MOULDY BEDROOM INCREASES ASTHMA RISK

THE CHECKS:

More than 30 per cent of indoor allergies are caused by mould, according to the charity Allergy UK, yet few people make the link between symptoms such as sneezing and wheezing with mould in the home. I used mould settle plates in my kitchen, bathroom and Flynn’s nursery to measure the number of fungal colonies in the air. I also used a mould swab on a patch of damp next to the main bedroom window.

THE RESULTS:

According to Mould Check, up to three colonies is good, three to six is acceptable, seven to 12 is poor, and 13 or more is very poor. All my mould settle plate results were good. They identified one speciess in the kitchen called penicillium, the blue fuzzy mould seen on rotting fruit, and which is at its peak in winter and spring, and one yeast species in the nursery. The bathroom contained one penicillium species and one cladosporium, a mould uld usually found in poorly ventilated areas. More worrying, however, were the results of the mould swab test, which contained 50,000 spores of penicillium and aspergillus, mould found growing on dust and building materials. When these spores come into contact with skin, and nasal and bronchial membranes, they y can cause problems such a as fungal infections, bro bronchitis, asthma an and allergies.

LISA’S VERDICT:

‘While overall your test results are what I’d expect from the average household during the winter months whenw the windows arear closed, the swab resultsresu from the damp patch a are very high. Mould can exacerbate asthma, and you definitely don’t want to be sleeping in a room and breathing in all those spores. Try a dehumidifier and don’t dry your washing indoors on radiators – if the windows aren’t open, the moisture has to go somewhere and that encourages mould spores to grow.’