Dr. Deb Muth
So what if your symptoms aren’t actually your true diagnosis, but rather your body’s response to toxic mold exposure in your living environment.
What if there’s now a way to eliminate mold throughout your entire home, even in places you can’t see without tearing down walls or displacing your family for weeks. Today I have an amazing guest with me, and we’re going to talk all fun things about mold and environment.
So welcome back to let’s talk wellness. Now the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting edge regenerative medicine, and empower you with the tools to heal. I’m Dr. Dab. And today we’re diving into one of the most overlooked threats to your family’s health
hidden mold in your home. And how revolutionary technology is changing mold remediation forever. I’m super excited to have my guest join me today, Courtney. She’s from pure maintenance, a company that’s completely revolutionizing mold removal with their patented dry fog technology. And if you’re someone
that suffers from mold or someone you love is struggling with unexplained neurological symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, chronic headaches, respiratory issues, or autoimmune conditions. You don’t want to leave this episode. This could be life changing for you so as always grab a cup of coffee, tea, or whatever helps you unwind, settle in and let’s get started on uncovering the hidden environmental factors that could be sabotaging your health.
Courtney. Welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here today.

Courtney Jarman
02:30
Thank you for having me.

Dr. Deb Muth
02:32
So tell us a little bit about who you are, and how you got involved in this.

Courtney Jarman
02:37
Yeah, sure. So my husband and I built a house because we were always scared of
mold problems. And you know, inheriting a house that has, like all different types of, you know, vocs. And so we built a house, and a few years later we noticed some symptoms like Lyme disease symptoms. I had some Lyme disease symptoms. I actually couldn’t walk after the birth of my second child, and my husband had a horrible sinus infection that lasted like 3 weeks, and it wasn’t going away. So at the time I happened to be talking to a friend of mine who he’s a mycologist.
and he was basically telling us that we have a fungal problem in our house, like, based on our symptoms. And I was like, it’s like a new house like you’re just wrong about this. He’s like, just call pure maintenance. He could, because he had a fungal problem in his house in Colorado, and him and his girlfriend were getting really sick, and so they called pure maintenance, and they did like a free inspection. They found out there was like some toilet ring that was leaking which you can’t see. You know those are things that you can’t see in your house.
They found it, and you know they removed it, and they treated the house. He felt much better, so he told me to call pure maintenance, and we got an inspection, and I had a really high spore level in our home. And I was like freaking out, of course, because I have 2 young kids, you know, and so we had them treat the house, and our symptoms went away. Our symptoms went away before
he treated the house, because we opened the windows. We went outside. We took antifungals. So we kind of like figured out what it was. So my lyme disease symptoms started to like go away little by little, and then, when we treated the house. We haven’t had any symptoms after that.
Oh, can you hear me or no?

Dr. Deb Muth
04:21
We can hear you. Yep.

Courtney Jarman
04:22
Okay.

Dr. Deb Muth
04:24
Can you hear me? Okay? Still.

Courtney Jarman
04:25
I can hear you. Yeah. Same. Okay, let me know if I’m too loud, because I can adjust it here. But

Dr. Deb Muth
04:30
Oh, you’re good!

Courtney Jarman
04:31
Okay, cool. So yeah, we we got a house treated, and I had to ask the guy to come up from Illinois. So I like, you know, booked a bunch of my friends houses to like. Let’s just check your house from old.
and he ended up treating a few houses, and you know, I started to investigate because I was a general contractor on our house build. I learned how to build houses. I was like, really into building science, and I found out in our house we had logs that we brought in from outside that I just like left out like that’s fine. Let’s bring them in. They’re dry. There’s no mold right? It’s dry. The house is dry. There’s no mold that’s like the misconception, right? Or like, yeah, there’s like a little mold patch. Here we spilled something on a window, but, like.
you know, it’s not a big deal, and
ended up that we had like a window sill that. A few window sills with moisture on it, plus these logs, and we closed our windows. We kind of live in a cabin, so we have no Hvac. That’s like circulating air. So the combination of the the high spore level, and like probably high humidity, and like low air, flow in our house caused a mold problem. So I started educating myself on this. And
you know I realized that there was nobody else. Nobody in Wisconsin doing this, and you know, every time this guy came up from Illinois is charging like a travel fee which is good for him. You know he has to, you know, travel a few hours. But I thought people needed this in Wisconsin. So it was my background. And you know, medical physics and building. And I just love to be like an active person and helping people. I’m really into like general health and wellness, I thought, well, this is like a perfect thing for me to do.

Dr. Deb Muth
06:02
Old? Was your house at that point.

Courtney Jarman
06:05
What’s that?

Dr. Deb Muth
06:06
How old was your house at that point.

Courtney Jarman
06:08
Like 2 and a half years old.

Dr. Deb Muth
06:10
Oh, my gosh! So you know that that is the mystery. Right? We treat a lot of patients, too, and they’ll say I have a brand new house. It’s 3 or 4 years old, and they don’t realize that those wood beams, the logs, all the building materials sit out all summer, or sometimes all winter, and they get wet, and when the contractors come in they put it up.
and if it’s damp or moist they still put Drywall over the top of it. And this is a lot of times how we end up with mold behind the walls that we don’t recognize. It’s not always a damage that comes in most of the time it is, but sometimes it’s not, and this is how our brand new houses can still be sick buildings.

