Latest / Create The Best Me / Is Your Dream Home Making You Sick?

Transcript

Is Your Dream Home Making You Sick? · Create The Best Me

• 0:01
  Brace yourself, my guest, Seth Jones, spent 15 years producing music and DJing across the globe.
• 0:08
  Then a single encounter with building related illness flipped his career upside down.
• 0:13
  Now he's on a mission to rid your home of toxic mold and microscopic poisons that can ruin your health without you even realizing it.
• 0:22
  Wondering why a brand new perfect home might be the worst offender.
• 0:28
  Or how mold and mycotoxins sneak into your life and mess with your body.
• 0:34
  Stick around because we are about to dig into the surprising how, why and what you can do to protect yourself.
• 0:44
  Seth Jones, welcome to Create The Best Me, this is an honor to have you on the show because we are going to talk about a topic that I've always been curious about.
• 0:56
  It's great to be here.
• 0:57
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:58
  So Seth, before we get into the recording, could you please tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who you are and what you do?
• 1:07
  Well my name's Seth Jones.
• 1:09
  I am one of the founders and the CEO, of our company's called Hygeia Living, and SuperStratum is our brand, is our chemical company.
• 1:16
  I'm really excited to tell you more about that.
• 1:19
  We started, SuperStratum about, goodness, about four years ago at this point.
• 1:23
  I grew up in Louisiana and, I went to school in Nashville, Tennessee.
• 1:27
  I spent about 15 years in the music industry, as a songwriter and producer and musician.
• 1:34
  That led me to Los Angeles, where I spent about 10 years.
• 1:37
  And it was there that we started SuperStratum and kind of found this problem and you know, came up with our solution.
• 1:45
  And that's so strange when you started talking about that you grew up in Louisiana, I thought that that's what motivated you to start your product, not LA.
• 1:54
  Well, it's funny, you know, I, SuperStratum started when, I met a chemist who was a very unique gentleman who had worked, actually at Sherwin Williams for many years in non-toxic child craft paints and things like that.
• 2:09
  So he had a very diverse chemistry background.
• 2:12
  And when he retired, he moved up in the mountains in Georgia and he started getting algae and mole growing on the side of his house.
• 2:19
  And so he developed the formula that is now our SuperStratum Endurance Coating.
• 2:24
  And at the time I was actually a DJ at that time.
• 2:27
  I, I did many things through music and, had a great time.
• 2:31
  Traveled the world and it was in Europe where I fell into my career as a DJ.
• 2:37
  And I had been doing it for a few years when, I came across this product and this chemist, and it really changed everything from, changed my life.
• 2:46
  It took me from kind of one path, into the path that I'm in now.
• 2:49
  Even though I was in LA it was my experience growing up in Louisiana.
• 2:53
  I didn't know much about mold at that time.
• 2:56
  I was from Louisiana, so I knew it was a big problem.
• 2:58
  Our endurance coating and this formula is extremely unique.
• 3:02
  There's no other product that has the performance that this product does.
• 3:05
  And so I knew enough to know this is a little bit different.
• 3:08
  And we were at that time, really looking at the health effects of mold.
• 3:13
  And had some friends who had gotten very, very sick from mold.
• 3:16
  Spent many years going to doctors and trying to solve that.
• 3:20
  And I just kind of followed those breadcrumbs and we started building something investigating a little bit more, and it led to where we are now.
• 3:28
  Yeah, and you know what fascinates me about your product is that I remember about 20 years ago when I was in agency.
• 3:36
  I met this woman who, her younger sister, was into the business of, and this was a big thing here in California.
• 3:43
  She would buy repos or fixer upper homes, she'd live in them as she was slowly fixing the homes.
• 3:53
  And she got really sick.
• 3:54
  She started coughing blood.
• 3:56
  Her boyfriend took her to the ER and she ended up dying.
• 4:01
  And they were wondering I think at the time I was maybe 32 and she was 32 too, the woman who died.
• 4:09
  And so her sister was distraught, the family was distraught.
• 4:12
  And they wanted to find out what did she die of?
• 4:15
  What was it?
• 4:16
  And they did an autopsy and they realized that her lungs were coated in mold.
• 4:21
  Yeah.
• 4:22
  And that's what she died of.
• 4:23
  Yeah.
• 4:24
  And so, when I learned about your product, I'm like, I have to have him on the show because this is something that has always kind of been a mystery for me.
• 4:34
  Yeah, well that is very unfortunate and, it's not rare for people to die from this.
• 4:39
  But it is rare, for people to understand what created that or killed them.
• 4:45
  And that led to those sicknesses.
• 4:47
  And there are countless deaths every year from this, that no one really they're chalked up to, pneumonia, or, liver cancer, or it's this, or it's this, or this.
• 4:59
  Um, and those are all the diagnosis of what can be building related illness, but most people never go any further than that.
• 5:06
  We understand the symptom and the disease, but we don't understand the root cause.
• 5:10
  We don't know why we have autoimmune diseases.
• 5:13
  We don't know why we're depressed or anxious all the time.
• 5:18
  This is really the problem that we began to see.
• 5:21
  As we dug deeper, we realized that mole could cause all of these things.
• 5:25
  And in fact, one of the first jobs we ever did, was with a, I met a gentleman for lunch one time and he introduced himself and we had been trying for a couple of weeks to get together.
• 5:35
  And first thing he said, he apologized.
• 5:37
  He said, I'm so sorry, I've been dealing with some health issues.
• 5:40
  I've been in and outta the hospital.
• 5:41
  And anytime someone tells me that, my mind, immediately.
• 5:44
  And I asked him a couple questions and I said, well, what's going on?
• 5:47
  He said, I had terrible ulcerative colitis.
• 5:49
  And he was being treated by two, it was a very wealthy family, and he was being treated by two of the biggest, I would say hospitals in the country.
• 5:58
  And his colitis had gotten so bad where one of these hospitals, had told him that he needed to have his colon removed.
• 6:03
  He had been through this terrible ordeal and had kind of gotten back to a place where he could manage it.
• 6:08
  And so we were sitting at dinner and I only asked him one question, I said, when did it start?
• 6:13
  And he said, I've had it, for a lot of my life, but two years ago was really when it just got unmanageable.
