How to Find the Right Mold Inspector and Remediator with Michael Rubino

How to Find the Right Mold Inspector and Remediator with Michael Rubino

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to the EnergyMD Podcast where we help you resolve your chronic fatigue and related symptoms, especially from long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome so that you can get back to living your best life. So really excited today because we're going to be talking about everything mold, mold inspection, mold remediation, and we're going to be doing it with Michael Rubino. Let's hear a little bit about him. So he is a mold and air quality expert, environmental wellness advocate and founder of home cleanse.

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a revolutionary company with the vision to end the worldwide health epidemic caused by poor air quality and toxic indoor environments. He is also the host of Never Been Sicker podcast and chair of Change the Air Foundation. Michael, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. So as I read your bio, I'm reminded that, uh you know, this this health epidemic

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is not just for mold, you're talking about like poor air quality and toxic indoor environments. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, I would say first off, mold is really a big passion of mine mainly because I saw so many people get sick from mold exposure after Hurricane Sandy. But mold is really one of these things that I think from a technological standpoint is the easiest to detect inside of a home.

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And it tells us a similar story. So for example, if I have mold in my home, I'm also going to have bacteria, right? Like the water, is what mold requires in order to grow is going to support all life forms, right? So if I have too much water intrusion, I'm going to have probably pests and rodents and termites and maybe even more cockroaches and mold and bacteria, all these different things that I don't want that are going to impact the indoor air quality. But what else we need to be thinking about in terms of indoor air quality is

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The microplastics that we bring into our environment, the VOCs that we bring into our environment. For those that don't know what VOCs means, it means volatile organic compounds. These are basically particles that off gas, right? So think about it from this perspective of you're baking bread in an oven as that bread is essentially curing, right? It's gonna produce these particles. These particles actually are what you sense that create a smell inside.

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of your brain. And so if you think about it from that perspective, obviously there are VOCs that are totally fine, like the smell of bread, for example. Then there are VOCs that are produced by certain chemicals that are obviously more harmful. And these can be in paints and in glues, even in the floorings and the cabinets that you buy and install into your home. And with the world in which we live in today, where Amazon can pretty much bring anything to your doorstep within two days, oh

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ah We have to be thinking more about that because a lot of the stuff that we're buying from other countries isn't quite as regulated as it is here in the US or even in Canada and so with that being said a lot of these particles that we're breathing in inside of our homes are not as good and not as healthy for us and so can lead to all these different health conditions and so I think uh being aware that the air that you breathe and the impact on your health I think is a lot more important

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than people are typically thinking about, mainly because you see through the air. It's not something that you're looking at every single day. Obviously, if it's out of sight, out of mind, right? So hopefully today, after listening to this episode, everybody is thinking a little smarter about the air that they're breathing. Yeah, and it's especially challenging when you can't see this sort of insult. So we talk about...

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making sure that you're, you've got the cleanest air and food and water that you possibly can. Um, but it takes a lot of work, you know, so as people listen to this, you know, don't get overwhelmed. Just remember, you're just going to take baby steps and take one thing away or two things away from this interview and go ahead and implement those things so that you can have a healthier life. you agree? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, let's start back at, um,

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I kind of square one. the people that I work with, who've got this chronic fatigue and related conditions, long COVID, chronic fatigue syndrome. You know, I'd say 95 to 100 percent of people have mold and other issues from their indoor environment. What do you see when you uh when you're working with folks? What's your understanding? I see a lot of correlation. I mean, you first off with chronic fatigue syndrome, I think that's probably one of the biggest symptoms that people complain about first when it comes to mold exposure.

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they're gonna talk about brain fog and chronic fatigue as like the top two symptoms that we see, right? And so having chronic fatigue syndrome and mold exposure, there's so much correlation there. But I think we've seen so many people improve their chronic fatigue by actually improving the overall environment and the air that they're breathing. So that has been really, really cool to see unfold. The other thing is long COVID. I mean, we are seeing more and more people uh with long COVID.

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uh having mold exposure in their home and when clearing up said exposure, all of a sudden the long COVID symptoms start to improve drastically. Actually a famous client of mine, Gwyneth Paltrow is a really prime example of that. She was dealing with all kinds of long COVID issues, which really started to subside once she started to look at mold and eradicate the mold toxins from her body and improve the overall indoor air quality that she was breathing. so...

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I think for so many people, is kind of the light switch that turns on and starts to make them realize, wow, there's something I can do about it. And I can take those baby steps to making those improvements to really getting the benefits out of that. Yeah. And if you don't think about it, you're not going to diagnose it. So there's so many people who are listening to this right now potentially are thinking, well, I don't have any mold in my home. How would somebody know subjectively if they have mold in their home?

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That's a good question. So obviously, you know, when you just think about the person I was just talking about, right, Gwyneth Paltrow, who you would never think that she had mold in her home. mean, her home is literally pictured in magazines. As matter of fact, when you walked into her house, there was no obvious signs that there was mold. It was all hidden behind walls and in HVAC systems and underneath her bathtub. mean, like you would have never guessed. would have never guessed. It wasn't until she did mycotoxin testing and found elevated mycotoxins in her body.

