For better or for worse, mold has become the new, nasty four-letter word. Mention it in mixed company and you'll likely hear some horror story about a homeowner battling the ubiquitous growth with goggles, gloves and mask. Chances are you'll be exposed to plenty more mold stories from the Gulf Coast, flooded with back-to-back hurricanes.
 
Truth is, mold has been an unwanted guest for as long as there have been shelters to ward off the elements. It is particularly prevalent in hot, humid places like South Florida, and if you've ever faced a leaky roof, a bathroom flood or a burst pipe, you probably have encountered mold.
 
''People have been handling simple problems of mold on tiles and showers for years,'' says Jeffrey C. May, a Massachusetts-based chemist and building inspector who wrote The Mold Survival Guide for Your Home and for Your Health (Johns Hopkins, $12.89). ``It's part of life.''
 
Mold is really another word for fungi, and there are more than a million species of them. Fungi can grow anywhere they have the necessary ingredients for life -- moisture, warmth and an organic source of food. They like wallboard and wood, for example, but cannot grow on glass and metal.
 
Their spores are always present in the air, even inside a house. James W. Kimbrough, a mycologist who has studied mold for the plant pathology department at the University of Florida, estimates that there are normally between 1,100 and 1,200 mold spores per cubic meter of outside air. That's about five or six times more than what the average house might have inside. These spores remain dormant until the necessary conditions arise.
 
''Every house has a mold problem, but not every house has a toxic mold problem,'' he explains.
 
HEALTH WOES  
Yet, the sight of a fuzzy fungus climbing up a wall is enough to send residents into a panic, namely because mold has been blamed for various health problems. Publicity has also fed the panic. About five years ago, a jury awarded Melinda Ballard $32 million after the Texas woman sued the insurer to cover water and mold damage in her 22-room house.
 
Though the award was later reduced, it set off a frenzy of mold stories and lawsuits, including one by celebrity emcee Ed McMahon, who received a $7 million settlement after claiming his Los Angeles home was overrun by mold that killed his dog. By 2002, with claims skyrocketing, U.S. insurers had paid out an estimated $3 billion in mold-related claims, more than double from the previous year. (Since then, most insurers have excluded mold damage from their policies.)
 
As a result of those high-profile cases, ''toxic mold'' has become a term loosely used for almost any mold that causes telltale cough and shortness of breath. But toxic mold is actually a misnomer. Molds are not toxic themselves, but the mycotoxins some of them produce as they grow can cause allergies and compromise immune systems.
 
On its website, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state there are ''very few'' reports of toxigenic mold that cause unique or rare health conditions such as pulmonary hemorrhage or memory loss. Still, homeowners continue to overreact, confusing run-of-the-mill black mold with the more unusual Stachybotrys chartarum, blamed for such serious health problems as acute idiopathic pulmonary hemorrhage in infants. And even that connection has not been proven.
 
LACK OF STANDARDS  
Part of the confusion comes from the lack of any widely recognized standards on mold decontamination -- or even what constitutes an unsafe number of spores. In fact, a mold problem may affect one member of the family severely but not bother others. What's more, experts repeatedly warn that those well-publicized cases that send people fleeing from their homes are rare.
 
''What makes the news and what makes good science are two different things,'' says certified industrial hygienist Mary Ann Latko, a mold expert with the American Industrial Hygiene Association. But she also cautions: ``If there are very high proportions of mycotoxins, it certainly can be a problem.''
 
It's not necessary to determine what type of mold you have, adds Latko. ``If you can smell it or see it, you don't have to test for it. You've most definitely got it.''
 
By the same token, if you're suffering from headaches, coughs or breathing problems with no direct explanation for your ailment, you might have mold growing in wall cavities that you can't see. That may be the appropriate situation to test for it.
 
Either way, ''don't ignore it because it will just get worse. This isn't the type of thing that goes away,'' says May, the author and building inspector. The more growth, of course, the more chances for health problems, especially for asthmatics and others prone to allergies.
 
INSPECT YOUR HOME  
Another piece of advice: Maintain your home properly, regularly inspecting for leaks or moisture problems. Mold is more of a problem in modern houses because the energy-efficient homes of today are more airtight, which allows spores to build up.
 
''The energy-efficient insulated buildings that we started to build in the 1970s did save us on energy costs,'' said mycologist Kimbrough, ``but they also created an atmosphere that is very conducive to mold growth.''
 
In South Florida, running the air conditioner year-round can exacerbate the problem because it provides little time for ducts to dry out. In an AC system, mold can grow by feeding on the dust that collects on the blower, the wet cooling coil and on both sides of the ducts. In fact, a paper produced by the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences of the University of Florida calls ductwork ''virtual incubators for microbial pollutants such as mold and bacteria.'' This can be particularly troublesome since the AC blows air -- and spores -- all around the house.
 
Mold problems have also proven to be a problem in new homes in which cheaper materials such as fiber board and pressed wood are used. When they get wet, they stay wet longer and provide a perfect environment for molds. Some builders, Latko adds, also do not allow building materials, particularly wood products, to dry completely once they get soaked in rain. Eventually mold can grow on these substances.
 
Regardless of how the fungus got there or what kind it is, mold growth should be treated promptly -- by fixing the moisture problem that caused it, drying out the area and then getting rid of the mold.
 

# # #

Pure Air Control Services, Inc.

1-800-422-7873