• 6:18
  He couldn't leave his home and he was there, for weeks.
• 6:21
  And I said, oh, I'm so sorry.
• 6:22
  I'm glad you've gotten a hold of your symptoms.
• 6:24
  I said, but do you know the root cause?
• 6:27
  And he said, no, he didn't.
• 6:28
  And I said, well, let me tell you about what I do.
• 6:30
  And I began to explain it, and as soon as I said the word mold, he goes, oh, he said we had a mold issue in our home.
• 6:36
  And I said, really?
• 6:36
  I said, when was it?
• 6:37
  He goes, it was about two years ago.
• 6:40
  And when he said that, the light bulb went off.
• 6:42
  I've had I can't even count the number of conversations and experiences like that where someone has been sick and just in a couple of questions we trace it to their building.
• 6:52
  And so in that conversation I could see his mind was kind of wandering a little bit.
• 6:57
  And I said, you, you should really check.
• 6:59
  And he said, well, I'm thinking about my mother actually, because she has blood cancer.
• 7:03
  And I said, I would have the home tested.
• 7:06
  And sure enough, the next week I called him back and, she was being treated at Mayo Clinic I asked him, I said, have you got any more information?
• 7:12
  He says, it's so crazy, you called me, Mayo Clinic just called and they said, we don't think you have cancer; it's something in your home.
• 7:19
  Don't go back to that house.
• 7:21
  And I said, all right, well we're gonna come over.
• 7:23
  And at that time they had called in some environmentalists who were trying to figure out what was going on; but they weren't aware of mycotoxins at that time.
• 7:31
  And they hadn't found any mold.
• 7:32
  And so we came in, we found some hidden mold, but we did some early testing for mycotoxins and we discovered, trichothecenes that were there in that home.
• 7:43
  Which are probably the most poisonous mycotoxins that stachybotrys or toxic black mold creates.
• 7:50
  So the mother wound up leaving.
• 7:52
  She went back to treatment, and we went in to clean the home.
• 7:55
  And unfortunately she never came home.
• 7:57
  She died a couple of months later of fungal pneumonia.
• 8:01
  The very same thing, and this is something that a lot of people don't realize that mold, just like it grows in your home, it can grow inside of your body, right?
• 8:10
  Mold loves damp, moist places.
• 8:14
  It loves your body, it lives in organs.
• 8:16
  It can live in your lungs, especially in your sinus cavities.
• 8:19
  That's really where mold can grow, these chronic sinus infections.
• 8:23
  People don't understand that mold is growing in your sinuses when that happens.
• 8:27
  And to kind of segue into the mycotoxin conversation.
• 8:31
  What's even less well known is that mold is a living organism and it grows and it creates spores and it spreads.
• 8:38
  But it also defends itself and it has enemies in its environment, other microbes, primarily bacteria.
• 8:45
  So if you think about kind of the two warring nations, there's the mold and then there's bacteria.
• 8:50
  And it's pretty intuitive when you think about this because we use mycotoxins from fungus to treat bacteria in our own body.
• 8:59
  Like mycophenolic acid you use when you have an organ transplant to suppress the immune system, right, so that it doesn't attack the organ.
• 9:08
  Or penicillin, which comes from a fungus as well.
• 9:11
  Many antibiotics are actually mycotoxins, right?
• 9:15
  So you can imagine what happens when mold creates these mycotoxins as a defense, which is what they are.
• 9:22
  They're like a weapon for the mold.
• 9:24
  It's not a living organism, right?
• 9:26
  The mold is alive, but the mycotoxin is a chemical.
• 9:29
  It's the poison that mold creates, and releases.
• 9:32
  And mycotoxins have been, they're well known.
• 9:34
  They have been studied.
• 9:36
  There's hundreds if not thousands of studies on mycotoxins.
• 9:40
  But they are within the context of agriculture.
• 9:43
  Because mold and mycotoxins develop within food, primarily grains and beans and things that are stored like that.
• 9:50
  But there was no awareness that mycotoxins are being created within our indoor air.
• 9:55
  As mold grows inside a building, it will release those mycotoxins.
• 9:59
  And in a modern building, we all see this, when you see a home being built today, we wrap them in plastic.
• 10:05
  Now that's to create an energy efficient building.
• 10:07
  We seal up the air in that home cause we want to trap that air inside.
• 10:11
  Because it keeps our energy costs down and that's a good thing.
• 10:14
  But there's a trade off.
• 10:15
  When we trap the air inside of a building, we've made it very difficult now for moisture to escape that building.
• 10:21
  And in fact, many times we trap the moisture in.
• 10:24
  You build a new home, that home gets rained on before it's clothed under.
• 10:28
  Dry the, the trusses sitting in the mud.
• 10:31
  So that home is inoculated, there's moisture in that home.
• 10:34
  It's wrapped up in plastic and sealed in, and then people move in.
• 10:37
  And modern buildings especially are problematic for this because now you have that airtight building that moisture gets inside, it can't evaporate.
• 10:46
  So mold grows and then that mold begins to release mycotoxins.
• 10:49
  Now you have an airtight container that you live in, that's now full of toxic air.
• 10:54
  And this is the real issue that's affecting millions and millions of homes, in the United States today.
• 11:00
  I mean, the government says that 66 million homes have ongoing water damage issues, and water damage molds.
• 11:06
  These are the conditions that create mycotoxins.
• 11:08
  So you do a little bit of quick math that's 170 million people in America who are living in homes that have water damage.
• 11:15
  And if you take some of the rough figures that a lot of doctors say 40% of people have a genetic condition that makes them more susceptible to toxicity in these things cause they can't detox their body.
• 11:26
  M-T-H-F-R mutation is probably the most common.
• 11:29
  Then you're looking at 60 plus million people right now who are living in toxic environments and who are being most likely affected by this in some way.
• 11:38
  It could be driving there's autoimmune disease and there's skin issues like eczema and psoriasis, mental health issues, depression, anxiety.
• 11:47
  These mycotoxins cross the blood brain barrier, so they create neuronal inflammation in the brain.
• 11:52
  So, traumatic brain injury, you know, these things make you extremely susceptible to toxins.
• 11:58
  It can even cause things like autism in children, cognitive impairment, neurological issues.
