About Guardian Mold Testing

In 2022, my wife and I started suspecting we had a mold problem. I was taking allergy medication for the first time in my life. My nose was always stuffy. My eyes even burned in certain rooms. What really scared me was when my digestive system began acting up — abdominal pain, constant trips to the bathroom, watery stool. Was it the mold? Was I being paranoid? Or was the stress making it worse?

Then my wife started experiencing symptoms too. Her eyes burned. She was avoiding certain rooms and complained of a strange smell in others. We both started making excuses not to be home.

So I took action. I bought HEPA filters. I ordered a mold test kit from Amazon. It came back positive — but Google told me every house has mold, so that wasn’t very helpful. The filters might have helped… but our symptoms didn’t go away.

Then we took a 5-day family vacation — and on day three, my symptoms were gone. My wife said she slept better than she had in months. For the first time in a long time, she wasn’t congested.

That’s when we stopped pretending everything was fine.

Back home, I scheduled a “free” inspection with a mold remediation company. They gave our house a quick scan and said there was probably mold in the walls — and that I should expect a proposal. That night, I refreshed my inbox anxiously. The estimate came back: $12,000 for remediation.

I got multiple quotes — some lower, some higher — but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the same company doing the inspection was also selling the solution. How could I trust that?

I looked at my 9-month-old daughter and thought: Is this affecting her?
She’s always smiling, but she can’t tell us what she’s feeling. That thought broke me.

I bit the bullet and paid. I ended up spending over $20,000 on remediation and nearly $2,000 more on follow-up testing just to confirm we were safe.

That experience stuck with me. It inspired me to dive deep into mold education, testing standards, and prevention strategies. I became a Certified Mold Inspector (CMI) through nationally recognized MICRO and founded Guardian Mold Testing so others wouldn’t have to go through what we did.