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And that led her to then going, okay, there must be, where am I getting this mold exposure, right? And the first thing people typically do is, oh, it must be food. Let me cut out coffee and peanuts and things of that nature, right? And eat more of a, you know, kind of this mold aware diet, if you will. ah But it wasn't working, right? And she started to realize, well, it must be my house. And that's when I was able to connect and we were able to get her a good third party inspector.

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Um, uh, we did like the dust test and found elevated levels of mold in the dust within her home, which was interesting because we were able to correlate the exact molds that were elevated in her home with the exact toxins that were elevated in her body. Right. And so that sort of gave her the understanding that, okay, there's something going on in the home that I might want to improve. Deeper investigation of the home, deeper testing really started to uncover several problems, right. Around exterior doors.

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There was some water intrusion occurring. There was a couple of roof leaks. There were some issues going on in the attic. There was mold in all the HVAC systems. And that can happen, right? If you have mold in certain locations of the home, the HVAC system, if you think about what it does, it pulls air into the system, conditions it, and supplies it back out. Well, HVAC systems have what's called an evaporator coil. And this part of the machine constantly condensates.

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constantly condensates, what do know about mold? It needs water. Well, that's plenty of water for mold to start to grow. And so you typically see mold growing on these evaporator coils, which was happening in every single HVAC system. And so you start to look at this, what beneath the surface of the home is the most beautiful home. Beneath the surface, there were some issues, and those issues were leading to those health consequences. so I think for oh

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people to understand, how do I know subjectively? I'm gonna tell you the free version. The free version is go over to your toilet tank right now. I want you to literally pause this episode and do this exercise. Go over to your toilet tank, take off the cover, flip it over, look on the underside of the lid and look into the actual toilet tank itself. If you see mold growth in there, there's a good chance opportunistically somewhere nearby you have mold. And I'll tell you why. Every time you hit that,

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lever and you flush the toilet, you are actually pushing air into that tank. Just by the sheer force of the water going down, it creates a vacuum. You're pulling air into that tank. If there is enough mold in that air, it will opportunistically grow inside that toilet tank. It's really super simple building science 101 here. That's how it works. So if you see mold in your tank, that's a pretty good indication. You have some mold nearby. You might want to get it checked out.

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If the not so free version is you can spend 299 bucks and you can buy the dust test, which would basically tell you the exact amount of quantities of mold for over 36 different species of mold to see what's actually going on in your dust. Why would you want to do that? Well, because you're looking for abnormalities. If you've got, let's say, I don't know, uh aspergillus and it's a hundred times higher than what it should be, they give you pretty good indication. I've got either some...

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mold in a crawl space, mold in an attic or mold in an HVAC system, because you're going to see those types of molds growing in those types of locations. If I've got stacky botrys, now I'm looking for some sort of water event that's occurring. Maybe it's a leaking window, a leaking roof. Maybe I've got an issue in one of the bathrooms or a kitchen. Right. So it gives me a, it helps me can kind of pinpoint what's going on, but it's comparative analysis. Right. So if I see too much mold in my environment, that's a problem.

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Right? want, I want to look, you're never going to be able to have a mold free home, but you should have mold in normal ranges. You should have a healthy equilibrium. When it goes out of whack, when you have an overgrowth of mold, you're going to have an overgrowth of mold. You're going to have more toxins that you're being exposed to. And it also means you're going to have an overgrowth of bacteria. Right? And all three of those things can really disrupt your immune system. Well said.

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I think that it's important to note that, you know, I tell people if you've ever had any sort of flood in the basement or a leak in the roof or a busted pipe in the history of your home's existence, right? Then you're likely to have mold. Would you agree with that? Oh, I would agree with that. And I would double down on that, in fact, because I would tell you that basically my entire career span out of Hurricane Sandy.

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And that, you don't know about Hurricane Sandy, it decimated the Northeast. um It was like one of those rare storms that just overloaded the infrastructure and it flooded tens of thousands of homes. And that type of issue really becomes uh pretty glaringly obvious. If you have any weak points in an industry, when an industry has to come together for a disaster like that, you're gonna see those weak points pretty much unfold.

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And that's exactly what we saw. We saw a lot of homes that were quote unquote remediated, right? They were supposedly fixed that unfortunately were not. And I can't tell you how many homes that I walked into for years after Hurricane Sandy, where they looked fine. I mean, you walked in, there were white walls. You would have never guessed the house had a flood at all. Yet there were weird odors. There were people complaining of illness. And sometimes there weren't even any odors, but

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we started to see that people weren't feeling well. And when we got these test results, the test results weren't matching what you were seeing visually. Like visually it looked totally fine. Like the house was fixed. But yet when I opened up walls to investigate because the results were off the charts, that's when I started to see a blanket of black mold behind the wall, right? And so these types of things were interesting.

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because I think for so many people they think, well, yeah, I I had that water event, but it was fixed. The guy down the street, he's such a nice guy, he came over and he took care of it. It's like, well, when you start poking and prodding, well, what did they do? What were the steps that they took? And you start to say, well, I don't really know. I just trusted him because he was the expert or he's done this before. And what we really uncovered through that event is that

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Number one, there are problems within the industry. These jobs are not being remediated properly. And it's a very big compounding issue. That's number one. Number two, uh they're not testing these homes properly to really understand the extent of the problems. So if they're not testing them properly, we're not getting good data, then the protocol is being written to fix these homes. We're just not good. I I want you to think about this for a second.