• 12:04
  I mean, we see this every single day.
• 12:06
  And people get a little off put by that, or confused sometimes because mold isn't the cause of everything, and that's true.
• 12:13
  It's not as if there's one cause for autoimmune disease or one cause for depression.
• 12:18
  But when you're living in a toxic environment, think about it like a gang fight.
• 12:23
  You know, you may have a vaccine or pesticides or you may be getting toxicity from somewhere else.
• 12:29
  You may have had a prior exposure.
• 12:31
  You may have Chronic Epstein-Barr or Lyme disease.
• 12:34
  The mold is really this assault on the body, on the brain.
• 12:39
  And when you're living in an toxic building, you don't know it.
• 12:42
  You can't smell these toxins.
• 12:43
  You can't see them.
• 12:45
  The effects in your body are sometimes extremely difficult to recognize.
• 12:51
  Even for myself, I lived in a toxic home for three years.
• 12:53
  I had built this company and was helping many people get well before I actually realized one day that, wait a minute, this happened to me too, like what I was experiencing at this time.
• 13:03
  And I started to piece it together with all the people; my roommate or the people that I lived with, and I saw that, they all got extremely sick, terrible gut issues.
• 13:12
  One poor girl had to go to substance abuse because she got so sick and she started drinking.
• 13:17
  One girl who lived in the apartment that was connected to the house had to have a appendix removed.
• 13:22
  And I mean, it was a mess, right?
• 13:23
  But even me, it took me, it took me, a couple of years to even go ha; maybe the reason that I got an Adderall prescription or that my anxiety was going so crazy wasn't random, it was because I was living in a water damaged home.
• 13:38
  Yeah, and I always think it's interesting because.
• 13:42
  I always perceive that you're gonna get mold from, or you have a higher risk of getting mold from an older building or when you walk into a building and you can just, I get this like tickle in my nose where I can just like smell there's something wrong with this building.
• 13:58
  Yeah.
• 13:59
  But I never imagined, cause I went on your website and your website said that it's more common in newer, developed homes or buildings.
• 14:07
  I'm like how the heck.
• 14:07
  Yeah.
• 14:07
  I always thought those were the best buildings to move into.
• 14:11
  Right, you would think that.
• 14:12
  And of course mold can grow in any building and it grows a lot in old buildings.
• 14:16
  But old buildings had more airflow through them, right?
• 14:20
  So they didn't get as toxic as new builds.
• 14:23
  Now, people get sick in old builds all the time.
• 14:25
  If you live in an old home and you have mold, you need to get rid of it.
• 14:28
  But the new buildings are particularly dangerous because of how airtight they are.
• 14:33
  And this is something that not a lot of people realize.
• 14:36
  I mean, I'm, I'm working with a woman right now who, she's actually, her story is gaining a lot of popularity online or it's becoming very well known.
• 14:44
  Because they bought a brand new home from one of the large builders.
• 14:49
  And when they moved into it pretty much immediately she started getting sick.
• 14:52
  And their whole family got sick and they just knew something was wrong.
• 14:55
  And so they called the builder the builder brought two or three environmentalists out they said, oh, there's no issue.
• 15:00
  But she just knew it, and she finally called her own environmentalist and they found crazy amounts of mold.
• 15:05
  What they found out was the contractor had left the vapor barrier off of the home, so that plastic wrap was actually left off, which meant that water had gotten into the walls and all of the wall cavities were filled with mold.
• 15:20
  And they're actually still living in that home because they can't get out of it.
• 15:24
  They bought an expensive home.
• 15:25
  It was a high interest rate, and so now they're stuck.
• 15:29
  They're in a lawsuit with their builder, but the whole family's sleeping in the living room.
• 15:32
  I mean, they can barely function they're so sick.
• 15:35
  And it's a very, very tragic situation and it is not uncommon at all.
• 15:40
  It's extremely common because of modern building practices.
• 15:43
  Because of the way we build homes.
• 15:45
  Things are getting, contractors are taking shortcuts.
• 15:48
  They don't understand mold.
• 15:50
  So we see today a lot of building contractors have mold remediators on call, essentially as a subcontractor.
• 15:58
  They have to remediate the crawlspaces of these homes before the first tenants even move in because the mold is already growing in that home.
• 16:06
  So it's, it's a really bad situation, that we're in currently.
• 16:10
  And when you get into one of these homes and you're susceptible, it can be a very, very, very difficult thing to go through.
• 16:18
  Wow.
• 16:18
  It's almost like, one of those like scary mystery movies where you have a family move into a house and all of a sudden one person is just falling completely ill for no explained reason or an unexplained reason.
• 16:31
  And, you know, some people even think that person's losing their mind.
• 16:35
  Yeah, yeah.
• 16:37
  And it's actually when everyone in the home gets sick, it's easier to know, okay, wait a minute, something's going on here.
• 16:44
  Like, I think there may be mold.
• 16:45
  But in many cases everyone doesn't get sick because of those genetic variations.
• 16:52
  Some people can detox their body or they work out, they sweat more, or they spend more time outside of the home, right?
• 16:58
  Their body can, yeah, they're being exposed, they may have a little trouble sleeping.
• 17:03
  Maybe they have chronic sinus infection.
• 17:05
  They get a little bloated, sometimes but they don't really realize it, right?
• 17:08
  But there could be someone else in the home who could be dying, because their body can't detox.
• 17:13
  And that leads to an incredible amount of confusion for people especially for the person who's sick.
• 17:19
  Cause they feel crazy.
• 17:21
  Even, let's say their partner, and this most often happens with women, in this, uh, situation, let's assume it's a woman.
• 17:27
  Let's say the husband maybe wants to be supportive, but after a while he doesn't know.
• 17:31
  He thinks maybe it's in her mind.
• 17:33
  And the interpersonal conflict it creates within relationships is, incalculable in terms of this problem, but it's one of the largest effects.
• 17:43
  And, this is what happened in my case, when I was living in this home, my partner, had a prior exposure as a child and she began spending, a considerable amount of time in my house and immediately her health cratered.
• 17:55
  It turned into, chronic infections, chronic pain, insomnia, anxiety that turned into dissociation.
