There’s a lot of work in keeping an allergy-friendly home: regular dusting and vacuuming, cleaning with hypoallergenic products and ensuring low humidity levels to keep moulds away. This regimen is likely to keep indoor allergies in check, unless you have wall-to-wall broadloom. Carpets are heaven for allergy-inducing dust mites, since pile traps skin particles, the mites’ main source of nourishment.

If you’re looking to replace your dust mite settlement with a hypoallergenic floor, there are a number of good options. And esthetic appeal can still be your first consideration, according to Mark Bisbee of GreenFloors, a Virginia-based flooring company that specializes in healthy floors. “Just because it’s good for you, doesn’t mean it has to be ugly.”

Allergic Living sweeps through the following choices for a beautiful, allergy-free floor.

Bamboo

The green alternative to hardwood, bamboo is growing in popularity and dropping in price. Like hardwood, bamboo comes naturally light or dark (and can be stained) and is just as easy to keep clean. Bamboo, though, is actually a member of the grass family. It only takes three years to mature – most hardwood takes between 50 and 100 years – and it flourishes with few pesticides, so the impact of harvesting it is minimal.

Bamboo is kiln-dried and turned into a variety of floor products, from unfinished tongue-and-groove strips that are installed the old-fashioned way, with a hammer and nails, to floating floors that can be glued into place. Bamboo is durable, too, lasting between 30 and 50 years, and can be refinished. However, like any wood product, it’s not suited to a moisture-prone area of the home.

Be careful when choosing your bamboo since some brands are made using formaldehyde (known to irritate the airways), while other brands may emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Check also that an installer is using an adhesive that will not give off fumes. Be sure to ask a supplier for an emission-free bamboo: it is available and beautiful.

Cork

This is another great and green alternative. Bark from the cork oak tree is harvested carefully in its natural habitat, the Mediterranean, (Portugal is a major exporter) without doing any damage to the trees themselves – some of which are centuries old. The bark is then fashioned into tiles that are moisture resistant, making it a good choice, even in the kitchen.

Cork flooring products include glue-down tiles and floating-floor systems in which the cork is pre-glued to a core of particle board. Pieces snap together to make a floor. Wicanders is one brand that ensures the particle board in their floating floor is virtually formaldehyde free (less than 1 per cent).

Cork comes in a variety of colors and patterns. While it may feel soft underfoot, it is long-lasting as well as visually appealing.

Natural Linoleum

Just the word ‘linoleum’ may conjure up images of the vinyl flooring popular in 1950s kitchens. Today, the word has been reclaimed and is used to describe floors created from organic materials that are stylish and allergy-friendly.

Natural linoleum, also known by the brand name Marmoleum, is made from wood flour and bound together with flax and linseed oils to produce an anti-microbial barrier. “You can actually eat it – it’s 100 per cent biodegradable,” Bisbee says. Marmoleum comes in an incredible range of patterns and colors, from bright red to mahogany brown. It is durable, lasting about 30 years.

Next: Tiles and Stairs

These are all tell-tale signs of household molds – fungi that thrive in a humid environment.

This microscopic fungus is not something you want to be living with. It produces allergens, irritants and, sometimes, mycotoxins (a toxic substance that you can inhale).

When it reproduces, mold releases spores that can trigger hay fever reactions and asthma attacks in the mold-allergic. Even those who aren’t allergic can find themselves rubbing their eyes, nursing a skin rash or suffering from a sore throat.

If mold is growing in your house, it’s time to identify the problem and eliminate it.

Spotting It

To determine whether you’ve got mold, there are clues to look for, says Frank Haverkate, an indoor environmental consultant and president of Haverkate and Associates Inc., a Toronto-based environmental testing and consulting company that does mold inspections.

Mold needs moisture to grow, so any source of water that is not contained – such as condensation on your walls or leaky pipes – combined with a lack of airflow, can create perfect conditions for the fungi.

Haverkate suggests looking for peeling and cracking paint, flaking and powdery plaster, and crystalline white formations on the basement foundation that indicate minerals are passing through the stone.

Mold can be furry, powdery, slimy and come in a variety of colours, from black to green to white. In fact, says Haverkate, despite rumours that black mold is the worst for your health, all molds can cause problems. You can’t judge toxicity by the colour.

