Part of the reason I became an environmental inspector was a growing awareness of health issues in indoor environments. I started getting migraines after exposure to formaldehyde at a new house and a recently renovated office. Those headaches sure got my attention!! Thanks to guidance from an environmental physician, the headaches disappeared a dozen years ago and haven't returned.

Since those days, I've worked with many clients who wished they had been more savvy about environmental issues of all sorts at their homes. Perhaps they could have avoided symptoms and illnesses. Some of the stories I've heard have been sad - people having to move because of sensitivity to a particular type of mold, a family knocking down their house because the father reacted to the conventional mold remediation product used in their home, children developing asthma in a moldy home, or a man having to leave his home because of sensitivity to a common air freshener.

A few stories have been bone-chilling, such as at two houses where I found concentrated areas of high electromagnetic fields due to electrical grounding issues, only to have each of my clients quietly remark, "My husband used to sit there all the time, and he died of leukemia."

Folk think nothing of hiring a pre-purchase home inspector to check out the house structure and systems, yet how many think of hiring an environmental inspector, even though the health of their family could be at risk? The concept of an environmental inspection is gaining credibility, but we are still where the home inspection field was 30 years ago, i.e., environmental inspections are not yet customary. In fact, only a small percentage of environmental inspectors are trained in a full spectrum electromagnetic field inspection. One of my next websites will address this subject.

Further, purchasers and homeowners who do think about environmental issues often consider only mold, lead, asbestos, radon, and maybe underground oil storage tanks or gas leaks. The field of environmental pollutants that could impact on health should be broader, such as is being done in areas of Europe, Canada, and Australia. We are 30 years behind in the US. As a supervisor at Canada Mortgage said to me, "You Americans measure. We help people." She was referring to the centrality of laboratory findings in the average mold inspection.

Environmental inspections should address anything in a home that could impact on health. For example, several years ago the US Environmental Protection Agency included synthetic fragrances among the causes of asthma, yet so many advertisements set out to convince homemakers that buying a ton of products with synthetic fragrances is good for their families.

Some of my favorite "what's happening" authors:

Ever since I was a child, I've struggled to understand the world around me and what life was about. A few authors stand out in documenting some of what's happening in our country:

-- Mark Crispin Miller, professor, author

-- Greg Palast, American reporter for the BBC, author, on www.airamericaradio.com Saturdays at 9 pm (fuzzy on the time)

It's not only homemakers. I just sent off an email to the coordinator of an upcoming indoor air quality meeting to see if he could diplomatically suggest to attendees that they not arrive in toxic clouds of cologne, perfume, and fresh nail polish. I couldn't find a little corner of the room at the last meeting that had air free of synthetic fragrances. Most of the people I spoke with smelled of cologne. And these are the air quality specialists!! There appears to be just a basic lack of understanding and information, even among them. (To learn more about synthetic fragrances, go to www.fpinva.org.)

This mold web site, and my other web site, www.create-your-healthy-home.com, are offered as educational resources so that visitors can learn useful information for making their environments healthier. Homes should be healing places and not battlegrounds for immune systems.

Other environmental concerns could include other indoor air quality issues (such as offgassing from conventional paint, carpeting, furniture, personal care items, household cleaning products, etc.), water quality issues, and levels of biologically active electromagnetic fields from powerlines, household electricity and grounding, and electrical devices.

So, I'm here - either with self-help information or available to come to your home and check it out for mold and other environmental issues. With cancer rates around 1 in 2, it behooves us all to make our homes a little healthier every month that passes by.

Photography credit: Susan MacKenzie Photography, www.mackenziephoto.com. "Fuzziness credit" goes to your novice webmaster, May. I look better a little fuzzy, anyway.

Here's my "what's happening" corner.

I'd like to introduce you to a special person, Amy Goodman, host of www.democracynow.org. I watch her news program weekdays on satellite TV, but you can find the program elsewhere as well - or sign up for the transcripts at the Democracy Now website.

I also learn a lot from Taking Aim, by Ralph Schoenman and Mya Schon, available through Internet streaming, www.wbai.org, Tuesdays, 5 pm EST. Their programs can be downloaded from the WBAI archives (click on "About WBAI" and then on "Archives").

There are so many good programs on WBAI, my station, part of the Pacifica listener-supported network. My computer guru, Michael Horowitz, participates in the award-winning Personal Computer Show, Wednesdays, 8 pm EST.