Courtney Jarman
06:49
Yeah. And that’s a big, that’s a good point about closing in the walls when they’re wet, which actually, I was very picky about our walls being super dry, and it’s sometimes the interior building materials like you don’t know what happened in the factory, you know, when you get into this. You just hear stories. I’m sure you hear stories and stories, you know, like, how could my house have mold in it? And I was recently in a house that was 7 years old. They’ve never had any water damage
that they know of, like none. It’s just like, you know, it’s perfectly dry. And they did an Ermi test because they actually got a blood test for Mycotoxins. It was a urine or blood test.

Dr. Deb Muth
07:24
Hmm.

Courtney Jarman
07:25
This lady’s an Md. So she recognized it, and her daughter got the test, and it came back really high for Mycotoxin. So they did an Ermi test which is like the whole house test. It was.

Dr. Deb Muth
07:34' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='454' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>07:34
J.

Courtney Jarman
07:34' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='454' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>07:34
Super hot this off the charts just off the charts, you know, so it’s like a
I didn’t have a motion, you know, to come in and sterilize it. Essentially.
Yeah, there’s nothing wet you gotta take out. There’s nothing really. You have to fix.
So. And so we should talk about how mold works in a building right? Because people when they think about mold, they’re like, Oh, there’s some visible mold, or like the house is dry. And this was like, I was confused on this for a long time.
So basically, once you have mold you have spores, it’s spores are like the seed of the mold. Essentially it sends out the spores various times, not always. But then those spores mix into your house’s dust, your house’s air. They get into your house’s building materials, and they’re very, very small submicron, I think, like, between like 300,000 and 1 million can fit on the head of a PIN, you know. So they’re
they can be everywhere. And then, you know, you essentially, when you have a whole house problem eventually, because you have little pockets here, little pockets there, a little thing here. And so your spore level just goes up and up and up. And once you deal with these spores they’re not going to go down. So that’s kind of like the premise for the technology. Instead of, you know, ripping out little spot treatments here, cleaning this cleaning that we deal with the spore level and the whole mold level in the house.
So that’s you know that was what that was what was confusing to me. When I
into this and dormant mold, even though it’s dry, dormant mold, you know, it’s basically it can last for thousands of years those right? And so you breathe that in it finds moisture in your body. It finds moisture in your dishwasher. It finds moisture. You can’t even see it a lot of times.
So.

Dr. Deb Muth
09:05
It’s so hard, you know, so many of these building materials, too. For a while we had contaminated Osp back in the early 2 thousands that came in from overseas, and people would put Osp up in their house and not know that it was contaminated with mold spores. So when we worry about how we get some of this. We don’t always know what comes in. I love the analogy that you’re giving. You know, we can cut things out. We can put holes in walls, we can dig for things, we can find things.
but we’re still not eliminating the mold spores, and if those mold spores are still there, dead or alive, they can still make us sick.
So can you talk a little bit about your dry tech technology, dry fogger technology.
Oh, yeah.
And what makes that different than the traditional mold remediation process.

Courtney Jarman
09:52
Yes, definitely. And that’s what people usually want to know. So
I’ll start with the traditional remediation process. Usually you get an inspection right? And the inspections is like $1,000. Because you get a mold inspector that wants to find out is the mold. Here is the mold, there they test the dust here they test the dust. There I’ve heard of like inspections going up to $15,000, and what the question that they’re trying to answer is.
where is the mold? What do we have to rip out? And so then, after they find, you know, they write an assessment which you know there’s varying, there’s there’s good inspectors, and there’s bad inspectors, and once they write.
And you know, you’re basically going to go with what they say and what building materials for about. Then someone comes in with a bunch of like, basically Hepa fans and filters and contains a specific area where they think the mold is. And it’s about a thousand dollars a day for one guy so per day, and the reason is because they have the equipment. So they have the overhead. So that’s about twice the cost of a regular contractor, and they.
you know, rip out this or that, and then, if you have a good mold remediation company which most of these are disaster companies, they’re forgetting the water out. They’re not for resolving the mold.
Then they will come back, and they will hepa vacuum all of your surfaces and wipe it down with a cloth, then have a vacuum again sometimes, and tell you to throw out all of your possessions. And so that’s how they do like the whole house cleaning is like with a vacuum.
which is fine, but it doesn’t get everything. And this is just story after story. I’ve heard of people just not feeling right? And you know, the testing Limited the testing options for like finding what’s going on are very limited because you just have to keep sampling. You’re taking tiny snapshots here and there.

Dr. Deb Muth
11:36
And so you know what you get is just like kind of like a hodgepodge of like spot treatment. And then, like vacuuming. This is opposed to the vapor treatment. We say dry fog. I like to say vapor, because that’s basically what it is. It’s the technique was developed for sterilizing hospitals. So it’s basically a hospital grade, sterilant liquid, which is parasitic acid and hydrogen peroxide.

