I realize I have written about treating a hotel room for mold and what to pack to prevent mold exposure during travel before, but since I am travelling this week with my kids, I thought I would revisit the topic. This time, in two parts. Today’s post will cover preparing for my trip, what I pack, and how I prepare my body for travel. In a later post, I will address how I use trusted tools and products to treat my surroundings for mold in a hotel room situation.
So, why is preparing properly for travel and immediately treating a hotel room for mold important to your health? Is doing all of this overkill?
Hotels are notorious for mold. Most hotels are constructed with room to room temperature control, so the air is not properly and continuously circulating. If a room is not being used, for example, many times, the HVAC unit in that room is turned off completely. Thus, the air does not move and stays stagnant until the next guest occupies it. There is also wide use of vinyl wall paper in hotels. The vinyl traps moisture between the drywall and the wall paper and creates a perfect habitat for mold. In addition, when you take up residence in your hotel room, you are coming in on top of the people who stayed there before you. Mold spores hitchhike on any organic material, like clothing, hair, shoes, luggage. If one of those former guests live in a moldy home, you are sleeping in the bed, walking on the carpet, sitting on the chairs and hanging your clothes in the closet with whatever mold they brought in. Unless the cleaning staff is using products and the hotel is using air filtration that targets mold, those spores aren’t going anywhere and are getting into your things and on you. This can create an unhealthy situation for anyone, but for people with mold sensitivity and/or multiple chemical sensitivity, this can create a health crisis.
