Is Mould In Our Homes Killing Us? | Talking Point | Full Episode

[Music] mold it can sprout up anywhere even in the unlikeliest of places [Music] this hardy organism could wreak havoc on your system causing allergies and rashes so if you think this is bad for your health i'm about to tell you that you haven't seen the worst of it so in this episode of talking point i want to find out just how dangerous the mole in our homes really is but first let me tell you how i got whole of these moldy petri dishes [Music] a week ago i arranged to visit four homes with me is andrew manto he's what people call a mold exterminator [Music] i've picked four households located across singapore i want to know the extent of more infestation in our homes [Music] so when we visit these homes what should we be looking out for we'll go through and do a room by room analysis looking at the hard surfaces the ceilings and the walls inside the cupboards and see if we can determine any sort of mold growth in those areas and these will be like visible to the naked eye sometimes visible to the naked eye and then sometimes with ultra white lights or ultraviolet light we can see these things city's family lives on the ground floor of an hdb flat in choi chukong located in northwest singapore jeremiah lives in the central part of the island in this aging 40 euro flat for the past 27 years this is located at lavender andy lives in the east in tampanese next to a body of water but ok reservoir and yvonne lives in a new flat in the north eastern part of singapore pongo so let's start with the kitchen cupboards because usually the under sink area is one of the key areas that you would find okay yvonne if you have a look at the top of the board here you can see it's all black and mouldy so the mold is growing on the underside of the timber but you can smell it it's a very musty earthy smell within the cupboards so if we go along here there's mold in there and this is where your eating dishes and plates are okay so this is my bedroom okay so if we have a look here on the ceiling you can clearly see these little black spots these little black spots are book lights which feed on more they don't bite but can sometimes cause allergic reactions normally they're much much smaller than this these have been here for a long time does that mean anything the size yeah they've been eating for a long time oh my god we didn't realize that it's a whole new ecosystem now let's have a look over near the bed yeah so if we look at this area here obviously there's a big issue on the ceiling and along the walls that's where the smell mostly is coming from you know whatever you can smell it too is that a really bad sign yeah it smells a bit like grandma's old closet that's the smell that you're getting that's a pretty good indication that the mold is on the walls and surfaces and i can almost guarantee on the bed frame itself oh we pulled that bed frame out oh my gosh okay so andy the first thing the smell that you mentioned before that's in the bed and see all on the back of the seal the mold on the back of it so if i put the light over this way you can see all the white spots yes this is all the bad moments oh my god but your bed frame itself is covered in mold that's what you're breathing in every night oh okay jeremiah do you think you have mole in your house um i'm not so sure okay well i hate to tell you this you do because i can see it already the black spots in the ceiling yeah the dust and the material is supporting the mold growth and that growth is then spreading across the room in the ceiling okay let's take a look at the rest of the place so this is your bedroom yes okay straight away we can have a look at this wall here what's most concerning to me is it's also right next to where you're sleeping so you're constantly breathing in a large amount of mold and this mold is then spreading to the other surfaces this is way too much mold to be in a bedroom oh no what do you think um well i didn't know i can almost guarantee it's going to be inside your cupboard as i zoom in my light you can see the patches of mold all growing in the back of the cupboard so that's then transferring of course to your clothing and everything that you're wearing did you think there would be so much more in your house no to be honest i thought it was just the paint itself and also the dust so i didn't think that was small okay so here we are in your son's room and first off straight away we can see that that mold growth is all over your walls and ceilings here right next to where your sun is sleeping let's have a look inside the cupboards wow feel the brown spotting at the back of the cupboard up here in the corner that's all covered in mold so every time he's putting on a shirt pair of shorts he's getting a big dose of mold here you know that's most concerning honestly we've had a chance to look at most of the house and are you surprised by the result of course very and i'm quite concerned actually especially my son's wardrobe because there's a lot of his clothes over there out of the four houses city's home which is a ground floor unit has the worst small infestation the home with lee small was yvonne's new flat at pongo which makes me wonder are certain types of homes more prone to having more most of the ones that we've looked at today are quite close to water and they're lower to the ground so you get a lot of contributing environmental factors that add moisture to an environment so even within a condo or an hdb building depending on the orientation of the building whether one side gets more sunlight one side gets more airflow that can be an uh contributing factor to what happens within the built environment okay so half of my home could be more prone to mobile versus the other half very much so and we've seen that already in units where specific rooms seem to be moldier than other rooms mole is a microscopic type of fungi which thrives in singapore's humid climate its main source of food moisture three kinds of homes are most at risk of mole infestation homes located at lower levels because they are more exposed to moisture evaporating from drains soil and the ground homes located near water bodies because of higher levels of moisture in the air and older homes as they would be more prone to water leaks from all pipes and walls and wear and tear and if you think that more visible to the eye is all we need to worry about well i am running a test [Music] so