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There's actual, I do a lot of expert witness work too, just to help people in need. And there's a case recently where a house flooded from the roof. Okay. So top down, water's coming down. These companies are coming in and doing two foot cuts at the bottom of the wall. I mean, the water came from above. What's the cut at the bottom of the wall going to do? Well, the argument is that gravity forces the water to come down. And so that's where most of the water ends up. And it's true. Yes.

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But what about the space in between that got wet? Well, if it didn't dry fast enough, you're going to have mold. Do you know how long it takes for a building to dry on average? It's like seven to 10 days on average. Do you know how mold, fast mold grows? 48 hours. 48 hours, 24 to 48 hours. You'll have certain species grow. The more hydrophilic, maybe three, five days somewhere along that, right? But if it takes seven to 10 days,

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It already becomes a mold contamination project before the structure can properly dry, which means the water mitigation industry itself is basically useless because the protocols for that industry don't talk about setting up containment or preventing microbial contamination from spreading, right? Because they think that, well, if you act quickly and you dry the structure, you're to be fine. The big problem with that is what they're not telling you is

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It takes seven to 10 days to dry it properly. And so the only way to prevent mold growth when the building gets wet is to remove the wet materials from the building. And they're just not doing that. Right. And so if you think about every time there's a hurricane, think about, I want you to think about all the houses that aren't getting repaired properly, because they're not getting tested properly because they're following water mitigation protocols, even though

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They need to be following microbial remediation protocols. And then I want you to think about all the places that do have problems that customers or homeowners aren't aware that they needed to remove all the wet material. They listened to whoever, right, that came in. And think about how that affects people in real estate transactions. Then I want you to think about the insurance industries who...

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Honestly, they limit mold coverage so much so that it puts you in a position where you have to either shell out a pocket to fix your house properly, or you have these fly by night contractors that come in, will just take the insurance company money, do the very bare minimum, and then walk out your front door. And then just thinking about how all these things compound into a situation where I think the latest stat that we have from the US EPA and HUD,

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the joint study from the American Healthy Home study, it's like 50 % of homes had water damage and mold. I mean, this is the end result, is that 50 % of homes are impacted. Now, get and pause the episode and walk out your front door right now and look at your house and look at all your neighbor's houses and it's you or them. I mean, the odds are not in our favor.

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And so this has become such a big problem. It's becoming an epidemic. And you said earlier on this podcast here that, well, the air we breathe really matters. The water we drink really matters and the food we eat really matters. And I would argue that air quality is the most important out of all three of them because you can't even go a few minutes without air. And so think about how much

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particulate that you are breathing in that you cannot see because it's smaller than what your eye can see. Think about how much air you breathe. By the way, if you didn't know, it's enough air to fill up a normal sized swimming pool every single day. Think about that for a second. And think about all the particles and toxins and plastics and all the crap that you are probably breathing in that you probably would like to breathe less of it in. And think about how our global health is declining.

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It's not improving, it's declining. Despite all the advancements in medicine and technology, we are getting sicker and sicker and sicker. I would argue we've never been sicker than we are today. And every day that I say that, it's still a true statement, which is part of the problem. I'd like to one day be able to say, no, that was the old story. The new story is we're getting better now. We've never been better. That'd be great. But it doesn't start unless we have these tough conversations around the simplicities in life. If we...

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breathe better air, if we eat better food and if we drink better water, we're gonna have better health. And I know that's so simple that it's unbelievable, but think about all the things that are true in life, they're actually simple. And it's the lies that are so complex.

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Well said. Yeah. And I think, you know, in listening to this, you lot of the work that we do is about retraining people's nervous systems, you know, because they're kind of jumbled up in their, in their, in their sympathetic. So it could be very easy for people to kind of get into a fear response. So I just want to remind people that you're safe, you're loved, you're enough, and this is something that you still have to deal with. Right. So it's kind of, you know, you need to be able to, to hold both of those things. Um, and don't go down that rabbit hole of, of despair because they're

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there are fixes and so kind of like, let's get into, let's do like big picture fixes first. So any ideas on how to fix the industry or how to train more people in doing remediations correctly? Yeah, so I think there's a couple of different things. One, first off, anybody joining into the industry, they need to be better educated on the health effects. I mean, it's a bit dysfunctional.

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in terms of getting everybody on the same page. I'll give you an example. EPA is like, don't use bleach. Even dead mold can cause an allergic reaction in some, which is, by the way, it's true and it's great that they say that. But then the CDC is still operating off 1997 technology because they haven't updated their website probably since 1997. And the CDC says you can use bleach. So we've got this problem where people that

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go to the people that are educated by these government agencies that trust these government agencies to give us good information, a lot of them need to be updated. They're operating off of archaic information. just starting there and having a foundation of everybody understands and agrees this is important information. The best place to find the most updated health impacts of mold exposure, by the way, is going to be the NIH. The NIH has a great paper that talks about all the

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the issues with mold exposure and the multi-system ah issues that it causes, right? So it's not just, and we talked obviously about the nervous system, mold can disrupt the nervous system, right? As you mentioned, you have to help retrain people. ah You have, it also can affect the gut, the gut brain, could also affect the immune system, right? And then there are certainly other issues caused by the toxins themselves, right? The neurological.

