i didn’t set out to do this work.

I lived it.

In 2016, my body gave out, in a home we didn’t know was slowly breaking me.
A hidden leak. Invisible mold.
And a quiet unraveling that touched every corner of my life.

Within a year, I lost my independence.
My job. My income. My brand new car.
Nearly everything I owned.

But the deepest losses weren’t things.
They were the pieces of me I couldn’t hold onto.

I lost the chance to give my husband the child we dreamed of.
I lost my identity as a mother, a wife, a friend.
I lost my place in the world.
I lost trust—in people, in systems, in God.
And I nearly lost custody of my children, accused of making it all up.

Mold illness wasn’t “real,” they said.
But I was living proof that it was.

At my worst, I couldn’t walk to the bathroom without help.
I felt like a burden. A ghost inside my own life.
And then I lost something even harder to name:
My faith.
In love.
In protection.
In the idea that anyone was coming to save us.

That’s when I understood why people give up.
Because the weight of-it-all can break something inside you.

But what broke me also woke me.
And in that collapse, a door opened.

I didn’t get into this work to build a career.
I studied mold to survive.
To protect my children.
To prove I wasn’t crazy.
To fight back.

Now, that fight has become a mission.

To give others what I needed.
To show you what I couldn’t see.
To make sure no one else feels as alone as I did in that bed.

**What Came Next Wasn’t Luck.**

It was work.
Hard, relentless work to rebuild a life, and create something that *didn’t exist* when I needed it most.
Hi, I’m PJ Harlow.
Founder of PJ Harlow Wellness Inc., a *virtual* IICRC Certified Mold Consultancy built for smart, health-conscious homeowners who want to feel in control of their home’s mold project.
We guide people like you through every phase of the home recovery process, from early suspicion and DNA dust testing to inspection referrals, planning, remediation, small particle cleaning and recovery.
But more than that, **we give structure to a process that can easily consume people**—their health, their finances, their relationships, and their sanity.

not what you expected

Most people picture mold as something super obvious: black spots all over a basement wall, a rotting ceiling, or a home thats been abandoned for years and years.

In our consulting firm we’ve worked on over 2800 home projects, and the crazy thing? They’re generally clean. They’re modern. And on the surface, they look totally fine.

There’s often no smell. No visible growth. No “smoking gun” or anything super noticeable to the occupants that screams danger.

And the symptoms?

They’re just as easy to miss: fatigue, anxiety, brain fog, rashes, frequent sickness —all things we easily blame on stress, parenting, working, aging, or “just life.”

I never imagined mold would leave me bedridden for 18 months.

I was so conditioned to believe mold “wasn’t that serious” that even after more than 18 doctors, and thousands of dollars, no one could tell me what was wrong. My labs were always “normal”. I kept getting sicker, and the only answers I got were that I were this is likely due to stress or my PTSD.

Eventually, I was told I was psychosomatic. That my symptoms were real to me—but not actually real. The best anyone could offer was a fibromyalgia diagnosis and a script for Gabapentin.

Not one doctor asked about my home environment.

and that’s the problem.

No one teaches you ANY of this.

We’re not taught how to recognize environmental issues, or prevent it.

Inside the mold industry, health is acknowledged… but it’s rarely respected.
When mold is treated like nothing more than an allergy it stops being taken seriously.

And on the homeowner side?
We’re given keys, not education.
We’re taught how to get a mortgage, pick out tile, and shop for insurance.
We’re told to decorate, not dehumidify.
To clean for looks, not for health.

No one teaches us how to care for our homes in a way that actually protects our bodies. So when mold enters the chat, people do what anyone would do: They look for local help.

pt 1. most people hire a mold company first.

That’s actually backwards.

Your first call should be to a consultant.
Not a remediator. Not an inspector.

Why? Because this is a health-based project. And it needs to be approached like one, with structure, sequencing & strategic oversight from the start. That’s our role.

Most people assume:

“If I can just find a good mold company, one that understands health, I’ll be okay.”
But that’s only one SMALL piece of the puzzle that’s honestly a rarity in 2025. Even if you found one that meets that criteria, it’s not enough.

Even a great inspector or remediator can’t lead your project.

