Shocking Revelations: Jason Earle Exposes the Truth about Indoor Air Quality

Joseph: [00:00:00] Welcome to the No Sitting on the Sideline Dad podcast, a podcast about a journey of discovery and conversations about not sitting on the sideline of life. Let's get involved. Here's host Joe.

My guest, Jason Earle, is a man on a mission, an adoring father, and also the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-MOLD. He's created the Got Mold test kit and has appeared on shows like Good Morning America, Extreme Makeovers, and Dr. Oz. He's a man on a mission to help people with their health by helping them take action and getting rid of mold. Welcome to the podcast, Jason.

Jason: Thank you, Joe. Good to be here.

Joseph: You know, it's funny. I like the intro questions. It's kind of fun actually. You said a Guinness record and that, I think that's a good way to start off.

Jason: [00:01:00] Yeah, I mean that was an accident that, when I look back at it now, seems somewhat hard to believe, still even to this day.

So I am 45 now. I had a series of challenging events happen starting around the age of 13. My childhood in general had its challenges. My parents had a very tumultuous relationship with a lot of alcoholism and all that stuff. It was very dysfunctional.

My parents separated when I was about 12. At 14, my mom committed suicide, and then a year later I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. The Lyme symptoms were relatively mild, and then the antibiotics came in. It was like 30 pills a day for three days on and three days off. This thing called pulse therapy. It was just debilitating. I missed a ton of school and I was already a recalcitrant teenager.

They called me into the office in January of my junior year. They told me that I had violated the attendance policy. They really wanted me to make a decision. Essentially they said I was going to have to either stay and finish the year and then come back and repeat my junior year or otherwise... long story short, I ended up being basically forced to drop out and I ended up taking a job at the gas station, where I was already working part time.

[00:02:00] I took full time hours there. I had actually convinced my father to sign me out because I told him that I was going to "F" the system, get my GED, start college a year early and, you know, revenge with success essentially.

I pitched the gas station owner the same thing. And she gave me full time hours so I could save money for college. But while I was there within about two months of my full time position, a guy came in with a flat tire on his BMW and he was in a big rush.

He told me he wanted me to put some air in his tire. I said, well, if I fill it with air, it'll be flat again in a few minutes. So if you give me a few minutes, I can maybe patch it for you. He's like, if you could do it quickly, there's money in it for you.

So he pulls around to where the air pump was and I could see the nail sticking out. So I patched it and filled it with air and said five bucks. And he slapped some cash in my hand and drove away. I looked at my hand, it was a $50 bill. At the time, I was 16, I thought he'd made a mistake.

[00:03:00] I figured he was going to come back, but he did not. In fact, two weeks later, I saw him for the first time and I approached him and I said, "Hey, Mr., I don't know if you remember me, but I was the kid that fixed your tire." He's like, "Yeah, kid, Jason," he remembered my name, which was amazing.

He ended up saying, "Hey, listen, kid, you did me a solid." I said, "I feel like I owe you a favor." He's like, "If anything, I owe you a favor." I said, "What do you do for a living?" He said, "I work on Wall Street." And I said, "Well, how about get me a job?" He said, "Call me by 9 AM tomorrow or don't ever call me at all."

So he said, "Grab a pen." So I started writing his number on my hand because I didn't have a piece of paper and he started laughing and he goes, "You're going to fit right in." He rolled up his sleeve. He had stock quotes written all over his arm.

So I went home and I told my father what happened and he couldn't believe it, but he said, "You better call him." So I did. At 9 AM I called him up, and we went through an exchange that was pretty memorable. He said, "What are you doing today?" I said, "I'm going to work." He said, "Where?" And I said, "Gas station." He's like, "Wrong answer, kid."

[00:04:00] I said, "All right, can we do that again?" He said, "Yep." He said, "What are you doing today?" I said, "Going to work." He said, "Where?" And I said, "What's your address?" And he said "88 Pine Street, 10th floor." And click.

So I called in sick to work and said, I've got an opportunity here that I need to pursue. I put on my finest pair of jeans for my Wall Street interview. Borrowed a button down shirt from my father and made my way up to Wall Street. We lived in a little town outside of Princeton about an hour away by train.

Lo and behold, he gave me an opportunity. He took me under his wing and he trained me. He made me his protege. I ended up accidentally becoming the youngest licensed stockbroker in history. And that's where I got the Guinness world record at 17 years old. I didn't even realize it at the time, because there were a lot of other younger people there, but I was the youngest for sure.