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impacts that are being studied, inhalational Alzheimer's to name one, right? Like there's a wide range of things that come out of this. And so it needs to be in a place where people can get access to this information because the adverse effect of that is people get sick, they go down this path where they're not getting better. And then they don't know that the real reason why is the air that they're breathing or the food that they're eating or the water that they're drinking. So like,

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That public information is really important because you, it is hopeless when you don't know that you can do something about it. When you do know you can do something about it, that's what gives people hoax. It's like, okay, I could take steps. I could do things. Right. And so I think in order for people to be able to take action, they have to know to take action. That's definitely a big picture. Fundamental number one. Fundamental number two is we need people in the industry to get around.

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to get an understanding of how the importance of standard operating procedures is. If you do not have standard operating procedures, you do not follow standard operating procedures, then you are not gonna get the same result time and time again. Now look, homes are complex. I mean, if I'm remediating uh a pre-war building in New York City, I'm gonna remediate that differently.

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than I might remediate a 2015 home in the middle of Nevada, right? You have to understand homes and buildings are built differently. You have to understand the different components of these homes and buildings. But even with that being said, the remediation process itself, removing mold from these places, there should be a standard operating procedure. And there are great organizations like NORMI, the IICRC that put together

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their recommendations of standard operating procedures. I would argue, don't think either of them go far enough. know, I'll give you an example, there are roughly 33, I think, SOPs. The company I created called Home Clamps has 75. There's 75 steps they go into start to finish each remediation area as it's being remediated. Because my philosophy is we want to thoroughly and terminately handle the problem.

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And I believe that you need to do it in those 75 steps. I've tried to cut the steps down. I've been trying to cut the steps down for 10 years. Every time I try to remove a step, I end up putting it back, right? Because it just, there's a reason why each of these steps in concert work. So I think that probably the next chapter of my career is going to turn into me taking these 75 standard operating procedures and

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helping to train other organizations on using these 75 steps, why I use these 75 steps, why they should use the 75 steps, and really help people understand and change the industry to see things the way I see them. Of course, I'm one person and you have to like me and agree with me to get on board with that. So I'm probably not going to help everyone, but there are going to be people that are going to be moved by the level of care and service.

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that I think people deserve. And when I think we get that kind of on board, that can help shift the industry. Even, I think what we'll see is we'll see um this domino effect. Cause I think you'll start to see other organizations like NORMI, other organizations like IRC or C want to move towards this more thorough approach that I think is really warranted. And um I think the biggest hurdle

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has been adoption by insurance companies. Because insurance companies have a fiduciary responsibility to minimize claims, which is counter to having a just moral responsibility of helping people improve their environment. You know, I have a philosophy that if we have an insurance claim, right, you should have the home restored to a condition similar

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to what it was before the event. And I just don't see that happening if we're not gonna thoroughly handle these problems. So what do I mean by that? Well, if we have mold in the wall, okay, yeah, we can remediate the wall. But if that mold's been growing for weeks and it's been getting into the HVAC system, well now the HVAC system has to be appropriately cleaned, right? And all of that should be validated with post-testing.

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How many times do you think the insurance company wants to pay to have post-testing done? Not very many times. And then if it shows problems exist, they don't really want to pay for additional work either. Again, like they have this responsibility, fiduciary responsibility to minimize these claims. And so it becomes this push-pull battle that unfortunately puts the insured, the homeowner, uh at unnecessary risk.

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Now, granted, on the flip side, you have charlatans out there that are probably trying to take advantage of insurance companies, do things that aren't helpful. And so we've got to have these standardized processes that help protect insurance companies, protect homeowners, because at end of the day, if insurance companies all go out of business, that's not helpful for us either. And so big picture, there's a lot that needs to be done.

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But I think it's all very possible and feasible. And that's part of what we're trying to do at Change the Air Foundation is change laws, conduct better research, give Congress ah the information it needs to really protect us. And I think we're making strides there. Awesome. Yeah, it's such important work. We really need standards of care. So.

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Let's, let's go to, so people now, let's say they're listening to this. They're acknowledging, okay, mold might be an issue for me. First step is to do testing. Would you say? Yeah. Yeah. So I, and I want to, I don't want to touch on that for a minute. So I think, you know, unfortunately not all testing is created equal. I talked about SOPs for really the remediation side. I would argue that there's a similar problem in the inspection side. What, what is, what is categorically happened is.

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There's a technology that came out and it's called air testing and air testing became the gold standard before it really was understood. There are technical limitations to air testing that people really need to understand. Air testing, it's basically a slide inside of a cassette and it's designed to capture spores inside the cassette.

