it. But then I'm also looking at things like Chaetomium

⁓ Stachybotrys these are your tertiary colonisers. So these are the ones that need a lot more moisture to be able to create mould and a problem. So Aspergillus is like what we call the first on the scene. It only needs a little bit of moisture. It only needs dust, you know, to be able to form and colonise know, humidity is just enough for Aspergillus. And that's why it's so bad in Sydney and say the central coast, for example.

⁓ because it's so humid here. But then when you're talking about like your Chaetomium and your Stachybotrys they're the ones where it's got to have a lot of moisture to be able to proliferate. So you're talking about like a leak or constant water going into a substrate, for example. we're looking for Aspergillus, we're looking for your Stachybotrys we're looking for your Chaetomium And then you've got your non-toxigenic but highly allergenic mould, which is Cladosporium. And that's

you know, that's really helpful to identify because that's something that I see really, really commonly because people have too much condensation within the home or they're not heating the rooms effectively in winter and they're getting condensation on the windows and then it's creating mould in the dust and also on say like the the wooden window frame, for example. So it's really important, I think, to be able to identify the species or the genre of mould.

that is present in a home because it paints a picture about what's going on inside the home.

Jess Kismet (24:42)

Yep.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Thank you for explaining that. Mould is not like, it's not all the same. It actually tells you a story, which is, you know, that's really cool when you can identify what's going on in your home. And do those moulds have different levels of mycotoxins that they emit or expel?

Tracey Seymour (24:59)

Yeah, I mean they do. For example, I was saying to you before my son's levels were enormous with one, which was Ochratoxin A and that each mould, can easily Google and have a look and you can see what type of mycotoxins are produced by what type of mould genre as well. And then there's lots of data out there as well that shows you what impact those mycotoxins can have on the body. Is it liver function? Is it neurological?

Jess Kismet (25:19)

Mm-hmm.

Tracey Seymour (25:27)

Is it immune suppression? You know, all those sorts of things. It's actually quite fascinating when you get into it to understand what you've got in your home. And this is what I help my clients with quite often is let's do the mould sampling. Let's identify what type of moulds and what quantity, like what level of contamination. And then I help them with, you know, connecting with functional medicine practitioners who are able to then do some of these tests where they.

know, test their bodies for what type of mycotoxins and things are actually circulating in their system. And then with the functional medicine practitioner, they're able to actually then do a very personalised protocol for detoxing and getting rid of the mould out of their system and those mycotoxins out of their system.

Jess Kismet (26:08)

That's fascinating. I might try and get together some resources on those different types of mycotoxins and put them in the show notes. Awesome. Thank you. Let's talk about cleaning versus remediation because everyone seems to get this wrong. There's a lot of confusion around how to actually effectively get rid of mould. could you, how do we know when a simple clean is going to be sufficient or when remediation is necessary?

Tracey Seymour (26:15)

Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think when it comes to dealing with mould, that distinction between cleaning and remediation is actually quite critical. Cleaning is about surface level mould removal. So it's effective for small localised mould growth on your non-porous surfaces. So think glass, think metal, that sort of thing. When you're talking about remediation, it's a whole different ball game. You're talking about

porous items and the need for either discarding those items or professional remediation. So if you're talking about say the IICRC S520 standard, that emphasises that mould needs to be removed. So we're not trying to kill mould. We're trying to remove it. And I think that's one thing that's really important for people to get their heads around is

you know, all these products that are out there that says, you know, kills mould and you know, we don't want to kill mould. We actually want to physically remove it from the property. When you're talking about porous items and that can be wood, it can be your drywall and your ceiling mould has really deep roots. So if you're killing or removing the surface mould, you're not actually addressing the problem. So those mould roots go really, really deep into those substrates.