I did that for nine years. I had a really great career and I left when the dot com bubble burst. I owned my own firm for a couple of years, but I always struggled with purpose. The biggest issue with Wall Street for me was I was raised with the idea that your efforts contribute to the greater good.

[00:05:00] My mom was a nurse and she was the director of nursing at a rehab center. I was encouraged to volunteer on the weekends. We had a service-oriented mindset. I was encouraged to think that way. We had rescued animals all the time. That was a big part of my childhood, and that's something I hope to impress upon my two boys - that perpetual attention to the needs of others, really not at your own expense, but as a way to contribute to the richness of others and to help alleviate suffering whenever possible.

That was a real struggle for me on Wall Street. And so when the dot com bubble burst, I decided to go on walkabout. I took about a year and a half off and backpacked around. It was right after September 11th, so I wasn't able to go very far. I took trains across Canada and I ended up taking a flight to Hawaii where I was spending quite a bit of time reading local papers.

In one of the local papers, there was a story about a big mold problem in one of the hotels on Oahu that had been shut down. It turned out to be the biggest mold problem in history at the time with a $55 million total cost. It was massive - they had to strip the entire building.

The story that caught my attention was a guy who got sick. He was in his forties, he'd been otherwise healthy, but due to what he claimed to be mold exposure. This is the first time I'd ever heard about this, but apparently it was one of the first big cases that was really publicized.

[00:06:00] This guy developed adult onset asthma, which was something I'd never heard of, and also sensitivities to foods and things that he was previously fine with. It was like a deja vu moment for me, because that's how I grew up when I was four years old, falsely diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and sick, allergic to everything.

And then when my folks split up and moved out of the house, all my symptoms went away. And so for me, it was like the light bulb went on and that's what brings it full circle.

Joseph: It was interesting to talk about that. But I was finding a 17 year old kid, a guy gives you $50... back then we're about the same age. I would be very suspicious of that person.

Jason: Well, first of all, I was suspicious. What was remarkable to me was that my father wasn't more suspicious because here, what's this guy want to do with a gas jockey, high school dropout?

[00:07:00] There was nothing impressive about me then or now. I mean, honestly, I've got some experiences that are worthwhile that make me useful, but otherwise there was nothing to pick me out of a gas station. My father's lack of concern sometimes makes me laugh, but he recognized that I didn't have a lot of options at that point. I was a legitimate high school dropout. My mom had just died. I was suffering from a lot of physical issues. I was still having a really hard time with all the digestive issues from the antibiotics, where if I eat a bagel, I'd have out of body experiences for a long time.

That skepticism is something that I've actually talked to my father about. And he said, "Well, what are you going to do? That was one big door for you. All you had to do was walk through it."

Joseph: Well, it's interesting to say that too. I found that fascinating in the sense that sometimes people don't realize when the door is there and they don't jump through the door and take that chance because they're like, "Maybe that's a prank or they're going to steal my password."

Jason: [00:08:00] But you know, what's funny, when I showed up to Randy's office the first day, he said, "Buddy, you showed up." And I said, "Of course I did. My parents taught me show up, do what you say you're going to do." That was like, just show up and do what you say you're going to do. It's fundamental. If you do that, most things take care of themselves.

He goes, "No kid, you don't get it." And he said, "Because you showed up, you know, 98 percent of success in life is showing up."

In the nine years that I was a broker, I tried to recruit kids who I thought had promise. I would see them at a gas station, convenience stores, contractors coming to my house... people who I just thought would be really good. I gave out probably a hundred business cards over the years. And you know how many kids called me? Like maybe five or six. Nobody believed it. It was like too good to be true.

And when I talked to Randy about that, the guy who recruited me, he said the same thing. The door was wide open, and people didn't even pick up the phone.

Joseph: It's interesting too, working on Wall Street, you're pretty busy. I always see the floor and people, all the tickets going everywhere and people look really stressed out. It must help you to become a new dad. The first few years you're like there's no sleep. How has that prepared you as a father?

Jason: [00:09:00] Well, that's actually a really interesting point. I think Wall Street prepared me for entrepreneurship and then entrepreneurship prepared me for fatherhood.

The idea that... you know, I quit drinking a few years ago and in that process developed a meditation practice. What I realized was each one of these things prepared me for the next step and opened me up to being able to deal with relative chaos in any situation.

