The Story So Far
Our family of 5 fled our home in 2020 after figuring out that exposure to hidden toxic mold in the house was killing us. Toxic waste, buried next to the house 2 years prior to our purchase, had leached into the soil and water of the property - turning our “dream farm” into a poisonous Petri dish of environmental contamination.
The combination of heavy metals, chemicals and molds had produced a “super mold” unlike anything we’d ever experienced. Literally everything that had been at the property was contaminated with a strange, invisible substance that behaved like radiation - if one object was brought in, the substance spread like wildfire.
It clung to everything. No amount or method of cleaning could remove it. Invisible, odorless, and devastating - it caused symptoms ranging from burning, red skin to nausea and seizures.
We called it a radiomimetic volatoxin. Later we heard from others that had encountered similar substances - and named them “mystery toxin” or “hell toxin”. They, like us, typically chose to leave everything behind after realizing that remediation was impossible.
We became nomads, seeking out remote areas and practicing mold avoidance in order to heal. We lived in tents, hotel rooms, cabins and trailers.
We learned how to decon immediately in order to not be overcome by symptoms, following the guidance of a man who’d been through mold hell and called upon his military training to survive - Erik Johnson. His books taught us that becoming keen observers of our surroundings and learning how to use our symptoms as our bodies’ warning signals was key to staying safe.
Mold was everywhere - and as our immune systems began to heal, we learned that not all mold was the same. Molds found in a healthy forest floor are vastly different from their cousins lurking in the built environment. Areas with more environmental pollution seemed to produce more pathogenic molds.
Traveling to those areas required on-the-go decon and careful planning in order to avoid getting slammed and incapacitated.
We thought that the “radiomimetic volatoxin” was a thing of our past, a one-in-a-million mold toxin that had been generated by the confluence of the environmental toxins and mold at the poisoned farm we left behind.
Until we encountered it again. A year later, at a remote campground. The same type of burning, prickling invisible contamination clinging to a single camp chair and coiled garden hose.
This time, we felt prepared. We’d purchased an ozone generator that had successfully controlled mold cross contamination in our trailer. When I found the bad items, I sealed off the storage area they were in and ran the ozone machine for 24+ hours. I waited another 12 hours before opening the door, confident that the area would be clear.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The contamination exploded, evidently super charged by the ozone. It spread across the grass, into the living quarters of our trailer, and all over the exterior. The kids, not knowing what had happened, walked across the campsite and immediately felt the stinging burn crawling up their legs from the grass. They went inside to shower and change - and it tracked inside and spread to everything.
That’s when we learned that this was an effect rather than one specific toxin. That this “hell toxin” could and would be produced by the combination of certain molds with a variety of pollutants. Heavy metals, sewer gasses, hydrocarbons, agricultural chemicals and other particulates increasingly present in the atmosphere disrupt the natural microbial balance and give rise to the molds that can adapt and thrive in the face of toxicity.
Unfortunately for us, those molds are often the ones equipped with the deadliest chemical defenses- mycotoxins. And when they conjugate with other particles in the atmosphere, they become more virulent, resistant to antifungals, and more able to infiltrate our defenses.
Faced with the prospect of once again throwing away all of our new clothing & possessions and selling our contaminated trailer, we dove into research instead. If this stuff was produced by interactions and molecular bonds between molds and other substances, then those bonds could be broken. This wasn’t some evil magic at work - it was clearly an organic process of mold doing what it does best: adapting.
That’s how hellbender solutions were born. In our efforts to figure out how to remediate the most intractable contamination, we developed a cleaning solution that worked on virtually any mold spores & mycotoxins. Using a combination of natural enzymes, chelators, surfactants, alkaline and acidic cleansers and essential oils enabled the effective cleaning and decontamination of a variety of molds & environmental toxins.
The effect of mold/pollutant combinations is a devastating type of neurotoxic contamination that wreaks havoc and devastates lives. Hellbender Solutions neutralize that effect.
By tackling the radiomimetic volatoxins - that people had reported limited success in treating with flamethrowers - with science, we figured out how to remediate the worst of the worst. And, finally, we were able to effectively clean contaminated items and stop filling dumpsters with our stuff.
Ultimately we found an organic farm, surrounded by lush forest, and moved our newly purchased RV there as our permanent home. That is where we make and package hellbender solutions. In clean air, away from environmental contamination and molds that lurk in the built environment.
We make and test each batch by hand. Because we’re mold & chemically sensitive, we know how critical it is to avoid harsh chemicals and to avoid mold contamination. Because we have children and pets, we formulate our products to be safe for use around them.
And because we’ve also experienced the fear, loss and despair of losing everything to mold, we know how important it is to be able to save some of our most treasured possessions. How important it is to feel safe, and to have the assurance that one cross contamination event isn’t the end of the world.
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Road tested and refined during our family’s multi year journey, we offer them to you with love, understanding, and hope.
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It does get better. Hellbender Solutions can help.