And then what you'll find is people say, oh, you we cleaned it, we removed it. And then it comes back again, because it can just sit there waiting for the right conditions again, whether that's too much humidity, too much dust, a little bit of a moisture leak again. that, you know, sort of differentiation between what you can clean and what needs to be remediated is really important. think, you know, in terms of remediation, you're also looking at

things like containment. So when you're stripping out, ⁓ let's say carpets or drywall, whatever that might be, you've really got to think about the containment as well, because you don't want those spores and everything to just go flying about when you're ripping these products out. So it's really important when you're talking about remediating mould, that you're looking at negative air pressure for your air scrubbers and things like that. You're looking at ways to make sure that

you contain that contamination to that particular area and that room. And that's why remediation, you know, sort of goes so much deeper than just cleaning of mould and what can be cleaned and what can't. And I think, you know, moisture control is a big one when it comes to remediation, because if you don't fix the source of the moisture, you're just going to have it come back again anyway. So remediation is so much more detailed than cleaning and remediation.

Jess Kismet (28:51)

Mm-hmm.

Tracey Seymour (29:08)

is a lot more expensive for people. And I think it's one of those things that, you know, when you talk about the potential implications of mould, you know, the costs can just blow out because it does do so much damage and there's so much more than just sort of wiping something clean or wiping it off. And if you don't address it properly, it can become a bigger problem, not just to the structure of the building, but to your health as well.

Jess Kismet (29:33)

So the primary difference between if you can clean something and if you need to remediate it is if it's porous or non-porous. Would that be correct? Yeah. So any furniture that's porous, if you've had a mould issue, probably needs to go. Clothing.

Tracey Seymour (29:39)

Pretty much, Yeah, definitely.

As a general

rule of thumb, I sort of say, you know, in most instances, look, some things you can, some things you can go to professional remediators and try to have cleaned, but as a general rule of thumb, if it can't go in the washing machine, it's gotta go.

Jess Kismet (29:59)

Yeah, all right. Thank you. So if you have a homeowner that does have a mould, damp moisture mould affected property, what is the most practical steps they can take before they bring in a professional like yourself?

Tracey Seymour (30:11)

⁓ Look, I mean, I think if you're dealing with mould, you know that you've got mould. The number one thing would be to control the humidity. know, mould can't exist without moisture. So thinking about, you know, the levels of contaminate or sorry, the levels of moisture that you've got happening within the home with humidity, especially in someone like Sydney in the central coast, you're going to have a lot of days where you're above 90 % humidity. It's crazy. So

using things like a dehumidifier, making sure that you've got effective extractor fans in the bathrooms, laundry, kitchen, opening up your spaces daily. I mean first thing I do most mornings is open my whole house up and just let that cross ventilation air out the house and exchange that sort of stale air and bring in some nice, clean, fresh air. And then we've got an air purifier going, you know, sort of when the house is closed up. So I think, you know,

Controlling humidity, thinking about your cooking, bathing, breathing, anything that you're doing to create more moisture in the home, puts more pressure on the home and raises the risk for mould. So drying laundry inside the house, that sort of stuff, like I'd recommend not doing that. So just thinking about how much moisture you're putting into the house, addressing any obvious moisture issues. If you've got a leak, if you're seeing

water staining somewhere, not leaving it, addressing it really quickly. know, can houses are always going to have problems. There's always going to be leaks or potential for issues. But if you address them quickly, it can just be a small problem that can get fixed rather than it becoming a really big problem that contaminates your whole house or, you know, structurally undermines the integrity of the building. So I would definitely say, you know, sort of addressing issues quickly.

things like if you see your gutters overflowing, make sure that you're addressing that, getting out there quickly and just being preventative rather than reactive. ⁓ And ventilation, I mean, I sort of touched on it with regards to the extractor fans and opening the house up. But I think ventilation is one of those things that it's so simple and so easy. I go to so many people's houses and they'll say, that window doesn't open or

Jess Kismet (32:06)

Mm-hmm.

Tracey Seymour (32:23)

we've kept this room closed because it's a problem. It's like, know, you're just closing it up. You're just giving the mould more of what it needs. A nice warm, moist place with, you know, no fresh air.