That's really what it comes down to is the idea that I can't control the external circumstances, but I can control my reaction to them. I can respond instead of react. Hence the term responsibility as opposed to reactivity. To be a responsible adult as opposed to a reactive one is to respond in an appropriate way.

I think that being on Wall Street, there's a tremendous amount of counterintuitive restraint that you need to have. You don't want to buy when it's high, but everybody wants to chase stocks. There's a ton of counterintuitive stuff.

Being a parent, I think in many ways is counterintuitive. A lot of things that you want to do, you want to lean in and save things, but oftentimes the best thing to do is lean back and let them experience those things.

Entrepreneurship is also similar, where you have to learn how to create and cultivate talent, which means that you don't do stuff for people. You let them do it and learn. It's very hard for me. I'm a control guy. I like to get in there and do it right. Move over, I'll show you. But being a decent leader in business and being able to deal with chaos from Wall Street, I think did help me deal with two year olds.

Joseph: [00:10:00] Well, definitely. I can remember the time... have you ever had one of those father moments? Like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I did that" kind of father moments?

Jason: Every day.

Joseph: I can share one though. One time, my son was about almost one. I'm still changing diapers and I had him on a bureau and the diapers were kind of out of reach. If I just stretched a little bit, I would have grabbed it. I have my hand on him for one second. I'm like, I can let him off for a second. He rolled off the bureau. I grabbed him by both legs before he hit the ground. And the next day I felt like, I mean, I saved his life obviously with my quick reflexes, but man, that was one of my "Oh dad" moments. I'm like, I almost killed my son.

Jason: Well, yeah. When you say one of those "Oh dad" moments that, I look at it both ways. The "Oh, wow. I can't believe I just did that. Celebrate that. I can't wait to tell Sarah about that" or "Oh my God, I can't believe I just did that. I better not tell Sarah about that."

Joseph: [00:11:00] We all have as dads and fathers, we all have those kinds of moments.

But it's interesting. I brought you on tonight to talk about mold and how it affected your life growing up. I thought it was fascinating, cause you said you were diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, but it wasn't a correct diagnosis.

Jason: Yeah, when I was four years old, I'd lost 30 percent of my body weight in about a three week period, as I'm told. I was having difficulty breathing. The pediatrician said I should be taken to Children's Hospital, so they took me directly to Children's Hospital, which was an hour away.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which is a renowned respiratory clinic for kids. They brought me there and the first diagnosis was cystic fibrosis, I think predominantly driven by my family history. My dad had four cousins who died of CF before the age of 14.

They waited six weeks for a second opinion, which was that I didn't have cystic fibrosis - evidenced by the fact that I sit here at 45 years old because back then that was really a death sentence. Rather, I had asthma compounded by pneumonia.

[00:12:00] One of my early memories actually is being put in this papoose, like a straight jacket for toddlers. They would expose your back and draw a grid and then put these antigens on your back and assess the response. My dad said that I looked like a ladybug, big red dots all over.

I was essentially allergic to everything that they tested me for. It was easier for them to tell me what I wasn't allergic to. It was grass, wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, cotton, soybeans. And I was growing up on a small non-working farm where we were surrounded by grass, wheat, corn, dogs, cats, soybeans, everything, cotton. My clothes were a source of great irritation.

I remember the basement being a source of not discomfort, but feeling a little bit weird down there, maybe a little bit more of a weight on my chest, so I spent a lot of time outside and didn't really think about it at all.

But when I was in Hawaii and I had this epiphany and I thought, geez, I wonder if mold had made me sick. What was the underlying cause? I called my dad from the payphone and talked about parenting. He said, when I asked, "Do you think we had mold?", he goes, "We had mushrooms in the basement." He laughed at me.

[00:13:00] I said, "Do you think it was causal? Do you think it was something that might've caused my illness?" And he's like, "Well, it didn't help."

But just to think there wasn't even a resource for him, even if he wanted to do something about it. There was really nothing that they were going to do. There wasn't an awareness. There was no internet to research these things. There was no such thing as a mold inspection company or a mold remediation company or a mold test kit or any of that stuff. Those resources were not available and information just didn't travel.

My parents were both smokers with an asthmatic kid, and they would smoke with the windows up in the car. And that was normal back then. It was just a whole different level of awareness. Now they'd be brought up on charges for stuff like that, and they were just doing the best that they could.