Courtney Jarman
11:58
And we turn that liquid into an extremely small particle like 7 microns, and because the size of the particle, it changes, state very quickly to a vapor, and that vapor, combined with the air pressure, basically pressurizes the whole house with a positive vapor pressure. And you know, we talk about like Bernoulli principle, fixed law. Basically, the whole house is like pressurized with a vapor, and we measure, like the parts per 1 million of the vapor. The humidity
to make sure that it’s up to the rate that we need to kill.
Essentially, 100% of the mold spores. And you know, when I say kill. It’s basically a process of oxidation, oxidative Lysis. And this is very important. Because I heard you mentioned the dead or alive thing, which is like one of the main questions right? And people see that. And inspectors like, well, it’s dead or alive. You have to remove it. Well, that information comes from 2 sources. The 1st one is
in the sixties and seventies. People tried to kill mold with bleach, and then they were still sick, and it didn’t work, so they said, oh, dead mold can hurt you. The second myth is basically from there’s a few lab studies out there, and what they do is they take a live mold spore, and they very carefully extract a very specific protein from a live mold spore, and they prick that into a person’s skin. And they say, oh, they’re allergic to it. So dead mold can hurt you. Right? Those are the only data out there.
So you know these proteins? Yeah, I mean, they are, they do spike the allergenic or immunological responses. However, that is in opposition to what this oxidative Lysis, what the definition is of these, this parasitic acid that we’re using. So if you look at like the EPA labels, microbiology textbooks, there’s lots of peer reviewed studies showing that parasitic acid.
the way that it functions. The way that it kills or denatures a spore or a cell is by rupturing the cell wall. This is called Lysis, and then unraveling the proteins, all these proteins that they’re, you know, carefully extracting and picking into people, unraveling, that, destroying the lipids and the enzymes and metabolites and interrupting the cells, metabolite.
metabolic processes, the organelles rupture. So it’s like a complete obliteration, basically of the cell. Nobody has tested, you know, like, what does an obliterated cell do? But these people are getting better. So it’s like we can assume that dead mold in the way that pure maintenance kills. Mold does not hurt you.

Dr. Deb Muth
14:30
Well, that’s amazing. And so when you’re using this fogging system, you know, traditional methods are trying to figure out where things are, they often miss what’s behind the walls or in the Hvac system, and a lot of our porous materials. So when you’re doing the dry vapor, can you get to these hidden areas where we may not actually be able to test.

Courtney Jarman
14:51
That’s a great question. So there are limitations of the vapor. It’s basically it’s sterilizing your interior space right? So anywhere you can imagine a vapor can get.
or we say, Peer maintenance headquarters says anywhere mold spore can get the vapor can get, and that’s true. At the time of treatment, so you can imagine there’s spaces like behind a wall
that a vapor cannot get. So there’s 2 ways that we deal with this or talk about this. The 1st one is, you know, if someone’s like super sensitive. And we like know, there’s actually, if we know there’s mold behind a wall, we just basically pump the fog back there. We just cut a hole in it and just fog it back there and then I talk. I like to talk about diluting your air, because the solution to pollution is dilution. And so you always want to bring in fresh air to your home. That’s kind of the whole.
The whole process is, you know, if you go into a house and just fog it without assessing, like what’s going on in the building, it’s just like, yeah, you can clear it. But the mold’s going to come back right. So you want to think about bringing fresh air to your home, and when you do that like is the wall is the. If your walls are dry inside your wall, cavity.
Is that going to affect your interior space? And how much is that going to affect your interior space? Well, if the building’s pressure is done correctly, then, if you have the right kind of pressure in your house, you’re not going to be sucking air in the walls. That’s not good, not just for mold spores that’s not good for fiberglass and breathing in air behind your walls.
So how much does it affect? How much does the exterior, like internal wall cavity, really affect the breathing space?
Not that much, and it’s in the same way air moves in a house from the basement to the attic basement affects your airspace so much like people are like. Oh, it’s in the basement, but like literally, that’s your Hvac. Your air conditioning and heating system is right next to that. And it’s just like lost on people. You know that that could be a problem. So I like to think about where air is moving in a building.
So you know the limitations. Yeah, it can’t get behind a wall unless you pump it in there, but we can easily pump that in there. And as far as sorry could you remind me with this, I think there was a second part of your question.

Dr. Deb Muth
16:58
It was. How do we get to the hidden areas.

Courtney Jarman
17:00
Yeah, well, yeah. So it’d be.

Dr. Deb Muth
17:02
You know the ace back.

Courtney Jarman
17:04
Yeah. And it’s really, it’s a good question, because you really have to be a good mold inspector to understand how to treat a house, and you have to know what the problem is and where it’s coming from. Like, I was just at a house yesterday and they had remediation right? And I’m like, okay. So let me just you know there’s not feeling well. I go in the basement. There’s a water all over the floor
next to the Hvac. And I go upstairs, and there’s I don’t know if you know about the houses with the attics that are like next to you, so like usually like. If they want to like, tear out part of an attic and then finish it, and then, like you’ll have an attic. Well, I open the door from a bedroom. It’s like there’s an airspace there, you know, exchanging air. It’s like a horror show in that attic, and I’m like, Oh, my God like. I cannot believe
that there this was not mentioned to these.

Dr. Deb Muth
17:46' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1066' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>17:46
People.

Courtney Jarman
17:46' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1066' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>17:46
You know. So it’s like
you really have to find those areas that the vapor is not going to reach. And that is the job of a good mold inspection and good mold inspector is to really
do a full assessment of your house where it’s coming from, like, you know, finding the moisture intrusions essentially, and finding how your air mixes in your house, and how what’s going to affect the residents or not?