Companies such as Haverkate’s specialize in mold inspection. For $1,000 to $1,500, he will come to your house with instruments including moisture meters and thermal imaging cameras to suss out the problem and also do lab analyses of air samples.

The firm is one of the few in Canada to use a mold-sniffing dog to help identify hard-to-see cases. (Mold Dogs Inc. in Alberta and MoldDOG Canada in Port Coquitlam, B.C. employ dogs on the job as well.)

The Cleanup

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. suggests only small areas (no more than three patches of mold, each smaller than one square metre) should be tackled by an untrained individual.

If that’s your situation, protect yourself by purchasing an N-95 respirator that fits properly so you don’t inhale any spores. Wear gloves that come up your forearm as well as goggles without ventilation holes. Using detergent and water, scrub off the mold.

(Do not use bleach as it can react with surface materials and produce toxic gases.) Dry the area completely and make sure it stays arid.

For more serious mold infestations, you’ll need to call in a specialized mold removal contractor, with credentials from the Institution of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) and the Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA).

Such contractors will set up a tent-like structure around the mold, which they pressurize before safely removing the fungi, so that isn’t spread around. Haverkate advises that mold inspectors who also do the removal have an inherent conflict of interest.

How To Avoid

There are simple steps to minimize your exposure to mold. Fix any leaks immediately; keep your eavestroughs clear of leaves, so that they drain properly; turn a fan on in the bathroom for 10 minutes after every shower or bath; make sure appliances, such as dryers, are vented properly; and cover cold surfaces, including cold water pipes, with insulation so that condensation doesn’t accumulate.

If you do have a flood or a leak, clean it up quickly. Chances are that if you remove the moisture within 24 to 48 hours, you will stop mold spores from setting up camp. While Haverkate stresses that a mold-free environment does not exist, an infestation in your home is unhealthy and should be eradicated.

Websites of Interest

CMHC page
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention page

Inside, mold thrives in humid areas like the shower or the basement. Outside, you’ll find it growing in shady areas where there is dampness or where vegetation is decomposing.

Mold reproduces by sending out tiny spores that float through the air, looking for a friendly environment to make a home. These spores are resilient and can survive in even the driest conditions.

When the spores do find dampness, mold is extremely fast-growing, and so plentiful that we don’t even know how many species there are.

Estimates suggest there are between 10,000 and 300,000 different kinds. And not all are bad for humans. We use mold in food production to make cheese and soy sauce. But unless you’re making your own Danish blue, you will want to banish mold from your home.

See Also:

• Find and destroy mold in the home.

At a time when allergy and asthma have risen at rates never seen before in human history, such questions have become pressing. Between 1997 and 2002, according to a study by allergy researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the prevalence of food allergy alone doubled in North America; about 6 per cent of young children today have food allergies. After a surge that started in the 1980s, asthma rates have leveled off, but at least 12 per cent of children on this continent have been diagnosed with the disease.

In pursuit of elusive answers, scientists have turned to the beginning of life. The time in the womb, and the first days, months and years of a human being’s existence, they believe, are critical to the understanding of allergic disease. “Your immune system goes to school in the first couple of years. We know that’s a very unique time when we think we can influence allergies,” says Dr. Michael Cyr, an allergist and clinical immunologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Scientists hypothesize that it’s something the baby with an allergic tendency is coming in contact with in the early days – or possibly not coming in contact with – that is causing the allergies. If they could discover what these factors are, then perhaps the incidence of allergy could be significantly curtailed.

While so much about allergy is a mystery, one thing is certain: genes play an important role. According to the World Health Organization, if both of a baby’s parents have allergies, that infant has a risk four times greater of getting asthma and allergies than the baby born to parents who don’t have allergic disease. If only one parent has allergies, then the child is twice as likely to develop allergies.

As well, a 2000 study of peanut allergy, done by researchers at Mount Sinai’s Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, found that a sibling of a peanut allergic person is 10 times as likely to develop a peanut allergy as the general population.

