E025: Understand mold today, so it doesn’t steal 7+ years of your life.

Melissa Deally: 00:00:02

Welcome back to The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. And this episode is a special episode, because we've got five Saturdays in the month of July 2021. So it's not following along with my theme of July, which has been supplementation, but it's a really important topic that more people need to know about. So that's why I wanted to bring it to you today. And I'm super excited to have Michael Rubino here as my guest. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Rubino: 00:00:29

Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Melissa Deally: 00:00:32

My pleasure. So Michael is an international mold remediation expert with nearly a decade of field experience working with individuals who are immunocompromised to improve the air quality in their homes. He is a council certified mold remediator by iicrc, and AC AC, and a contributing member sponsor and speaker for the indoor air quality Association. He works with roughly 75 to 100 families every year as they return their homes after or return to their homes after mold exposure. So mold is a toxicity and I talked about detoxes and toxins all the time. So super happy to have you here on the show, Michael, and would love to just dig into your story. How did you land here?

Michael Rubino: 00:01:20

You know, it's very interesting. I'm actually a second generation contractor. And so I've been around mold my entire life, pretty much not living with it, although I'm sure I did it as a kid. But really seeing it in people's homes. My dad did fire restoration. Now if you know, fires get put out with water. And if you know about mold, water is pretty much the catalyst gives us the opportunity to grow. So watching that kind of happen and take shape was was very, very interesting, especially as I walked into people's homes, I kind of like looking back in retrospect, I've been in these meetings with my dad as a kid and I I recall them talking about mold and how it's, you know, it's not really that big of a deal, throw some bleach on it paint over it, you know, at the time, they didn't really want to appropriate funds to taking care of it properly. And so that kind of like snowball, because when I went to actually move back home after college to continue to work for my dad, I saw there was a hurricane or superstorm in this case called Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Sandy depending on, you know, the terminology that you like to use, but I believe they call it Superstorm Sandy at the time. And there was a lot of devastating effects on the Northeast where I was originally from. And when I saw that, and I saw, you know, I mean, they had like, basically National Guard shut stuff down and get to get special permits to work on jobs, that didn't stop people from coming across from all over the parts of the country to help these people who were impacted. Unfortunately, you know, and those types of events, you'll get some bad actors that are looking to take advantage and make money off of this. And so that's what I what I started to see. And then people thought that they remediated properly, but they didn't. So about seven for seven years thereafter, right about, I was re remediating homes that have been impacted by Sandy that were supposedly remediated. And the biggest common denominator was that the person or the family didn't feel well, for whatever reason. And so that's when I started getting obsessed with this because I was like, Wait a second, this is, you know, we had meetings where people are like, just use bleach paint over it. It's not that big of a deal. But now I'm seeing people get sick. So I'm like, maybe it's a bigger deal than we thought, right? And that's when I really started getting obsessed with how do I do this to that level? How do I do this to a medical level where people can heal, right being an environment appealing, so that's when I started to dive into and I started learning about mycotoxins and toxins produced by mold. And I really started looking at the science behind it not just Hey, you need to remove some drywall and spray a chemical. But how does mold actually exist? What does it do? And how does it procreate? Right? These are all important functions you need to know of if you want to make sure you're getting rid of it properly, and keeping it away. So that that's that's pretty much my story there in terms of how I got into the industry.

Melissa Deally: 00:04:20

And it's fascinating, and I love that you chose to dive deeper and to realize, you know, people aren't feeling well. So there's something more to this, why aren't they feeling well, and wanting to understand that because that's what I do in my work as well. And I've actually experienced mold, negatively impacting my health and it was back in around the year 2002. I was working in a building that was under construction and it was actually complete. It was a hotel and it was completely being renovated. And I all of a sudden started getting migraines every single day that I showed up and I knew What migraines were because I got hormonal migraines, but I obviously don't have my cycle every single day. So I was like what's causing these migraines? And I didn't know and I was suffering at work. And then one of the contractors came into the sales office and said something like, Oh my God, this building has so much mold. And they an opening up all the walls, they were exposing the mold, and I realized that's what was triggering my migraines. And so I gave my notice, I'm like, I can't do this. And I gave my, you know, two weeks notice, or 30 days, whatever it was. And the ironic thing was, that by the time I finished up, they'd actually completely or supposedly got all the mold out of the building. And now we're rebuilding and everything new. But I'd already decided to leave. So I didn't try and stay. But to your point, that's probably a good thing. Because if they hadn't done it properly, I could have still continued struggling.

