End-of-Year Word Play: Mold

Here’s a thinker…for all of us – what isn’t a mold, but fits in a mold and can mold to any contour? The answer – mold.

In the trades and related industries, we often say things to clients and others that come from yet other inspectors, builders, presenters, education materials, and professionals. As all knowledge does, our industry knowledge has compounded upon itself as it has grown alongside the continued industry evolution (e.g., once upon a time home inspectors only offered home inspections…). But, how often do we stop and think about the words which we are spewing forth like a slurry of melting ice burgs?

Thus, we find ourselves wondering – why do we refer to a variant of fungal growth as “mold” when we also refer to “mold” as an object to form/shape objects? Are you ready for a crazy answer…brace yourselves.

These are molds that most children would view as beneficial and yummy!

I was curious about this idea (particularly since many of us don’t use “mold” in our verbiage). So, I used AI searching and found the online etymology dictionary (who knew…?). Well, c. 1200 mould referred to a hollow pattern used to shape things but in a figurative sense, stemming from Latin, of course (why didn’t I take that class in high school…).

By c. 1300, the word had morphed a bit to refer to physical form/shaping. By c. 1400, molde referred to stuff growing on other stuff and came from either Proto-Germanic (wetness, slipperiness) or Old English (loose earth). If we fast-forward to 1897, the Brits made a point to say all variants should be spelled “mold.” So much for uniqueness. Colonists…eh.

To obfuscate the matter just a bit – mould in the mid-14 century meant to mix or blend by kneading (think dough); by late 14c. it had baked (get it…) into kneading bread and forming into a specific shape. The figurative sense of the word – as in, mold your child in your image (referring to character) – appears to have come back with the assertiveness of the plague c. 1600.

This is how all babies are made, no?

So, is there a link or some form of a connection between usage of mold as a tool and mold as a term referencing a subset of organic microbial growth? Sadly, it doesn’t look like it. Just a coincidence. Mold usually is intended to refer to one type of fungus that grows on organic matter. Fungal growth/microbial growth is the more generic term encompassing all fungi, inclusive of mold.

If we want to split hairs, we could ask – why do we say “mold” when there are various types of molds? Some molds are okay molds, like Glenda the Good Witch. And some molds are bad, like the Wicked Witch of the East. I mean, when we’re in crawlspaces, it’s pretty impossible to know the difference for those of us not properly trained as mycologists. If the bad molds would wear striped socks like their ne’er-do-well counter-part who got flattened by a house (see why I used this reference now…), it would be so much easier.

Err…maybe I’ll take a rein check on the treats, Grandma.

I’ve been perplexed and stupefied many times over the 12 years I’ve been inspecting related to mold – like Lord Voldermort or Macbeth, we aren’t supposed to say it, write it, snuggle it, support it, or play with it. Yet, we now have a plethora of third-party providers constantly shoving mold testing, mold sampling, mold reporting, and mold vacations (okay, I may have made that last one up) down our small business throats. Sooooooooooooo, the legal eagles advise not to say “mold,” but we can offer “mold” testing services. I think I’m starting to understand absurdism, after all.

Perhaps the issue isn’t the etymology of the term, or the classification of type, but in our understanding of the term. It’s a communication issue so our messaging isn’t way off when we speak with clients and agents and builders. Perhaps, like most of our industry information that has continued to evolve, our usage of the term as taboo can, too – much like the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes (also, that’s a medical condition if I know anything about hearts…), our usage of mold can grow if our understanding of how and when to use it grows, too. So, we could mold our businesses in the mold of a well-educated professional who can distinguish moments for mold to safely be front and center. I do hope you’ve enjoyed this educationally molding experience.

Can’t we all just get along…

Rest Isn’t Best When It Comes To Water — In Your Pipes and Filters

Water flowing from your faucet in the morning may have more in it than you want to put in your body

You wake up at 4 a.m. after going to bed at 9:30 p.m. After six and one-half hours of mouth breathing, you are thirsty. You trundle your body into the kitchen, lurch over to the cupboard filled with cups that you don’t want to read, and blindly turn on your kitchen faucet. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, that’s better. Now, if you can keep your brain from turning on, you might get another one and one-half hour of sleep before you have to get up.

Does this sound about right? Yeah, we all have been there. Here’s the twist. That water you drank…4 oz., or 12 oz., that water was sleeping for the same time as you. Except, while it slept, it was stagnant and collecting all sorts of molecules from the piping hugging it – metals, chemicals, etc. When you turned on your faucet and filled your cup, you filled it with stagnant, stale, tainted water. Now, times that by the volume of water you consume similarly throughout your life. Yep, it doesn’t look good. And we haven’t even started mentioning germs.

Sure, we wash our hands to get rid of what we don’t see — but, what about what we can’t see in our water?

This scenario doesn’t matter if you are on a private well or public utility. It doesn’t immediately get better if you have filtration. Actually, if you have filtration it might get worse depending on what and how you are filtering. The water sitting in those canisters/filters is brewing in the funk collected in the sediment filter, stewing in the activated charcoal carbon filter or the reverse osmosis tank. You turn on the water, fill your cup, and wash that mouth breathing away…with water that should be flushed first.

Factor in the chemicals from the treatment plant, the quality/age and condition of the municipal piping ferrying your water, and the piping in your own home. Survivalists teach that water in motion is your safest bet for not contracting death; water that is calm and still most certainly will accelerate your date with the afterlife in the wild. The same is true for the water in our homes and office complexes. There is a large body of research promulgated by COVID-19 regarding water in piping within buildings left vacant for extended periods. The same recommendations are presented for such scenarios as can be found for the homes in which we reside.

It matters not, if you rent or own, if your home is new or old, if you are on public municipal water or private well/stream. You could have lead or benzene on municipal water source, or arsenic, fertilizers, and fecal materials on private water source. Anytime your water has been sitting, you really should let the water run for 20-30 secs., if not a bit longer. If, like me, you are a granola-crunching hippie, then you might consider “catching” that water for any indoor plants or porch plants (not edibles) so you are wasting less water.

Case in point, the EPA has goals and limits for contaminants in our water sources. The goals – maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) – often are of a lesser amount than the actual enforced limit – maximum contaminant level (MCL). True story – bromate has an MCLG of 0, but an enforced limit of 0.010 mg/L. Bromate comes from disinfecting our drinking water and is a known contributor to cancer. For a full list, visit the EPA’s site on these limits here.

Our governments set guidelines for water quality safety, but said guidelines only do so much

Here's another way to think about it – we are taught NOT to drink water from the hot water line because the temperatures in our water heaters might afford for organic growth that doesn’t play well with our microbiomes (and, actually, hot water is a tricky topic as there are other reasons to avoid drinking or cooking with it). Well, the risk is similar for that water sleeping in your lines for several hours. It needs to be flushed out a bit to reduce (not eliminate) the chance for sickness, inclusive of slow poisoning. Heavy metals, leached chemicals (anyone out there familiar with breakpoint chlorination in PEX lines…), sometimes cross-contaminations – filtration can manage most of these, but you have to know what sort of filtration, have to be able to pay for said filtration, and then still should flush the water in said filters prior to consuming if its been sitting there overnight. As soon as water deoxygenates, other funky stuff starts happening. And deoxygenation has happened overnight.

We are a simple species when it comes to thriving or falling dead. Keep the bad stuff out, limit to the greatest extent possible small amounts of the bad stuff you can’t keep out and get your rest every day.

Post-script — the CDC has a well-populated host of information related to this topic. I don’t agree with the advice regarding flushing (they don’t think you need to unless you are away for a bit), but there is, nonetheless, good information herein.