How we decide what to publish

Who we are

This Moldy House is an independent publisher run by a homeowner who went through a mold problem in their own house. We are not a remediation company, a clinic, a testing lab, or a product seller. We have nothing to gain from your problem lasting longer than it has to.

What we cover

The site is organized around three pillars:

• Find It — symptoms, what mold looks like, where it hides, and whether you actually need a test.
• Fix It — DIY-vs-pro, hiring without getting scammed, what good remediation looks like, moisture control, the broader indoor-air layer, and the legal/insurance side.
• Live Better — recovery, peace of mind, daily habits, the calm corner of the mold internet.

The throughline: mold is a moisture problem. Control the moisture and you control the mold.

Confidence vs. caution: where we draw the line

We split the work into building and body for a reason.

On the building side — finding mold, fixing it, hiring help, preventing recurrence — we are direct and confident. The science is solid, EPA, the IICRC, and good building scientists agree on most of it, and we have the right to have an opinion about a job done well or badly.

On the health side — what mold does to people, particularly the contested "mold illness" / CIRS debate — we are deliberately more careful. We describe what mainstream medicine recognizes (allergic, asthmatic, and infectious effects), point to where the experts disagree, and route readers to qualified clinicians. We do not diagnose, treat, or claim causation we cannot support.

Sources & verification

Where we make a factual claim — a number, a standard, a recommendation — we link to the underlying source. Our preferred sources, in rough priority order:

1. U.S. federal agencies (EPA, CDC/NIOSH, OSHA, HUD) and their state equivalents
2. The World Health Organization and major non-U.S. public-health bodies
3. Peer-reviewed building-science and medical literature
4. Recognized industry standards — IICRC S520 (mold), IICRC S500 (water), ASHRAE
5. Books and writing by trusted building scientists and clinicians (Jeff May, Joe Lstiburek, Carl Grimes, and others)
6. First-hand experience and photo documentation, clearly labeled as such

Marketing copy from remediation companies, supplement vendors, and "mold-safe product" sellers is not a source. We read it; we don't repeat it.

How we handle uncertainty

A lot of the most-asked questions about mold and health do not have a settled answer. When that's true, we say so. You will see phrases like "the evidence is mixed," "researchers disagree about whether," or "this claim is plausible but not well-established." We treat that uncertainty as information, not as something to hide behind confidence.

We do not use loaded language ("toxic mold," "deadly black mold," "kills mold") without context, because those phrases mislead more often than they inform.

How we use AI

We use AI tools to research, draft outlines, and check internal consistency. Every piece on the site is read, edited, and approved by a human before publishing. We do not publish AI text that hasn't been verified against primary sources, and we do not pretend AI-assisted writing came from somewhere it didn't.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we want to know. Email our contact address with the URL and the issue. Material corrections are dated and noted at the bottom of the article; minor edits (typos, link rot) are made silently.

Independence & money

We make money from Amazon affiliate links and a small number of carefully-chosen referral relationships, all of which are disclosed at the top of any affected article. We do not accept paid placements, sponsored posts, or "exchange" arrangements where a vendor offers a product in return for a positive review. See the full Disclosures page for details.

Health pages never include affiliate product links. That's the trust line — we don't want anyone to ever wonder whether a recommendation about how to think about symptoms was shaped by a product we'd profit from.