Joseph: It was like air quality. I remember my mom and my stepdad, they were smoking in the cars. The air quality in the house with dust and everything. When I was younger, I used to have a lot of problem breathing. And my mom was notorious for smoking and thinking she can cover it up with potpourri. And that was like napalm in the air, your eyes watering and stuff like that. Going, all right, the air quality is horrible in here. There's so much dust.

[00:14:00] I got an allergy test and I'm allergic to everything known to mankind - dust and dust mites and stuff like that. I move out and I live on my own. I'm like, I feel normal now. What's that's a different feeling.

Jason: Yeah, it's a big deal. Indoor air quality - if you look at the statistics, they're kind of shocking and very few people talk about this, but we spend 90 percent of our time indoors. And in extreme climates like Dubai or Northern Canada, people spend sometimes as much as 99 percent of the time indoors.

And if you include transportation, the number is high. We're so busy talking about outdoor air quality and outdoor air pollution and all this stuff. And we have almost no control over that. No matter how bad your car pollutes, you're barely going to make a dent in that thing. And if you stop polluting, you're still not going to make a dent in it.

But your indoor air quality is a place where you have a lot of control. And the crazy part about it is, if you look at the statistics, mold and poor indoor air quality are the underlying causes of some of the most prevalent long-term illnesses in America.

Chronic sinusitis affects 37 million Americans, 11 percent of the population, and is a mold issue according to Mayo Clinic. There are 24.6 million cases of asthma in America and about a quarter of those are mold and dampness related, according to the EPA and Berkeley labs, which is 4.6 million people.

[00:15:00] The numbers are just staggering. You add them all up between property damage and these illnesses, not to mention that there's correlations between mold and dampness indoors and depression, which is pretty fascinating.

There's interesting research that shows the chemical compounds that make that musty odor actually do cause changes in brain chemistry, evidenced by research done at Rutgers with a friend of mine named Dr. John Bennett.

She showed that fruit flies exposed to these musty odors actually stopped making dopamine and they stopped reproducing and developed Parkinson-like symptoms. So there's some interesting research on exposure to mold and how it impacts our overall quality of life, but there's no doubt that it also affects you cognitively.

People living with a musty odor don't think well, they don't learn well. They tend to have emotional outbursts. "Mold rage" is an actual thing, and this is very poorly understood, obviously not widely understood.

What's interesting about it is that we also have this dynamic where we're constantly rebreathing the same air. So if you have a pollutant in your house, even if it's a small one, you're constantly being re-exposed to it.

It's very important that people take action when they find something, when they start to notice that there's any signs of dampness, whether they be visual. So if you see something, smell something or feel something, it's very important you take action because your indoor environment impacts you probably as much as the food that you eat in terms of your overall health.

Joseph: [00:16:00] I never thought about that with the air quality. I see some people have air filters and filtration in the house. That seems really, really good.

Sorry, I had a cough. I apologize. But mold, some of the symptoms like different types of illness, you said depression. That's interesting. Cognitive ability. What are some signs in the house? If we're going to look around the house today, what are some of the signs that you would think about when I'm looking for mold?

Jason: Sure. So the first thing is, people always ask, how do I know if I have a mold problem or what am I looking for? And it really comes down to if you see something, smell something or feel something.

If you see something, that would be clearly any evidence of dampness. So that would be condensation on windows, any staining, leaks, any evidence of peeling or blistering paint, where trim might be pulling away, any evidence of dampness whatsoever. Clearly liquid water is an issue.

The thing about seeing something is that if you see water or a water event occurs, you have 24 to 48 hours to dry it thoroughly. Otherwise it becomes a mold problem. Water damage is very cheap to fix. You rip it out, you dry it out.

[00:17:00] If it becomes a mold problem, it's very expensive, requiring professional assistance. You can save yourself - it's literally 0 to starting at four figures and up.

The bottom line is that if you see something, smell something or feel something, do something. But most importantly, if there's any water event, you want to act very quickly.

The other things you want to look for are in terms of odor. So if you smell something, the musty odor is pretty distinctive. Very few people can't identify it. I think it's an evolutionary line of code because it's the first sign of decay. I think we're programmed to know that that's not a good smell.

In fact, in people who are sensitive, that can trigger an entire immune response. Some people can have asthma attacks just based upon exposure to the musty odor.

That musty odor is the byproduct of mold digesting. So that means basically these are mold farts. The mold produces enzymes when the spores land on what it's going to grow on. The water comes in and, given enough time, the spores will germinate like little seeds and they send out these roots called hyphae, which releases enzymes to digest, just like we digest with digestive acids in our stomach - they do it on the outside.