Michael Rubino: 00:05:56

Yeah, and what I when fortunately, what I've noticed is that really, for far too long, we've been doing it improperly, because it's, it's not, it's the educational piece, right? So when you become a mold inspector or a mold remediator It's a three day class, three days. And it's really focused on more of the construction aspects. Right, right. It's not really, it's doesn't really talk much about well, this is more, this is what it does, because if it did, it would actually be more thorough and the approach and standard, right, so for instance, one of the things that I've realized is you have three common denominators that need to be resolved in order for someone who is sensitive to their environment to improve and that's it's very simple, you have the opportunity that allowed for mold to grow in the first place, you know, to be too high of humidity. It could be water or moisture intrusion could have been a week, right? It allows us opportunity, but the presence of moisture, water, etc. to allow mold to grow in the first place that needs to be resolved. Because if you just open up the wall and just put it right back, guess what, it's gonna come right back. Right. The other thing is mold actually grows in the colonies. And so it starts off as a spore, just like a weed, right starts off as a seed, it gets wet, it starts to grow. And weeds now produce more seeds, just like mold, mold, mold now produces more spores. And they start to basically aerosolized and spread across your house. The real problem there is it allows us these spores, these toxins to exist in the home. So it's two parts one, it's kind of like you're allowing the ammunition to stay there, second, water comes in that ammunition goes off and starts creating more problems. The second thing is, as it's in your environment, it has the ability to aerosolized to circulate, we all have HVDC systems typically. And those HVDC systems continuously push air around our house, and it sucks air in conditions and supplies it back out, they creates a circular motion, that allows contaminants in our environment, to constantly perpetuate into the air gets into our breathing zone, enters the body. So is that too, so even if you just remove the mold in the wall, you still have this contamination that's there that can impact you. And we had it all wrong for so many years, we just never really looked at that piece. You know. And so I think that's the big difference. When I said, you know, what about, we don't, we don't just need to remove the mold. What about what the mold created the byproducts if we don't pay attention to that, I think you could still actually feel the effects of mold. And that's why you may have heard, if you ever hear horror stories of I got remediated. But I still don't feel well, it's because they didn't actually handle those two other parts. And, you know, that's why I wrote this book, because it really needed to get out there, I realized that I wasn't gonna solve this problem, when I set a time. The only way for this to actually change is enough people need to know about it. And when you actually read the book are like, aha, this is this is very easy. You know, and I know, I'm probably not the first person to figure it out. But, you know, I definitely, I'm definitely excited that I'm an advocate to help create this change. Because at the end of the day, I want people to feel better.

Melissa Deally: 00:09:15

And I 100% agree with you. And I'm excited that you're an advocate for this and that you have written the book as a way to get this information out to more people, because people do need to know, right? There's many people out there that are not feeling well and don't necessarily know why. And I know people that you know, it's taken them five or more years to finally figure it out that it was the mold in their apartment they were living in that was causing them to feel the way that they do right and then it's a longer journey of recovery on the body. And in my work, I run functional medicine lab tests, and one of the lab tests we can run can actually determine if there's mold in the body and then we have very specific mold protocol to help get rid of the mold from the body, right and then People need to be doing that while they're also working with someone like you to get the most out of their home. And what I love about what you do is that I have previously heard and this was some years ago when I first heard this, that if you have mold in your home, you basically just need to find a new home and leave all your furniture, everything behind because it's in everything. And if you want to regain your health, you just have to start over. But what I'm hearing from you now is that that's not necessarily true.