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so that you can take out the slide, put it under a microscope and through microscopy, which basically means looking under a microscope and physically looking and counting. Through microscopy, we're physically looking and counting for the different mold types and uh spores that we're seeing under the microscope. And in order for the air to pass through this cassette and trap these spores, it gets attached to a vacuum pump. The vacuum pump pulls

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0.5 cubic feet per minute. Okay, so we're gonna do basic math. A 10 by 10 room, assuming that that room has eight foot ceilings, we're 800 cubic feet. Okay, if I run, if I am pulling a half of a cubic feet per minute, okay, that is, would be essentially one cubic feet every two minutes. Well over, typically you're running an error sample for about five minutes. So I'm getting

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about two and a half cubic feet analyzed in this machine for as long as that runs. Okay. Five minutes, I'm analyzing two and a half feet in a room of 10 by 10, which is by no means a massive room. This is like an average size bedroom. Uh, I'm only analyzing not even 1 % of the total cubic feet of that room.

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Okay. And so I just want people to understand that for a second. It is the most awful screening tool you could potentially use, but yet the industry is using it as a screening tool, meaning they're setting up this thing in the center of the room and they're comparing that result to what's going on outside, which is even funnier because you have almost an unlimited volume of air outside. Right. And so

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If you test close to the house, which they typically do, those numbers are going to be higher because you're going to have a higher concentration of mold coming off the side of the house, right? I mean, unless you test it on the perfect day where the sun's hitting and you know, you're going to have higher concentrations of mold in that outdoor air sample. And so when you look at it comparatively, one

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less than 1 % of the total surface area of the room compared to an unlimited volume of air outside, right? It's probably going to look fine. And so that gives people this false sense of security that there's no problem in that room. Just to compare, that would be like me testing one drop of water in an entire ocean and being like, this looks great. Like, okay, it looks great over here in that one drop.

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What happens if I go just a few feet to the left or right? Well, I'm going to get a different result. And that's exactly it. When you are testing nearby an area that you suspect is a problem, typically you're going to see higher levels, which give you a uh consideration that there might be a problem there. So I think we have to stop looking at air testing as a gold standard.

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I think it's a tool in the tool belt. We need to use, just like a carpenter is gonna have different tools they're gonna use based upon the different situations they encounter and the outcome that they're trying to achieve, right? If we're trying to really understand where might there be mold hiding and how might those levels be, are they alarming enough to warrant you to take action? Well, then we have to use these tools with the understanding of the limitations that they have.

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and use them in ways where they can be more useful. so testing in the center of the room is not very useful. But I could attach a tube to it. I could drill a hole in a wall that I think has a problem. I could stick the tube through the wall, pull the air sample from behind the wall where it's more likely to be growing. And that could tell me how big of an issue it is and if I should open up that wall. And so if we start using the tools and their limitations to our advantage,

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We're actually going to get a better result. And so all the companies that I recommend to investigate at home, they're not just going to take an air sample in the center of your house and tell you everything's fine. They're going to investigate. They're going to do their damn job and try to look for problems and then test those problems to validate if those problems need to be addressed. And that's really what you need to be looking for in terms of how do I actually get the data to see what's going on? And if you're listening to this right now and you're like, oh my God,

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Yeah, I hired a company once and that's exactly what they did. They took like two air samples and told me everything was fine. And I knew it wasn't fine. Well, I just wanted to tell you, you're not crazy. You know, you listen to your gut and get a second opinion. That's what second opinions are for. And if you find somebody that truly cares, that's going to take the time and spend the hours looking over every nook and cranny and testing for those areas they suspect are going to be problematic. Well, then guess what? You're probably going to find some problems and that's okay. You are looking for things to do to improve.

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If you go to the doctor and the doctor tells you, what? Great news. You're in perfect health. Okay, fine. But if you're not feeling that well and they're telling you you're in perfect health, well then guess what? It's not that you want bad news. You want things to improve. And so it's a good thing when you suspect there's an issue and somebody says, hey, guess what? You were right. There's some things you could improve. Because now you can make changes and those changes could lead to positive outcomes.

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And so, yeah, I think we're so used to programmed like, oh, mold is a scary thing. We don't want to know about it. Like I want to stick my head in the sand and pretend like everything's fine. You could do that, but that might not be working so well for you. On the flip side. Yeah. Cause you may stay sick that way on the flip side. What if you did find some problems that now you could fix and what if the outcome was you can feel better as the end result of that? Well, now.

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We're doing something. Yeah. So before somebody has a mold inspector come into their home, can they do something like the dust test or the Emma initially? Yeah, please, please. You should. think because look, if you're going to get a proper mold inspection, it's probably going to cost you a couple of thousand bucks. And I think that's really like what you you need to reprogram.

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the way in which you shop around for something like this. I'm gonna give you an example. If I had to get heart surgery, would I go on Google and be like, let me find the cheapest heart surgeon? No, probably not. I'm probably gonna go, ah wow, I wanna find the best heart surgeon. I think we need to reprogram these types of health specific issues. We don't necessarily want the cheapest solution. We want the best solution that's gonna give us the best result because guess what?

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When you're not feeling well and you're tired and you're sick, it's really hard to make money, isn't it? Like it really is. Like when you're dealing with chronic fatigue, for those that are listening that have never experienced chronic fatigue, like it is debilitating. Like you slept eight hours and you woke up and felt like you barely slept at all. that is not, that's not like, don't, cause there are so many people that don't understand chronic fatigue. Like it's,

35:58

Because it's not a motivation issue. It is literally you do not feel recharged after sleeping. Could you imagine how productive you could be when every day you wake up and you feel like you didn't go to sleep? Not very productive. So like, I want you to think about this for a minute. So yeah, it's getting the right outcome is really important. This is not something that you want to cheap out on because you're going to waste money in that process.

