Monitoring mycotoxins in the home

June 4, 2014 12:56 PM

Is there a way for a homeowner to monitor mildew, mold and/or mycotoxin levels in a room?
posted by retiree to Science & Nature (3 answers total)

You can find lots of different types of mold test kits just by Googling for the phrase, and Home Depot carries them, so technically yes. However I've been told by my more handy friends that they're usually a waste of money- if you can see mold you don't need to bother with testing, and if you suspect mold a professional assessment will be more helpful than a home test kit. This article has some good general advice.

If by moniter you mean something like a smoke detector rather than a test kit you have to periodically use I don't think those are really available, though you could certainly get a little humidity monitor to moniter moisture levels and thus whether the conditions favorable to mold and mildew exist.
posted by Wretch729 at 1:27 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Consumer Reports looked at a bunch of mold test kits in 2006 and decided they were all pretty much worthless, but the page seems to have succumbed to linkrot. This story links to it but the link is dead.
posted by Wretch729 at 1:31 PM on June 4, 2014

Anecdotally -- I have a long-term colleague & friend who's suffered a bunch of strange health problems in the past few years. Thinking they might be mold-related, he bought one of the home mold test kits, which gave a negative result. A year or so later, when he was no closer to solving his health problems, he had a professional evaluation which turned up quite a lot of mold in his house.

If you've got reason to believe you might have a mold problem, it's worth springing for the professionals. Seems like all you can get from the do-it-yourself kits is at best reassurance, and at worst false reassurance.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 12:58 PM on June 6, 2014