I am passionate about your health journey.
Meet Gabrielle
My mysterious health issues, like so many of us, started with a house. In 2015, in my late twenties, I felt like I had just hit the jackpot when I stumbled upon a cute, private, 100-year-old cottage in Berkeley, CA, that was under rent control. It seemed like a dream come true—a spacious home all to myself at an unbeatable price. However, within just a few months of moving in, my health took a sudden turn for the worse. There were days when I couldn't summon the strength to leave my bed, and my once sharp mind became foggy and slow. At the time, I had no idea my “dream” home was actually a nightmare.
Gradually, I adapted to this new reality of decreased energy and occasional bouts of bedridden exhaustion, much like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water. Deep down, I knew something wasn't right, prompting me to research conditions like adrenal fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome. Yet, when I consulted my doctor, I was dismissed due to my young age and assured that my lab results were normal, despite my persistent, disturbing symptoms.
So I tried to tell myself it wasn’t so bad. That I was ok and things would turn around soon. I did my best to soldier on and push myself through work and daily life, trying to maintain a façade of normalcy. Over time, a lingering sense of dread replaced any memory of what life was like before I moved into that old cottage.
Over the years, there were many leaks from the old roof, and each time I told my landlord, he'd say he couldn't afford to fix them. One time, after a heavy week of rain, a huge water bubble spanning from the floor to the ceiling, formed on my living room wall. The landlord sent a handyman over who asked me for a steak knife and a big mixing bowl. He then proceeded to stab the bubble, drain it into the bowl and leave. I didn't know much about mold or water damage then, but I knew that wasn't the right way to handle it! Despite this, I could never get the landlord to even so much as patch the roof, and I had no idea that toxic mold was hiding behind all the walls, ceiling and floors.
After nearly 4 years of living there, my health totally crashed, I became mostly bedridden and I started having severe asthma attacks daily. My cognitive decline became so bad, I am pretty sure I would have qualified for an early onset dementia diagnosis. I had to drop out of school. It was terrifying…I felt like I was going to die. That's when I knew my home was making me sick and it must be mold. I had found some visual mold in my closet and demanded my landlord get a mold inspector over to the house. He came himself to meet the mold inspector with me, who he assured me had “decades of experience with mold inspection” and would do a great job.
The mold inspector showed up with no tools or PPE, poked around under the sinks and in my closet and after about 15 minutes, declared that I just had some surface mold probably due to high humidity and everything else was fine. Even my landlord was surprised at how quick and clearly ineffective this so-called inspection was. I had just been researching hidden mold earlier that day, and had read that crawl spaces were a common source of it. I said, “Shouldn’t you at least check my crawl space before you go?”. He agreed to take a look at it with my landlord. They returned 5 minutes later and my landlord's face was white as a sheet. What did you guys find? I asked. “It's covered in mold down there,” the inspector said, “and there's mushrooms everywhere growing through the floorboards”. I was horrified, too scared to look at it myself. The reality hit me hard, that I had unknowingly been living in a mold mushroom forest, breathing in extremely toxic air for years, and now my health was in shambles.
I immediately arranged to get out of my lease and started looking for a new, safe place to live. I contacted a local mold attorney who said I had a very good $100k plus lawsuit against my landlord for negligence leading to an uninhabitable living situation. However, I felt too sick and overwhelmed with my move to deal with the stress of a lawsuit. I have always regretted that I didn’t have the support I needed at the time to take that step. I shudder thinking how many other lives have been destroyed by that very same cottage in the years since then. I am now passionate about supporting my clients around potential legal issues related to moldy housing. Though I cannot offer legal advice, I can offer resources, referrals and tips for navigating the process.
I have always been an obsessive researcher, so I began to research everything I could find about mold illness and mold avoidance. I somehow was able to successfully do my first mold move, getting rid of over 80% of my stuff, decontaminating what I kept and finding and moving into a mold free apartment, where I began practicing strict mold avoidance. It was an exhausting, expensive and overwhelming process. I ended up actually doing more than I needed to during my mold move, (like getting rid of things I could have kept and cleaned), because I was moving from such a deep place of fear and overwhelm. I have since learned the importance of being armed with the proper information and protocols, as well as navigating mold from a framework of having a well regulated nervous system.
In the last six years since I began my journey of healing from mold illness,
I have never stopped researching and learning about mold. In 2022, I completed training for mold remediation and inspection so that I no longer had to rely on the faulty and dangerous advice of many so-called mold professionals. My aim is to empower my clients with the same knowledge and tools to take control of their health and homes.
Throughout this time, I’ve experienced many ups and downs with my health and numerous mold-related moves, decontaminations and remediations. I also successfully won a large insurance claim for mold. I have made huge strides in my health, and am blessed to live in a safe, beautiful home that fosters continued healing. I've learned that our homes are like living, breathing beings that require constant care and attention to stay healthy and mold-free.
I love empowering my clients to find, create, and maintain their own healthy homes. We all deserve to live in environments that support us in living our best lives! I am honored to help you on your journey to healing and living clear of mold.