One of the hardest things about getting out of mold is that when I’m in mold, my brain doesn’t work. And I have no motivation to do anything. And no creativity. I just sit in front of my computer refreshing Facebook all day long, with no idea how to change anything.
So that’s why it was critical for me to have a plan that I could follow without having to think too much about it. I put together such a plan from the very beginning of our journey. We’ve been modifying it and adding to it all along.
I’m sharing our plan below, in case it’s helpful to others trying to figure this out. If you’re at the the stage where you’re trying to figure out what to do, maybe consider putting together an outline like this. Maybe you’ll just have the beginnings of a plan at first, but take it one step at a time and eventually the whole path will become clear. It may take a while, but you’ll get there. And having it to look back on at the end is pretty great. It shows just how far you’ve come.
Phase 0 (1 week)
First, I got out of our house to an AirBNB in clean air so I could think. (Note, the AirBNB was somewhat moldy. We had all our old stuff with us. But my brain worked and that’s all I needed.) I created the first draft of this plan during this week away. When I got back, I paid attention to how I felt in the house, and the kids’ behaviors. Not good. At home, my brain turned off again and I was glad to have a plan I could just follow and not have to think about.
Phase 1 (2 weeks)
Sorted through stuff in the house. Cleaned the stuff we wanted to keep and set it aside in our detached garage. I found it overwhelming to try to get rid of stuff so I switched focus to just the stuff I wanted to keep and left the rest. Simultaneously we started signing contracts for water intrusion repair and remediation of the home.
Phase 2 (2 weeks)
Bought a Casita (from an area with MT) and took it with us on a “practice” trip to figure out how to camp in a trailer and what we needed to do to go long term. At this point I cleaned stuff, but not well. We took a lot of contaminated stuff with us.
Phase 3 (4 weeks)
Left the Casita in the shop because it needed a new fridge and to have solar installed. Went home and ordered things we needed for a longer trip. For the longer trip I wanted to leave all our stuff behind and go out with all new stuff. Packed and cleaned. I did wash all of our new clothes and linens and hung dry in MT air. I know it’s not recommended. I didn’t feel I had a choice since I would be camping with kids by myself and we needed to be able to use stuff immediately. It took me weeks to do all the laundry. I couldn’t have done it on the road.
Phase 4 (5 months)
Cross country camping trip through the desert southwest. I went by myself with the kids. My husband flew out to join us for some weekends. It was tough. But the kids and I experienced major healing. While we were gone, my husband finished sorting through all of the stuff in the house and oversaw the remediation. However, we also realized on this trip that outdoor air was almost more important than indoor air, which led to the realization that no matter whether remediation was successful or not, we couldn’t go back home.
Phase 5 (1 month)
We tried leaving the Casita in storage and going to Hawaii for a month, staying in a vacation rental we’d done well in before. This was a mistake. The Casita was damp from us living in it and having it closed up in storage, I think it got somewhat moldy. We reacted to the rental house in Hawaii. We ended up coming back early from our planned trip and it set us back. If I had to do this again, I would just keep camping. But this proved to us that, at least for now, we can’t tolerate buildings. And we learned that lesson without signing a lease and buying furnishings we’d only have to throw away.
Phase 6 (1 year)
Found a long term campsite with full hookups on a family’s organic farm, about 3 hours from our old home. Had a Coachmen travel trailer towed to the site (so we didn’t have to buy a truck). Husband started coming up every weekend and little by little (and after lots of tears and arguments as I was completely overwhelmed by that point) transitioned to living with us, mostly working from home, and commuting to the office occasionally. Put our remediated house on the market. My husband put the belongings we wanted to keep into local storage about a half hour drive from where we’re staying. The storage unit didn’t seem moldy to begin with and is in a high altitude, dry area. The stuff we have stored there seems to be getting somewhat better over time.
Phase 7 (overlapped with Phase 6 and ongoing)
Decided we like the area we are in and and generally feel well here. Bought bare land a few minutes away from where we were staying. The land we bought has multiple top of the hill building sites and is in clean, dry air. It’s off the grid. It had a well but no pump, a (totally unused) septic system, and gnarly dirt roads that need some work. But at least it had those things to start. There is no power on the property but the poles are close-ish.
Phase 8 (6 months ish)
Installing infrastructure to allow us to camp on our land, including a water tank, a septic pump, a compost toilet, a trailer pad, and a high powered solar system with lithium batteries. After multiple leaks this winter, the Coachmen is somewhat moldy at this point so we will use it for kitchen and bathroom only. We bought a Davis tent where we will sleep this summer. We plan to build a raised platform for the tent. In parallel, we are working on building infrastructure to support building a new modular home. We toured the modular factory and it didn’t smell moldy to us and we think we’ve found a conscientious builder who will take us seriously about preventing water intrusion. In parallel, building a permaculture farm so we can have a safe and reliable food supply. We now have chickens, goats, and a large vegetable garden, and have feeder pigs coming soon.
Phase 9 (future)
Expand the farm. Learn how to build a truly mold free house so we can build in another location on our property. We’ll probably need to build it ourselves since it is unlikely we’ll find a contractor willing to think outside the box and do things with the attention to detail we’ll need. Eventually, once we sell our remediated house and can afford to, we’d love to build additional houses to host other PANS families so they can heal on the land, too.