Dr. Deb Muth
18:15
That is true. So I’m really fascinated by the process that you guys use. That doesn’t just kill mold, but it also kills bacteria and viruses as well.
I know with mold. We talk a lot in the human body about developing a bacteria for mold called actinomyces. How does killing mold bacterias and viruses create a healthier environment for people overall that could be sick from Mycotoxin illness or some other kind of issues. Our houses are not quote unquote, sterile environments. Typically.
But do you find that by getting rid of all these other bacterias and viruses, as well as mold, makes a big difference per person versus us, just addressing the mold issue.

Courtney Jarman
19:00
I mean.
that’s more of a question for you. I guess if you’ve seen people go through, I mean, maybe you haven’t seen the pure maintenance technology. But and I’m just starting out in this business. But I’ve heard so many stories of people just getting the treatment and not getting the pure maintenance treatment and not treating their bodies and feeling better like right away.
You know, I me personally in my business. I’ve had people that their sinus issues went away. They’re out there. They get off their second inhaler. They didn’t do anything else besides the pure maintenance treatment, so as far as like how it affects people’s health, like.
as far as what I know about mold and health. It is more of a mold can like set off like genetic factors, or like mold and bacteria. As you mentioned, they can set off different diseases, and people are like, well, my anxiety and depression isn’t from, you know it’s not from mold, but like could partially be, it could set off these other diseases. So yes, I mean, like you can get out of your body.
You know the Dr. Schumacher of surviving mold.com is like the source love people. You got to get it out of your body. You got to get it out of your house, you can’t be living with it. I mean, you can take the mold binders and treat yourself. But if you’re returning to the environment. It’s, you know, depending on your sensitivity. You know, certain people have the gene. They’re more sensitive.

Dr. Deb Muth
20:16' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1216' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>20:16
People can.

Courtney Jarman
20:16' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1216' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>20:16
Be around, you know, high levels of mold and not feel anything so.

Dr. Deb Muth
20:21
Do you find? Commercial buildings? Are they interested in keeping a cleaner environment? Have you had many commercial
buildings interested in using your process.

Courtney Jarman
20:34
I’ve had laboratories ask for testing, but as far as commercial buildings.
you know, it depends. My understanding was my limited understanding of this. They generally hire somebody called an industrial hygienist, and that person assesses the the hygiene of a building, and I know that there are definitely certain businesses in Wisconsin that
are very interested in, you know, keeping their building clean. It’s obviously would be an amazing source for offices, because people have varying sensitivities and old. They’re there in the building. But you know, that’s I have limited knowledge of that. To be honest of, you know, if they’re interested.

Dr. Deb Muth
21:14
I mean, it would be great to see our school systems, our bill school buildings using a technology like this because so many of our schools are old. We treat a lot of teachers who’ve been sick from Mycotoxin illness because of the place that they work because of the school. You know most of these buildings are
50 plus years old. They have water damage. They don’t have a lot of funds correct for keeping things healthy, so it’d be nice to see this. And then, you know, if we just talk about the number of people that come from another building that have mold
on their person. They walk into another building, and they can transport spores all over the place. It would really be awesome, I know, from a business perspective, and it’s not where you want to spend your money, for sure, but when you have a lot of people coming in and out bringing bacterias and viruses.
it would have been nice to see somebody during covid time be interested in using your technology to kill the viruses in their workplace for their people. But I’m sure that didn’t happen very much.

Courtney Jarman
22:17
Now, there is a peer reviewed study on our website that someone did with showing that it does kill Covid. So
maybe it was just like a little too late or something. But my! So in my experience many times, the schools dormitories they don’t want, and it’s like the board right, the school board, or whatever they don’t want testing done, because it’s just like, Oh, mold! But they’re not aware of the solution right? And so the way that I want to structure my business is
a lot of pro bono work for schools, for preschools, you know, and daycares, because those are the. It’s like these kids are so young. How could you expose them to this? And
you know, this is how actually, I didn’t say this in my story, but I, the the very 1st thing that I did had tested was my son’s school, which is like so moldy and
they didn’t do anything about it schools. And actually, they moved locations to a spot that I consider maybe worse. So we left that school. But yeah, people are pretty averse to really testing it.

Dr. Deb Muth
23:24
Yeah, well, and they’re really afraid. And I understand. Like, if you find mold, then their mindset is you can never get rid of it. You have to disclose it. Nobody’s going to want to buy your building, if it’s moldy. But then you’re just passing on another sick building to another innocent person instead of fixing the problem. And and there are ways that we can kill, mold, and make the house safe again, so people can live in it, and I think there’s not enough conversation about that.

Courtney Jarman
23:53
Yeah, I agree with that. I know.

Dr. Deb Muth
23:56
So tell me, what’s the typical timeframe from an initial inspection to completely getting a mold free home that our listeners are probably thinking sounds pretty like too good to be true. Type thing.

Courtney Jarman
24:10
Yeah, exactly. So. Yeah, the main the biggest. This is not really what you asked, but I’ll get to it. The biggest expense in mold remediation. The biggest kind of time suck is is finding out where the water is coming from. You know where the leak is coming from. So
I have a referral from you, actually, that, you know, she has a bunch of windows in her house that are leaking, and she’s like 40 something windows, and it’s like when they.

