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 Diana Rene: 0:06 

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. Welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast. This is actually a part two to an episode that we did last week, all about my house and why we have not been able to live in my house for a few months. So, before you listen to this episode, please listen to last week's episode and then come back and listen to this one. Let's just jump right in.

Diana Rene: 1:15 

The other thing is that there's so much information out there with mold and there are a thousand different opinions. Mold and there are a thousand different opinions. You could ask a thousand different people. You know what needs to be done in this protocol and you'll get a thousand different answers, like it's that varied and that like controversial, which is frustrating because I am someone who needs to know the answer and it doesn't feel like there is an answer. So really, it felt like there was different risk thresholds and there was all the way from like you don't need to put a containment up, you can just cut it out and you're good to go. Like you can even do it yourself, don't worry about it. If you want to wear a mask, you can. You don't really have to all the way to like you need to tear your house down. Like there's just there's that much of a varying degree of opinions on it, and we chose to go on the more conservative approach, and what I mean by that is that we went we, we, we went more towards the like basically rebuilding the house to make sure that everything is good to go and like starting over, and we chose that again for health reasons, for our kids, for ourselves, and then also to make sure with 100% certainty that it was truly, truly gone and that we would never have to worry about that and we can sell in the future whenever we choose to, and there it wouldn't be any issues. So I feel good about that. I you know there have been times where I'm like are we going overboard? This is really expensive. It's been very expensive, and so there have been really stressful moments where my husband and I kind of look at each other and we're like are we being overboard, are we doing too much? And I don't know. I don't know the answer to that, but I guess in a situation like this, I would rather go overboard and do too much than not enough and have it still be an issue down the road, and so that's just kind of the route that we decided to take.

Diana Rene: 3:34 

A very common question probably the most common question I got is did your insurance cover it? And then the follow-up question is insurance cover it? And then the follow-up question is how did you pay for this if insurance did not cover it? So our insurance did not cover it. That does not mean that if you had mold and your homeowner's insurance would not cover it Every policy is different. I have learned that a lot of policies do not cover mold because insurance considers it like, basically like water has to be present for a while for mold to develop, so like, from their perspective, you should have found it and remedied it before. So no, it did not cover it for us. And, as transparent as I try to be, I think that this is one of those things where I feel the need for a little bit of privacy, to not share specific numbers. It was a lot I can say that you can imagine, and we, fortunately, have been able to figure it out and pull from various things to be able to figure it out. But that's kind of the boundary I want to set with talking about it, because I think that it's kind of an intense conversation and so I'll just leave it at that.

Diana Rene: 5:04 

So one myth that I possessed this belief also is that Colorado is so dry how you can't get mold in Colorado. The air is super, super dry. I thought that also, I honestly believed that and I have since learned that's not true at all. I honestly believed that and I have since learned that's not true at all. Yes, it is. If you live in a very humid environment like Florida or someplace that's just very humid, the air is very humid you do have a higher risk of mold, is my understanding, just because it doesn't take as long for a water source to develop the mold because the air has so much moisture in it also. But in Colorado the air is dry, yes, but if you have a active water source so like for us, for the basement, water was just like pouring into the wall from outside that water is not supposed to be there. And if it's consistently there and it keeps coming, that water is not supposed to be there. And if it's consistently there and it keeps coming, mold is going to develop. Same for like under our kitchen sink. We now know that was probably a long, ongoing water event. It wasn't probably just one flood. You know, like the sink had a water come out one time and then it mold developed. It was probably like a constant leak that the people who lived in the house prior to us did not notice or didn't take care of when they did notice it and they just kind of left it. But there was water long enough for mold to develop. So it doesn't really matter that the air is dry in Colorado if there is an active water source.

Diana Rene: 6:47 

The other thing I learned through this journey is that not all mold is a problem. There is mold everywhere in the air, there is mold on plants, there's mold just outside. If you open up the window, you have mold spores coming in. There's mold everywhere in our life. It's just that there are specific types of mold that can cause health issues. Again, this is one of those areas where you're going to get a thousand different opinions. My understanding of it is that mold doesn't cause health problems in everyone, and I think you know, like just even in our small sample size of our family, like one of my kids, my husband, didn't have any issues when we were living in it, and so I could see how that could be true. Obviously, they could have things going on that we just don't notice, or it's not obvious symptoms or something like that, but my understanding is that not every mold is necessarily going to harm you, and even the more toxic molds may or may not harm you.