Jess Kismet (32:34)

Yep, yep. And in Sydney, ⁓ or in more humid areas north of Australia and in the tropical zones of the world, wouldn't opening up the windows introduce more moisture into your house?

Tracey Seymour (32:44)

So it depends. You've really got to, there's some, you know, you can get yourself little ⁓ thermometers and moisture meters and things like that to, you know, sort of take a gauge on that. I know for my dehumidifier, it's got a setting on it as well, and it can help me to control the level of humidity. That's why for me, example, first thing early in the morning is the best time to open everything up because that humidity hasn't risen. I definitely don't do it when it's raining or if it's, you know, sort of high levels of humidity, but.

Jess Kismet (32:50)

Yeah.

Tracey Seymour (33:13)

There's some fairly cheap products on the market that can help you to keep a monitor on what level of humidity is in your home. You definitely don't want to open everything up if it's super hot and humid outside. But at the same time, there's periods a day where it won't be, and you can open it up and exchange that air. But being on top of that, making sure you're using dehumidifiers on those hot and humid days, sometimes running your aircons on dry mode, that sort of thing can really help.

Jess Kismet (33:39)

Yep, fantastic, thank you. Now, speaking of keeping houses closed up, you have had personal experience with this with your rental property. Tell us what happened.

Tracey Seymour (33:47)

Uh-huh.

Yeah. Bit of a kick in the guts. So we have a, my husband and I have a ⁓ holiday home that we rent out through Air BnB We hadn't actually been up there for a couple of years. It's in Northern New South Wales. And obviously the last time I was up there, I was definitely not mould inspector. So I decided to book a trip with some girlfriends and, you know, have a great time away up there.

Unfortunately, that trip turned bad very quickly because when we opened it up, ⁓ immediately that smell, that musty mouldy smell that I know so well was just a slap in the face and I just knew and everything changed in an instant from me. My whole vibe and mode completely changed and I went into mould inspector mode and I spent my week up there basically looking over every square inch of the property.

⁓ Unfortunately, it gets really hot and humid up there. It's a holiday home that gets let out Friday to Sunday most of the time, which means it's closed up for a good portion of the week. We do, or we did have a property manager who was managing it, but obviously wasn't managing it properly and wasn't making sure that it was aired out appropriately and ventilated and didn't let us know that there was a problem. So humidity and dust control up

in that property was an issue. So we have now gone into recovery mode, which is not fun. It is expensive. It is not just the remediation works that need doing, but as it's a holiday rental, I can't in good faith rent this property out to people knowing that it has mould. So for us, we've had to cancel our forward bookings for a period of time.

which, you that's a massive expense. You know, those bookings pay the mortgage on that property. So, you know, there's one level of the cost and expense for that. And then, you know, we're having to rip out all the carpets, we're having to replace with ⁓ hardwood floors, we have to engage with a mould remediation company to come and, you know, remediate our property property, property properly, you know, in terms of things like containment and things like that, that I was talking about earlier and how important it is.

But unfortunately, because the levels of mould within the house that I was able to identify and even just see visually with the torch, it just means that pretty much everything's got to go from a remediation point of view, we're talking about before, couches, mattresses, linens, that sort of stuff, it's all got to go. So again, that's another level of expense.

Jess Kismet (36:09)

Yeah.