• 18:03
  Which really led to, I'm, I'm no doctor, I can't diagnose her, but, um, extreme paranoia.
• 18:10
  She became convinced that I was trying to kill her.
• 18:12
  It really, really, really, messed her up.
• 18:15
  I didn't know what was happening.
• 18:16
  I felt fine, or at least my symptoms were, were small enough that I didn't notice them because I was trying to take care of her.
• 18:24
  And that is so common.
• 18:26
  And when, let's say the wife realizes that when her intuition tells her it's mold, that can be a very difficult uphill battle to convince everyone around her that she's not crazy.
• 18:37
  And a lot of times she is crazy.
• 18:40
  Because it makes you crazy, right?
• 18:42
  These things get into your brain and they make you crazy.
• 18:47
  Not crazy, like you don't know what's happening to you or that your intuition is wrong, but crazy in that it totally scrambles your brain.
• 18:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:55
  And I guess the thing is a lot of us, when we think about mold, we're used to seeing black.
• 19:01
  You know, or spots on a wall or on a ceiling, and then Yeah.
• 19:04
  everybody can say, oh yeah, look, there's mold.
• 19:07
  Yeah, there is mold.
• 19:09
  But what you're talking about is that there's mold that cannot be seen, but is being felt by the human body.
• 19:17
  Yes.
• 19:17
  And that's mold.
• 19:19
  When mold is growing, you can smell it, right?
• 19:21
  It's, it's creating (mVOCs).
• 19:23
  And we all know that musty kind of dank, moldy smell, right?
• 19:28
  And our body reacts to that in many cases.
• 19:30
  But mycotoxins are chemicals.
• 19:32
  They're, they're nanoparticle size, they're odorless, they're invisible.
• 19:37
  Filters don't catch them.
• 19:38
  There are virtually no environmental tests that, that even detect them in a home.
• 19:44
  So, that is really the hidden, uh, danger because you can remove the mold from a home.
• 19:49
  You can find the mold in your home.
• 19:51
  You can call the remediator, he can successfully remove that mold.
• 19:54
  But those processes and those cleaning chemicals that the remediator is using, don't destroy the mycotoxins.
• 20:00
  Think about them as landmines after a big war, the armies go away, one wins, you know.
• 20:06
  But those landmines are still buried in the ground.
• 20:09
  That's what mycotoxins are.
• 20:10
  So they can exist in a home even after the mold is gone.
• 20:14
  And in some cases, like when mold is growing in a crawl space.
• 20:18
  Or even an HVAC system, you may not smell it, it might be somewhat dormant.
• 20:22
  But if it's creating mycotoxins, that air is coming up through the floor or it's being circulated in the home.
• 20:29
  So you're breathing in those toxins.
• 20:31
  And, and this can go in for years and years before you know your health gets bad enough, where you really start digging and, and trying to find out what's going on.
• 20:40
  But I've heard of situations where people might have symptoms.
• 20:45
  Symptoms they really, really feel, and they go to their doctors and their doctors run test and then come back and say, there's nothing wrong.
• 20:54
  Yeah, unfortunately, um, that's the reality.
• 20:58
  You know, most, I would say most Western medicine, not only doesn't know about mycotoxins, but they don't even believe that mold can make you sick.
• 21:08
  Most doctors don't test for mold.
• 21:10
  They don't know how to test for mold.
• 21:11
  They don't understand mold.
• 21:13
  Traditional labs and blood work, you know, won't turn up any of the signs around mold or especially mycotoxin poisoning.
• 21:21
  So people who go on this quest, oftentimes, I mean, it, it's, one of the most frustrating parts of it's actually trying to get better.
• 21:30
  Because you start going to doctors and you get gaslit or told that you're crazy.
• 21:34
  I mean, I remember one time there was a poor family and there was mold in their HVAC system.
• 21:40
  And they got extremely sick and the wife was having seizures and these crazy neurological issues and they went to a very well known hospital, and the neurology department and they told her she was fine.
• 21:53
  You know, they said, oh, and we were sitting there at coffee, she had a seizure sitting next to me at coffee.
• 21:57
  You know, it, it, it was just the most awful.
• 21:59
  And they knew it was mold cause they had found it.
• 22:01
  They got out of the home and the doctor told them that yeah, no, you're fine.
• 22:05
  It's, it's not that we don't know.
• 22:07
  So it's for most people who are kind of seeking the traditional treatment medicine routes, it, it not only is it not effective, but in many cases it will actually make it worse.
• 22:20
  Because if you are experiencing anxiety or depression or OCD dissociative, you know, states, anything that's being caused by these toxins, the experience of that is not something that a doctor is gonna be able to identify.
• 22:38
  Or it's not something that a western doctor is gonna be able to identify.
• 22:41
  There are, now doctors and a lot of functional practitioners are starting to understand this, but the treatment is completely different.
• 22:47
  Because if you go to a Western doctor, they're gonna give you an SSRI.
• 22:52
  If you're anxious and antidepressant, they're gonna start giving you medications to try and treat the symptoms that they can see that you have, even though they don't know the root cause.
• 23:01
  And in many cases, you know, people get on these, hamster wheel of pharma, trying to treat.
• 23:07
  And that's one of the main reasons we have this massive chronic illness problem.
• 23:12
  Is cause we're not treating the root causes.
• 23:14
  We're not eliminating things that are actually causing these illnesses.
• 23:17
  We're just trying to treat the symptoms.
• 23:20
  The symptom is just a signal, right?
• 23:22
  The symptom is a signal that your body is giving you to say that, hey, there's something wrong in this environment.
• 23:28
  There's toxicity in this environment.
• 23:30
  So that's the real key.
• 23:31
  The first thing I would tell people is that if you're in this situation and you are sick, it's all about the environment.
• 23:38
  That's the first thing you have to address.
• 23:40
  Because even the doctors that know how to treat mold and mycotoxins, they know, they can't get someone, well, if they're in a moldy building.
• 23:49
  If they're in a building that has mycotoxins and they're constantly being exposed.
• 23:53
  So the mission of our company is to end building related illness by giving people the tools and the information so that they can clean and purify their homes of these things.
• 24:02
  Because that's the baseline foundation of getting well when you have chronic illness that's being caused by your building.