There is much interest in “atopy,” the inherited predisposition to allergy. But scientists now know that the development of allergy is not only about genes. “Family history plays a big role, but it is not definitive,” says Dr. Padmaja Subbarao, a pediatric respirologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. “That cuts both ways for the predisposed and the genetically free. Just because you don’t have risk factors, doesn’t mean your child won’t have asthma.”

In researching allergy, scientists have a wide range of factors to consider: from maternal diet during breastfeeding through the age at which a child first eats solid food; exposure to air pollution – outside and indoors; even ethnicity, birth order and delivery by Caesarean section.

A major Canadian study has applied for funding to begin assessing the different variables. The study, called the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development Study (or CHILD cohort study for short), will recruit several thousand pregnant women in Canada. CHILD is led by Dr. Malcolm Sears, the research director of the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health and a professor of medicine at McMaster, and involves a cross-country team of experts from about 20 medical and academic disciplines. CHILD’s researchers will examine environmental and genetic factors in allergy and asthma: everything from the levels of dust in the pregnant women’s homes to lifestyle factors such as stress and their family’s medical history. The researchers plan to follow the babies through childhood and, if the funding is available, into adolescence.

But even if CHILD does start to find clues, it will be a few years before it can show results. Its findings then need to be compared to other large cohort studies to draw definitive conclusions. That leaves expectant parents today wondering what they can do to help prevent their newborns from going on to develop allergies and asthma.

Debbie Honickman, a Toronto family doctor, never had hay fever as a child. Then in her forties, she started to react to grass in the spring, and could suddenly empathize with her allergy-suffering patients.

At first she found her symptoms so difficult “I thought, I can’t stand it!” Such was Honickman’s seasonal grief that she even contemplated leaving her province the following spring – “but I love the spring here because I love birding.”

She rhymes off her symptoms: “I feel congested, I have post-nasal drip, I snore more.” Honickman knows to expect a prolonged bout with ragweed in the fall as well – then a few years ago, she also developed allergic asthma. “I actually have to use an inhaler when my symptoms get bad. I had never had asthma in my life.”

As the grass and trees begin their spring pollinating ritual, many of us suffer with Honickman. More than five million Canadians have seasonal allergic rhinitis, commonly called hay fever. In fact, Canada has one of the highest rates of both allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma in the world, and the United States ranks only slightly behind.

The numbers of North Americans living with environmental allergies has risen rapidly. With so many suddenly suffering, Allergic Living offers this comprehensive guide – examining pollen’s havoc and the most effective means of turning off the weeping, the sneezing, the congestion and the misery.

What is Hay Fever?

As with other allergies, seasonal allergic rhinitis is an immune system over-response to a protein, in this case an inhaled pollen or a mould spore. Antibodies are supposed to protect our bodies, to defend, but the immune system of a person predisposed to allergy can mistakenly identify a certain protein – perhaps birch tree pollen – as an invader and begin to create antibodies against it.

These antibodies, which are called Immunoglobulin E or IgE, attach themselves to mast cells, which are abundant in the nose, eyes, lungs and gastrointestinal tract. When the offending pollen is again encountered, the IgE antibodies grab it, triggering the mast cells to release powerful chemicals, including histamine. This causes the allergic reaction.

Allergic rhinitis is often confused with irritant or non-allergic rhinitis, which is triggered by air pollution, smoke, strong odous or medication. Some people with hay fever or allergic rhinitis find that such irritants will further aggravate their allergic symptoms.

Symptoms

In hay fever, these are the itchy, watery, puffy eyes, runny nose and sneezing that are the stuff of medication ads.

When an allergic individual is exposed to a seasonal allergen, the chemical reaction begins: blood vessels dilate in the eyes and nose, the mucous membranes secrete fluids, and the itching and sneezing start. All this discomfort leads to sleep loss, fatigue, irritability and difficulty concentrating.

Sometimes the symptoms are confused with those of a cold. But Dr. Harold Kim, an allergist based in Kitchener, Ontario, says itchiness is a prime indication that allergies are the culprit. Another clue that it’s not a virus is that you won’t get better in a week or so.

“If symptoms are due to pollens such as trees and grass, they will last over a season,” Kim says. In addition, if the sufferer has asthma, he or she may experience shortness of breath, coughing or wheezing.