Dr. Deb Muth
24:34
Hmm.

Courtney Jarman
24:35
Mold nowadays is basically a. It’s a
we’re victims of bad construction. And so you know, the.

Dr. Deb Muth
24:41' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1481' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>24:41
Yeah.

Courtney Jarman
24:41' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1481' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>24:41
Be wrong of all for windows. And it’s like, Yeah, I can come in there next week, but it’s gotta be dry, you know.

Dr. Deb Muth
24:46' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1486' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>24:46
So.

Courtney Jarman
24:46' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1486' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>24:46
So the timeline is like it could be very quick if you don’t have any moisture in your house. I mean, it could be like.

Dr. Deb Muth
24:52' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1492' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>24:52
If you.

Courtney Jarman
24:52' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1492' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>24:52
Days, or, you know, a week or so. But as far as you know, the inspection, I typically
I usually take cultured samples when I come in and inspect a house. I think they’re more.

Dr. Deb Muth
25:03' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1503' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>25:03
I’m curious.

Courtney Jarman
25:03' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1503' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>25:03
And I take dust samples. They’re just more accurate than air samples, and so
I’ll I’ll usually that takes about a week to come back. I might take a do a non culture sample. Just so we can see any red flags. So it’s like, the next day, you know. 2 days later. We can just have like a
a timeframe. But if a person already knows they have mold, you can see it. That’s that’s like internationally recognized that if you have visible mold
then you have mold in your home, you know, so that sometimes people just want it, and I just always take the samples before and after. But I I can come in, you know. We can come in a few days, or a week, or something like that.

Dr. Deb Muth
25:38
Yeah.
And I think we should talk to like the mold that you’re seeing doesn’t necessarily have to be black to make you sick. It can be white, it can be green, it can be pink, it can be black. It can be any shade of color, just because it’s not black doesn’t mean it’s not toxic to you.

Courtney Jarman
25:54
Yeah, that’s right. It depends on the species. And actually the substrate that the species is on. So you know, people think about black mold, black mold. But, like, what does that even mean? They usually mean stachybotrys. But there’s like aspergillus niger. So there’s like all different colors
depending on the species in the substrate. And then, you know, people say, well, is it the type that makes you sick or not? Well, are you allergic to that type? Is your body react to that type. And then, like past a certain level of mold or mold spores, anybody is going to react. So like if it’s like hundreds of thousands, you know, and like a little tiny bit.
Anyway, it’s gonna react, no matter what kind of mold it is.

Dr. Deb Muth
26:31
So is the dry fog treatment safe for kids and pets and people with chemical sensitivities.

Courtney Jarman
26:39
Yeah, it’s so the product that we use is basically used in the organic farming industry to they spray it on the vegetables afterwards to like clean them. And it’s essentially like a very strong vinegar and hydrogen peroxide, and after the treatment it breaks down into acetic acid, which is vinegar, oxygen and water so extremely safe. So I should mention that there is a second step to the process that
most people got. And it’s like sort of the standard pure maintenance process. I didn’t get the second step in my home because I I wasn’t given enough information by the licensee, but when I started the company. I looked into it more than I actually did spray this antimicrobial. It’s an antimicrobial
on the walls, on the surfaces, especially like the windowsills, wet, dry surfaces and sinks. And what it is is. Basically, it is a carbon and nitrogen molecule that forms a covalent bond with your surfaces. So it’s like you have to sandpaper it off. It’s invisible, you know. It’s it bonds to your walls, and then it has a positive charge, and it attracts
negative pathogens, negative charge pathogens. So they kind of float around the air, and they eventually go and and are killed on the surface by these spikes. There’s like a million spikes per inch or something. So it’s like a mechanical kill of the spores on, and bacteria any pathogens on the wall. So you know, that’s called Gold Shield 75. And there’s a lot of safety data on it, and as far as like
the situation where I wouldn’t use it is in. If there’s a lot of dust and dirt and grime, because it does bond very well, but if it’s bonding to dust, and that dust is going to get in the air. And there’s been toxicity studies of gold shield many. So it’s like 79 studies to show that in its diluted form, which is what we use. It’s food safe. It’s EPA food.

Dr. Deb Muth
28:38
Same.

Courtney Jarman
28:39
However, some people don’t trust the EPA, and I understand that. And it’s like, you know, what is this product? It’s not something that I know and like, you know, is it? If it gets in the air, you know, and I’m breathing a ton of it, you know. Is it safe, and so I can’t. I can’t personally recommend that people use it unless their surfaces are clean.

Dr. Deb Muth
29:00
How soon can families return to their home after treatment’s done?

Courtney Jarman
29:05
So for a typical 2,000 square foot home. It’s about an 8 to 9 h treatment, and then I recommend, like one or 2 h after.

Dr. Deb Muth
29:13
Oh, wow!

Courtney Jarman
29:14
Yeah.

Dr. Deb Muth
29:15
That’s great, because most of the time in traditional remediation, people can be displaced for weeks before they can return back.
Courtney Jarman
Courtney Jarman
29:22
Sure.

Dr. Deb Muth
29:23
That’s really awesome. I that’s exciting. So are there any
like hidden red flags that homeowners should watch for, that might indicate they have some mold problems or hidden mold problems.

