<p>ok… just realized I should have thrown in another possible clue. We live next to a small pond, and due to the water table, our sump pump goes off a lot. Meaning, when it’s raining or we’re having a good snow melt, every five minutes or so. When it’s dry as a bone and we’re having a drought, it still goes off every 20-30 minutes or so. The sump pump is in the unfinished part of the basement, though. We’ve never, ever had any sort of pump failure, or water in the basement of any kind. But we know that there’s a lot of ground water getting pumped out.</p>
<p>“OK… back to the mold issue. I’ve had people tell me that, if you have a mold problem, then you would see it growing somewhere in the basement. We have not seen it anywhere.”
Have you pulled back corners of the carpet and the padding below and looked and sniffed? With your ground water issue I guarantee that the padding under your carpet never gets completely dry after the carpet was cleaned, unless it is blasted with heat, because of the dampness in your basement. The sump pump cycling on a lot is your clue. Since your D does not have any problems with area rugs, which sit on a surface that can be cleaned and dried out, I still think the culprit is in the carpet padding. I suggest you remove the carpet, put in some sort of hard surface that is pleasing to the eye and easily cleaned and add rugs.</p>
<p>I agree that the carpet is a likely culprit. Years ago, when we had a burst pipe in our finished lower level, the carpet was soaked. The cleanup crew lifted it and the pad up and blew air for several days underneath it. </p>
<p>I think the hard surface with area rugs is a good idea. Have you ever seen cork flooring? It is very beautiful - cork impregnated with some sort of vinyl. It’s soft and resilient and holds up well for years. </p>
<p>I was able to get very helpful information from Jeff May in a phone consultation. Or maybe he knows of someone good in Chicago?</p>
<p>Wild guess(es).
You could have wet/damp concrete floors or walls. In our area, the north side of homes and sided with a concrete composite tend to get moldy after a few years. Paints of our youth used to have mold inhibitors but have been taken out because of cost and liability issues.
Some construction adhesives contain formadyhde, and organic solvents which may still be leaching into the atmosphere.</p>
<p>Completely cover the carpet with plastic drop clothes. Tape the edges to the walls. Doing this will seal off the carpet; if she’s better w/it sealed, then you know it’s the carpet.</p>
<p>You can also seal off the windows or any other thing you think might be a source of allergens. This sort of detective work helped us isolate my kid’s problem (and we ripped out the carpet and replaced smutty windows as a result).</p>
<p>It really sounds like mold to me…</p>
<p>No solutions to offer…but please let us know results! My nephew has the same problem…in a house that’s older, and with a basement that is only partially under ground (house is on a hill) …and doesn’t have water problems. Only sneezes and has runny nose in the basement. No where else in the house.</p>
<p>Treetopleaf’s suggestion sounds like an inexpensive alternative to seeing if it’s the carpet. If her symptoms don’t change when it’s all taped up, at least you’ve saved yourself a lot of hassle for no reward.</p>
<p>My brother is breaking his lease and moving into another rental next month (week). His two little ones have finally been dxed with a mold allergy after a couple of years of symptoms.</p>
<p>A friend recently bought a house but looked at other houses before settling on the current one. One of the previous houses that he looked at had problems in the attic and he hired that May guy. He took samples and produced blown-up pictures of the stuff that he found and what a proper remediation would be.</p>
<p>We have a finished basement with carpet and drop-tile ceiling and it’s been the same way for 20 years. I have some allergies though they are mainly of the tree-pollen type. I use a HEPA air cleaner system during allergy season. At my son’s place, I noticed that I had a cough in the morning if I stayed overnight. I brought down a HEPA air cleaner to his apartment which got rid of the problem.</p>
<p>A high-performance air cleaner might help to improve things in the short-term while you do the diagnostic work to find out the exact allergen or allergens.</p>
<p>I suffer from severe idiopathic allergy. I went into anaphylactic shock in August. I currently am on two antihistamines, carry an epipen, liquid benadryl and prednisone. I have undergone thorough allergy testing with no results. It is not believed that it is a food allergy. We are hoping that this resolves itself as it often does for women my age.</p>