Michael Rubino: 00:10:27

You know, what's true, when when people didn't know better on how to actually remediate? Yeah, we basically been doing it wrong for 35 years. Now that we, and I know I've created a company that does this, I'm not probably not the only one, I knows, I've heard some really good things about some other companies that have realized the same principles that are making those changes, which is exactly what I what I want, what we need, as a society. When you look at those three fundamentals, and you actually make sure that your remediation plan handles all three, yes, you actually will be able to stay in that home, you don't need to leave it and burn the house down and move on. Right you there's something you can do about it. And that's the part that's special to me is like, you know, for so long, we've just been confused on what to do, there's been tons of conflicting information out there, and it actually left people hopeless. And I can't tell you how many clients I talked to you on a daily basis that are like, Mike, I am hopeless, you know, I feel like there's nothing that can be done. And, you know, it's, it's actually really disheartening to, to, to go through life that way. And usually, by the end of the conversation, they're feeling, you know, motivated, like, they can do something about this, they had no idea that they can clean certain things, you know, unfortunately, there is some stuff, you probably would want to throw away, you know, depending on the porosity of the item. And if there's all these different layers of stuffing that you can't physically get to, to clean properly, it's best to toss. But for most people, they didn't realize it, that they could could even remediate their home to the level they that they needed to be. And so you know, that's, that's been, you know, a blessing and being able to work with people and getting the amazing messages like your book saved my life and things like that, that that's really inspiring, because that's why I wrote it, I want to help people. And I have some ideas of how to, you know, connect some industries together and zoom out and tie some more dots together so that we can help continue to help people

Melissa Deally: 00:12:33

and have a more holistic approach working with a broader group of people. Exactly. That's what people need, right? Because when they find someone to help with a piece of it, then they look to you to also, you know, well, if I need to resolve this piece of it, who can I work with, right? And that's really powerful to be able to support people in that way. So I'd love to ask you, for people that are listening, that are just wondering, Well, you know, I haven't been feeling that great lately. Do I have mold in my house? Like, what are some things that you know, you would be suggesting that they should consider to see whether it's a possibility? And then, you know, reaching out, etc? Or maybe it's buying the book, but

Michael Rubino: 00:13:12

yeah, a couple different things. Yeah, couple, a couple different things. You know, first off, I think you said a great word, holistic, you know, in your environment as part of this holistic approach to health, right? And if you look at it, you have genetics, you have predispositions, right, you have lifestyle choices, and then you also have the environment, the environment is something that honestly is usually the last on the list, right? And, you know, most people, I'm sure you've been through this, they're like, but I drink more water than I used to, or I eat better, you know, like, I don't get it. And you know, that's part of it, for sure. That's a holistic approach. But the missing piece that I've always seen is the environmental aspect. And it's crazy, because we take 20,000 breaths per day, you know, and it's the last place we're looking in terms of what's coming into our body that we don't know about. And, you know, so I think that like, just just really putting it as part of the process. From there forward. When you're looking to optimize your health. I think getting an air quality assessment is probably a good thing to see what's going on in your apartment in your house, your condo, townhome, etc. Some signs you can tell if mold is present. I have some really interesting and neat tips. For the obvious one, you know, if you see those coffee like stains on your ceiling, your wall, it's indicative of a water moisture event. And, you know, I want you to know that mold can grow and as quickly as 24 hours. I've had people say, Well, I have this leak. It's like a slow leak didn't really seem like a big deal. But I have this stain here. Well, you might want to you might want to you know, take a look. There may be some mold there. And just because you don't see it on the ceiling side, it could be behind it. So it's important to you know, Get someone out there to take a little bit more thorough Have a look. Of course, there's the musty smell. We've all been down to these basements, at some point in our lives, and I've smelled that, like basement smell that notorious musty smell is the best way to put it. that's indicative of a moisture problem. And typically, when you have moisture, you're gonna have potential for bacteria and mold, right? And both of which are contaminants that can impact the body and make us feel sick. So we want to make sure that, you know, we smell those musty odors, we're calling somebody to see what's going on and repairing it as quickly as possible because the longer it happens, you know, the worse it gets. Last one is really unique. I think you're gonna you're going to be a little mind blown. Go over to one of your toilets. Yeah, the toilet tank, up off the lid. Okay, flip it over. And look inside the tank. And also look on the underside of the lid. If you see mold growing there. It's typically a sign that you have mold somewhere else inside your home. aerosolized spores, and what happens is they happen to fall inside this toilet tank, and you're like, well, how does this thing heavy? How does that happen? Well, there's a terminology called hermetically sealed, hermetically sealed means air cannot pass through it. The toilet tank is not hermetically sealed, meaning air definitely exchanges underneath that heavy toilet lid, right? So if you have an abundance of mold inside the air that exchanges into that toilet tank, the just the opportunity of it happening. It's so minute, but it's there that it typically occurs. So I look at it as a sign when I when I see more than a client's toilet like that. I'm usually like, yep, now's the time to get it evaluated. So pause the podcast, go around your place. Start with this until it tanks and looking. And if you do see something, you know, look, I know that's alarming. But you know, what's more? What's worse, a lot of my clients are telling me, they go from doctor to doctor, doctor, the doctor, they finally find someone like you who's like, have you thought about your environment, right. And at that point, they've spent so much time aggravation and money to get to you to get to the source of the problem that can help them holistically heal. At some point, even though it's not an exciting thing to hear you have mold, at least now you can do something about it, you know what it's there. And now you just need to call in the right people to take care of it. And I take that any day over not knowing what's going on and not feeling well.