Tracey Seymour (36:18)

We are obviously in the process because this was only just recently. We are in the process of all of this and organising trades and services and looking at how do we now moving forward make sure that our property is better ventilated, making sure that we have humidity controls in place. And I asked for your advice the other day, Jess, on some software and things like that and some products that are

able to help me from down in Sydney to be able to check in on the property and be able to switch things on remotely to be able to help, which I think is going to be a big benefit as well. So that as well as a new property manager who's able to manage the property properly for us and keep an eye on these things. But it just goes to show that, you know, just we don't have leaks really. I mean, there was a one condensation issue in the air conditioning. Actually, that's probably a really good point. When you were on holidays and the

property owner or the hotel or whoever asks you to close the doors when you've got the air conditioning on, please do so, because what happens is you've got this property which is opened up, which is great. It's got all this fresh air coming through potentially, but you've got the air conditioning running and the condensation that builds up on the duct work sort of all forms. If you can imagine like a bottle of Coke on a hot summer's day.

and you take it outside and suddenly you get all that condensation on the outside. That's exactly what happens to the duct work in the air conditioning, which then drips down onto the ceiling. So we do have a little bit of an issue with that, which means we're to have to fix that. But it is also, you know, it's one of those things that I ask people to be mindful of people's properties and, know, sort of when you're going into these spaces, how you're looking after these homes so that they can be safe for the next person coming in and not cost a bomb to fix.

Jess Kismet (38:01)

Mm.

Tracey Seymour (38:01)

But

majority of our issues with that property is humidity. So it's about, again, that ventilation. It's about controlling the humidity within the home and making sure that things are kept dust free to ensure that the mould doesn't have a really fast food, easy, quick source to feed on.

Jess Kismet (38:20)

Yep and none of that's covered by your insurance is it? None of that remediation.

Tracey Seymour (38:23)

Not a thing.

Yep, yep, absolutely. I think that's one thing that's, you know, a big thing with mould. People have no idea that their insurances most likely won't cover mould.

Jess Kismet (38:35)

Yeah.

Tracey Seymour (38:36)

and it's expensive. Mould remediation is expensive.

Jess Kismet (38:39)

Not only are you dealing with all the health stuff like with your son, then this life destroying for some people.

Tracey Seymour (38:46)

Yeah, absolutely. mean, not only from a building

perspective and a belongings perspective, from a health perspective, I mean, we spent tens of thousands of dollars on our son's health with regards to, you know, specialist appointments, supplementation, testing, you know, some of these testings each time we do them, they're $600. And we've done so many over the years. So it's one of those things that adds up really, really quickly.

Jess Kismet (38:56)

Mm.

Yep.

Tracey Seymour (39:11)

⁓ And it takes its toll financially when you have to, we've lost everything we own twice over in terms of having to get rid of things. So that's expensive. Moving costs are expensive. know, the actual remediation is expensive. So just being a bit more proactive and aware about mould and what it can do to the home and your health, you know, can go a long way to saving you those big costly expenses.

Jess Kismet (39:16)

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Just getting educated on how this can even be. Tough one. ⁓

Tracey Seymour (39:43)

Mmm.

Jess Kismet (39:43)

You must have tested dozens to hundreds of homes by now. Have you got one case study that stands out apart from the lady with the easel in the attic?

Tracey Seymour (39:51)

Look, I mean, I've seen, wouldn't like to say I've seen it all because that's just going to throw some other weird and wacky things at me to jinx me. But I've seen a lot. I've definitely seen a lot. think, you know, when you talk about like a case study that really stands out, it's actually my own. It's actually my own and knowing that how dangerous mould can be for susceptible people.

I feel like I go into people's homes regularly and it's quite often the wife who is concerned that there's mould issues causing problems in their home, but the husband and maybe some of the other people in the home aren't having those experiences and maybe it's not believed. So they might be a little bit more reluctant to sort of have the mould and moisture test done, but.

And there's a lot of reasons for that, but I would say, you know, people are susceptible in all different levels. you know, one in four people can't detox properly the same way from mould as the rest of the home. So it makes complete sense that there would be a home of four or one person suffering and others aren't. ⁓ so I guess the case study, there's not one case study that really stands out, but I would say in my situation with my son, you know, he was the only one affected. He was the only one having these like severe issues.

we were all living in the same amount of mould, but only one person was sort of having significant health issues. So I would say, if someone in the household is having some sort of issues, believe them. And if someone's talking about mould toxicity and things, because quite often, I can go on for days about mould and its impact on the body and things like that. And quite often, some people look at you like you're wearing your tin hat and a bit crazy.

