I love the smell of mould in the morning.
Actually I don’t. It drives me nuts. Some days I’m obsessed that it’s all I can smell. It’s the smell of living in the Northern Rivers. The humidity and rain of our summer has created the perfect conditions for mould. Mould on shoes. Mould in my bread bin. Mould in the dark of my cupboards. Mould in the cracks in my bathroom. Mould behind the sink. Mould in me.
Moulds are fungi. They are microbes, like viruses or bacteria. And most, apparently, are harmless. Except the ones that aren’t. I don’t know if anyone feels good about breathing in bio-toxins. And no one wants to put a baby or a little kid in a mouldy room. Some people don’t have a choice.
I can’t really see the mould. But I’ve lived in this region long enough to know that it generally goes away. Or it’s hiding until the next wet summer. Like a creepy fungal stalker. I buy natural room spray. I burn candles. And incense. There is no scientific evidence to show this has any effect, but I can pretend I no longer have mould. If I can’t smell it then it’s gone. I tell myself this is not the bad mould. The toxic mould: Stachybotrys chartarum. It’s just a regular mould. But I’m not a mycologist. That’s someone who studies mould.
I have never met a mycologist. What child when asked: ‘what do you want to do when you grow up?’, answers: ‘be a mycologist’? Possibly a child with asthma who grew up in a flood-impacted house in Lismore and spent a childhood in respiratory distress. I am sure mould has its place in nature, but that’s where I prefer it. In nature. Not in my home.
I don’t know why, but smelling mould makes me feel a bit depressed.
Apparently, that is a mould-related response. People with mould in their houses can experience more severe anxiety and depression. But that could also be because people experiencing mould issues tend to live in poor housing, poverty and general ill health. And that’s depressing too.
And of course, people in rental properties experience mould at higher rates. Generally because it goes untreated. Tenants move in. No visible mould. Mould returns. Tenants move out. Landlord cleans and paints over mould. New tenants move in. No visible mould. Mould returns. Tenants move out. And so on. Mould is the greatest predictor of length of tenancy.
And painting over it doesn’t stop it.
In my daughter’s last Melbourne share house, she had such a bad mould problem in the bathroom they used to hold their breath in the shower because breathing gave them headaches and made them feel weird. That makes hair washing impossible. I was relieved when they moved. I bought her shampoo to celebrate. Like many rentals it was impossible to remove the mould because it was all that was holding the building together.
Our flood-impacted houses are most at risk of mould. Especially black mould. It’s toxic for people with compromised immune systems. For little kids and babies. It can cause sick building syndrome. It’s not just respiratory symptoms. It makes you tired. Really tired. That’s the mycotoxins. It can affect how your brain works too. It can stop you thinking clearly. Give you a sense of detachment. Even psychosis. Prolonged exposure can give joint pain, make your hair fall out. And on rare occasions it can kill you. It pretty well sounds like being poisoned. Because it is.
In a housing crisis where thousands of homes were flooded and thousands still haven’t got the help they need, many don’t have much choice but to live with the mould. Those dehumidifiers have been running double time.
Forget the heavy chemicals, they don’t really work. And they make you sick too. Good news is that over 80% of mould can be removed with white vinegar and baking soda. Ventilation. And incense. Not the stuff you burn. The stuff you feel when you are forced to live in unsafe conditions: incensed.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