Melissa Deally: 00:17:41

100%? Well, you've said some great things there. First of all, like when you know what's going on, now you know what to do about it. And I 100% agree, and that's the premise of my work is getting to the root cause. Because when we know the root cause, then we know the path to guide your healing journey, whether it be the healing journey, the journey of your body, or the healing journey of your living space. Right. But also, I love what you said about pause the podcast and go look inside your toilet tank lid, because that's exactly what I want to go do right now. But I can't I can't pause it in the middle of the recording, but I will definitely be doing that afterwards. And I will let you know.

Melissa Deally: 00:18:21

So um, yeah, so all great tips and great information. And I also have a mold toxicity quiz as well that I can share with my clients. And you know, some of the symptoms on it are also symptoms that can indicate other things. So just because you have these symptoms doesn't mean it's small, but it starts to narrow it down for us and help us decide, well, which lab test do we need to do to be looking and seeing what's going on? But I'll just give a couple of these. So do you have any congestion? Are your sinuses feeling blocked? Do you get red eyes or blurred vision? Often? Do you get tearing of the eyes? Are you feeling tired or weak? Any shortness of breath flu like symptoms and headaches? Remember my migraines right? So this list has like 25 different questions and that's just the first seven of them. Sure, they could be indicative of other things. But if someone's struggling with those, and is finding mold in the inside of their toilet lid or the stains on the ceiling, etc, then that's definitely an indication that they need to look into this and get help remediating it from their home and body so that they can fully regain their health because as you said, there's nothing worse than just feeling worse and worse and worse. And going to doctor and doctor and doctor and being told Nothing's wrong with you think your symptoms are real, and your body is talking to you. And it's so important that you listen and you're trying to listen and maybe not being heard. So keep going until you're hurt, right? Yeah, exactly right. Talk to me more about the remediation process. So I'm wondering like, how long does that take? And I'm guessing it's different from, you know, a small home to a big home. But if you can just lay out for the listener, what does it what's the process look like?