<p>Only one caveat about the air cleaner - I think that this may have actually come from Jeff May. They are great, but if you are using a portable unit on the floor, it may actually stir up stuff from the carpet. There is a lot of air blowing around.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, I am sorry to hear of your severe allergy! I didn’t know that it was possible to go into anaphylactic shock from a non-food source. S1 has allergies to nuts, and must always carry the Epi-pen. Both boys take Allegra during pollen season - otherwise they would be miserable. I hope an answer is found for you.</p>
<p>I have had a severe reaction to a sulfa-containing antibiotic, and I am highly allergic to down. But neither of them caused anaphylaxis.</p>
<p>I do want to emphasize that allergies can be deadly. I was dealing with my rashes and itching with benedryl. I nearly died. My blood pressure was so low that it was inmeasurable by the paramedics (an ambulance was called) and they could not get the epinephrine into my system. The positive thing was that my throat was not closing so though I was unconscious I was still breathing. It was the blood pressure that was the problem for me. </p>
<p>Although your D may have a chronic type allergy at the moment, as I did, it can shift to an acute reaction instantaneously as mine did. I was fortunate to be very close to a top level emergency center and with top drawer paramedics who were experienced with people having acute drug reactions so they were able to deal with me. It is important to get this under control now. At the very least, your D needs to have an epipen and a medi info bracelet.</p>
<p>I take Allegra during the day, and a different antihistamine, can’t recall the name, for night. I have not had a reaction since Sept though that means little since I was getting the rash, hives, etc every three or four months. I had gone nearly 6 months without a reaction when I got the one that put me into anaphylactic shock. I think the benadryl I was carrying was too old and they did not dissolve fast enough to stop the progression of the hives. I now carry liquid benadryl and the gel tabs and the prednisone along with the epi pen. I had the second reaction a few days before my appointment with the allergist but the epi ben, benadryl, prednisone stopped the reaction cold. Still I had to go to the emergency room (though not via ambulance this time and conscious). I went to White Plains Hospital since that was the closest where I was observed and released. The one this summer that put me into shock occurred in NYC. I woke up strapped to a bed in Bellevie! Surrounded by several doctors and staff who were very, very concerned, and interrogating my husband about any possible drug use.</p>
<p>OP, I can appreciate such a detailed process when the allergist is setting up the patient for the shot regimen (and, of course, it works out nicely for the allergist if he is charging you by the visit!), but a skilled, traditional allergist, based on one testing session (using the skin pricks on the arm), should be able to at least identify the allergies that your daughter is dealing with. This initial testing might permit you to make the necessary environmental changes that could result in a dramatic improvement. For example, if she tests as being allergic to cats, and you have a cat, get rid of the cat. If she tests as being allergic to mold, then you know what you’re looking for, and can focus on items like the carpet and the ceiling tiles. What “harm” would come from seeing a traditional allergist (like 98% of us see) just to try to identify the culprit(s), to help target the environmental conditions? You could reserve your more thorough allergist for such time as you may need to seek the shot treatment (if it ever comes to that). I mean, what’s the alternative – continue seeking guesses from CC bloggers (smart bunch though they may be)? Pure trial and error (which could get expensive)? I was miserable for a year before I went to see an allergist, and the environmental changes I was able to make have made a meaningful difference. My two cents worth. Good luck.</p>
<p>cpt, You probably know this, but just in case … the effects of the Epipen wear off in about 15 minutes - the reason that they are usually prescribed in pairs. I have always been told by S1’s allergist that should the Epipen be used, he needs to go to the ER in an ambulance. </p>
<p>S1 has seen Dr. Hugh Sampson at Mt. Sinai a number of times, referred by his regular allergist for specialized testing. Sampson is pediatric, but perhaps if you called his office you could learn whether anyone else in the area does the kind of testing he does - it is a blood test that is much more sensitive than the skin prick tests. The results are quantitative, rather than binary. This might make sense for you.</p>
