Can Household Mold Lead to Tinnitus and Hearing Loss?

Hi Alita, I am an ex house builder. Do you own your house? If you do, I’d sell it. If you rent, I’d rent a new flat. Mould is very dangerous... it’s that simple.
P.S. your doctor is full of shit.

 

I had this happen to me as well from mold exposure. After I moved out, I recovered in about a few weeks to a month.

 

Curious to get your input as a builder; I think we need to quantify the kinds of mold which are problematic from the kinds which are not. I guarantee you that 100% of houses, globally, have tons of mold spores in them, since mold is endemic in every environment on the world.

There are common place allergic and hayfever problems this can cause. Severe infestations can cause severe problems, and then of course, among the "black molds" there are some which are demonstrably neurotoxic or mutagenic or otherwise Very Scary. I think there's a big difference between "I pulled back the wall to wall carpeting, and there is a 2mm thick layer of black slime covering the entire subfloor", and "I get some mold spots in the bathroom, especially if I'm not careful about humidity".

If you provide a 60-80 degree environment with ample moisture, mold will grow, in basically all cases.

I lived in a rental that had mold issues which we'd partially remediated when my tinnitus got bad, but I'm pretty sure the worsening was caused by the combination of ~115+ db in a concrete pillbox of a venue, combined with drugs I was on at the time. I'd been living with the mold for years, and had largely fixed it; the tinnitus increase was basically instantanious following the concert.

These days, I only worry about mold as it relates to cannabis, but we heat our house with wood which makes it challenging for anything moisture dependent to take hold.

 

Here we go again... Part of living in Laos, telecommunications and the internet suck here.
House mold is a killer, and millions of people suffer from it unknowingly.

I don’t understand closed systems, I do, but it drives me crazy when they build new structures where you can’t open a window. Your house sounds fine. Big buildings with central ventilation systems are a problem. So are small dwellings.

My mom, who works at Boston University, building got sick. “building sickness”.
They moved everybody out, gutted the place and found some toxic mold leaching into the ventilation system.

When I lived in the UK, I dis quite a few jobs removing mold with a power hammer or cold chisel, and then rendering it new with all this anti fungus and mold stuff they sell over there.
At one point I was living in a squat, post breakup with my long term girlfriend, and the place was so damp and cold I actually had a dream that mushrooms were growing inside of me.
So yah, mold is a huge issue, and will continue to be in the industrialized world, where people live in huge buildings with little air flow and closed systems. Or live in small flats unknowing to the toxins in their environment.
I don’t think mold would contribute much to tinnitus, but it’s possible that with a weakened immune system the ears would be more susceptible to damage.

When we holiday here, which is not often, I usually look for new structures and always insist on seeing the room first. Many of the rooms in the guest houses are moldy and you can smell it right away.
I have been exposed to so many chemicals , silicates, metals, from being a bronze worker, steel fabricater, and house builder, I am pretty lucky to be alive considering I smoked cigarettes and had access to really good hash and weed as well.

So as the world melts, people are worried about pandemics, the next Third World War, and we have mold to throw into the mix.
Keep your weed dry, you shouldn’t have to many issues with mold unless the buds are being watered... you are a green thumb, so you know that.

Give your house an inspection... you should be fine...

 

The weed is the canary in the coal mine for mold -- when the dried, indoor weed starts to mold.... run, run, RUN!

When we were shopping for houses I basically ignored anything if there was a whiff of mold scent; don't even need tests. One big selling point on this place, the basement is walk-in on one side, and even though we have hydrostatic pressure forcing water in on 3 sides, because there's an oil burner and a wood furnace down there the air stays at like 35 RO and nothing grows. That said, there's a lot of other reasons you don't want water coming in (cracked block, etc) so we're about to have the entire house dug up to the foundation on all 4 sides, re-waterproofed and new drainage put in. We also talked to someone who installs sump pumps, but the system they described to solve our issue from the inside was nearly as expensive as the excavation, and just keeping water from coming in the walls in the first place seems like a better plan than removing it once it's here. This house did fine for ~20 years on the original waterproofing and drainage; if we get another 20 out of it, well, I'll be pushing sixty by that point if any of us are still alive.

NIH is projecting 200K additional deaths a year to climate-vector diseases by 2030, including an additional 50,000 children a year dying of diarrhea. Lovely! Note that this was specifically looking at climate-vector diseases, and not any of the other things that are coming.

 

World is fucked... I don’t mention that to my kids. Enjoy the day... that’s for sure.
I think your modifications will be more than sufficient and will possibly outlast you my friend. Be careful of contractors, just be cautious. The pumps are overkill, your plan is ace.

Yah, weed is really fickle.... I have a friend from Santa Cruz who’s got nightmare stories of the most beautiful buds gone to mold. I am gearing up for next year and am gonna try my luck outdoors. I am excited. It’s been so long... so we will see.
Take care friend.

 

Worst nightmare I've heard is cousins who grow legally in Mendicino county who lost $100-200K in product to forest fires last year -- which they barely escaped from with their lives, they said as they were driving down the highway, places that the guardrail posts were wood, the posts were exploding in flame as they drove past.

Next 20-30-40 years are gonna be interesting, anyway.

 

Hey at least our world leaders and industrialists are taking global warming seriously... not.

 

What about the chemicals used to remove mould? Can they make tinnitus worse? A friend's place was treated on a Wednesday and I spent Saturday night there thinking it was enough time to air out but I could still smell that bloody chemical. I don't know what product was used but on Tuesday, I had a spike.

Coincidence or could this have been the cause?