Michael Rubino: 00:20:12

Yeah, of course, the remediation process can be different, depending on the size of the home, the type of construction, like, if you're in a single family home versus a condo, it's gonna be set up a little different, you know, from what I've seen, and typically, the people that I work with, the average home is going to have somewhere between five and 10. Issues ongoing, that are happening that need to be resolved. And so what you want to do is yes, you're going to just like you've seen probably on TV or have heard about, you have these plastic containments that go up. And what what that's meant to do is a secondary barrier, actually, a lot of people think that that's the plastic that's keeping the mold out, actually, the plastic is just billing is a smaller area inside of a larger one. So that you can control the air pressure inside a smaller space. And basically what that means is you want to create, however, however much room you need to work, you want that little area to be under negative pressure. So how you do that is you put plastic up so that that exact space you're working in, can be under negative pressure and you using like an air scrubber, which is has it have a filter in it, and it's constant, constantly sucking the air into the machine, trapping these mold spores and particles into the filter itself. And it's exhausting the air outside. And so typically, you'd want to have some sort of Windows setup, you know where this is exhausting out towards. And it's going to create this little small thing, but it's not the plastic that's keeping the mold out just so everyone's aware, it's actually the machine itself, what you're then going to do is of course, do some demolition, you're going to be removing drywall insulation, if needed, getting to the actual cavity where the mold is growing. Typically, it's growing inside the cavity, it's poking through the drywall, if you see it, but it also can be hidden behind the wall where you have no idea unless you were to actually test in that vicinity to find it. Once you're done with that, of course, you're inadvertently going to create a little bit of a mess, there's still going to be some dust settling on the floor, you're going to want to have a vacuum the area, wipe it down thoroughly with like an antimicrobial we use all botanical products in our business because there's no need to use chemicals, it just creates more of a problem. You know, we don't need to solve one toxicity for another. Exactly. So we then you know, we then wipe everything down, we'll use like hydrogen peroxide to help you know pull any plenty of the hyphae or impurities, toxins, allergens, etc, to the surface where we can vacuum again and then wipe it down again. And that's kind of the thoroughness in which we do them, we're looking at what caused it, and then we want to help that as well. So if it's a leaking window, we may team up with the you know, a GC to repair the window. If there's structural issues that we need to encapsulate we'll take care of that, you know, if we're working on like a basement or crawlspace, we're probably going to be doing dehumidification, water blocking technology to kind of control the moisture of the environment control the humidity control, the ability for mold to grow. And that's kind of how like these these things take take place. And of course, you know, we've you work on a small project, that's a problem, one leak in one room is going to look a lot different than you know, we've had entire structures that had to almost be demolished from the interior, and completely remediating the bones of the structure and having a new home basically renovated. So, you know, it just depends on how bad the problems are, and what's the easiest and most cost effective way to solve it.

Melissa Deally: 00:23:54

Well, I love that a, you're looking at the most cost effective way, but also that, you know, you're taking it from beginning to end. So again, you know, finding them all the eradicating them all but looking for what triggered it so that we can then repair that problem, because I was gonna ask you What tips do you have to ensure that the mold doesn't come back? But it sounds like in you know, fixing the problem entirely? That short of a flat in the house? I mean, obviously you can't prevent it ever coming fast. Yeah, of course, the same, the mold won't come back for the same reason, once you're finished is what I'm saying.

Michael Rubino: 00:24:30

Yes, and that's because you're looking at what allowed the opportunity for mold to grow in the first place. And that's, that's part of the three fundamentals of our, my process that's outlined in the book that's, you know, written into the fabric of our company, you have to make sure you're solving that opportunity for mold to grow. You're then removing the mold colony and then the byproduct So, you know in this in this case, we never talked about that but after you're done with that area, you know that whole area is resolved. We take down the plastic, and let's say that's the only source area, in this case, and this occasion, you're at that point, you're going to do a deep cleaning of the home, you're talking heppa, vacuuming all the surfaces, wiping down all the surfaces, you're anywhere we're dusting, collect. So that means, unfortunately, on the walls, it does mean on the baseboards, you know, behind the fridge, etc, you want to be really thorough, making sure we're removing as many contaminants as you possibly can. And that's what's going to give you that success when you're really reducing the toxic load of the house, just kind of like how you would reduce the toxic load of the bottle.

Melissa Deally: 00:25:37

That's awesome. And yeah, really, really helpful for people to understand that and then know the difference between what you're doing and know what to look for in terms of a remediator that will really solve the problem, versus somebody that, you know, might get rid of the surface mole, but not fix the problem. So it's just going to come right back. You also said something that was interesting, you were talking about testing to find out where the mold is. So because sometimes it's not visible, right. So then people are like, Well, where do I start? Which drywall? Do I start knocking through to find it, that you actually have testing equipment that will determine where it is first so that you're only then targeting that area initially, and you're not just having to go into the house and gas and start doing samples? And every wall?

