You should never just ignore mold in your home. An Australian woman didn’t take this seriously, and now she’s trying to get people to pay attention because molds in her house gave her health problems that could kill her.
Back in 2016, Amie and her husband moved into an apartment. She didn’t know that her genes made her more likely to get sick from mold. But no one thought that this would nearly kill her. Skilton, who is now 42 years old, said that at the time, her brain and body were getting worse for no reason. That’s what she thought, anyway.
As soon as they moved in, she could tell that her health was getting worse and worse. At first, they didn’t know that the apartment was leaking water from the shower and from under the carpet.
She said, “About two months in, I started getting sick, and it was clear that I was sick. It might have taken that long because it was summer and very sunny, and we always had the windows open, so we never noticed there was a leak.
And because she is genetically more likely to get sick from mold, her body went through a “systemic breakdown.”
She put on a lot of weight quickly, and her brain function got worse. She said, “There were days when I didn’t know how to get dressed. I would look at clothes and have no idea what to do with them or how to put them on.
Even simple things were hard for her to remember. She said, “One time I was filling out a form, and I was looking at the box where my name was written, and I was like, “What is it again?” I was looking at it for a long time.”
She decided to get tested, but nothing came back. “This is exactly what happened,” she said. Everything was fine, both the white blood cell and red blood cell counts.
She couldn’t ignore it, though, because her health kept getting worse…
Then, one day, a building biologist found a leak that she didn’t know was there. She said, “The carpet looked fine from the top, but when she lifted it, there was black mold all over it.” When we finally took the cover off our mattress, it was green.”
She couldn’t believe that the owner knew about the water leak but didn’t bother to tell them. Skilton said, “So they knew they were leaving us in there. That’s probably what makes me the most angry.” They knew, and it made us sick.”
So, when they found mold in the house, she finally got the right tests done. And it was “100% clear that not only was the place leaky and moldy, but also that my immune system had reacted to the mold in the way we knew my genes would do.”
Skilton tells everyone, whether they are genetically prone to mold or not, to always check for mold.
She said, “You can have a building biologist or a certified mold testing technician check your house. All building biologists have had that training, but not all mold testing technicians have gone on to do other things in building biology.
Since then, Skilton has trained herself to test for mold.