• 24:10
  And how do you know where that mycotoxin is at so that you are treating or or cleaning the right place?
• 24:19
  Great question.
• 24:19
  They're everywhere.
• 24:20
  So when you have an airtight building and mold begins to grow, and that's one of the things that mold's very good at.
• 24:26
  It disperses spores and toxins everywhere.
• 24:29
  So homes, it's not, you might have a source somewhere, in your HVAC system, maybe on the coils or maybe in the crawl space or the basement, maybe there's a leak behind the wall.
• 24:41
  So mold might be growing, but it's releasing spores and toxins and they're spreading through the house.
• 24:46
  So what we tell people is you have to first remove the source mold.
• 24:51
  So that's mold remediation.
• 24:53
  Sometimes that can be expensive.
• 24:55
  Uh, you know, if, if there's a big problem, you gotta rip things out.
• 24:59
  But that's the first thing you have to fix the structural issue.
• 25:01
  If there's water coming into the home, you have to fix that.
• 25:04
  Then you have to get that mold out, tear out the drywall, get it out.
• 25:08
  But that's where traditional mold remediation stops.
• 25:12
  And for people who were sick or for people who were sensitized, that's not enough.
• 25:17
  Because many times you can remediate that mold, but they go back into the home and they're still sick.
• 25:22
  And sometimes they're even more sick because that remediator unknowingly will aggravate that mold.
• 25:28
  He sprays a chemical on it.
• 25:30
  What do you think the mold does when it's being attacked?
• 25:33
  It releases toxins.
• 25:35
  So a toxic building is different than just a mold issue in a building.
• 25:41
  And that's what SuperStratum we set out to solve.
• 25:43
  We have created what we call the SuperStratum Whole Home System, and this is a, a combination of our products that we built into our patented protocol.
• 25:53
  It's three phases.
• 25:54
  This is something that people can do themselves in their own home.
• 25:57
  It's something that can be done by a professional service company, professional cleaning company.
• 26:01
  Our company does this as well.
• 26:03
  But we really wanted to put these tools into the, hands of homeowners so that they had the ability to detox their home.
• 26:10
  So this process is, like I said, it's three phases.
• 26:12
  It usually happens over a couple of days.
• 26:14
  Excuse me.
• 26:15
  And the first phase, is our cleaning and fogging phase.
• 26:19
  So it involves our product, SuperStratum Building Cleaner.
• 26:22
  And you take a ULV Fogger, which is like a, call it a cold fogger, an ultra low volume fogger.
• 26:28
  We fog the building cleaner all throughout the house.
• 26:31
  And then we wipe down every single surface.
• 26:33
  It's some people call this a micro clean or a small particle clean.
• 26:37
  And that cause just like you said, those mycotoxins are everywhere and they're sticky.
• 26:41
  It's almost like, like gas.
• 26:43
  If you were to spill gas in your house, okay, you can scrub that, but you're all that gas is just, it's gonna be there.
• 26:49
  Mycotoxins are the same way.
• 26:51
  So it's really a decontamination process, so you wanna wipe down everything in the home.
• 26:56
  And then our second phase is actually a gas phase.
• 26:59
  We have a product called the SuperStratum Deodorant Bomb.
• 27:02
  And this is a delivery mechanism of chlorine dioxide gas.
• 27:05
  So you can put these packets all throughout the home.
• 27:08
  You take the people, pets and plants out of the home.
• 27:11
  This treatment goes overnight.
• 27:13
  You add water to these packets and it creates chlorine dioxide gas, and that fills up the building.
• 27:18
  So it penetrates all those areas that you can't see deep into the cavities, into all those furniture, you know, these soft goods, these fabrics, things that are really hard to clean.
• 27:29
  And that chlorine dioxide gas will break down, mycotoxins, destroys VOCs.
• 27:34
  It decontaminates that building.
• 27:36
  And then the third phase, once we come back, you coat the building or you coat the areas that are prone to moisture with our endurance coating.
• 27:43
  This is the product I mentioned earlier.
• 27:45
  We started the company around this is a water resistant, abrasion resistant coating.
• 27:50
  It's invisible.
• 27:50
  You spray a light coating onto any surface, you would never know it's there.
• 27:55
  But that coating will last, in some cases for 10, 15 years.
• 27:59
  It's extremely water resistant and it resists mold completely.
• 28:02
  So any spore that lands on it, can't grow.
• 28:05
  And that is a great solution for your crawl spaces, your HVEC systems, and it really gives you that long-term performance, you know, going forward.
• 28:13
  So that's our system.
• 28:15
  And every day, you know, we successfully help homeowners who do this the most sensitized, chronically ill people who are in these environments.
• 28:23
  This is really that missing piece of restoring a sick home to a healthy home for this vulnerable population.
• 28:31
  So the last, phase would you use that like in the shower.
• 28:35
  You know, like spray the, bathroom walls, because that always gets molded.
• 28:41
  Cause someone always forgets to turn the, vent.
• 28:43
  Yeah.
• 28:43
  Yep.
• 28:44
  It'll last.
• 28:45
  If you spray it on the tile in your shower, it'll last for, I think about 12, 12 or 13 weeks, or I'm sorry, about 10, 10 to 12 weeks.
• 28:53
  So, that's taking a couple hot showers every day, so it's extremely water resistant.
• 28:57
  So you can see the performance, you know, in a something like a shower.
• 29:00
  And on the outside, on your outdoor furniture.
• 29:03
  You know, the masonry or the stone around your house, the shady side of your home, all those places where algae and mildew grow, it's a great tool for that as well.
• 29:11
  And it'll last for about two years in an exterior application.
• 29:14
  So you wanna clean that surface first.
• 29:16
  This is not a cleaner.
• 29:17
  So you, you get the surface clean and then you spray that on.
• 29:22
  So it sounds like the first phase is pretty intense.
• 29:27
  You know like when you come back Yeah, it can be.
• 29:28
  into the home.
• 29:30
  Yeah, it's a, it depends on how big the home is, how many contents are in the home, of course.
• 29:36
  But it is, I mean, you know, we don't think about how much dust is in our home.
• 29:42
  And the dust is really where these toxins and spores and things live.
• 29:47
  So it's, it's about the physical removal of dust, but it's using chemistry that is proven to destroy mycotoxins.