That’s not their job—and it’s a conflict of interest. They’re vested in your project, so they can’t be the ones guiding your decisions. Inspectors inspect. Remediators remove mold. They’re not there to manage risk, oversee strategy, or protect you from unnecessary costs.

pt 2. your role

This is the part no one tells you:
You will be the project manager.

Every complex health project needs a project manager. Mold remediation is no different. There are dozens of moving parts, and that role falls to you. You’re the one hiring, directing, and paying. And your goal is a healthy home. But even if you tell a company what that means to you, they won’t know how to deliver it without guidance.

This isn’t something you can outsource. No one else will oversee the whole picture or catch the gaps between phases. That’s on you (and us). What you can do is get the right strategy team behind you, because unless you’ve led projects like this before, you won’t know what to watch for, how to keep things on track, or how to protect your health along the way.

You don’t need to be an expert.

But you do need backup.

pt 3. when roles blur

These projects are confusing for a reason: the roles blur.
Right now, doctors, inspectors, remediators, and coaches often step outside of their core lane to help fill gaps, but that doesn’t mean they’re equipped to fully guide you through the process.

And it’s not because they’re careless.
It’s because the system is outdated.
There’s a huge gap between the medical world and the environmental one, and you’re the one stuck in the middle.

Over the last 10 years, awareness around mold and environmental illness has grown exponentially, but the systems haven’t caught up. So what happens? Now we have contractors talking about saunas & peptides. Health coaches discussing small particle cleaning. Doctors moonlighting as IEP’s.

But mentioning aspects of a topic isn’t the same as being qualified to teach it.
Knowing a little about something doesn’t mean someone should be guiding your decisions around it.

You don’t want to be taking remediation advice from your doctor, or health advice from your inspector. But when there’s no clear leader, that’s exactly what ends up happening.

pt 4: the spiral

So when roles blur and no one is clearly leading, what happens?

Analysis paralysis.
Information overload.
Doom spiraling.

Your doctor tells you to get-out based on your ERMI score…
She says to fog your stuff and hire some company called Johnny Five Remediation.

In line at the post office you see a mold expert on Instagram say fogging is dangerous.
In a Facebook group, two moms swear Johnny Five is a scam, and two say he saved their lives.
You start thinking about the inspector you spoke to last week who said ERMI is junk and you wonder if he was right?
When you get back into the car, the podcast your listening to starts talking about CIRS labs, and how mycotoxin tests are inaccurate.You just spent $1600 on four urine tests for the entire family and now start regretting something you were just so sure of an hour before.

When you get home, you try to share what’s been weighing on you with your spouse, that maybe you’re not sure anymore, that things are starting to feel overwhelming. But before you can get it out, he’s already asking, “How much is this all going to cost?”…and adding how, “None of these functional doctors seem to really know what they’re doing. Are any of them actually experts?”

And just like that, your window to be vulnerable slams shut.

You swallow your doubt. You start defending the urine tests and the doctor whom you’re no longer sure about—not because you believe in them both 100%, but because you’re terrified that if you don’t, he’ll tell you to drop it all. That he’ll say it’s all nonsense. That he’ll stop listening. And deep down, you’re not just scared of mold.

You’re scared this is your only chance to get your family well, and you don’t know if you’ll get another one.

So you carry it. Alone.
The baby starts whining. She’s itchy again.
You glance at the clock, you feel like going to bed & it’s only 6:13 p.m.
There’s 10 loads of laundry staring at you, and oh yea, you forgot to defrost the chicken. Your eyes well up. And now you’re crying in the hallway because you don’t know how to do any of this, but you keep going because your strong, you have to be, and your family’s health is everything to you.

pt 5: the anchor

This is where we come in.
With a system, a way forward.

We give you peace.
We give you control, in a situation where you often feel powerless.

Because you need more than a good company.
You need someone who can chart the path forward. You need grounded, tailored support from someone who’s led this process successfully, and under pressure. You need someone who validates your fears, but then guides you into a steadier rhythm.
Who can hold-both the science and the emotion. Who helps you carry the weight of the problem, without letting it crush you.

That’s what we do.

Because we’ve done this thousands of times.

We know how to lead.
We know how to pivot.
And we know how to hold the line, when your nervous system can’t.

You don’t need to make any big decisions right now.

Just this: