Breaking 11 Myths about Black Mold

Preface

Stachybotrys, pronounced STAH-KEY-BOT-TRISS or Stachy (STAH-KEY) for those of us who are on a first name basis, is also more commonly known as “black mold”. Stachybotrys has many other names and colloquial regards such as, the really bad one, the worst one, the serious one, the deadly one, and is notably the most hated, most famous and most feared, “Oh Sh!&” mold of all time.

My love/hate relationship with black mold

In case you stumbled upon this piece & you have no idea who I am, nice to meet you, I’m PJ Harlow.

I am a home-health expert, International Mold Consultant & Holistic Health Practitioner living on the East Coast, between DC & Philly.

I specialize in working w/homeowners (and renters) who are have encountered water damage and mold in their homes. Most of my clients are very health conscientious, and want higher performing homes with diverse home microbiomes. My career & company (PJ Harlow Wellness) was heavily inspired by my own experiences with mold.

(Btw, that’s not me in the pic, I just liked the vibes she was giving in this picture, she looks like she’s ready to take on anything.)

Stachybotrys “black mold” happens to be the mold which was responsible for the descent of my once vibrant health years ago. Silently taking up residence in our crawlspace & eventually sub-flooring; engulfing the entire respiratory & skeletal system of our home. This sneaky black-green mold slowly but surely ripped apart my family, creeping into every breath we took, all while we were none the wiser.

What it felt like.

Mold Toxicity was confusing for me at first. One day I would feel awful, and the next I would feel ok. This constant push/pull felt like a bad relationship, and it caused me to doubt that I was even sick at first. It wasn’t until I stopped making excuses and normalizing that I didn’t feel good anymore, when I knew I had a problem.

My husband and I would simultaneously wake each other up screaming from night terrors, and the unrelenting fatigue left me struggling to keep my eyes open at the office. Towards the end I had burning sensations in my chest that felt like I drank hot volcanic lava. The stiff & painful joints, hot flashes, gobs of hair in the shower drain, anxiety, weight gain, jumpiness, numbness & the stacking neurological issues that evolved into a full time stutter were so mysterious no doctor could tell me anything besides assuming I was mental.

Stachy took both my integrity and my identity. It stole our beloved home, as well as practically everything we owned & held sentiments with. This particular mold was the crux that finally caused me to disappear into the darkest space I’ve ever been to in my four decades of life.

Letting go of my resentments with mold.

I have since let go of my deep resentments and hatred towards this undesirable mold. I don’t blame it anymore, as I know these hard lessons were ones that I had asked for, in another time. (A word to the wise, be prepared to work for what you wish for, you never know how things you ask for will be revealed.)

My relationship with Stachy, and generally all molds is now one of mutual respect & understanding. Our experience and my education in this field taught me so much more when I embraced the balancing nature & purpose of molds, and further appreciated and accepted what I can & cannot control.

Was it easy? Absolutely not.

I spent a few years terrified of molds, constantly scanning the house, analyzing every symptom and feeling like every slight change in my body was stemming from a new hidden mold in my house. At the time, I had defined myself by my illness & my obsession was my way of feeling more “in control”.

It only began to change when I accepted that I was confident regarding the safety of my environment, that’s key. I recognized that there is no perfection, & changed my own expectations of what a healthy home meant. I tell my clients all the time, “We aren’t trying to create clean rooms to make nanotechnology or pharmaceuticals, we are trying to sustain balance.”

It takes time to heal mentally from the trauma and losses of mold toxicity, which I can assure you, there are many. I can tell you that this foundational piece of home-health and mold removal, is one that I see skipped, or done improperly, all the time. It’s one of the major obstacles that I observe in people’s healing.

It was a big reason why I began coaching people to do just that, heal their environments. I believe whole heartedly that learning the steps of how to create a healthy home & environment should be a top first on the priorities list. If you don’t know how to do this, that’s ok, most people don’t. It’s not really something we are taught or exposed to. If you're interested in learning & becoming empowered with this knowledge, or if you think you may have mold, hit me up or check out our healthy home coaching.

The 11 Myths

Myth #1: Black mold is black.

The appearance of Stachybotrys is actually more dark greenish-black than pitch black, and it can even appear white, brown or pinkish, depending on what surface it is growing on. Stachybotrys can look different under a microscope vs. on a wall of a building.

It's spores are more a brownish color and when they sporulate, the colony may appear to have a powdery surface vs. it’s more notable slime look. Stachy is definitely an alpha mold, but it’s only one of over 20,000 species of black molds. There are also black species of Cladosporium, Aspergillus & Alternaria which are commonly found in sick buildings & homes too.

Myth #2 You can identify a mold by looking at it.

As a health coach practitioner who specializes in Mold toxicity, I get tons of moldy pics in my DM’s and review numerous shots of water damage exposures in our healthy-home investigations, however the only proper way to identify mold is under a microscope. You cannot identify the species or toxicity of mold simply by color. Discovery of a mold’s species is based primarily on the morphology of the spore & the hyphae.

Myth #3 “black mold” can grow overnight

Stachybotrys requires 7-14 days of consistent moisture before attempting to rise as King of the castle. It tends to develop more slowly than many other molds, like Aspergillus, Cladosporium or Penicillium who all can thrive in only 1-2 days. Despite its tardiness in comparison, Stachybotrys is a bit of a bully, and usually develops into the dominant mold if the conditions are favorable, eventually pushing out other molds that may have colonized the material first.

Stachybotrys loves to hide behind wallpaper (which I don’t recommend, btw), & snacks hard on building materials like drywall, OSB, sheetrock, insulation backing, MDF, particle board, ceiling tiles, paper vapor barriers, cardboard, wicker, jute, dust, paper, wood, seeds & textiles. It can commonly be found chumming around w/Chaetomium, who favors similar levels of moisture.

Myth #4 Only old homes can get mold

Stachybotrys, like most molds prefers the cellulose (sugar) found in trees & dead plants, & regrettably, our homes, buildings & schools are all made from dead trees & their by-products i.e. wood, drywall, particle board, etc. Unfortunately, the way we refine our building materials is literally creating a mold cuisine menu. We end up showcasing our homes with minced, baked & seasoned wood & materials for molds to eat, and wonder why or how this happens? It even got me, and I was in the industry, so don’t feel bad.

The fact that we build our homes with mold food is a foundation to discern. In some countries & cities around the world like in Dubai, they have already come up with solutions for this by completely omitting gypsum & drywall, and instead they use Magnesium Oxide Board.

There are other ways this moldy potluck can be mitigated as long as we work proactively vs. reactively, so molds like Stachy & others won’t be able to devour our dwellings. The first start, keep things dry & your humidity at or below 50!

Learning everything will take some time, and just as critical is accepting that everything you grew up thinking about mold could possibly be incorrect. Understanding and acknowledging how mold & toxins affect human health, how to properly prevent & remove it, and how to protect your home in the future are other great places to begin. The way we were raised and the concepts of simply cleaning are even different. We live in toxic times now, so why wouldn’t our home health care be different? We help our clients navigate this process, especially if they have existing exposures, but most of the time they are already somewhat well aware of what mold can do.

Myth #5 IF I have black mold, air testing will pick it up.

While growing, Stachybotyrs’s colonies are moist, in some ways slimey, (aka slime mold). It’s heavier than most molds, & the spores are not easily aerosolized (forming particles that are small & light which are carried into the air). This is a notable reason why the standardized spore trap testing fails to pick up Stachybotrys on most tests. (I know this both from personal experience and professionally as I see it frequently in my home health investigations with clients). 

Stachy spores are heavier, so they commonly fall to the ground or on surfaces, and in most cases are not hanging around, suspended in the air where most spore trap samples are taken. (There are a lot of molds that are not hanging around in the air). Even if broken pieces or fragments of Stachybotrys were in the middle of the room, air testing is not sensitive enough to register particles that small. Unless you are in an extremely toxic home, or right on top of a Stachy colony, it’s likely your local mold inspector won’t pick it up. This is why provoking with a fan or mimicking the natural environment of human movement, vibration and air circulation is recommended if you are using an air test to gauge IF you have an issue. 

Air Tests are not what we recommend as a starting point. We use ERMI Testing, and work with clients one on one, but we do want you all to understand that Stachybotrys spores will not necessarily be disturbed or out of hiding unless the spores are dry or demolition is in process. ERMI however, will pick up Stachybotrys spores since we are looking at the dust, not the air.

Myth #6 black mold only produces one mycotoxin

Stachybotrys produces a variety of toxic secondary metabolites (aka mycotoxins) which can be divided into 3 groups, MCTs (macrocyclic trichothecenes), atranones, & PSDs (phenylspirodrimanes). Say that sentence about 5 times. It’s always been amusing to me that the very thing that made me so sick cognitively was practically impossible to prounounce.

The more notable MCTs, are satratoxins, roridins, & verrucarins, whereas the S.chartarum ChemoType A biosynthesizes atranones & their precursors, the dolabellanes. MCTs are severely toxic, inhibit protein synthesis, & induce apoptosis (cellular death). Compared w/other molds, Stachy produces a large number of secondary metabolites which can accumulate when growing in homes/buildings.

Myth #7 Black mold is always producing mycotoxins

UPDATED 11/2020

There is a frequent belief that Stachybotrys is always producing mycotoxins, and actually, I have found arguments that support both, so this is still up for debate, at least in my research.

According to now retired, Dr. David Straus, PHD, who was a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Stachybotrys is continually producing trichothecenes, which he evaluated in his study on Respirable trichothecene mycotoxins*.

There are also published works by Gregory et al. that states stachylysin, a hemolytic agent is also constitutively produced by Stachybotrys chartarum, along with other findings that similarly point to satratoxin-G, one of the major macrocyclic trichothecenes produced by Stachybotrys being constitutively produced. This argument can only be applicable to Stachybotrys, as no other molds have been evaluated for this trait that I have come across yet. So when speaking of all toxic molds, this would only apply to Stachybotrys.

These findings counter the arguments made by many in this industry who state that Stachybotrys only produces mycotoxins when it’s threatened, eating or competing with other molds, which are two of the more publicly & acceptedly recognized times it is producing mycotoxins & secondary metabolites. Looks like we need to do more digging!

myth #8 killing mold with bleach is the solution

Growing up, my mom unknowingly taught me that the way to solve a mold problem was to kill it, with bleach. Unfortunately, this is absolutely false. First, and foremost, killing mold is never a solution. Second, bleach is primarily water, it only bleaches the surface, leaving the “roots” of mold still alive. So essentially, you are feeding the mold instead of actually killing it.

Once the bleach wears off, the mold comes back. In a similar fashion, like the famed & hated Borrelia Burgdorferi (Lyme), when Stachybotrys spores & other mold spores don’t like a terrain, let’s say they don’t like that you sprayed bleach all over the place, they can go dormant & remain that way for many years if they want. Only when the environment is favorable, let’s say when that bleach or cleaner evaporates, do they return & may revive & germinate upon reintroduction to a water source.

Myth #9 mold needs to be alive or viable to harm you

Another misunderstanding of Stachy & generally all toxic molds is that they need to be alive or “viable” to harm you. There is a huge misconception that killing mold, makes the problem go away. Molds don’t just disappear if you kill them, and similarly, if those molds are old, or dead, they can still have mycotoxins on them. You can still breath them in, and they can still cause toxicity or allergenic issues.

To quote the EPA in 2008, “Dead mold is still allergenic and some dead molds are potentially toxic. The use of a biocide, such as chlorine bleach, is not recommended as a part of mold remediation.” Hopefully, this can put to rest why killing mold is NEVER a solution. Like I tell my clients, we need to approach mold with a more thoughtful approach & understanding, not with homicidal tendencies & ideations.

myth #10 Black mold is the only dangerous mold

In my work here at Pj Harlow Wellness, I frequently look at both Urine Mycotox Test Results and ERMI Tests Results of homes across the world daily. I can tell you will all honesty, black mold & Stachybotrys mycotoxins are probably one of the lessor common molds that I see occupying the homes or bodies of sick individuals. It’s the Aspergillus, and Penicillium species that is more often ranging in the higher numbers. It’s the Ochratoxin A, the Aflatoxin, the Mycophenolic Acid, Citrinin, and other mycotoxins that are causing just as many issues, if not more than the hated and feared, “Black Mold”.

myth #11 Spores are the only issue

Spores are not our only concern, tbh, they are kind of the least of our worries. When mold spores dry, the simple vibrations of our activity & air velocity can break mold spores into tiny, tiny fragments, (similar to how electromagnetic frequencies can vibrate & break our own DNA). These fragments can be in the micron size, & can be even more harmful than the spores themselves, entering into our blood stream & penetrating our lungs.

To give you a perspective, mold doesn’t become visible to us until there are at least, 1 million spores in a sq. inch. There are over 320 times more fragments in a the air than spores! Pieces of mycelium (the network of threads) are often blown away from contaminated surfaces, & some of these pieces remain viable & capable of initiating new growth.

*Another problem, air sampling will not pick fragments up, but it’s one of the benefits of the ERMI Test we offer, it can pick up fragments. This is a big reason why we use the ERMI in our Mold Consulting sessions and why we only work with experts who do as well. It’s not the only test we trust, however it’s a test we like to use to start.

Closing

To quote Joseph Lstiburek, “Living inside of mold food isn’t too much of a problem as long as we make it hard for mold to eat the food, we do this by avoiding moisture problems.” 

All in all, I hope that a bit more understanding of Stachybotrys, & molds in general will give you a bit more comfort, as we work together to understand proper practices of removal, methods of decontamination and the true concepts of how mold behaves. I want to ensure you feel safe in your home through proper mitigation & preventative methods. It is absolutely possible to make your home healthy, but we need to be proactive, not reactive.

If you aren’t sure how to accomplish this, look into working with us. Shoot us a message, book a consult, or check out our instagram page. We want you all to be able to have the tools to get healthy, and stay that way.

References:

Straus, D. Wilson, S. “Respirable trichothecene mycotoxins can be demonstrated in the air of Stachybotrys chartarum–contaminated buildings” 2006

Gregory, L. Pestka, J. Dearborn, D. Randi, T.  “Localization of Satratoxin-G in Stachybotrys chartarum Spores and Spore-Impacted Mouse Lung Using Immunocytochemistry” 2004

L. Gregory, T.G. Rand, D. Dearborn, I. Yike & S. Vesper et al “Immunocytochemical localization of stachylysin in Stachybotrys chartarum” 2003