HOME + MOLD Inspection
RADON + ALLERGEN Testing
SLEEP QUALITY Improvement

• Sleep Is Your Superpower – Dr. Matt Walker In this deep dive into the science of slumber, Walker shares the wonderfully good things that happen when you get sleep.
• One More Reason to Get a Good Night’s Sleep – Dr. Jeff Iliff The brain uses a quarter of the body’s entire energy supply, yet only accounts for about two percent of the body’s mass. So how does this unique organ receive and, perhaps more importantly, rid itself of vital nutrients? New research suggests it has to do with sleep.
• Why Do We Sleep? – Prof. Russell Foster In this talk, Foster shares three popular theories about why we sleep, busts some myths about how much sleep we need at different ages — and hints at some bold new uses of sleep as a predictor of mental health.
• How to Succeed? Get More Sleep – Arianna Huffington In this short talk, Arianna Huffington shares a small idea that can awaken much bigger ones: the power of a good night’s sleep.

Our health can be affected by where we sleep. This phenomenon has been documented for millennia in ancient cultures, such as through Chinese Fung Shui, but poorly understood and largely ignored in modern industrial societies. 70 years ago that changed dramatically.

Global Grids

German doctor Dr. Ernst Hartmann observed that some patients with treatable conditions always returned and could not be healed according to traditional medicine. His efforts to find a root cause led to his discovery that all his ”untreatable” patients slept on the same type of geopathic stress, which became known as the Hartmann Grid. This was published in 1951 in his book Krankheit als Standortproblem (“Illness as a location problem”).

In typical scientific tradition, Dr. Hartmann’s insight prompted others to look for similar patterns, and within 2 years a system of three global grids had been established by other German researchers. Today we use the global grid geometries to mark exactly where strong geopathic stress is located, and most importantly, we can provide families with solutions for better sleep quality to support their recovery from health issues.

Physical symptoms of strong geopathic stress are diverse and may include:

• Insomnia, such as:
  • Night-time sweating, pounding heart, tooth grinding (bruxism).
  • Persistent crying in toddlers.
  • Nightmares and screaming in children.
  • Visions and vivid dreaming in teens and adults – we have even seen anti-psychotic drugs prescribed to teens because of this symptom. See also “Behaviour clues” below.
• Weakened immune system, expressed as chronic disease, chronic infection, and auto-immune disorders.
• Underweight, low Body Mass Index (BMI), rapid aging and degenerative disorders.
• Irritability, hyperactivity, depression, anxiety (especially in children).
• Joint pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling (like sciatica), muscle aches and pain, menstrual cramps.
• Eczema and skin rashes, growing skin pigmentation marks (especially on the face)
• Circulatory and digestive disorders, allergies.

Groundwater and fault fields

We also measure a second type of geopathic stress that originates from the earth’s natural gamma radiation. We are not concerned with the natural background gamma radiation itself. Similar to how gamma radiation measurements help engineers assess soil density and prospect for water, we are interested in sharp changes in soil density from groundwater, faults, or even pipes that can modulate gamma radiation into a resonance that causes energetic disturbance in our body. Weak groundwater and fault fields are common and are not a health concern, but when these fields are strong, they can disrupt sleep with very characteristic frequent night time urination. In children this may be expressed as bed wetting, even at an advanced age.

Behaviour Clues

Geopathic fields are not new, we have evolved with them, and this gives us some behaviour clues. Young children naturally try to avoid strong geopathic fields during sleep by rolling to one side of the bed or even falling out of bed frequently. As they get older children may simply leave their bed and find somewhere else to sleep. Babies confined to a crib on strong geopathic stress will sleep only a short time and cry frequently.

Nursing mothers have also found that babies are restless and difficult to feed on strong geopathic zones.

If you observe some of these behaviours in your family, strong geopathic stress is probably part of the story. Our SleepSAFE Inspection helps you confirm what’s going on and provides solutions. Children recover very quickly if geopathic stress is removed from their sleep environment.

How about animals? Dogs are like us and avoid strong global grids, that’s why they may not sleep where you put that comfortable dog bed. Cats and other species like insects are energetically different. For example cats will seek out certain Geopathic fields and will spend time at those locations every day, while bees will tend to build hives at certain Global Grid crossing points. The biological effects and uses of Geopathic fields therefore depend on the species and have nothing to do with good or bad energy.

AC Electric Fields

House wiring carrying 60 Hz Alternating Current (AC) produces AC electric fields that can induce an artificial AC body voltage on you. The AC electric fields exist whether appliances are on or off. During the day this is rarely a health concern, but at night it can be. That’s because our nervous system is also an AC electrical system operating at 0-90mV and 0-200 Hz. A strong artificial AC body voltage can over-stimulate and cause sleep disruption, especially for children who are more sensitive.

During our SleepSAFE Inspection we measure your artificial body voltage in your sleep environment.

Solutions are usually very simple, such as moving cables away from sleeping areas (how many chargers do you have next to your bed?). Where a bed is affected by electric fields from branch circuits inside walls, we can help you install shielding fabrics or automatic AC circuit de-couplers to reduce your exposure.

AC Magnetic Fields

When an appliance or light is switched on, current flows and AC magnetic fields are produced. These AC magnetic fields are of much greater concern for human health compared to AC electric fields because magnetic fields are associated with hormone disruption and chronic illness, including heart disorders, high blood pressure, headaches, migraines, difficulty concentrating, disrupted menstrual cycle, irritability, insomnia, anxiety, allergies, leukemia, and lymphoma.

The higher the current flow, the stronger the magnetic fields, especially from appliances that contain motors, such as fans, fridges and air conditioners. Other less obvious sources of strong AC magnetic fields include transformers (indoor or outdoor) and power cables buried underground or inside walls and under floors.

Solutions to reduce exposure to AC magnetic fields can be simple if it’s an option to move away from the source, or move the appliance itself, typically 1 to 2m away from beds, and we confirm this for each appliance by measurement. On the other hand, shielding AC magnetic fields is more difficult and the required materials are much more expensive than shielding AC electric fields. We usually don’t recommend investing in shielding AC magnetic fields except for small sources that can be completely enclosed, or as a last resort against outdoor sources that can’t be controlled. We can help you evaluate your options for each situation.

High-Frequency EMF

We all know what High Frequency EMF sources look like, from the smart phones, WiFi routers and robot vacuum cleaners in our homes to the vast outdoor network of cellular antennas. Although these pulse modulated signals are not ionizing radiation, they have been associated with DNA damage and a wide range of biological effects because our bodies are electro-chemical systems. High frequency EMF can activate the voltage gated calcium channels in our cells, disrupting calcium signaling, and leading to excessive free radical formation by nitric oxide and peroxy-nitrite. These hit the body with strong oxidative stress that is associated with a range of health issues, including:

Excess nitric oxide binding to cytochrome P450 may cause:

• Endocrine disruption – levels of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and insulin drop, associated with lowered male and female fertility.
• Lower ATP, detoxification and vitamin D activity – associated with fatigue.
• Disrupted melatonin production – associated with insomnia.
• Increased antibiotic resistance and growth rate of micro-organisms (E. coli) – which do not have cytochrome P450.

Excess peroxynitrite modifying tyrosine may cause:

• Disrupted activity of neurotransmitters like L-DOPA, adrenaline, and noradrenaline, causing changes in brain function, responses and behavior – associated with autism and ADHD.
• Nitration of proteins and DNA damage associated with chronic disease.
• Opening of the blood-brain barrier – associated with easier infection and toxification.

The two solution strategies that we focus on to reduce your family’s exposure to High Frequency EMF in the home, are to control your own indoor sources like WiFi routers, and to shield yourself from strong outdoor sources. Luckily there are many choices of high quality shielding materials from companies like YShield who have taken a leadership role in helping to protect families from artificial EMF.

The measurements we take during the SleepSAFE Inspection are designed to help you prioritize what actions will reduce your EMF exposure the most. We always recommend you focus on your family’s sleeping environment first.