36:27

to give you a great example. Every day I speak to at least 20 people a day. Every day I would say at least five of them, so 25%, come to me and they've spent money on an inspection and the inspection is basically useless. It's like, I've got three samples, like even if one looks off, you're like, great, it looks off, what do we do about it? Oh, I don't know. They told me to talk to you. Yeah, I bet they did.

36:56

because there's nothing valuable you can do with that data. Because it's in the center of the room. It's not telling me where the problem is. Yeah, of course we can go there and we could set up containment and put an engineer. We could start opening things up. But that would be like going to a surgeon and being like, I've got an issue. I'm not really sure where it is. Why don't you just start cutting me up and you'll figure it out when you get there. How successful do you think things are going to be in that area? Not very successful.

37:26

because you want to prepare and then execute. Get the data, make the decisions, understand what needs to be done, what are the costs, how am I going to take it apart, put it back together, what would I expect to find? These are all things that you can have pretty good indications for when you get the right data. And so I would say instead of trying to find the cheapest inspector, need to reframe the way in which we're thinking, let me find the best inspector. Now, how do I do that?

37:56

here are the questions I want you to ask. How long is it gonna take you to go through my house? Because I want you to interview three people and I want you to ask them all these same questions. How long is it gonna take for you to go through my house and inspect the home? Just be like, I'm a pretty busy person, I'm just curious, like how long does it take? If someone's like, oh, don't worry, I'll be in and out of an hour, like this is totally fine, that's not the answer you want. Because it should not, like if you're really investigating a house,

38:26

You're walking through the outside, you're looking for signs of water intrusion, you're looking for grading issues, issues with the gutter or roof, you're looking for problems with windows and doors, right? Like you want to assess the home. Good. So I spent, I might spend an hour just outside. Then inside, you're, you're going to want to look like, again, interior wise, you're going to want to use high power flashlights. You're looking for signs of water damage. The trick about mold, you're not looking for mold. You're looking for the precursor to mold versus water damage.

38:55

Because a lot of the times the mold is hidden behind the wall and you wouldn't even know to check unless you saw some sort of sign of water intrusion. So you're looking for water intrusions, you're using flashlights, moisture meters, thermal imaging cameras. You're looking at the HVAC system. Is it oversized, undersized? How's the duct work? Is the duct work too big? Is it too small? Is it leaking? All these types of things. Like there are a lot of things that you want to go through. If you've ever bought a home before and you've gotten a home inspection,

39:25

They're not in an hour and an hour. These guys are there for like four or five hours, like opening windows. Do windows work? Do the screens work? Like how's the hot water heater? Like these are the types of things that you need in a mold inspection. You need to be looking thoroughly across the house. So that's a really good way to see any red flags. Second thing, like how many samples are you gonna take, do you think? And that might be a hard question to answer over the phone. I'm gonna preface that, but.

39:53

If they're like, oh, I'm going to do like, how big's your house? Okay, it's 2,500 square feet. Okay, I'm going to do like three or four samples. No, that's a problem. That is too little data points for a 2,500 square foot home, right? I'm not going to be able to tell you exactly how many samples because everyone's going to have different sized homes. There is an arc to it. Like you want to look for problems and then sample that problem, right? And so if your house has 20 problems, well, then you're going to want 20 samples, right?

40:21

If your ass has five problems, you're gonna want five samples. But I would say on average, they should be finding 10, 15 suspicious things at a minimum and then be recommending to test those to validate if their suspicions are right. And then the other side of that is, okay, maybe there's an issue, not all issues that are created equal. Some might be small problems that you really don't need to worry about. Some might be catastrophic issues that like you need to fix right away, right? oh

40:50

getting those data points can be really invaluable for you putting together a plan of how am gonna improve this home? And I would say, like last but not least, like ask what testing they're gonna do. Are they gonna just rely on air samples? they gonna do air and surface? Are they gonna do thermal imaging, moisture mapping? Like what are they gonna do? And then compare them. And then that should give you a good understanding. Like, okay, yeah, this guy is charging a lot of money. He's a few thousand bucks, but you know what?

41:20

Like I'm going to get my money's worth. He's going to take twice as many samples as the other people. He's going to use twice as many testing technologies as other people. Now you can really start to understand like, is this somebody that I think is going to have my back and not just come in and do the bare minimum and charge me, but like they're going to go through the home like a fine tooth comb. Do I feel like they have my back? And if the answer is yes, that's the person I want to hire. Yeah. And I think, you know, also if they have a process,

41:49

You know, so they're like, we're gonna meet and we're gonna talk about it and I'm gonna do an assessment and then we're gonna go over the results when they come back and we're gonna make a plan, you know, and then I'm gonna recommend and then I'm gonna put you in touch with somebody who can remediate. Exactly. And going with, you know, somebody who gets good reviews, I mean, are there any certain trainings or certifications that may indicate that somebody's better than somebody else? You know,

42:17

First off, there are some new certifications coming out. Like I do know that and so that this answer might change. The reality of the situation is like, always found, I always liked the ACAC uh certifications for the inspections. uh I know IICRC is coming out with one. uh There are some other organizations that put it together that I haven't looked at. So I would say that,

42:45

They should have a certification, right? They definitely should be certified. um Some states have licensing. If your state is like Texas or Florida, New York, where you have licensing, they should have licensing. And really, they obviously want to look at their reviews, although that can be a little misconceiving sometimes, especially if it's like, if they sound a little robotic, right? But um I think furthermore, if you know people,

43:15

that have had their house inspected and you can get some referrals for people that have good and have done a good job. Especially if you could find people that you know of that were not feeling so well and now are feeling great, that's a great testimonial to say, who inspected that house, right? So there are definitely some ways I feel like that you can kinda get around. And of course, if you like what I'm saying, I'd be happy.