Courtney Jarman
29:39
Yeah, so like the mold symptoms which you can. You know you know better than I do. So like rashes. I mean, it could be. Depression could be like joint problems could be stomach issues, you know. Usually it’s like a number of confounding issues all altogether, and then that you can get a blood test or a
a blood test or a urine test to see. You know, if you have toxicity, that’s like one. Ask. That’s 1 way people come to me, and then another way is like they have visible mold. They like see the mold right?
and then, but not everybody. There’s situations where not everybody is sick in home. There’s a lot of situations, because even like
and guests can’t guests come in like, oh, man, this house is moldy, and then, you know, don’t
to come back.
But so in those situations it’s usually one person will figure it out whether they live there or not, and then I would say, like anytime you buy a home, you know, because you’re buying a home, and
you know you can have a dry home with very beautiful clean surfaces. You don’t see any mold. Who knows what kind of flood or leak happened? Sewage things? Pipes are all over. They’re all over your house. They have the leaks happen, you know. And so you don’t really know the spore load. So then anybody in a real estate transaction should just get an inspection, in my opinion. If possible.

Dr. Deb Muth
31:02
Recommend from a prevention standpoint. So somebody’s got a house that has mold. You guys come in and do dry fogging.
Is it a 1 and done, or may they have to do maintenance on it to keep the spores down? I’m assuming if they don’t fix the water problem. Obviously they need to do something else, but if they can fix the leakage, do you recommend serial treatments.

Courtney Jarman
31:24
Yeah, that’s a good question. So some this from some practitioners, some people are very sensitive to mold. And
you know, if they don’t want the gold shield, especially the second step, and those people do get treated every year. So our our charge is a dollar square foot for the home. And so how I look at it is an investment in a mold free home, and so that.

Dr. Deb Muth
31:46
That is.

Courtney Jarman
31:47
Like.
basically, it’s a permanent solution unless you have, you know, unless you don’t maintain your home. Or if you have future water leaks. So one aspect is like, so you invest in this mold free home. We come back and treat for a year afterwards, no matter what happens in your home. If you have like another leak, or whatever the second year we come back and treat for 50% of the cost next year, it’s 60, 70, 80, whatever it goes up. So that’s 1 aspect of it. If you do have these like events, the other aspect of it is.
you just have to maintain homes. It’s a pain in the butt, but you do. It’s like I have a whole document, and it’s long, you know, but it’s like you. Can you have to put caulk around your bathtub where you know.

Dr. Deb Muth
32:23' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1943' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>32:23
Of the one.

Courtney Jarman
32:23' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='1943' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>32:23
Just comes out, and there’s like caulk in a home is like one of the ways that we keep water out of the building materials which is insane, but you have to keep up with it. And the way that we build houses now, my husband does natural building, and we’re really into the natural building with a clay sand straw. There’s other ways to keep water out besides caulk, but, like most houses, you just have to.
you know, keep up with the the flashing and you know. Look at that! Make sure the roof isn’t leaking these kind of maintenance things. And then there’s also the big one that people don’t realize is that mold can form after 60% humidity, and so keeping your humidity down. One that I see all the time is these April air whole house humidifiers, and they these were introduced like 20 years ago, or something, and April air didn’t
structured them in a way that you could change the pad. So they like literally had this like moisture and dust in their air system, for, like decades. And I just treated a house that that had never been changed, and the people turned off. They turned it off.
you know, but they never turn the valve, so it’d been like leaking into their system for like years. So taking out whole house humidifiers not using them, and if you are using them, changing the pad a few times a winter. They’re only used in the winter, usually. And then I will say that the gold shield does. There’s some data to show that even if you have a human house, gold shield will keep that mold load down, but in general it’s airflow and humidity, and then keeping the water intrusions out.

Dr. Deb Muth
33:53
You find that insurance typically will cover your type of remediation if they’re working with an insurer.

Courtney Jarman
34:01
So I’ve talked to someone who’s in the insurance industry. And I asked him this, I was like, you know, what is, how can people get this covered. And he said, This is a small company. I can’t remember the name, but he said that if you buy there’s definitely insurance for mold but you have to find the right insurance company that offers that type of insurance. So if you want to insure a tractor, you have to find a company that insures tractors. You know that they invest in that that type of insurance, so you can find one that.
you know will cover more than the standard, which is 5 to $10,000, and I’ll get into that what that includes.
But generally, unless you’ve already you found that company, and you’ve you’ve purchased that beforehand. It’s not going to be covered except for 5 to $10,000. So what is this? 5 to $10,000. So this is for disaster, relief. And so all these companies, you type in mold remediation.
These are disaster relief companies. There is a big difference between what they do and what I do. And so this 5 to $10,000 usually covers like, if there’s a flood or like a pipe burst or something, you know, and you’re away from the house, and
you know a bunch of mold forms or whatever. So you’re going to have like these disaster relief companies. They dry everything out, they usually rip everything out, so it includes the drying out aspect and the mold treatment which they don’t do a good job. That’s not like their job is mold treatment, really. So you have a lot of mold left. So
yes and no. If there was some money left over from this 5 or $10,000. There’s definitely a box you can check for fogging, and that it is included so ideally. It would be better if these disaster relief companies or these traditional remediation companies actually use this technology in combination
instead of just one thing or the other, because I’m not knocking like. Sometimes demolition is needed to see what’s going on, or if you have, I do demolition. If there’s mold behind a drywall, there’s no behind a drywall, and it’s sandwiched up in between, like, you know, Drywall, and then like a plastic sheet in the back. Well, I can’t fog that, or if it’s like exterior insulation that’s really tight back there.