1. We measure total airborne mold levels to tell us your exposure to all particles of mold, of any species, dead or alive. The Mycometer® air Fungi system* that we use has proven to be a fast, highly reproducible, globally comparable, and cost effective measure of a home’s moldiness that also helps identify hotspots by comparing different parts of the house. This test does not determine mold species, but the total airborne mold exposure has proven to be a very reliable indicator of a home’s mold risk.
2. We also test for 16 specific MYCOTOXINS and 12 toxigenic molds. Rather than spending extra money trying to identify all the many molds which could possibly be present in your home, years of research has shown that it’s far more effective to test for the specific mold species that are associated with water damaged buildings. This test not only alerts us to existing active mold growth (which might be concealed), but also gives us a fingerprint of potential past water damage in the home which wasn’t cleaned effectively. Mycotoxins can survive for years in a home and are virtually indestructible, so a visually clean home with a history of water damage could still be unsafe to live in. There are no safe levels of mycotoxins, for example Aflatoxin B1 produced by some Aspergillus molds is a thousand times more toxic than benzo(a)pyrene, the most carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon.
3. We also do a screening test for total mold VOCs because concealed mold growth is challenging to find, especially in a visually clean home. These metabolic gases, which can give moldy homes a characteristic musty smell, can permeate through walls, floors, and ceilings more easily than mold particles, and this gives us a better chance to detect concealed mold. High levels of total mold VOCs without any visible mold can justify more invasive air samples from inside wall and floor cavities, as well as more detailed mold VOC analysis.
4. We use the Mycometer® surface Fungi system* for surface mold tests if staining or apparent mold growth is found. We also use this test routinely inside ventilation systems, such as Heat Recovery Ventilators (HRVs) even if no visible mold is seen, to identify small mold sources that could be blowing around the whole house. On very damp surfaces molds and bacteria may compete and inhibit each other’s growth. Since bacterial growth may not give any discoloration like fungal growth, it is possible for visually clean surfaces to be contaminated. So in parallel with surface mold we also test for surface bacteria with the Mycometer® surface Bacteria system.
5. Finally, we use the Mycometer® air Allergen system* to measure the total organic allergen exposure, which identifies if high mold levels in the home are from active mold sources or simply due to excessive dirt accumulation. With this insight you can focus your efforts more effectively on a clean air solution.
   We believe that together these tests are a time-efficient and cost-effective strategy to identify potential mold problems, guide clean-up efforts, and independently verify that a home is safe to live in.

*Mycometer tests are U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved and accepted by the Florida and Texas Departments of Health. Expert opinion based on Mycometer tests has been accepted in Florida and Texas courts.

Some fungi are capable of producing chemicals that are poisonous to plants (phytotoxins), bacteria (antibiotics) as well as animals (mycotoxins). Certain Aspergillus, Stachybotrys, and Fusarium molds are known to produce mycotoxins and their production is related to the extent and frequency of water damage and may accelerate as surfaces get closer to the saturation point.

Once released, mycotoxins may attach to any nearby surface or any mold particles and become dispersed throughout the home as dust. Once in the environment, mycotoxins remain stable for years and are resistant to breakdown by heat or chemical treatment. Physical removal is the only viable method to control indoor mycotoxin exposure.

In each MoldPLUS Inspection we test for 16 mycotoxins that are commonly associated with water damaged homes and potentially serious health effects, including cancer, damage to the liver, kidneys and lungs, fatigue, immuno-suppression, gastro- intestinal disorders, skin inflammation, vision and breathing disorders, hormone disruption, and reproductive problems.

Endotoxins form part of the outer cell wall of gram-negative bacteria like E. coli, and although endotoxins are not infectious, they are associated with serious inflammation responses, septic shock, fever, headache, nausea, chest tightness, cough, shortness of breath, and wheezing. Endotoxins are similar to mold mycotoxins in being very stable and not easily destroyed by heat or chemicals. Complex health effects may result from exposure to ENDOTOXINS AND MYCOTOXINS, which is a likely scenario in water-damaged buildings. Exposure level, the presence of other allergens, and genetic susceptibility all determine how occupants respond to indoor endotoxins.

Endotoxins in homes are associated with floods and chronic leaks, but may also be associated with contaminated ventilation systems, sumps, humidifiers, damp concrete floor slabs, and even swimming pools. Reducing exposure to endotoxins requires controlling and removing existing growth of gram-negative bacteria AND removing any accumulated endotoxins from past contamination using High- Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) vacuuming and filtration.