Diana Rene: 7:58 

So I found that really interesting also, and when they did the testing they came back with, like you know, this mold was in the air, but it's not like this is just a common mold that's found in vegetation in Colorado. So like I found that really, really interesting too, that there is just so much variety of mold. Clearly, I was not paying attention in science class, but I found that really, really interesting is all of the different types and all of the different things that it may or may not do to someone that's living with it. So another thing that I learned or maybe not learned, because I already knew this, because we had some water damage in our prior home that we had some, we had to basically cut our kitchen. So I already knew this going into it that remodels, whenever they're, whenever you're doing a remodel, I call it a forced remodel.

Diana Rene: 8:59 

Where it's not something like you wake up one day and you're like, oh, I think I want to remodel the kitchen. It's like, oh, you have mold, so you have to remodel the kitchen. Is that like? Remodels are very much a if you give a mouse a cookie situation where it's like for us, like part of the countertop was damaged, part of so like the countertop had to go, was damaged, part of so like the countertop had to go and then part of the floor like had to be taken out and the floors were original to the house from like 2004 and so they couldn't find a match, so we had to redo all the floor in the kitchen and the kitchen is a like our. We have a very open floor plan on our first floor and the entire first floor was that engineered hardwood, so we had to take all of that flooring out and redo all of that flooring. It's just like if you do have to change one little thing, it feels like you have to change so much, which is not fun when you are in a situation that A insurance isn't covering it and B you just want to be back in your house.

Diana Rene: 10:09 

We have been so, so lucky to have both my in-laws and my mom are local to us and that has been really, really helpful. They both offered their homes up to us and we have been living with my in-laws for over two months while the remediation and the remodel happen, and they have several rooms, which has been so helpful for us because we've been able to, like you know, make just have a little bit of space and be comfortable. And that has been so helpful because if we had not had that and we had to live in a hotel or an Airbnb or anything like that, it would have, first of all, it would have been a huge expense, since this wasn't covered by insurance, so that would have cost a lot of money and, second, it just would have been more stressful Living in a hotel room with four people and our belongings would have been way more stressful than being able to be at our in-laws and also having the help of my mom, and so I'm just super, super, super appreciative of them and their grace and their willingness to help us in this situation, and I know not everyone has that, and so that just makes me even more grateful for it. So between the remediation and the rebuild, it took about two and a half months. We are hoping to move in this weekend, which is really exciting when, when you're um listening to this first part of the episode, you're going to like we will have just moved back in, knock on wood, as long as all everything still continues to go as planned. The rebuild was done last week, but this week we've been doing all the different cleanings. So we had a post-construction cleaning company come in that uses special products to make sure that all the construction dust is gone. They clean the walls, they clean the ceilings, they clean the shelves inside the cabinets, everything. Then we had the air duct cleaning and sanitizing and carpet cleaning, and we have our furnace being replaced right now as we speak. We have cleaners coming one more time this afternoon just to do like a final, final clean, and then we have furniture being delivered tomorrow and then we can move back in.

Diana Rene: 12:43 

And I've learned a lot, which I'm going to do another episode just about survival mode and how For a lot of people it feels like survival mode is just kind of day in and day out and ever since we decluttered. I don't really feel that and being in our in-laws in the three rooms has made it feel like we haven't decluttered, because we have so much stuff for this small space that we're in and we have no systems and we have nowhere to put anything because there's no shelves or anything, so we just like have everything out. And how much that has affected just my daily life. I'll do it Okay. I don't want to go into it too much because I think that can be another whole episode, but I have learned patience. I have learned that everything will be okay even when it doesn't feel like it, and to just keep going and to trust yourself and all of those things.