Michael Rubino: 00:26:22

Yes, exactly. So you have to be cost effective, right, you would, you would not want to do that. There are there, there are special tools you can use to look for, you know, differences and hot and cold temperatures, to help identify where there could be water present, intruding into the space, but also a really good mold Inspector, what they're going to want to do is they're gonna want to take a walk outside of the home and inside of the home and really analyze every nook and cranny. Kind of like when you bought a home for the first time, if you have, you may have noticed there's a home inspector, and they're there for hours. Having your back looking for all the potential problems, it should look exactly like that they have your back, they're looking for all the potential problems. And then they're saying, Okay, I'm recommending testing this, this and this. And here's why. Because I see signs of water intrusion over here, here and here. And by testing that you can identify how bad of a problem it is. I mean, if you had if it just started to leak yesterday, and it's been 24 hours, maybe it's not as bad of a problem as this over here, which has been leaking for 10 years, right? And so you can kind of analyze, all right? Well, if we're trying to be, you know, budget conscious and make improvements to the house, we may not be able to do this, you know, do everything all at once. Let's look at the worst areas and start tackling that, right, because that's going to give you that nominal improvement, you're going to be improving the environment. At the same time, they're going to be seeing you getting a holistic plan of how do I detoxify the body, and it's going to kind of work in tandem with each other. And that's really what we're trying to do.

Melissa Deally: 00:27:59

That's awesome. And so it's interesting, just listening to that, because I was in a networking group several years ago, and we had a home inspector in the group. And he would come in and you know, do his 32nd intro every time and one day, he came in and said, this is the value of a home inspector, that I had somebody come and ask me to go and inspect the home, and they were ready to buy, they were so excited to move their family into this home. And I found mold everywhere. And they took the offer off the table and didn't move into that home. And imagine if they had if they hadn't had that home inspector like the health issues that would have arisen as a result of moving into that home. So yes, I love your analogy from the home inspector to your own team that has your back. And that is finding where that mold is and then figuring out what's the biggest issue that we have to start with first deal with the big rocks than the little rocks and then the mini rocks. Right?

Michael Rubino: 00:28:54

Exactly.

Melissa Deally: 00:28:55

So I have a question for you. Because I often find myself just in my window. So my windows open right now in summer, but in winter, I'm in a wet snowy environment. And when I open the window in the spring, there's always a little bit of mold just inside that metal frame. So I take a little toothbrush and my some of my botanical cleaner, and I cleaned it all out. Is that enough to not see it anymore? Or because I'm sure that's common in many, many homes to have it like at the window sources, right?

Michael Rubino: 00:29:22

Yeah, I mean, what's probably occurring I mean, the good thing is it's metal. So metal is non porous. So metal you can wipe away well what's probably happening is you're having a temperature differential right in the wintertime you got it's really cold outside, it's really warm inside you got a temperature differential creating condensation, bring you back to like that middle school science class, you know, and it starts to develop that opportunity for mold to grow. mold is part of our ecosystem, right? And so how you control mold from impacting your health is you control its ability to grow inside your space. And so with that regard, you know, it's difficult, right? You could probably replace all your windows, get get something that's More insulated. There's newer technologies now. But for what you're doing, you know it, you're just gonna have to basically do that you're gonna have to clean it every once in a while, because you're gonna have that condensation develop, it's gonna allow that opportunity for mold to grow. The good news is typically in that in that exact scenario, it's, it's gonna be minor in comparison to like, if you had an active week in your window, and it was, you know, growing inside of your wall cavity.

Melissa Deally: 00:30:27

Right, right. And for me, because I've experienced mold before and experienced the headaches, I kind of tend to listen to my body symptoms. And if I started getting, you know, migraines, daily working in my home office, all of a sudden, I would be looking for that, like, what's triggering it right. But that's great information. Thanks so much for sharing. So tell me more about the book where people can get hold of it. And anything else that you would like to share about the book and why you wrote it?