• 29:55
  And this is, was really the foundation of our company when we realized that mycotoxins were the issue, we also realized that all of these chemicals, hydrogen peroxides and bleaches and quaternary ammonium salts, they can't destroy the chemical compound.
• 30:09
  They can kill a mold spore.
• 30:11
  They can kill a mold colony, but they don't destroy the chemical because we're not talking about microbiology now a living organism.
• 30:18
  We're talking about chemistry.
• 30:20
  So our building cleaner and our everyday cleaner we were the first company to show and prove that we could destroy a mycotoxin with our products.
• 30:29
  So this is a very, very unique chemistry that not only is safe, but can destroy these toxins.
• 30:35
  So we did some research with the preeminent mycotoxin lab in the US real-time laboratories, and they had been looking for a solution to destroy a mycotoxin.
• 30:44
  And, and they had not found it; they were testing multiple chemicals.
• 30:47
  And we tested our products and it was a, a raving success actually.
• 30:51
  It shocked us how successful it was cause we knew how difficult it was to destroy these toxins.
• 30:56
  So we released a white paper to the professional industry and began to educate the industry about the problem and about our solution.
• 31:04
  And then that really became, like I said, the foundation for what we went on to build.
• 31:09
  Because we realized, all right, we need to put tools in the hands of the professionals that want to do the right thing.
• 31:15
  But the professionals aren't motivated the same way as the people who were sick, as the people who live in those homes.
• 31:21
  So we changed our company, we said, let's put these tools directly into the hands of the people who need it.
• 31:26
  Let's give them the tools that they need to detoxify their homes.
• 31:29
  So that's what we've done.
• 31:30
  It is a big, you know, project.
• 31:32
  Like it can take you a whole weekend or a couple of days to do, you have to leave the house.
• 31:36
  But these are big problems and there were no solutions to them previously.
• 31:41
  And is something that can be done relatively easy.
• 31:44
  We have videos on the websites.
• 31:45
  We've got a great support team.
• 31:47
  You know, every day we help people, uh, who, who take this on to reclaim their home.
• 31:54
  And does your product destroy like your furniture?
• 31:58
  No, it can be used directly onto furniture.
• 32:00
  So our cleaners are safe for furniture.
• 32:03
  The gas is actually safe for furniture as well.
• 32:05
  In fact, we encourage people to leave their belongings in the home.
• 32:08
  You hang up the clothes, turn up the cushions, you know, you want to give the gas and opportunity to get into all those places.
• 32:15
  So contents cleaning is a big part of what we do, cause a lot of people who have these mold contaminations are so sensitive, they'll throw away everything.
• 32:24
  I mean, it's like a house fire that they would leave everything behind.
• 32:27
  Sometimes wouldn't even take the clothes on their back and go to a new place.
• 32:30
  So we've developed a solution and cleaning protocols so that people can save their belongings.
• 32:36
  They don't have to get rid of everything.
• 32:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:39
  And what about like, you know, cause I have dogs.
• 32:41
  If I accidentally did not wipe down a certain surface and my dogs, my dogs lick everything; is it safe if my dogs licked it?
• 32:51
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:52
  So our building cleaner, which is made out of a, a special type of hypochlorous acid, and our deodorant bombs, which use chlorine dioxide gas, both of those chemicals break down to a salt.
• 33:04
  So once they're done, you're not left with any toxic chemicals.
• 33:07
  It's just salt.
• 33:09
  The, the deodorant, bomb gas, the chlorine dioxide, gas is poisonous.
• 33:12
  You do have to be out of the home.
• 33:13
  You can't breathe it in.
• 33:14
  But once it's broken down, you're left with salt.
• 33:18
  The hypochlorous acid, is an extremely safe chemical.
• 33:21
  And I love to tell people about this chemical because I'm so passionate about, it sounds kind of funny to say; but it's generated inside your own body.
• 33:28
  So, the human body makes hypochlorous acid.
• 33:31
  That's why it's so safe for us.
• 33:33
  So almost no one is sensitized to it.
• 33:37
  In fact, there's a research right now on hypochlorous acid for cancer, it helps cell regeneration.
• 33:46
  They use it a lot for wound cleaning, a lot of skin things.
• 33:48
  So, I mean, I, this sounds crazy, but I use these products myself.
• 33:54
  I wash my mouth out with them.
• 33:56
  I wash my vegetables with them.
• 33:57
  I'll gargle it when I get a sore throat.
• 34:00
  I'll sniff it up my nose when I've got a stuffy nose.
• 34:03
  That's how safe it's, right.
• 34:04
  So yes, you don't need any PPE when you're applying it, you can just spray it and, you know, walk through the house.
• 34:10
  It's a very, very safe chemistry.
• 34:12
  Okay.
• 34:13
  And is it just a one time thing?
• 34:17
  If I feel like my house has toxins in it and I went through all three phases, is my house clean?
• 34:26
  Or could I have missed Yeah.
• 34:27
  a spot?
• 34:29
  Well, theoretically it would be clean, but what we tell people is you have to find that source mold.
• 34:35
  Because if you have mycotoxins, there's something or, there's something in the house that's going on.
• 34:39
  So, the SuperStratum Whole Home System should be done after mold remediation.
• 34:44
  Or when you're fairly certain that there's not a real hidden big mold problem.
• 34:49
  So there is a chance that you missed a mold problem.
• 34:52
  You know, you say, oh, I think my house is a little toxic, or I think I got all the mold.
• 34:55
  And in some cases maybe your mold remediator missed something.
• 34:58
  That is always a possibility, but in theory, if you do it the right way, this is a one time thing.
• 35:03
  You can detoxify and reclaim your home, and then it's about that practice going forward, where you're maintaining that healthy environment.
• 35:11
  You're doing the right things to make sure that your house doesn't get back to that place.
• 35:16
  And our products are great for that as well.
• 35:17
  We have everyday cleaners, everyday products.
• 35:20
  We're launching a new white product.
• 35:22
  Um, we're always kind of creating new products for people who are trying to maintain this environment.
• 35:29
  Now they know how important it is to keep a healthy toxin-free home.
• 35:33
  So it's, relatively easy to maintain that environment once you reclaim it.