Jess Kismet (41:15)

Mm.

Tracey Seymour (41:28)

So I would say, you know, for some of my clients who, you know, they just knew, they knew something was not right. And they struggled with either convincing family members and things to believe them or to even get the testing and things done, you know, be open to it because not everybody is affected the same way. And there are things that are impacting people in their home and in their environment that aren't going to impact everybody, but it's very real for the people who are.

Jess Kismet (41:54)

Absolutely. And then once you go down the route of testing for in your son's case, especially the numbers showed what was going on. So it wasn't just anecdotal.

Tracey Seymour (42:03)

Yeah, absolutely. And it's really interesting. know, I, as I said, my primary love is working with families and things who have got health issues. I've seen kids with, you know, debilitating conditions and, you know, things like eczema and stuff, which is just, you know, such a painful issue for kids.

Jess Kismet (42:22)

Mm.

Tracey Seymour (42:22)

They've

gone on multiple steroid creams and things like that. And, you know, things might work for a little bit, but then they don't work long term. And then we connect the dots to mould and we start to reduce the level of exposure and the toxicity. And you see these clients just have these absolute life changing situations. And that's why I love it. I absolutely love helping clients to connect those dots to mould because you really do.

you do see some massive differences in people once they actually get the data. That's the most important thing is the data you need to know. Cause I do, get people ask me, can you come out and do a more inspection? But we don't want to do any testing, which I say no to now because there, unless there is like no reason for it, which is very uncommon. You need the data. You need to know what the air quality is like. You need to know what's circulating in your home. You need to then be able to match those contaminants.

with what's going on in your body when you're sort of talking to your functional health practitioner. I'm not a functional practitioner, but I do know a hell of a lot after going through this process. And I love guiding my clients in that way. And I love being able to see them genuinely find hope in, you know, where they've been to multiple practitioners and not able to get any resolution. And then they finally able to connect the dots with mould and see the light, see that there is hope.

Jess Kismet (43:28)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for sure. When you say clients ask you to come and do a mould inspection, but they don't want testing, what do they want you to do? Just like moisture mapping? Okay.

Tracey Seymour (43:46)

look, they're

like, can you can you confirm what type of mould this is just by looking at it? ⁓ Which look, you know, I can look at something and say, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's mould. But I can't tell you what type of mould it is. Sometimes I can have a good idea. But I definitely can't stand up in a court of law and say that is Aspergillus or that's Stachybotrys. And without knowing that you also don't know a lot of the other information. You don't know why.

Jess Kismet (43:51)

⁓ No.

Yeah. Yeah.

Bye.

Tracey Seymour (44:12)

the problem is there. don't know, know, if Cladosporium, for example, versus say a Stachybotrys, you know, you've got two totally different reasons, two totally different root causes for the mould issue. And so you need to know that information and you need to be able to quantify it because yes, mould is everywhere, but you know, is it a little bit of a problem or is it a massive problem?

Jess Kismet (44:14)

Yeah, that's my story.

Mm.

Mm.

And do we need to keep looking? You know? Yeah. Okay.

Tracey Seymour (44:36)

Correct.

Jess Kismet (44:39)

There, when it comes to building a house, there is often a tension between cost, aesthetics and building health. What do you say to the builder or homeowner who thinks that building a healthy home is going to be too expensive?