43:45

reach out to me, I'd be happy to refer somebody in your area. All I need to know is what state you're in. And I usually have contacts all over. definitely, you have resources. You will be able to find people, especially if you go back to the questions that I told you to ask. Make sure you ask those. And always vet people and fill people out. And like I said, instead of going with the cheapest option, just go with someone you think is gonna be the best for you.

44:15

And think that's really important. might not, maybe sometimes it is the cheapest option, but it might not be. Yeah, typically not. You get what you pay for in so many things. Yeah. And what about mycotoxins? Oftentimes I've used that as a bit of a barometer where if somebody, you know, you start talking about mycotoxins, you're asking if they're testing for mycotoxins, oftentimes they're better quality. Oh yeah.

44:40

Yeah. So I would say, know, mycotoxins obviously is definitely something that you should be bringing up in the course of interviews, because if they are, if they don't know what mycotoxins are, then I don't think they're going to be someone that can help you because that is, that is, that is a pretty serious byproduct. And if they don't, if they're not familiar with mycotoxins, they don't have to test for it. They don't know how to remove it. Then you're going to be pretty pro. It's going to be pretty problematic.

45:09

for you to have a good result. So I would say definitely ask like what's your experience with Mike when working with mycotoxins? Do you have you ever tested for it? Or if you're interviewing a remediator, have you ever remediated mycotoxins? You know, is that something you guarantee as part of your process? Like these are questions you'd want to ask. Like for example, when I created Home Cleanse, we created Home Cleanse right out the gate as one of the only companies in the Northeast at the time that would guarantee the removal of mycotoxins. Like you, after the remediation process, you can

45:39

And we have that same guarantee today. So we guarantee reduction in your Ermi tests or the dust tests, whatever tests you're using. Use any test, we'll guarantee this reduction. We'll guarantee that mycotoxins will be not present. They will meet the threshold of not present. there's no reason why you can't find companies out there that will guarantee that. If they won't guarantee that, then you shouldn't work with them because they need to know what they're doing.

46:07

in their process to make sure that they're handling this for you. Otherwise, you could spend all this money and still be re-exposed. That's really valuable. What about companies who do inspections and remediations? So, you know, uh I personally don't like it. And the reason I personally don't like it is because there is a bit of a conflict of interest there. you could, for example, if you know how to inspect, you could test further away from the problem.

46:36

you could manipulate the results on purpose, right? And so it's just too, and look, I'm not saying that anybody would do that or, know, I just think it's too easy, right, to manipulate. And when you have financial, something financial to gain, I just think that it just puts you too much in a position to make a problem go away because you can't figure it out.

47:03

And I've seen that time and time again, which is why I obviously caution against it. So I think it's not too difficult. There are so many companies out there that can inspect. There are so many companies out there that can remediate. It's not too difficult to find people that could help you separate those powers. And I believe that when you do, you will have a much better result because then the person that you're bringing in to inspect, they have no skin in the game. If it fails, it fails. Like they're just there to tell you objectively,

47:32

Hey, it didn't pass, right? And that's the other thing, like these projects, they're science projects. Like, I don't know, I'm kind of a nerd. I love what I do because every single situation is a unique situation. And I actually enjoy getting feedback that, hey, this house didn't pass. Like the only negative thing about a house not passing is there's like, there's a cost associated with having to go back and fix something.

48:01

But it's so minor in comparison to the entire overall project that it's like, I don't look at it as a negative thing. I look at it as like, okay, great. Let's figure this out. Yay. What do we have to do? Do we not remove enough building material? Is there something influencing from another area that we need to look at? Like you get back into this like scientific problem solving mode, which for me is a fun place to be. I think...

48:27

We've got this other stigma in this industry about like failing, like failing becomes this like almost like blame thing. Like people go through these like stages of like blame, shame and regret over failing. And it's like, guys, look, that's not the, that's not how this should be. This should be like, okay, good. We are 99 % of the way there. We have not achieved what we came here to achieve yet. But now we have an opportunity to get there. And it's that objective data.

48:57

That's like, you cannot say a job is well done until you have that data. And so let's just say I remediate 25 areas in a home and 23 of them pass. Two of them need additional work. That's a fricking victory in my book. That's like 98 % of the areas that pass. Great. Now we have a little bit more work to do in these two areas. And that is, that it is this process that allows me to tell the customer at the end of the day, hey,

49:27

Like we really freaking did it. And like, that's how we're able to stand behind our work and guarantee it. And so it's one of these things where it's really important to post-test and it's really important to get that data. Even when you like find a company that cares and like has your back, it's still a science project. And we need to make sure that the job is done and the job is done when you've got that passing result and everything is fully complete. Now you can.