• 35:38
  Hmm.
• 35:39
  And how would someone test their home for mycotoxins?
• 35:42
  Yeah, great question.
• 35:44
  It's very difficult right now.
• 35:46
  Uh, there's not a lot of testing there are a couple of surface tests.
• 35:49
  We have a surface test.
• 35:50
  There are a couple surface tests out there, but as you know, it's the exposure in the air that really is creating our problem.
• 35:57
  There are no reliable air tests right now.
• 35:59
  There are some companies that are, are working on that.
• 36:02
  You know, I think in the next two to three, four years, we'll be in a very different place when it comes to that.
• 36:08
  But what I like to tell people is, you know, testing is very important when it comes to mold.
• 36:14
  If you have a, a real issue in your building, in a real mold problem, a good environmentalist and, there's no replacement for that.
• 36:22
  But in a lot of cases, I see people who once they realize they have it they wanna do all this testing.
• 36:27
  And they wanna know it, what's the exact mold species and what are the toxins.
• 36:30
  And, and it's kind of like, what I tell people is it's not always necessary because in most cases, fixing it, you're doing the same thing.
• 36:41
  You're gonna clean that building.
• 36:43
  You want to test to make sure you're finding, you know what's there.
• 36:47
  Your mold remediator, you know, has found that hidden mold.
• 36:50
  But you're gonna need to do the same thing to detoxify the home.
• 36:54
  Whether there's zearalenone or trichothecenes or ochratoxin or aflatoxin, they may all be there or one of them might be there.
• 37:03
  But you still need to perform the same detoxification in the home to remove those.
• 37:07
  So I think mycotoxin testing, you know, will begin to catch up, over the next couple of years.
• 37:13
  But I encourage people, you, you know, if your home's making you sick.
• 37:17
  You you have that idea.
• 37:19
  And this can be done without doing extensive testing to determine exactly what toxin is in the home.
• 37:26
  I have a question to ask you because here in California, I live in Sacramento, California, and usually a lot of people that live in my area, we have a whole house fan.
• 37:35
  And in order to take advantage of the delta breeze from the Bay Area, we open up our windows and we suck in all that cold air.
• 37:44
  And then we close everything up and turn off the fan and it helps with utility bill.
• 37:50
  Is that a safe practice?
• 37:53
  Yes, yes, swapping the air out in the home is the easiest way.
• 37:57
  And I like to tell people this, if you think about your home, if you think about the air in that home; think how long it takes for that air to swap out.
• 38:05
  If maybe you go in and out of the house two, three times a day, you open the door, you close the door.
• 38:10
  Most people don't open their windows, right?
• 38:12
  We leave our home sealed up.
• 38:14
  So when you open up all the windows in the home and you let that air move through, you're replacing that air.
• 38:20
  You're flushing out that air that's in the home.
• 38:22
  Now, there can be some trade offs, maybe there's high humidity outside.
• 38:26
  That's not really a problem in California, but in some parts of the country, you have to keep the home closed because you'll get condensation.
• 38:32
  So there are trade offs, but in certain times of the year when the weather's right in certain parts of the country, that is a great option to just open the window, let fresh air in.
• 38:42
  And this is something in Germany actually, they have a word for it, I think they called it lüften.
• 38:47
  I'm saying, I know I'm saying it wrong.
• 38:49
  But it's a practice of flushing out the air.
• 38:50
  They open the windows up, they do it once a week.
• 38:52
  They let that air come through.
• 38:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:55
  Yeah, my husband and I like to do it, but my husband suffers a really bad allergies.
• 38:58
  So we actually put, special screens in our house that keep the dust out.
• 39:03
  So we're sucking in the warm air.
• 39:05
  But then we have these really thick, screens that are not allowing a lot of dust.
• 39:10
  Yeah.
• 39:10
  We're still going to get dust in into the house, but at least we can control some of it.
• 39:15
  Yeah, that's great.
• 39:16
  Yeah.
• 39:16
  So, I know that you are in Nashville, do you have other companies that are in different parts of the country that people can work with to help them clean out their house?
• 39:28
  Yeah, we do.
• 39:29
  So we kinda have a couple of different ways that, people can work with us in our product.
• 39:33
  So our DIY solution, this is for people to do themselves.
• 39:37
  They can get on our website, we've got a piece of software there where they can enter in their, create a profile, enter in their home, all the rooms and it spits out, tells them exactly the products they need.
• 39:47
  We've got great instructional videos.
• 39:48
  It's really step by step process.
• 39:51
  Like I said, our team's very supportive.
• 39:53
  But a lot of people, maybe they've got a big house or they're elderly or they're so sick, and they just can't.
• 40:00
  You know, they can't pull it together to do that.
• 40:02
  Very, very common.
• 40:03
  So a lot of people want it done professionally.
• 40:06
  We have teams that do that in the Nashville area in North Carolina.
• 40:11
  And we do travel, you know, for certain clients, we'll travel around the country to do that.
• 40:14
  And we also have other partners, mold remediators, cleaners, you know, those professionals out there who understand this problem, who see where it's going.
• 40:22
  They wanna do the right thing.
• 40:23
  They really care.
• 40:25
  And we work with those companies as well.
• 40:27
  They're our professional customers.
• 40:28
  You know, we help connect our consumer customers, our retail homeowner customers, to those professionals who are trained, who have our products.
• 40:37
  Or like I said, you know, we can do the work ourselves.
• 40:41
  Seth, tell me what are the common symptoms that people should look out for and start to think about cleaning out their house?
• 40:52
  It's a great question.
• 40:54
  I would say the most common symptoms that I see are brain fog that's almost ubiquitous, chronic fatigue.
• 41:04
  There was one study that showed that 93% of all people that they tested had mycotoxins in their system that had chronic fatigue syndrome.
• 41:12
  It is very common to have fatigue, brain fog, but some of the other things that we see, skin issues very common.
• 41:19
  Eczema, psoriasis, when mold really goes after the liver, you can get, your hair can fall out.
• 41:26
  You'll get these, I don't even know how to describe it, it's, yeah, I would say hair falling out, uh, skin issues, gut issues, probably might be one of the biggest.
• 41:37
  So, IBS colitis, bloating, for women, yeast infections, thrush, these types of things.
