Treat It Like It’s Radioactive: Mold & Chemical Decon for Civilians

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: to recover from Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance (aka my-entire-system-is-wrecked-and-this-whole-world-feels-like-a-gauntlet) triggered by mold and/or chemical exposures, you have to think less like a homemaker with Lysol wipes and more like a soldier rolling through Chernobyl. Forget “spring cleaning.” This is field decontamination. This is post-nuclear mindset. If you treat these toxins as though they’re radioactive, you’re doing it right.

Military decontamination protocols are not gentle. They’re not “spritz and forget.” They’re built on the assumption that if you screw it up, you don’t just get a rash — you don’t come home. And as grim as that sounds, it’s a surprisingly useful mindset for those of us wrecked by mold and chemicals.

The Army literally trains people to use their own bodies as detectors. When the Geiger counter isn’t handy, you pay attention to symptoms: dizziness, burning eyes, metallic taste, sudden nausea. Out in the field, your body is the sensor. Sound familiar? Welcome to mold avoidance. When your nervous system goes haywire, your lungs clamp up, your skin starts buzzing, or your brain suddenly misfires with fog, irritability, lost words, forgotten tasks, or getting lost in the middle of a store or on a route you’ve driven a hundred times — you’ve just located a hot zone.

And here’s the other twist: it’s not just your own body you need to watch, it’s the people closest to you. In both radiation zones and mold zones, confusion and disorientation are dead giveaways, but sometimes you’ll see it in your family before you register it in yourself. Brain fog, sudden irritability, trouble finding words, forgetting what you were doing, or kids starting to bicker out of nowhere — those aren’t quirks, they’re field alarms. If your partner suddenly can’t remember how to get home, or your child picks a fight over nothing, that’s not just a bad mood. That’s exposure talking. Sometimes the best way to catch it is by watching each other. A sudden meltdown might mean it’s time for a shower, a fresh-air break, or a reset before things spiral.

So how do you handle it? You decon like your life depends on it. Because it does. That means no wishful thinking, no “it probably won’t hurt.” If it’s contaminated, it gets stripped, scrubbed, or left behind. Paper, cardboard, thin plastic? High-risk, high porosity, perfect carriers for toxic hitchhikers. Clothes? Get them into the laundry with detergent and Hellbender solutions #1 and #2 ASAP. Gear? Mist it down with Hellbender sprays until it’s cleaner than a boot camp latrine inspection. Skin? Foam up with the same mindset you’d use if the word “mustard” wasn’t referring to a condiment. Shower frequently, or rinse your exposed skin, face & hair with water and change your clothes as often as needed, at the very first sign of a mold “hit”. Don’t wait, because mold toxins are neurotoxic.

Cross-contamination isn’t an accident, it’s an ambush. You don’t drag contaminated gear into a clean zone any more than a soldier marches into the barracks with radioactive mud on his boots. You set up perimeters. You strip down before entering safe space. You spray down vehicles. You treat laundry like evidence from a crime scene. Dark humor aside, it’s literally the same logic: toxins are persistent, invisible, and merciless. If you treat them casually, they will eat you alive.

Yes, it feels over the top. Yes, your family will laugh at you for “acting like you just came out of a fallout shelter.” Let them laugh. You know the truth: in this game, survival looks ridiculous. But ridiculous people live to tell the tale. Ask the military. Ask the canaries. Ask anyone who’s ever realized their body — and their family’s sudden arguments — are the only detection system they’ve got.

So forget normal cleaning. Forget “wipe and hope.” If you’re going to live through mold and chemical exposure, you need discipline, structure, and a little gallows humor. Decon like you’ve just walked through radioactive sludge, and you’re at least giving yourself a fighting chance.

Resources

Military Decontamination Protocols

• U.S. Army. Field Manual (FM) 3-5: NBC Decontamination. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1992.

  
  

• U.S. Army. Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-11.32: Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Decontamination Operations. Headquarters, Department of the Army, 2013.

  
  

• U.S. Army. FM 3-11: Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Operations. 2019.

  
  

• Department of Defense. Technical Manual TM 3-220: Field Behavior of NBC Agents (Including Smoke and Incendiaries). 1969 (historical).

  
  

Mold, Mycotoxins & Sensitization

• Brasel TL et al. (2005). Detection of airborne mycotoxins in mold-contaminated environments. Appl Environ Microbiol, 71(11): 7396–7408.

  
  

• Eduard W. (2009). Fungal fragments as a major component of bioaerosols. Appl Environ Microbiol, 75(21): 7414–7418.

  
  

• Miller CS & Ashford NA. (2017). Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance (TILT): A Theory of Chemical Intolerance. Environ Health Perspect, 125(9): 095001.

  
  

Chemical & Physiological Effects

• Theoharides TC et al. (2019). Environmental toxins and mast cell activation. Front Immunol, 10: 1355.

  
  

• Wallace KB & Starkov AA. (2000). Mitochondrial targets of drug toxicity. Annu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol, 40: 353–388.

  
  

Mold Avoidance for Healing

Johnson, Erik. Eric on Avoidance. E-book. available as a free download on paradigmchange.me Self-published. → Seminal work by one of the original mold avoiders, drawing from his Army chemical warfare training and personal survival experience.