49:56

move on to reconstructing whatever needs to be reconstructed and get back into the healthy home that you just invested in. And that's like, that is just such a powerful thing is coming around that science project and working together as a team to getting the job done. But can't mycotoxins persist, you know, where you you've done the remediation. So when you do the remediation, you're not just taking care of what's happening behind the walls. You're also taking care of the air. Correct.

50:25

So like when we do the remediation, yes, there are air scrubbers involved that are constantly cleaning the air and pulling things out of the air. And it's all done through negative pressure, meaning even small particles that could bypass the HEPA filter, they're getting transported outside the home. So you're constantly bringing in, you're constantly cleaning the air and bringing any contaminants into the filter or even outside the home. On top of that, mycotoxins are water soluble, well, most of them anyway.

50:54

And so when we have dehumidifiers in there, we're to be pulling them out and literally emptying them out through the dehumidification system, which also empties out, right? So you're going to have that. And then the other thing is they're secondary metabolites. They kind of act like chemical residues if they're already in the environment, which only gets cleaned up by cleaning the home, which is why it's not enough to just open up the wall, spray some chemicals and walk away.

51:22

you have to follow the steps properly. And that includes cleaning the HVAC and cleaning the home to fully eradicate the level of mycotoxins that could be there. Now, as you just mentioned, there is testing where you can do ELISA testing of mycotoxins in the home through the dust. Same similar method of doing like the ELISA testing for the blood or the urine, right? Same methodology, but different mode of transportation here.

51:50

like looking at one versus in the dust versus the blood versus the urine. But if you see it in the environment, which does happen, uh we can remove it and guarantee that. And the testing of the body, as you know, can sometimes take months to fully detoxify, right? And so you wanna look at that as a good barometer of moving in the right direction. Typically what we're seeing is if you've dealt with the home properly and...

52:19

you're not colonized yourself. Like you have a, if you don't have a fungal ball on one of your mucus membranes, et cetera, you should see those micro toxin levels dissipate over a few months following, you know, the doctor's programs and doctor's orders, of course. And that's where obviously it's really important to listen to someone like you who's trying to help them through this, because if you're not detoxifying, right there, as you know, there are many reasons for that and you have to help them with that. Yeah. And I find that, you know, a lot of people

52:48

It doesn't mold doesn't even necessarily show up in their urine if they're if they're really sick, you know, like those pathways just aren't even open. ah Yeah, this is so incredibly valuable. I could keep picking your brain, but I want to respect your time. um So you've got a new book coming out. You want to tell us about it? I do. I have a new book coming out. So as you mentioned earlier, I have a podcast called Never Been Sicker. Well, this is Never Been Sicker, the book, and I have been working on it for two years now. uh

53:18

where I find the time, I still try to amaze myself every day. I don't know, but it's done. It's currently being edited and it will likely come out um early on in 2026. So very excited for everyone to read it. uh is a perfect blend of storytelling, because there are stories in there, uh mixed with a lot of good information, research, et cetera. And the book...

53:46

It's called Never Been Sicker, how air quality might be the missing link for better health. And so it's going to explore that pretty intimately in all the different ways that it needs to be explored. Obviously mold's a big part of it, but we're going to talk about bacteria and the toxins of bacteria. We're going to talk about VOCs and all kinds of other indoor health contaminants that you need to be aware of so that you can take action on.

54:13

Awesome. And then where's the best place for people to go if they want to reach out to you, like you mentioned, and if they're looking for a mold inspector or a remediator or to see about working with you. Yeah. So I would, I would encourage you to go to homecleanse.com if you are looking for resources to improve the air quality in your home or think you have mold. There's a ton of amazing resources on the website. You can reach out to us, talk to us for free. We don't charge to talk to you. So give us a call.

54:42

set up an appointment, we're happy to walk you through the different things that you can do to improve the air quality in your home. If you look at this, like I do, as a big picture issue, and you want to get involved, please visit changetheairfoundation.org. We are actively trying to change laws in all of the states in the US. We're actively trying to change federal laws. We are actively advocating for people. And there's an amazing

55:11

We just did an amazing military expose piece. If you are in the military or you like me and you just love our military, ah you should watch this piece because it is alarming from a national security perspective, the conditions that these families are living in that really impact our mission readiness. So it's something we should all care about really. ah

55:37

Last but not least, ah you can definitely find me on all the social media platforms. I post tons of bite-sized informational content. So please just follow me at the Michael Rubino and on all the different platforms. And that's at the Michael Rubino. know, unfortunately, Michael Rubino was already taken. you know, and I used to be known as the mold medic too. So was kind of one of these things where

56:05

I want it, I want it, used to be, you used to search for me at the mold medic. So was like, well, if we leave it the Michael, then it'll just, it'll pop me up. They'll see my picture and they won't even look, skip a beat. So please, please look for me on there. Awesome. Well, I so appreciate you coming on Michael. This has been very valuable. I know people have learned a lot. And so take this information for those of you who are listening today, get your home tested, get it remediated.

56:33

You're going to notice a big difference in your health. thank you. Thank you so much for having me.