Next: How to Pollen and Mold-Proof

Kantelberg has made a name for herself as a designer of chic condominium interiors. She works for high-end developers in downtown Toronto, designing elegant lobbies and inspiring model suites, as well as coming up with the finishes that buyers will choose from for cabinets and flooring. Now she’s using her success to spread the word about healthy design, attempting to make environmental consciousness part of everyone’s furnishing equation.

Kantelberg incorporates the principles of green design into every project, so the spaces she creates can be healthy, beautiful places to live for those with – and without – asthma and environmental sensitivities. “It’s important for me to make sure people are buying a suite without chemicals,” she says. Without any compromise on the style front, of course.

Kantelberg didn’t set out with a grand plan to become Canada’s ultimate eco-interior designer. Arriving there has been, one might say, an organic process. She’s the daughter of two eco-minded parents who taught her to be cognizant of her impact on Mother Earth.

Ever since she was a child, Kantelberg has also suffered with environmental sensitivities – severe enough that her mother used to bring along sheets for her daughter wherever they travelled. Today, she still can’t wear synthetic fabrics and becomes unwell in an air-conditioned environment. She can get sick even staying one night in a hotel with poor air quality. “It has helped me as a designer because I am aware of how these things affect people.”

Kantelberg enrolled in design school at 27, graduating in 1994, and opening her own studio specializing in luxury interiors by 1997. Nine years later, Tridel asked her to design what it dubbed its “Eco Suite,” an educational condominium the company was creating to demonstrate sustainable living.

Intrigued, Kantelberg went all-out to create the ultimate green space. She brought in recycled drywall and non-toxic, water-based stains and glues. She made sure linens were organic, paints emitted the least amount of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) possible and fixtures conserved energy and water.

In older condo buildings, air is circulated among the units (so if your neighbour down the hall smokes, you’ll end up breathing it). To avoid this, Kantelberg had an Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) system installed to filter the Eco Suite’s air. The project awakened her inner environmentalist. In every job since, she has incorporated elements of green design.

What is immunotherapy?

Immunotherapy is a form of treatment, commonly known as allergy shots, in which a patient with allergic rhinitis gets controlled exposure to allergens through injections. It will not be the first course of treatment. In immunotherapy, a doctor raises the allergen dose in your shots over a number of months and years – the intent is that as the dose rises, you become less sensitive to allergens.

Who should get allergy shots?

First, your allergist will take a history, do an examination including skin-prick tests to determine what you are allergic to, and then will prescribe medications. If you’re still suffering even with medication, allergy shots may be the next step. Candidates for this treatment are usually people who are no longer helped by allergy medications and those who have serious rhinitis symptoms for prolonged periods of time.

If you haven’t had allergies for long, you are more likely to be responsive and experience longer-lasting benefits. Children, however, should have had seasonal symptoms for at least two years before being considered candidates, says Dr. Eric Leith, an allergist based in Oakville, Ontario, and chair of the Canadian Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Foundation. The child should be old enough to understand what’s going on, he says, “and if a reaction occurs, they must be able to express that.”

Allergist Dr. Harold Kim says about 5 to 10 per cent of patients receiving immunotherapy have skin, breathing or gastrointestinal reactions. Only about 1 to 3 per cent have more severe reactions. While anaphylaxis is rare, “immunotherapy can be life-threatening,” cautions Leith. “You should be waiting in the doctor’s office for half an hour [after the treatment] to make sure you are not reacting.” If you have asthma, Leith stresses that it must be under control or the shots “may accentuate the asthma.”

How long does immunotherapy treatment last?

Immunotherapy can take years to carry out. Patients receive one to two shots a week of minimal amounts of their allergen for about six months, until they reach their “maintenance dose,” which means symptoms have improved. Then, a monthly dose is required to keep the allergies under control. Treatment can take up to five years, but the benefit of immunotherapy is that it may have a lasting effect even after the shots have stopped. Leith says there have been cases in which patients have seen their symptoms disappear completely.

Related:
• The Hay Fever Handbook
• 10 Ways to Beat the Pollen
• America’s Top 10 Spring Allergy Capitals

From the Spring 2006 issue of Allergic Living magazine.
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