these here are petri dishes which are filled with aega which is essentially a growth medium for mole i'm placing them around the four households we just visited for 30 minutes [Music] these petri dishes are now going to a lab where they will be incubated at room temperature for 5 days [Music] so what did we find on the petri dishes uh okay so we have different colonies here and you can see there's black growth green one gray one white one maybe some green spores one two or three landed and then started growing so you see they are covering the whole petri dish already so what this shows us that there are a lot of sports here got maybe what close to 100 right so this is just one part of the view wow and then i just picked a little bit using a tool so so wow so this little patch will have like zillions because zillions of oh my wow we left all these out there for only 30 minutes not not like a few days and to see that there's so much on it i mean what does this actually tell us in the air there are more oh my gosh that is scary so there are a lot of diversity of most species in the air the person living there or spending a prolonged period of time in that environment will be breathing in a lot of spores is not good for their health so sometimes there's a bit of a smell also that comes with mold sometimes some species of mole they will produce volatile organic compounds and you can smell it if you can smell it means there's a lot of it oh yes so that's that's the musty smell so the moment you smell it is like really bad you really need to get it fixed yeah yes you heard it there is mold all around us even in the air we breathe the spores are released from the mall found on surfaces in our environment which include our homes so how big a health problem is all this more the greater your exposure theoretically higher your risk you might be familiar with this but did you know they can also be in the air that we breathe professor sanjay trotsimal studies the effect of mole and fungi on human health i want to know how concerned i should be so i understand that there is a mold around us all the time and we're living and breathing with it right how harmful can that be for us there are some groups of individuals that would be at risk of mold exposure at the home particularly those who have allergies known allergies asthma the second group of people would be those who have an immunosuppression right and we see people who let's say have cancer have liver disease on chemotherapy or received long-term steroid treatment that would dampen their immune system and therefore then exposure to mold may be a risk but for a normal healthy person how much concern okay so that's a really good question we must recognize that even healthy people are susceptible to bouts where their immune function may change uh for instance some people develop allergies later in life some people we will all have chest infections at some point we may have some surgery whether minor or not and recover at home this all disrupts our immune system so we do need to be aware that if we see mold in the hole i think it's best to to get rid of it how does it affect me when i breathe in mold spores when you breathe it in it initially goes through your nose and mouth makes its way down here's a model of the lung to illustrate that it goes down the main tubes of your airways called the trachea this will then divide into bronchi which then divide into smaller airways eventually reaching the lung tissue itself so once that spore reaches the tips of the lung they meet what we call cells of the immune system we call them the policemen of the airway they gobble up the fungal spores and get rid of them destroy them right but that's only if your immune system is functioning normally if your immune system is overactive or under active right you may be susceptible because the immune police cannot necessarily clear the spores that you inhale that's when problems could arise at the same time mole can also grow on our food and when that grows on food it slightly acts differently it can produce these mycotoxins that can be damaging for health so myco meaning fungal and toxin meaning a toxic substance which can have effects on virtually every organ however specifically the liver if ingested in high enough proportions it can make you quite sick quite quickly and even cause death in some rare cases mycotoxins are found in food that's been ravaged by mole but here's the thing you know how it is sometimes you've got some food that's been around for a few days like these tomatoes have been sitting in my fridge for a while and i figure if i just get rid of the moldy guys like this guy then the rest of them should be good to eat but now i'm not so sure it's not uncommon to toss moldy parts of food out and keep the rest after all we don't want to contribute to food waste right but now i'm thinking i'd rather be safe than sorry so i'm sending these tomatoes and some bay leaves which i save from a moldy batch to a lab to find out if they're safe to eat and i'm about to discover which products can best rid my home off mold they say mix wheat and vinegar is that like wow double power [Music] these food items were saved from a batch that already had one or two moldy pieces there is no presence of mold on these pieces but does that mean they are safe to eat i'm doing another lab test as we wait for the results i'm turning my attention back to our homes i want to know what it takes to get rid of mole for good [Music] so i went out i got a whole bunch of these items which all claimed to effectively fight more we're talking about sprays i've got bleach and vinegar for homemade diy solutions even a gel and a uv light but the real question is how many of these actually work [Music] i'm about to meet someone who knows the best way to remove more from surfaces [Music] scientist gan heng hui knows a thing or two about chemicals and how they react with contaminants so these are items that we can commonly find at the supermarket to help us fight mole i want to check with you whether they actually work let's start with a bleach bleach is easily available does doesn't work bleach does work and mainly it's because of the active ingredient inside bleach which is the sodium hypochlorite that actually kills mole normally on the labels they will give you directions in terms of how to prepare for what purpose right so you can just follow the instructions to actually prepare the bleach solution