Michael Rubino: 00:30:55

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you can get the book by going to the mold, medic calm, it's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble is good reads. And some others. I wrote the book because I realized that, you know, I was doing things differently than, than mostly everybody else. There's 50,000 remediation and restoration companies across the country. And, oddly enough, from one of the first ones to write a book. And I just thought that, you know, for me, I wanted to get it out there, right. I don't plan on franchising the company that I started, I plan on just kind of growing it to be a value to help those who need it. But I also realized that, look, I'm not going to be everywhere, I want other people to be able to get help in the areas I don't service, I need to get that information out there so that other remediators can do exactly what I've had success doing. And so I outline all of that in the book is helpful. If you're a more professional, it's also helpful if you're a client who's not feeling well, you know, and you're looking for tools and information on how do I find the right person? What are the right principles I need to look for? How do I do this? You know, how do I tackle this as a project, because that's what it is, it's a step by step project that has to be done in a particular order. Otherwise, you know, you have these situations where you might miss something. And so that's why I wrote the book, you know, I just, I wanted to help people more than I already could. And, you know, I just wanted to get that information out there.

Melissa Deally: 00:32:25

I love that. And I think it is so important, because in that moment when things go wrong with our health, or our home, etc, our stress levels go up significantly, right, and we can get into overwhelm. And it can be really hard to then have to do all the research on our own. And even as we're researching, there's so much information out there. How do you know, you know, which is the right one, right? So having this book as a guide, is going to be super helpful to people. And as you said, other remediators, but also clients. As I told you, before we came on air, I have a colleague who's struggling with mold, and we happen to be in a networking group together. And she mentioned Does anybody know anything about getting help with mold, and I'm like, Oh, I do. And she's bought your book. And I'm sure that will help her remediate, get her apartment, remediated whether she's physically close to you or not. And I'm in Canada, you're in the US. I've got listeners all over the world. But the fact that they can use the book to help them determine whether the remediators they're reaching out to are actually going to do a full job and get rid of the mold and ensure that it that same mold isn't coming back will be super helpful to people. So

Michael Rubino: 00:33:41

yeah, I agree. Yeah. And that's why I wrote it. And you know, it's a covers everything from how do you remediate? Where do I find people? How do I remediate properly? What do I do with my contents, my HBC, all of that I covered everything, so that you can really make sense of out of like, get rid of this problem once and for all.

Melissa Deally: 00:34:01

And also, I love that you said other mediators can benefit from it too, in terms of upping their game, right? If they've done that three day training, and kind of realize that's not enough, and what are what what else do I need to be doing, then this can enhance their learning and therefore their service to their customers?

Michael Rubino: 00:34:15

I actually got a message from a franchise owner of a company who said, You know, I read your book, I've been listening to your podcast, I want to thank you for, you know, bringing this knowledge to the industry. After being on wall street for 20 years, I was looking for, you know, a business, you know, I was looking to run my own small business that can help people and, you know, your your book has really helped give me that enthusiasm that I need to do better, you know, and I just thought that was awesome, you know, and I appreciated him and thanked him and, and, you know, that's that's what I that's what I look at what I want to accomplish with this.

Melissa Deally: 00:34:53

That's that goose bump moment. I just got goosebumps through my entire body as you're saying that right? Because that's when you know that you were on the right path. To be doing what the delivering the message that you need to deliver to the world, that is so important because I do know how many people are struggling with this. And it's a struggle to determine if it's mold in the first place. And once they get to that point, now, what do I do? So having all of these tools in one place in your book is phenomenal. You also mentioned you have a podcast too, what's the name of your podcast?