Diana Rene: 13:47 

I also am doing several things to make sure that we don't have any more water damage, which I mean you can't control fully when you live in a home. There's so many different ways that you could have water issues, but we had extensive work done outside while we were also gone to make sure that no more water is going to come in through any of the basement windows. So we had to do the window wells, we had to do some like grading where, like there's more soil put towards the house and moved away. We actually ended up putting pool tarps underneath the rocks so you can't see them, but again, it's another measure that's going to move water away from the home when we do have a lot of rain or moisture. Again, we're having, um, our gutters like evaluated and repaired, potentially totally redone, um, because there are several spots where water's not draining correctly so it's kind of staying by the house. So, like those are some things we're going to be doing, but we're also the rebuild company that we hired is going to come back out and just basically do like a full house re-caulking, like they're going to go around to every area of the home that could possibly need caulking and do that, because that was something in the mold testing report was that there were quite a few areas that just caulking wears out over time, and so if there's like a spot on a bathroom sink that the caulking wore out and water is going in there over time. That's going to cause issues because, again, it's when that water is like happening over and over. So we're going to do that.

Diana Rene: 15:32 

And then I am also um, I just ordered these today, these little like detector. They're like water detectors and you attach them. There's all different ones. There's ones that just sound an alarm when water touches it, and then there's also ones that are a little more fancy, that can connect to an app on your phone. So if it detects water, like it'll bypass your kind of like an amber alert on your phone. It'll buy, even if your phone is on silent and it's three in the morning, it'll send an alarm to your phone because, like, time is of the essence when it comes to water, especially if there's a lot of it.

Diana Rene: 16:12 

And so I got these sensors and I'm basically putting them. I joke that I'm putting them every square inch of our home, but that's what I would like to do mentally, because I just don't ever want water damage again. So I'm going to put them in common areas that there could be potential water damage. So I'm going to put one by the water heater. I'm going to put one by the furnace. I'm going to put one under every single sink in the house. I'm going to put one behind the toilet in all of the bathrooms, like all of those various places that might have an increased risk of water damage happening. I'm going to put one of those and that way if even a drop of water touches it, it'll come to my phone. It will tell me. It'll say like basement bathroom, you can program it with the app and we can take care of it quickly so that it doesn't become so that it's only a water issue and not a mold issue. But, like I said, there are. Those ones are a little pricier just because of the app thing. But there are also other ones that you can do that just sound an alarm, so like if there's water coming out of the sump pump, then the alarm goes off and you can hear like the high pitch noise. But there's lots of different options. So I'm definitely going to do that. That's definitely something I'm doing. I'm also just going to basically conduct like a quarterly check of the home, so like every quarter, the first day of the quarter, I'm going to walk around the house and make sure that there is nothing going on and there is no signs of any types of water.

Diana Rene: 17:57 

So I started out talking on this episode about the health problems and that's been a common question also is like what are you like, do you have mold toxicity in your body? Like what are you going to do? That again is like a controversial thing in various medical communities again is like a controversial thing in various medical communities. But I am working with a functional medicine doctor and I'm doing testing to see if I have like mold in my body, if it's, you know, at toxic levels, and if it is, then there's like a whole protocol with supplements and specific food and all of that. I think a lot of it is like UV saunas, like red light, I don't know something like that. There's just a lot of things that you can do to help rid your body. If you have it at specific levels that could be causing issues. So I'm going to be doing that and I'm also likely going to have everyone in my family be tested for it just to make sure, and that way we can just take action on it if we need to, and if we don't, then we at least know, because I've learned that just having the knowledge is super important.

Diana Rene: 19:09 

So I hope that I never have to have any type of episode like this. Again, hopefully, we have paid our dues and we don't have to do any of this and we can just enjoy being in our home finally in our safe, clean home. That feels kind of new to us because of all of the rebuild that we had to do. I hope that answered all of your questions. I know that it's been kind of a weird couple of months on social media for me. I haven't really been showing up very much and honestly, again, it's because I've been in survival mode, which again I'll talk about in another episode.

Diana Rene: 19:48 

But if you have any other questions, let me know. Please don't send me horror stories. Please, don't, please, just please, don't. Like I said, I have researched this, I have looked into all of it. I know there are varying opinions and that's okay, and I am feeling confident in our decisions and feeling really good about us taking those above and beyond steps that were maybe too much, maybe not, but I feel really really good that we did maybe go overboard just to make sure that we really got everything taken care of, and so just please, don't send me anything about that.

Diana Rene: 20:32 

I would appreciate it. I hope you have a great rest of your week and we will see you next week on The Decluttered Mom podcast. Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at the.decluttered.mom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.