• 41:42
  These are, microbiome issues because mold and toxins disrupt that.
• 41:46
  So you get these issues that you know, okay, well I eat or I have a food allergy, or I'm bloating.
• 41:51
  Well, you don't realize that that's a product at the inflammation in the gut.
• 41:55
  Of the, disbalance of the microbiome and the microbiome that's a result of these toxins.
• 42:01
  So gut issues, skin issues.
• 42:04
  In children, actually we see it's less, autoimmune because they have, sometimes they have strong immune systems.
• 42:11
  They may get sick, but we see things like speech delay, cognitive issues.
• 42:16
  Mycotoxins are linked to autism in children, so they can contribute to autism.
• 42:20
  So if your child's not developing properly or you sense that something is wrong, that can be a sign.
• 42:26
  Also autoimmune disease is one of the biggest.
• 42:28
  So, and any type of autoimmune disease, I mean, I've seen everything from, you know, goodness, I I, I've seen a couple cases, oh, I've, I, the name's escaping me.
• 42:40
  Very rare autoimmune conditions.
• 42:41
  But because mycotoxins create inflammation throughout the body, that is what can drive these autoimmune.
• 42:47
  So if you're dealing with any one of these, but especially if you have a few of these right gut issues, skin issues, brain fog, that is a telltale sign that your home might be making you sick.
• 43:01
  Are you thinking about like lupus or fibromyalgia?
• 43:04
  Yes, both common fibromyalgia is, is extremely common.
• 43:08
  Hmm.
• 43:09
  All right, so where can people learn more information about you and find you?
• 43:13
  And work with you?
• 43:15
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 43:15
  So if they can go to our website, superstratum.co.
• 43:18
  And we'll put a link in, in the show notes that people can go to.
• 43:21
  We'll put a little discount in there for them.
• 43:23
  They can contact us there.
• 43:25
  We've got a great, chat bot on the website.
• 43:27
  They can reach out to us, send us an email.
• 43:29
  On Instagram that's, where we're very active there.
• 43:32
  We post a lot of information and videos about this, videos about our products.
• 43:37
  On our website you can go to the solutions page, you can read all about the whole home system, see videos, learn about the products.
• 43:44
  That's a, a great place to find us.
• 43:45
  And we're also on TikTok as well.
• 43:47
  And that's at SuperStratum.
• 43:48
  Instagram is @superstratum.co and our website is superstratum.co.
• 43:54
  Great.
• 43:55
  The other question I was going to ask you, what if you live in an apartment, can you still use your product?
• 44:00
  Yes, we work with lots of people who are in apartments or in rental situations.
• 44:05
  It can get a little tricky when you don't own the property and you're dealing with the landlord.
• 44:10
  But there are solutions.
• 44:11
  And even if you can't, run the gas in the home, or in the apartment, which is a lot of cases in apartment when you're in a shared space you can run the first phase, you can do the fogging and the cleaning.
• 44:21
  There are steps that you can do you know to improve that environment.
• 44:25
  But yeah, apartments, we work with a lot of people and we really wanna help empower people to, if they can't do the whole thing, maybe cause they live in an apartment, they don't own the building, or maybe they can't afford right to fully clean and detoxify their home.
• 44:39
  There are, kind of temporary solutions or we can help, people get their environment a little bit better.
• 44:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 44:46
  That is great.
• 44:48
  Well, Seth, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 44:50
  Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
• 44:52
  This is something everyone needs to pay attention to because I think we all have a little bit of those symptoms that you just talked about.
• 45:00
  And maybe we've been ignoring them because we've been ignored when we go see our medical provider.
• 45:07
  Absolutely.
• 45:07
  Well, I appreciate you, you know, having this conversation.
• 45:10
  And I'll leave you with this, and this is what I always tell people, it's the easiest way to, I guess to kind of get clued in whether or not this could be a problem.
• 45:19
  You know, I tell people when you're at your home and you feel, you know, maybe you feel these symptoms and you're, I don't know what's causing it.
• 45:25
  But when you leave, say you go on vacation and you travel; do your symptoms go away?
• 45:29
  Do you feel better?
• 45:30
  Do you kind of come back to life?
• 45:31
  Does your energy get better?
• 45:32
  And then when you go home.
• 45:34
  And a lot of people, when I say that're like, oh, oh my goodness, that it happens to me.
• 45:38
  I thought it was because I was just stressed at work or I didn't like, you know.
• 45:42
  And we, we just don't connect these dots.
• 45:45
  But sometimes all it takes is just this really simple thought of like, oh yeah, I'm tired all the time and my skin's terrible when I'm at home.
• 45:52
  Or when I'm at work or when I go to visit some people, but when I leave that environment, I get better.
• 45:57
  That's a sign, and if you're experiencing that, then it almost certainly means that there's an issue in the building.
• 46:03
  Great.
• 46:04
  That's really good advice.
• 46:06
  I like that.
• 46:08
  Thank you.
• 46:09
  Thank you very much, Seth.
• 46:10
  I will include all your information in our show notes so that people can learn a little bit more about you and work with you.
• 46:18
  Wonderful, I appreciate it.
• 46:19
  I appreciate you having me, and I, I really appreciate you helping get the word out about this problem.
• 46:25
  You know, it's, it's our mission.
• 46:26
  We believe that more people, you know, need to be aware of it.
• 46:29
  So Thank you.
• 46:30
  Thank you.
• 46:31
  So there it is.
• 46:33
  You might've moved into the house of your dreams, but if you're not careful, that fresh new home could be hiding, mold and mycotoxins ready to wreck havoc.
• 46:42
  A huge thank you to Seth for shining a light on what's behind the walls and behind many unexplained health issues.
• 46:52
  If you'd like to learn more about Seth or connect with him directly, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep116.
• 47:02
  And yes, if you're looking for that discount code Super Stratum, all the details are down below in the show notes.
• 47:11
  We've got more exciting conversations lined up for you next week, so come back for another amazing episode, created just for you.
• 47:20
  Until then, keep dreaming big.
• 47:22
  Take care of yourself, and remember you were beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself.
• 47:30
  Thank you for watching.
• 47:32
  Catch you next week.
• 47:33
  Bye for now.