[00:18:00] They've got this entire library of enzymes. They're very simple, single cells. And depending upon what they're on, they can digest pretty much anything they want. But there's a specific recipe or specific menu that mold really likes to eat from.

And that happens to be building materials in modern American homes. Sheet rock is like caviar. So if you give it enough moisture - moisture is the only thing that you need to worry about with a mold problem in terms of prevention - because a mold problem is a moisture problem.

So... see something? Any evidence of moisture. Smell something? If you have a musty odor, seek out the source of it, seek out the source of the moisture and fix that.

And lastly, if you feel something, and when I say feel something, this is where it gets a little nebulous because if you have any sort of upper respiratory issues, headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating - especially any of those symptoms that abate when you leave the building - you may want to get an inspection or have your house tested.

Testing is a bit difficult and getting an inspection done is a bit difficult. We could talk about that a little bit, because whether you choose to hire a professional or do it yourself with a test kit, or try to get a free inspection can really change the outcome quite significantly.

Joseph: [00:19:00] Well, before we talk about the testing, is there any way to clean it? Does bleach work or are there chemicals and stuff that could help take care of the mold problem?

Jason: Well, this is a very common question and it's actually one of the myths that I love to debunk. Bleach is the most common - "Can't we just get a bucket of bleach and just wipe it off? Come on, it's just mold, right? This is what my grandfather would have done."

But it's actually one of those very counterintuitive things. Mold is caused by excess moisture. And by the way, mold likes to eat dead mold too. So mold remediation and mold cleanup is really about removing mold and removing the source of the moisture so that it doesn't proliferate. And because by removing the mold, you're also reducing exposure.

But people love to use bleach because it does two things. It makes the surface look clean and it smells clean, and Americans are obsessed with the smell of what they call clean. Meanwhile, clean doesn't have an odor, by the way. It's a scent, not clean.

When you apply bleach to a mold problem, what you've done is made it invisible. You've actually bleached it, leaving behind dead mold and also leaving behind a damp substrate, a damp material.

[00:20:00] Bleach is 97 percent water and 3 percent sodium hypochlorite or chlorine. And that evaporates very quickly leaving behind water. So you've just added water to a water problem. You just basically added gasoline to a fire.

This is one of the most common things that people do - they'll use a chemical that's water-based to kill mold, which doesn't need to be killed, it needs to be removed.

One of the things that I advocate is a green clean mold remediation, mold removal, unless you're cleaning a hard surface. Now there's an exception. Not all mold is created equal in terms of how it grows.

If you've got a porous surface, like sheetrock, carpet, carpet padding, ceiling tiles, clothing, upholstered furniture, anything porous and absorptive or organic - if those things are affected by mold, they should be thrown away.

If the remaining surfaces that are not water-damaged or mold-affected can be cleaned, clean them using HEPA filtered vacuum cleaners to capture all of the dust so it doesn't redistribute, and damp wipes without any chemicals. That's the way a proper remediation is done.

Most contractors like to use chemicals because it's fast and that's what people expect. So they can go in there, charge a lot of money, do a lot less work. And ultimately people don't complain because that's what they expect.

[00:21:00] But a mold remediation is about removing the mold, cleaning the mess that was made by the mold, but most importantly, fixing the underlying water problem or moisture problem or humidity problem that caused it in the first place.

Joseph: I like making pitchers of iced tea, pitchers of ice cold water. And when it sits in the refrigerator for a long time, say I'm just drinking water and I didn't get back to the ice tea for a couple of days, I'll get mold inside the pitcher. Why is it built up like that? I'm just kind of curious.

Jason: Well, you know, it's a lot like when you go to the lake and you sit on the shore and you see how the beach kind of goes down into the water. As you go down, the organisms get sort of larger and larger and larger.

But right at the edge where the water laps against the edge, you have incredible diversity of little creatures that are there that are just having a great time eating all the little stuff. And then the little bigger stuff eats those guys.

At the edge where moisture meets the air, there's a remarkable amount of activity. It's like the ocean surface is where almost all the good stuff is happening. It's where all the plankton is generating oxygen. Literally half the world's oxygen is being generated by blue-green algae in the ocean.