and this one they call themselves a stain and mole remover just spray it on leave it for a few minutes wipe it off yes yes this is a common um product if you look at the so-called ingredients or chemical makeup it is also made up of components or active ingredients that you can find in bleach what about vinegar i mean there's so many recipes online saying how you can use vinegar to help you do a lot of things yeah so the whole so-called principle behind vinegar being a domestic remedy to deal with mole is because of its acidity so with this low ph the acidity actually kills mold it's a natural remedy for home and when it comes to vinegar i've heard of these other home remedies they say mix bleach and vinegar is that like wow double power it is disastrous oh sorry yeah but because of the chemical reactions that take place between acid and hypochlorite you might create an explosion especially if the place is not ventilated yeah so it's actually very dangerous i see okay will it help if i have a uv light i've heard it's supposed to help will that kill the uvc actually destroys the dna of some of the bacteria and the mold so that you destroy the cell of these bacteria these microorganisms and then effectively to kill it and i guess with with this size i mean i would see this big effective like maybe your salon okay you put one comb here or you put a scissors there yeah because of the size so it's effective based on its size when we talk about the air many people have also gone out to buy air filters how effective are those you need to read what is that filtration efficiency of each of the filter that you intend to install or intend to buy some of the high efficiency air filters can actually restrain or prevent and trap some of these mold the thing is with these it removes it on the surface how long will it last a lot of these are just surface scale okay yeah so depending on what exactly is the root cause of all these mole growth then you will have to deal with it or you may need a specialist to handle it all these products are really just a quick fix because mole is persistent a real solution requires a change in our living habits make sure that you know the place is well ventilated and the air is dry and then try to clean off whenever you see potential mold growth it's been five days and the results of my food tests are out i want to know if it's safe to eat food that's been partially contaminated by mold so what did we discover from the food that i sent you for testing okay so for the two food uh that you sent over the tomatoes and the bay leaves we did more tests so for the tomato okay it looks good looks fresh fine right looks fine but it may have mixed with the red tomatoes or even may have been contaminated from the the air so we actually discovered about 7 500 count of moles in one gram of tomato sample in just one gram wow the idea of putting that in me somehow doesn't yeah but but normally you will wash your tomatoes thoroughly before you eat them so this this is just without washing if i wash it will it remove yes if you wash it thoroughly it will remove because usually more if they have it it's actually on the surface unless your food samples have damaged that means it has so-called damaged areas that the mole may penetrate then it may be dangerous so it may actually go into the food so usually what we advise the consumers is to actually look at the whole box if you see any of the tomatoes or even like berries have already got white spots or more likes uh so-called growth uh try not to buy those because once you have one inside it will spread very fast if you only have one of them inside the box usually it's at the base of the box where it's a bit wet and you can see where there's okay that's good advice okay what about the bay leaf bay leaves you don't see anything right yeah and usually you won't see any more grain on the surface but guess what it is worse than the tomatoes oh it's actually growing the entire surface are what we call it too numerous to count we can't even count them so that means there's actually a lot of them uh on the bay leaves so this these are actually very very small of this big spot here and it's because there's so many more so there's so many of these in this so thousands of small spots so if you actually let it grow put it in the incubators yeah for more than 10 days you will see the whole surface black like that however as we know bay leaves you usually cook them you don't eat bay leaf raw so when you actually heat the bay leaf through cooking you have already actually removed or damaged the more and therefore it will shouldn't be causing any harmful effect to the body you also will wash it before you cook them so again your washing would have removed one time removal of the plungers before you cook them so so washing seems to be the key i've heard of people you know eating moldy food because they don't know it's moldy and then they get sick after that yeah why is that the case when uh the food already have a mole contaminations on it it's likely that there are also other bacterias growing so usually the food poisoning effect may come from the bacteria rather than from the mold more may actually produce toxin but the effect of that toxins is actually long-term not not immediate effect and because when you see the mole it also means there's a good amount of bacteria you can simply wash surface more on food like tomatoes cooking will also kill it but if there's more on something you can't wash or cook like bread well then it's best to just throw it away so just how dangerous is mole in our homes i've discovered that while its presence is not life-threatening for most of us it can cause persistent irritation and allergies and for those who have a weak immune system prolonged exposure to mole can be more dangerous than you think so the next time i see a patch of this i'm going to be extra quick to get rid of it with some bleach or mole remover [Music] and i now also know to look for mole in unlikely places plus i need to make sure my home is well ventilated oh yum of course when it comes to food i think i'm gonna play it safe and discard any of them if i see more growing on it but most importantly wash thoroughly before eating [Music]

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 214,109

Keywords: mold, mycotoxin, moldy food, mouldy food, remove mold, kill mold, steve chia

Id: jhqwPu_xuA8

Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2022