<p>We have been dealing with a mold problem in a <em>new</em> house for several months, so the fact that your home isn’t that old is no guaranty that mold is not the issue. In our case, a visible leak in one room’s windows led me to check out another room which had no clear water intrusion but seemed to be triggering allergies. Sure enough, those windows had leaked also but the water had soaked the wood sheathing, insulation and sheetrock without coming through into the room. That room had far worse mold on the back of the drywall and the wood trim than the one where I found a puddle on the floor. We never saw the mold, but there were cracks/openings in the wood trim through which the musty odor could be detected.</p>
<p>There are several tools that could be helpful for you. First, if you don’t already have one, buy a hygrometer to measure the relative humidity of your basement. You can find them for around $20 - $30 in discount and home stores, usually combined with a digital thermometer. Mold and dust mites will spread easily when the RH is 60%+, but because my family has multiple allergies, I try to maintain a max RH of 45%. Next, there are moisture meters available through Amazon & major hardware stores that will provide a digital readout of the moisture content of both wood and other building materials. A reasonable price for a homeowner’s version is under $100. You can test the baseboards, window & door frames, and even the studs (if you choose to cut out a small section of drywall) to make sure that the wood moisture is below 16%. If you find that your RH is over 50% despite your current efforts, then consider a more powerful dehumidifier. Most are noisy, but I recently bought a 40 pint Soleus brand dehu that’s pretty quiet and works well. If you have a separate HVAC system for the basement, you may want to have an AprilAire or AccuClean media filter system installed, as well as a UV light air purifier. I’ve had them installed and find they make a big difference.</p>
<p>You may be able to find a moisture intrusion speciallist in your area who can inspect your home using a thermal imaging camera that will show you where there may be water intrusion problems (as well as gaps in insulation.) The cost to inspect just your basement and provide a report giving recommendations for remediation would probably be less than $200. I found it to be money well spent, because the camera showed several problem areas that I was able to get the builder to correct.</p>
<p>We cannot have carpet in our home, so our basement has tile floors while the upper levels have hardwood and stone. We have only washable curtains, in the few rooms where they are used, and mostly have easily cleaned plantation shutters. There are a few microfiber-upholstered pieces, that are cleaned often, but most furniture is leather. I do use a few area rugs, but they are sent out for cleaning so that they won’t create problems, and I will only buy rugs made in the USA after having bad experiences with chemicals used to treat certain imported rugs.</p>
<p>Depending on your budget and how long you intend to remain in your home, you might want to look into an ERV or HRV (according to your climate) to help improve indoor air quality. Before I did that, I’d try a good dehu & air purifiers, and make sure to remove anything that could retain moisture such as the carpet. Good luck!</p>
<p>“Only one caveat about the air cleaner - I think that this may have actually come from Jeff May. They are great, but if you are using a portable unit on the floor, it may actually stir up stuff from the carpet. There is a lot of air blowing around.”</p>
<p>I actually like the idea of blowing up stuff from the carpet as it will eventually get picked up by the air cleaner. But I have to turn it on at least an hour before I use the room or leave it on all the time.</p>
<p>I’m seeing someone at Cornell, Burton, I believe. I already saw someone in Westchester a year ago. Both results the same. Yes, I got the blood test. Still nothing. Not even slightly allergic to anything.</p>
<p>And yes, I keep a pair of epi pens with instructions to do a second poke if it looks like I need one. I also am to go directly to the emergency room when I use the epi which is what I did. Did not use an ambulance since my son was right there and I was 3-4 minutes away from White plains hospital. Would have taken longer to call an ambulance, wait till it arrived and get to the hospital. The hospital personnel immediately tended to me upon arrival, and I was hooked up to an IV with benedryl and prednisone, a sedative, etc. Observed for several hours. Definitely much better to take the meds and avoid an occurance. Even when all went well, the epi stopped the hives immediately, I was done for the day, not to mention the emergency room visit.</p>
<p>Basement = mold.</p>