[00:22:00] Right along where that iced tea comes up, you've got a shoreline there, and what really happens is that you've got organic molecules. What I mean by organic is tea particles, and they will accumulate right there at the edge, and they'll dry off, and that's the food. They're eating the dried little tea bits around the edge. It's like sediment around the periphery.

It's actually fascinating. I find mold and these kinds of things fascinating because whether you go telescopic or microscopic, the beauty of these things, if you can get past the revulsion or the aversion because it smells funny... the incredible complexity of it all and the consistency of it.

Mold is a fact of life. You need to know how to deal with this stuff. It's up there with death and taxes. In fact, it's more reliable than death and taxes because we might overcome one of those one day. But we're not going to overcome mold. I can assure you of that.

Joseph: I'm never looking at my pitcher of tea ever again the same. I thought with this conversation...

Jason: There's lots of microbiological opportunities in your refrigerator. So don't get me started.

Joseph: [00:23:00] I think I'm gonna get myself a metalized tea pitcher now instead of a plastic one I've been using for a long time.

Interesting too about testing and stuff like that. Is it expensive to get testing for mold?

Jason: Yeah, it is. And I'm in the mold business, but I always tell people, if you can prevent this, or if you can act quickly enough that you can avoid having to deal with the mold problem... like I said, if you have a moisture issue or a water event act quickly, call the insurance company, get the people to come dry out the carpet and all that stuff as quickly as you can.

But if you do not get to it in time and you see something, smell something or feel something and you want to get checked out because it's a microscopic organism - I mean, the bottom line is you're not going to be able to do this with the naked eye. That's why we use microscopes.

So, you want to have your house tested for mold. You've got a spectrum of options. On the low cost side, you've got the typical low quality things that you might find at the Home Depot checkout or Lowe's where they've got these Petri dishes. They're called settling plates. They're scientifically invalid, but people buy them. They will always be positive. You will get a good dose of fear and scientifically invalid data, but it will confirm that there is mold in the environment. Basically you can do the same thing with a piece of damp white bread.

[00:24:00] On the other side of the spectrum, you've got professionals who are going to charge a thousand or more for a professional inspection, which includes taking air samples. Those air samples are analyzed by a third party laboratory where they're looking for spore counts. In some cases, people are sampling for the odors and the VOCs and the chemicals.

But in any case, any reputable inspector who does not do remediation - this is a key piece, a non-conflict, an independent inspector that does not have a conflict of interest - has to charge for an inspection. People love to get free inspections. Guess what? That's a sales call, not an inspection. If you want to have a proper inspection, you need to be prepared to pay for that.

Right in the middle, there are a couple of products. One of ours is using the professional quality and the professional tools and devices. The Got Mold test kit uses exactly the same tools and devices the professionals use, but you don't get the professional air sampling using spore traps. It does exactly what it sounds like - we capture spores in these cassettes which get analyzed by a third party laboratory.

Our kits start at $149, allowing you to test up to three rooms. One room, $149. $199 for two rooms and $249 for three rooms. And then once you have the kit, you can also keep the pump and you can reorder supplies so you can test again for a discount.

[00:25:00] The idea behind that is not to replace a professional, because we're not in the business of trying to be all things to everybody, but really to offer a cost effective first step.

I started the mold inspection business 1-800-GOT-MOLD back 20 years ago because I had this realization that mold inspection contractors and mold remediation contractors were not doing the right thing. And I wanted to help be the advocate for consumers to help them navigate mold problems and kind of protect them from the contractors, quite frankly.

But I realized my parents couldn't have afforded to hire my company. And so that always bothered me. And so we created the mold test kit because I realized we were unable to help the people who really needed this the most. The people who needed mold inspections the most couldn't afford them. We fielded tens of thousands of those calls over the last 20 years.

So the Got Mold Test is really designed to make indoor air quality something that's accessible to all people, so they can get the data they need to make better decisions about their air without it being budget busting.

Joseph: [00:26:00] Well, it's interesting before I forget to ask, cause I know there was a dog involved. There's a dog that could actually sniff out mold. I thought that was really cool. They have dogs that can do all kinds of things now with their nose, smell different things. But mold, I thought that was fascinating.

Jason: Yeah. So when I got back from Hawaii, I took a job at a company in our area that was doing basic waterproofing and mold remediation. I took a job there to learn from the ground up. I remember the owner asking, "What was your last job?" And he just couldn't understand what I was doing there.