Tracey Seymour (44:51)

Look, it's quite a dangerous and often extremely expensive myth. Builders often assume that because a home is new, it hasn't had the time to develop ⁓ any of that sort of history or that wear and tear that you might find in an older home. So yeah, it's definitely a dangerous myth to believe. New homes have modern building materials ⁓ and practices that actually create

the perfect conditions for mould in many cases. So drywall, for example, look, mean, essentially it's fast food for mould. It is made of paper and gypsum. And if it gets wet, even just briefly, it can start growing mould. you know, within 24 hours. So it doesn't matter if it's a new home or an old home, mould doesn't take long to proliferate. you know, 24 to 48 hours in a new home versus an old home doesn't matter. It doesn't make a difference. Many new homes are built

quite quickly and tightly in terms of like the construction timeframe. And quite often, you you'll see homes, I know you've seen it, Jess, I've seen some of your ⁓ Instagram posts and I've seen it as well, where, you know, you see these houses and they're just standing there pre, like ⁓ halfway through construction in the pouring rain. And then the sun comes out and very quickly all the walls and everything have gone back up and those properties haven't been allowed enough time to dry.

And therefore the mould can start growing in between the walls before the clients have even had a chance to move into their home. So they've sort of got this brand new home thinking amazing, you new home shouldn't have any mould. and then, you know, sort of six months down the track, they're really ill or they're seeing mould appear or something's just not quite right. and so I think, you know, the myth that new homes are better than old.

Jess Kismet (46:18)

Mm-hmm.

Tracey Seymour (46:35)

Yes, you don't have maybe like a long standing leak potentially or long standing drainage issues. But when it comes to mould, things can turn very, very quickly. And I think, you know, there's issues where corners are cut, you know, things just aren't done right. There could be I've seen issues where the flashing hasn't come out enough on the brickwork. I've seen

What else have I seen? well, you know, like the pan the shower pan and things hasn't been done right. Or the waterproofing is either not right or not existent at all, which is quite interesting to find. you know, these can happen in any home, whether it's old or new. So I don't think one is better than the other. I think it's just about being diligent in monitoring your home and, you know, doing the things to try and keep it dry.

Jess Kismet (47:21)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You're saying fast food for mould. Nicole Bilsma, who's the ⁓ owner of the Australian College of Environmental Sciences that we're studying, she calls it Maccas for mould. She calls all of the food sources.

Tracey Seymour (47:32)

Yeah, completely. It's like so easy. It's just like the best thing.

It just needs a little bit of humidity and its food source is literally right there. yeah, Maccas for Mould, fast food.

Jess Kismet (47:41)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I

often just say we're sort of building, we're building petri dishes, you know, full of moisture sensitive materials. And another thing that I think is much more sort of prolific issue that we're not perhaps aware of is concrete when it's poured, it's not allowed to dry properly, not allowed to cure. I recently saw a post this week on Instagram, which I'll link in the show notes, for a beautiful home Instagram page that's completely

Tracey Seymour (47:48)

completely.

Mm.

Jess Kismet (48:07)

beautiful, they show completely beautiful homes. And this home, they found one small crack in their floorboards and they were just going to replace one floorboard because I thought maybe there was a clip that was broken. They ripped up one floorboard and ended up having to rip up the entire floor because it was covered under their flooring, under their carpet, covered in black mould because I am taking a really hot guess that that concrete was still wet when they laid the floors and they put plywood down.

underneath their flooring. So, Maccas for Mould right there. The underlay of the carpet, right there, just covered in black mould and they had to move out immediately. The house was deemed uninhabitable like that.

Tracey Seymour (48:47)

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

And it just spreads. It spreads so fast in those conditions. So, you know, that's a big expense to both the homeowners from a financial implication, but their health as well. I mean, I saw that post that you're talking about. You know, it's scary. It's scary for some people to think that it can be just hiding in those places, but that's what we're looking for. Right. That's why you pay a professional mould inspector to try and find the stuff.

Jess Kismet (48:51)

Yeah.

huge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tracey Seymour (49:14)

that isn't necessarily visible to the naked eye. ⁓ You definitely have to keep going deeper if you can't find the mould, but it's coming up in your samples and things like that. And I have done a few where I've gone back to a house post inspection and we've got the results back and like, it doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem right. Let me come back and I'll go back and I'll sort of work with the client and sort of go through the questions again. are you sure? there anything in this home that was

Jess Kismet (49:18)

Yeah.