Michael Rubino: 00:35:22

So I started doing this podcast called the mold talks. And I, of course, I come on podcast, a lot like yours right now. But this mold talks podcast is pretty unique, because what I'm actually doing is I'm interviewing people who have experienced mold in parts of their life. And we go over how sick they got, how they finally killed themselves, what they went through. And it's a way for people who see this thing and may not be really cognizant of what's going on. Really like that this is happening to real people. I can't tell you how many clients that I've had, where the husband sick, or the wife is sick, and the other person doesn't fully understand. It's they can't put themselves in their shoes. And I wanted to create a forum where when you're having that disparity with, you know, a lack of understanding within your family, I wanted them to be able to go and say, Look, look at all of these people, we can't all be crazy, you know, because unfortunately, the way our society has been programmed mobe has always been this thing where it's not a big deal, they can't possibly make you sick, it's been around forever. By the way, mold is everywhere. These are all the things that you'll hear. And it couldn't be further from the truth. Right, I can debunk every single one of those things right now. And that's what I want to do with this podcast and show people that this Israel, you have people suffering, and it can no longer exists in this way where we just ignore it look the other way.

Melissa Deally: 00:36:52

I love that. And so I'm sure there are listeners that will go and check that out as well. And I know some people I'm going to send your way to for the benefit of the podcast as well. So just as we're wrapping up here, I love to ask all my guests, what is what, don't wait for your wake up call mean to you?

Michael Rubino: 00:37:12

Hmm, I think it means to me. When you get that intuition, and you feel like you know, you're on a particular path, and you're excited about it, don't wait. You know, don't wait for that, you know, it's time to appear, just stick with your gut. You know, for me, I had this path. And it was like, I can be a GC, I could be a designer, all those are cool things. And I had a lot of fun doing those things on the side. But when I realized that, for some reason, mold was what was kind of speaking to me. And at the time, I had no idea why. Because I had no idea. I had no idea then what I know now. But I didn't, I didn't really hesitate. I just said for some reason, I think mold is where I need to be, I'm going to stick with this, I'm going to learn this business. And I'm going to just kind of just go right for it. I think don't wait for that wake up call is a perfect example of how I just dove into it. I didn't wait for anything, and I just got it done.

Melissa Deally: 00:38:12

And you're on your path and helping many, many people, which is awesome. So how can people reach out to you?

Michael Rubino: 00:38:20

All right, so there is Instagram at the mall medic, and I'm very active on Instagram slash Facebook. They're all connected now. So it makes it easy. But I do a lot of posts on there about mold. You know, six symptoms, six symptoms of mold, that I commonly hear about the six different mold species that I commonly find in people's homes. How do I avoid mold in my bath, in my shower curtain, little stuff like that, that's pretty informative and helpful. I post every day, something unique on there. That's been helping a lot of people. So definitely check that out. And then it's also at the mold medic on Facebook. You can also go to the mold medic calm to learn more about the book, and all American restoration calm. Last but not least, I give a ton of free resources, such as how do I find a good mold inspector a good mold remediator the history of mold education, tips on educating yourself regarding mold, educating yourself on remediation, and of course prevention. Because you can't have those two without making sure you can prevent it from happening as well. And so a lot of free resources on there. And then of course, if you need help service for the service, you know that that's a good place to start.

Melissa Deally: 00:39:41

I love that lots of great resources and I'm going to follow you on Instagram Facebook for sure. And, and so my last question for you is do you have any final tip for tips for the audience to start their health journey today?

Michael Rubino: 00:39:58

Yes, so Very simply, I think that, you know, we talked a lot about this holistic approach. I think that if they're listening this podcast, they're on the right path, they've already made that decision that they want to do something about it. Because the first really step to anything is awareness. So you're now aware that you know what, there's something not right, and I want to optimize my health, you're on that path. So they're going to find you, they're going to start seeing you, they're going to do an array of tests to figure out, why don't they feel 110%. And as they start to go that through that, my tip is, don't forget about air quality, I love the fact that you have this questionnaire that helps people determine if they may be exposed to mold. And, you know, maybe they can't see you, maybe you have a listener somewhere else. Maybe their doctor doesn't have that, that same thing. And so I encourage you to think about mold on your own. It's not just mold, it's, you know, bacteria, the toxins, you know, allergens, indoor pathogens in general, just think about that we take 20,000 breaths per day more, we're consuming more air than food or water. It's time to start thinking about that. And if anyone tells you that, there's no way that air quality can impact your health. just mention one thing, what about outdoor air pollution, because that's how you will really get them to start backpedaling.