Anyway, I was there for a few months and I saw behind the curtain and realized that consumers are not being taken care of. And so when I started my inspection business, it was actually inspired by the discovery of mold detection dogs.

These dogs were so inspiring to me because I had dogs as a kid. And I found out about this guy who trained lots of different kinds of dogs - bomb dogs and drug dogs and cancer, epilepsy detection dogs. He's really a fascinating guy and he's got dogs for just about everything. And he had just trained the first mold dog.

I heard about this and I flew down and I met him and I brought the dog back up. Didn't even have a company yet. And as soon as we got to town, I started offering free inspections to people who had been our basement waterproofing customers.

[00:27:00] Next thing you know, Channel Six Action News heard about it and they sent out a truck to try to debunk us. And they hid mold in the house and we found it in three minutes. And instead of debunking us, they endorsed us. And suddenly I had to set up a phone number and LLC. The business kind of happened that way.

So Oreo, my mold dog, and I did thousands and thousands of inspections together. The work that we did was what put us on Good Morning America, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Dr. Oz, hundreds of newspapers and magazines. She's in a few books on working dogs. She's in a college biology textbook.

Oreo honestly was the star. I played second fiddle to her. It was the best 12 years of my life before I had kids. Honestly, having a working dog taught me how to be a good dad.

Joseph: That makes sense because you learn the discipline. You learn what, you realize that dogs, like little kids, if you establish boundaries and you stay strong on them, they'll respect you. If you're wishy-washy, they won't.

Jason: Dogs know how to sniff out the sucker. So do little kids, and you give them an inch and they'll take a mile. You have to be super consistent with kids. They thrive in an environment where they know where the boundaries are and know that you've got their back. And dogs are the same way. We're pack animals and dogs do this thing so instinctively.

[00:28:00] They want to be by your side, just like little kids do. And if you give them that foundational support, if you're the alpha, but that loving, compassionate alpha, you've got a loyal mate. But the moment you're wishy-washy, that creates a sense of doubt that I think has a huge impact on kids. And it for sure loses the respect of our four-legged friends.

That was one of the best experiences of my life and we did a lot of really great work. But thank you for bringing that up, Joe.

Joseph: Well, I was kind of curious. Any stories that you can share about visits with an inspection for mold or hunting for mold?

Jason: Sure. I have so many stories. One of the things about our process was that we would show up and I'd sit down at the kitchen table with the customer before inspecting. We'd have had a phone call, so we'd have some background, but then I'd sit at the table, and people would always say, "Where's your dog? Where's your dog?" And she's in the truck and she's resting. We'd leave the truck heat and air conditioning for her, depending upon the season.

People always want us to just show up at the front door with the dog. That's not what we did. Instead, what we would do is fact-finding and then go do an inspection in a very methodical way.

[00:29:00] We'd start in the basement and we'd go all the way up in a clockwise manner. I'd be taking notes of all the observations and potential recommendations. And I'd also be looking for areas where there might be a hazard that we'd have to either exclude from the inspection or rectify so we can proceed safely.

And then I'd put all the tools away and I'd go get Oreo. And we'd go back to the basement and work our way up in a clockwise fashion. It was very fast - Oreo could do a 5,000 square foot house in under 10 minutes. Every single nook and cranny. She was a pro.

We always had the same pattern - we'd go straight down to the basement to the furthest corner and do this pattern. That way we knew we covered the bases.

So this one particular house, we walk up after I'd put the tools away, ready to go. They opened up the door and she takes me on a beeline straight up the stairs. I'm like, okay, I guess we're going to break protocol here. This is the first time she had done that.

She took me all the way through and it was a beeline right back to the master bedroom. And then through a closet with a whole bunch of boxes in it. And she dives into the back and she moves a bunch of stuff out of the way.

[00:30:00] And she sits with all these jackets and all these clothes over her. You can't even see her. She's completely hidden by all the clothes and she's alerting on the wall.

The way she alerted was that she wouldn't scratch the wall. She would touch it with her nose. So oftentimes she would leave a little wet spot, which is where we would mark with a sticker. We literally put a sticker right where the wet spot was, and we would drill holes to inspect what was there. We'd take an air sample out.

In this particular case, then she pulls away and takes me down the stairs all the way to the basement and starts where we normally start. And then we went all the way back up and she alerted again in the same spot, because she got paid with a food treat every single time. So she was not too proud to ask for a treat twice for the same alert.

And then we'd finish and she would take me to the front door. And that was what we did. She knew her job.