Tracey Seymour (49:42)

from a water damaged building. in one instance, in a bedroom that I did, the levels were really, really high. They'd said that there was nothing from a previously water damaged building. Walls were dry, floors were dry, no signs of water damage, nothing in this particular room. Thermal imaging was coming up great. But when they thought back on it, when I came back, they were like, actually, that's the one that our mom gave us, that couch that our mom gave us. And I think her home had mould. So

Jess Kismet (50:09)

Ha ha ha.

Tracey Seymour (50:09)

It's so funny how, you know, you can look and look and look and look, but until you actually drill right down, that's why it's so important to sort of, you know, sort of work with the client in a lot of detail, which might seem a little bit annoying in some ways, but finding out those things is so important because that's having a direct impact. Every time that ⁓ client sits down on that couch, the mould spores and mycotoxins and things are floating around in the air. So they don't have a moisture issue. They've just got a contaminated piece of furniture.

Jess Kismet (50:20)

Hmm.

Yeah, that pre-inspection process and going into the history of the home and the furniture and the area is so intense. And it can be really hard for people who are already feeling a bit foggy from exposure to mould, but it's so important to understand and actually drill down to what really happened.

Tracey Seymour (50:54)

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's not the first time I've had, you know, an instance of contaminated furniture, where I've gone into a property and the house is actually fine, you know, from the moisture perspective, yeah, they might have a bit too much humidity in the home and I had to educate them on that. but in general, the house is completely fine. They've just got contaminated furniture. I've got many people who, have said, you know, my partner really likes to find furniture on the side of the road and you know, it's quirky and bring it home. ⁓

Jess Kismet (51:20)

Yeah,

Tracey Seymour (51:21)

We don't know where that's been, what it's

Jess Kismet (51:22)

risky.

Tracey Seymour (51:23)

done. You're just literally bringing them all for sustainability. But sometimes it's like, ⁓ we need to understand what we're bringing into our home. We need to understand what the history of something is. We don't know the bacteria. We don't know the toxins. We don't know the history, the mould. And we could just be exposing ourselves and our family and our home to massive problems.

Jess Kismet (51:27)

Yeah.

Yep, totally. All right, Tracy, it's time for the final question. The final question that I ask all of my guests. If you could summarise in one thing, everything that you've learned in your career, what would that be? What's your one piece of advice?

Tracey Seymour (51:52)

What was it again? Sorry. So that one piece that I've learned in my career.

Jess Kismet (51:55)

Yeah, what

is one thing out of everything that you've learned in your career that you want the listener to understand?

Tracey Seymour (52:00)

Hmm. Okay.

Dust and mould have more of an impact than most people realise. The amount of homes that I go into that have way too much dust and too much humidity within the home, that's a simple, simple thing that you can do to try and protect your family and your home from mould. And I think having a look at the level of dust and humidity in the home will actually go a long way to helping people.

protect themselves from mould.

Jess Kismet (52:33)

That's a really hot tip because I've actually got dust on my window sill just to my right over here. And there's mould growing on it because it's right near my kitchen. That's got terrible extraction. So exhibit A.

Tracey Seymour (52:38)

No!

Yeah, dust. mean, it's just one of those things. think, you know, one of the biggest things is that mould doesn't have to look like the big black, scary mould you see on the walls. I mean, I've had on my Instagram, I've had, you know, the house of horrors type of mould situations where it's growing floor to ceiling. Majority of the contaminated homes that I do do not have that it's invisible in most cases. So I think it's just important to remember it doesn't have to look like the big, ugly, scary mould for it to be.

Jess Kismet (53:07)

Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm.

Tracey Seymour (53:13)

causing problems within your home.

Jess Kismet (53:14)

Yeah, thank you so much Tracy. Thank you so much for sharing all of that knowledge and experience with us. I really appreciate you coming on. No problem at all. See ya.

Tracey Seymour (53:17)

No problems.

Thanks for having me.

Bye.