Dr. Deb Muth
36:04
To remove.

Courtney Jarman
36:05
And you know, get to that, or if you know, I feel like 2 things. 2 materials are sandwiched up against each other, you have to remove one. So I you know my personal opinion is
to use it in combination with the
with a desk, disaster, relief, or or traditional mediation and kind of like a have a merging
of them. So yes and no. Yes and no. It’s included.

Dr. Deb Muth
36:27
Yeah.
so pure Maintenance Company has treated over 30,000 homes nationwide, which is amazing. And I’m sure your company sees different things in different areas. Florida is going to be different than the West Coast versus the East Coast versus the Midwest, for sure, and your business is located in Wisconsin. But I’m sure as a group and a company, you guys chat, do you see any patterns? Or do you see any patterns locally in the Midwest
where we have environmental factors that really make a big difference for people in their homes.

Courtney Jarman
37:03
Yeah, it’s a good question. Well, first, it’s 250,000 homes. Internationally.

Dr. Deb Muth
37:06
Oh!

Courtney Jarman
37:07
So yeah, that’s awesome.
But yeah, there’s absolutely and so the differences regionally are going to be basically humidity. And then, like wind driven rain. And so those make differences. As far as like.
you know, there’s something called a dew point. And this is, if people want to educate themselves about mold, basically, if you bring a can of cold beer outside on a humid day, you’re going to get condensation on the can. And that is because when you have water in the air, and you have water and warm air. When that air becomes cold it has to release some of its moisture and into a form of condensation. And so.
you know, this is important for how structures are built, and in in Wisconsin, you know, being built right in Wisconsin. The wintertime obviously is cold. It’s humid indoors in the winter, but in Wisconsin it’s humid outdoors in the summertime, and you know, cool indoors. You have this like
both sides of the coin in Wisconsin. Where in Florida, it’s basically always humid and hot outside, not always cold. Inside other areas. It’s just dry. But all the homes are similar in that.
you know, there’s still this water intrusions. There’s pipes in a home. The one thing I’m actually there’s 2 things in Wisconsin. One I’m very blessed in to not have crawl spaces. Not many crawl spaces crawl. Spaces are a huge problem, and then 2 Field stone Wisconsin has a lot of old field stone basements, and this can be a problem. We talked about the stack effect, you know. Air in the basement air in
house moves bottom to top, so attic doesn’t affect you as much unless you’re on the same level with it. But basement affects your airspace a lot, and when you have this field stone, these are these like big stones that you see in the basement. Have you ever seen those you walk in? It’s like, Oh.

Dr. Deb Muth
38:58
Yeah.

Courtney Jarman
38:59
So many.
And and they’re basically like porous. And so they’re in
moist earth. And so they’re kind of like, just damp, you know. And so you have to take measures. Usually it’s like outside the house you just have like you never want to. You never want to trap them in on the inside. Never want to put something
waterproof on the inside, on the outside it’s like a gutter issue, or, like like soil not sloped away from the house, or like water running off the driveway into a specific area. That kind of thing. There’s various solutions for field stone. That’s kind of a tricky one. But in Wisconsin I recommend absolutely dehumidifying your basement. You just have to dehumidify your basement. You have to keep all levels of your house at the same
at a similar temperature, because otherwise you have this dew point, which is the point, the temperature at which the air is going to drop its drop, its moisture. So you don’t want condensation between levels of your home, between the basement.

Dr. Deb Muth
40:02' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='2402' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>40:02
Numbers.

Courtney Jarman
40:02' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='2402' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>40:02
Floor for different temperatures, and you don’t want in the basement to have condensation on the exterior surfaces, so like the rim joists or the basement walls or behind the Drywall. If you have a finished basement, you can have this, you know cold surfaces touching up against the earth, and then the interior humid air in the winter or the summer.
So yeah, there’s, you know, that’s I can just keep talking about this. But you asked me a short question, and I have a very long answer for it. So I mean, I could just talk, for I usually tell a client all the things they need to do to prevent mold in their home after the treatment. Not just, you know, spray and leave type of thing.

Dr. Deb Muth
40:39
Yeah, that’s awesome. So if someone’s listening to us right now, and they suspect mold might be affecting their health, and they suspect their house is the issue. What would you recommend for them as a 1st step to identify what’s going on in the home.

Courtney Jarman
40:57
Yeah. Good question. Mold inspection. I mean, there’s good mold inspectors, and there’s bad mold inspections.
you know. Either. And or a blood test.

Dr. Deb Muth
41:13
Yeah, we use that a lot.

Courtney Jarman
41:15
Yeah, my medical lab, so getting the blood tests and then getting
getting it. You know, some samples taken basically, and in a visual inspection, because sometimes when I go into, I’m sorry there’s a long when I go into a house I can see people are like, well, we’ve had like a little bit of a dishwasher overflow, or a washer overflow.
And they always think that’s the problem right? And then I go in there, and it’s like I go below in the basement, and I see. Oh, on the decking of you know, flashlight above or previous leak, you know. Oh, previous flood over here you can just usually not always because there’s remodeling and stuff like that, but it’s part of.