But what was amazing about this time was that she knew that the - and I went back and we tested all these areas - and lo and behold, the biggest mold problem that house had, in fact, it was THE mold problem of that house, was hidden in an area behind those clothes, in the back of that closet, in an area completely inaccessible any other way.

[00:31:00] There was no way I would have ever seen that, there was no way I would have ever detected that, and it was right behind that woman's bed. And she was sleeping in it, and she was sick.

When that was finally remediated, the woman got better. The whole family healed. These kinds of stories were not uncommon. The point was, Oreo was the only tool I've ever used that actually learned and she took over. She took a leadership position in that she said, "No, this is where you need to look." She knew her job. She knew what she was there for, and that was so inspiring.

I've had a lot of dogs, but when you work with a dog and a dog has a job, they take pride. It's a relationship that I encourage anybody who likes animals to consider. You will never regret it.

Joseph: It was just fun. I was curious, cause you hear about all kinds of working dogs and that's awesome. They say dogs are man's best friends. I've never had a dog, but I know people who have dogs and they're fantastic.

Jason: Yeah. Dogs are my favorite people.

Joseph: They're always loving. And no matter what, even if you're mad at them, they still look at you and they give me some love, give me some love and pat me on the head.

Jason: [00:32:00] They're so consistent. We could learn a lot about how to be better humans through dogs. I have a sticker that I stumbled across the other day and it said, "Try to be the person that your dog thinks you are."

Joseph: Yeah. Well, wrapping up, final thoughts about anything about mold?

Jason: Listen, I think one of the ideas that I try to lead people with is we tend to look at the buildings that we live and work in as these boxes that we store our stuff in and that we move between. And if you really look at it, the buildings that we live and work in are actually an extension of our immune system. It's an exoskin or an exoskeleton.

In fact, shelter is one of the four basic human needs, and within shelter, you've also got air. So it's actually two out of the four, if you think about it.

I bring that to your attention and it's a surprise to you. I can see the look on your face because it's something you just haven't looked at. And the reason that's the case is because like most things that we're so close to, like relationships in some cases, the things that we're closest to are the things we most take for granted.

Air - the rules of three in the military, right? You can go three minutes without air, three days without water and three weeks without food. People forget about that three minutes for air.

[00:33:00] We're very farsighted as a species. We tend to worry about the problems in other areas. We're not looking at the biggest threat to your health that's hiding right underneath your nose. The building that you're in is actually supposed to support your health.

If there's something wrong with your building and it's impacting your health, the interesting part about this is that you have a relationship with that building. If the building develops aches and pains, think about it like an organism, it starts to develop mold.

The signal that you're getting, much like inflammation in the body, that there's something wrong in the building, is the musty smell, is the mold. And so when that building gets sick, you get sick, and then when the building gets better, you get better. You actually have a symbiotic relationship with your building.

This is not a static box where we live in. This is a relationship, like a hermit crab has a shell. You wouldn't be able to survive without it. And yet I try to bring attention to this potential new form of relationship, a new awareness about that relationship. You turn your house into your home because your home is your health.

That's what I want to leave people with. And it's one of the few things you can do in this world where you have real control. We have very little control over our lives, if you're honest with yourself, but when it comes to your indoor air quality, it's the greatest gift you can give your family - to learn more about that and do the things you need to do.

[00:34:00] Which means if you see something, smell something or feel something, do something. Get yourself good air purifiers, have filtered air cleaners, put them everywhere.

And if you want, we've got a welcome page for all of your listeners at gotmold.com/nosidelinedads.

Joseph: I'll link that in the show notes.

Jason: And what we'll do there for your listeners is we've got a 10 percent coupon code there for test kits through gotmold.com, and also a free ebook. It's a 45-page ebook that's filled with inspection checklists and a lot of the things that we just talked about today in terms of things to look out for, things to be aware of, as well as resources for air purifiers and any other kinds of equipment that you could use.

We don't sell those things. We're agnostic. What we're more concerned about is that people just think about these things a little bit differently and then take action when they see a problem.

Joseph: Well, thank you, Jason, for the link for the show notes. And also thank you for being on the podcast today. You gave me a new perspective about my place where I live. I never really thought of that. I take it for granted. I really appreciate the new perspective. That's the word I'm looking for. I appreciate your time, Jason. Thank you.

All links will be in the show notes for this episode. I really appreciate your time, sir.

Jason: Thank you, Joe.