u/hdskgvo

Hi everyone,

I had a significant mould issue in my house, with a lot of aspergillus. I’ve spent the last two years remediating it.

The house is a five-bedroom double-brick home in one of the driest parts of Australia. As far as I can tell, all active mould has been gone for at least a year. The issue now seems to be residual contamination. I suspect I’ve become highly sensitive/allergic to remnants such as spores, mould fragments, contaminated dust, or possibly MVOCs/residue associated with the previous mould issue.

Whenever I spend time in the house, I tend to get a histamine-type reaction afterwards and feel wired/anxious. The severity seems to correlate with the dust/particle load.

About a year ago, I could barely spend any time inside, so I started trying to reduce the particle load. At first, air purifiers seemed to make the air feel worse, so my routine became repeated HEPA vacuuming and damp wiping of the hybrid timber floors. That helped bring the “hostility” of the house down to about a 3/10.

I then noticed the walls themselves seemed to be giving off some kind of smell/gas that I was reacting to, so I encapsulated them with shellac-based paint, which helped a lot. After that, I also started fogging and mopping/wiping more aggressively. That brought the house down to around a 1/10.

The air still doesn’t feel fully clean, so I’ve reintroduced air purifiers. They seem to help only when run on low to medium. If I turn them up too high, they seem to stir up settled contamination and the air feels more hostile again.

At the moment I’m running:

- a Vevor 800 CFM air scrubber and three 300 CFM air purifiers in the large kitchen/dining/lounge area;

- one 225 CFM air purifier in each bedroom.

The domestic purifiers are all Sôlt brand, which is a cheaper Australian brand.

All units are running on low to medium. The domestic units are placed centrally on the floor. The scrubber is against a wall, with the intake facing the middle of the room and the exhaust facing upward.

The air coming directly out of the units feels fresh, but the overall air in the rooms never becomes totally neutral. The PM2.5 meters on the purifiers usually hover between about 5 and 8 µg/m³ and rarely go lower.

I can’t find any obvious dust reservoirs. Most of the rooms are empty, with no furniture or stored items.

Has anyone dealt with this kind of residual mould/dust sensitivity after remediation? Any suggestions for getting the house comfortable enough to live in again?

Hi everyone,

I had a significant mould issue in my house, with a lot of aspergillus. I’ve spent the last two years remediating it.

The house is a five-bedroom double-brick home in one of the driest parts of Australia. As far as I can tell, all active mould has been gone for at least a year. The issue now seems to be residual contamination. I suspect I’ve become highly sensitive/allergic to remnants such as spores, mould fragments, contaminated dust, or possibly MVOCs/residue associated with the previous mould issue.

Whenever I spend time in the house, I tend to get a histamine-type reaction afterwards and feel wired/anxious. The severity seems to correlate with the dust/particle load.

About a year ago, I could barely spend any time inside, so I started trying to reduce the particle load. At first, air purifiers seemed to make the air feel worse, so my routine became repeated HEPA vacuuming and damp wiping of the hybrid timber floors. That helped bring the “hostility” of the house down to about a 3/10.

I then noticed the walls themselves seemed to be giving off some kind of smell/gas that I was reacting to, so I encapsulated them with shellac-based paint, which helped a lot. After that, I also started fogging and mopping/wiping more aggressively. That brought the house down to around a 1/10.

The air still doesn’t feel fully clean, so I’ve reintroduced air purifiers. They seem to help only when run on low to medium. If I turn them up too high, they seem to stir up settled contamination and the air feels more hostile again.

At the moment I’m running:

- a Vevor 800 CFM air scrubber and three 300 CFM air purifiers in the large kitchen/dining/lounge area;

- one 225 CFM air purifier in each bedroom.

The domestic purifiers are all Sôlt brand, which is a cheaper Australian brand.

All units are running on low to medium. The domestic units are placed centrally on the floor. The scrubber is against a wall, with the intake facing the middle of the room and the exhaust facing upward.

The air coming directly out of the units feels fresh, but the overall air in the rooms never becomes totally neutral. The PM2.5 meters on the purifiers usually hover between about 5 and 8 µg/m³ and rarely go lower.

I can’t find any obvious dust reservoirs. Most of the rooms are empty, with no furniture or stored items.

Has anyone dealt with this kind of residual mould/dust sensitivity after remediation? Any suggestions for getting the house comfortable enough to live in again?