Dr. Deb Muth
41:52
Right.

Courtney Jarman
41:53
Whole home assessment as a if you’re a good mold, inspector, you will do not just a couple of samples and leave, but you’ll look at the whole mold load of a home. That’s what we do. We look at kind of like yes or no mold like yes or no high mold load or so.

Dr. Deb Muth
42:06' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='2526' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>42:06
There’s like.

Courtney Jarman
42:06' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='2526' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>42:06
The dust samples that we do, and then, if you know, we don’t catch a red flag right away, which you know there’s some there’s so many false negatives, there’s so many limitations.

Dr. Deb Muth
42:14' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='2534' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>42:14
Right.

Courtney Jarman
42:14' href='https://blubrry.com/letstalkwellnessnow/148987360/episode-245-courtney-jarman-and-toxic-mold/#' onclick='return skipToPlay(event);' class='skip-a' data-pp-stp='2534' data-pp-player='player-1236045108'>42:14
We do an army test. So that is a.
Basically, it’s a DNA test of the dust in your house. You take a standardized weight of dust and you send it into the lab and takes about 2 weeks. And it’s compared with 2,000 other houses where this test has been done in the Us. The EPA developed it to find out how
how moldy a house was. It wasn’t for research purposes. There’s a long story. But anyway, so you compare the dust. The lab compares the dust. To these 2,000 other homes a thousand of the homes had definitely had mold had like floods, and, you know, leaks and stuff. A 1,000 of them didn’t. So it’s like a environmental relative moldiness index Ermi. So you get this all the species of mold in a very accurate test and
and then all the the levels basically.

Dr. Deb Muth
43:07
So how can people get in touch with your company? Peer maintenance? And what should they do to initiate a process if they’re listening to this, and they’re like I need to have Courtney come out and take a look at my house and figure out what’s going on, and I don’t want to demolish the house. I want to treat it. How can they get in touch with you?

Courtney Jarman
43:26
Yeah, you can go. Well, our phone number (608) 893-6620. But you can go to our website. There’s so much information on there references. A lot of blog posts it’s pure maintenance wi as in wisconsin.com and so you can just check out some information there. And then, you know, if you call us or email us, basically, I’ll have my team book an inspection, and then
we’ll come out, and it’s essentially it’s between 2 and 2 50 for an inspection, depending on what your what your home looks like, and then we’ll take a few samples and do a full assessment, and then that money is refundable if you go with treatment. So it’s like we’re going to come out there. We need some money to come out there and assess your home, but if you’re going to go with treatment, you know, we give it back to you.
and as far as you know, location. We are located in Madison, but we do travel. So that is, you know, if you live few hours away, we’re willing to travel. Just talk to our team about that.

Dr. Deb Muth
44:28
That’s awesome. Do you have any final advice for homeowners that are dealing with this, that you think that they should know that we haven’t already covered.

Courtney Jarman
44:37
Oh, I’m sure I can. Just you know I talk a lot, but open your windows, go outside. Sunlight is super important. Sunlight is antifungal. You know, if you’re dealing with a fungal issue, and you can’t resolve it right away. I always tell people open your windows, go outside try to get off the computer. You know, it’s sort of at this point. People don’t
necessarily believe the whole Emf and fungal connection. But it’s peer reviewed. It’s like on pubmed out there, showing like mold in a petri dish with wi-fi mold in a petri dish without wi-fi the mold with wi-fi just grows like 10 times more. So inside your body, you’re out. So you know, have a have a computer that’s plugged in to the Internet, not it’s not Wi-fi, which, of course, I’m doing right now.
Dr. Deb Muth
Dr. Deb Muth
45:19
Yeah.

Courtney Jarman
45:20
But then, you know, try to get away from your Emf. Try to turn off your wi-fi at night when you’re not using it? Get outside in the sunlight, fresh air.

Dr. Deb Muth
45:28
Great advice. I love that.
Well, Courtney, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing this revolutionary approach to mold remediation. It’s been great, having you as a guest.

Courtney Jarman
45:39
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Deb Muth
45:43
So if this episode has resonated with you, please share it with someone who could benefit from learning about hidden mold exposure, and how it might be impacting their health.
So many families are struggling with chronic symptoms that could be resolved by addressing their indoor environment. Remember, wellness isn’t about feeling good. It’s about thriving in every area of your life, and that includes creating a clean, healthy home environment. So if you’re ready to explore how environmental factors and functional medicine can help you get to the root cause of your symptoms. Contact us at serenityhealthcarecenter.com contact courtney@puremaintenance.com.
and if you suspect mold at any time might be affecting you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to any one of us, so that we can help you until next time I’m Dr. Deb, reminding you to take care of your body, mind, and spirit and your home environment to be well, and we’ll see you in the next episode.

This episode is sponsored by Serenity Health Care Center, where we specialize in uncovering the root causes of chronic health conditions to help you achieve optimal wellness. Visit us at www.serenityhealthcarecenter.com or call 262-522-8640 to learn more.

Connect with Dr. Deb:

• Website: www.serenityhealthcarecenter.com
• Facebook: Serenity Health Care Center
• Instagram: @SerenityHealthCenter
• Twitter: @DrDebSerenity

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