Mold: Where It Can Hide in Your House

Based on scary specimens spotted in refrigerators and deserted lunch bags, you may think of mold as soggy, dirty, disgusting and, above all, obvious. However, that element of the obvious isn't always present in household mold mysteries. The most pristine, well-kept home can have serious mold issues--infestations that threaten human health and impact the systems and structure of the house itself.

Take my friend Maria Sherow and her previous home in Harding Township, New Jersey. Her son's asthma symptoms had worsened since the family's move to the house, and after no luck locating any mold, she asked me to put on my professional home inspector cap and take a closer look. Near the end of a fairly uneventful inspection, I happened to grab a handful of the blown-in insulation lining Maria's attic, and sent it off to air quality consultant and mold expert Jeff May for testing. Not long after that sample landed in the lab, I got a call from Jeff, who told me that the insulation was loaded with mold.