The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi: Exploring the Microscopic World in Our Forests, Homes, and Bodies by Keith Seifert

Author:Keith Seifert [Seifert, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771646628
Publisher: GreyStone
Published: 2022-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

6 | The secret House Fungi and the Built Environment

WHEN I STEP into a house for the first time, I scan the surroundings for interesting fungi the way someone else might search out an interesting conversationalist.1 This quirk is more socially acceptable outdoors. People get uneasy when I try it in their homes because they’d rather not know there are moulds in plain sight. The particles bobbing in sunbeams. The haze of dust on countertops and the floor—probably spores. The faint water stains on the ceiling tiles. The pink smudges in the grout around the sink in the bathroom. The dark splotches on the door gasket of the fridge. The wilted houseplants covered with brown specks. These all signal growing moulds. And the musty odor seeping up from the basement? Microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCS). These are mixtures of aromatic mould metabolites like 2-octen-1-ol (said to have a green, fatty smell), and geosmin (earthy or musty), which is mostly produced by fungus-like bacteria called actinomycetes but also by a few common moulds.2

Building artificial shelters separated humans from their surroundings and provided security against extreme temperatures, strong winds, and storms. A modern building is kind of an inflated version of a body. Its wooden skeleton and the air, heating, and water circulating systems are hidden away, while the walls are the skin protecting our bodies and possessions. During the energy crisis of the 1970 s, when the price of oil skyrocketed, the way we made buildings for temperate climates changed. To reduce heating costs, we increased insulation and reduced ventilation. The result was buildings with increased humidity and warmer air, both developments that made fungi feel more welcome.

Like farms, modern buildings are artificial ecosystems, but they are even more divorced from the usual patterns of nature. We didn’t plan for all of the creatures and microbes to move in with us, mostly without us noticing. Often the moulds, insects, and rodents that thrive in our warm and dry bedchambers, living rooms, and offices are native to deserts. More tropical or humidity-loving life-forms congregate in our bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms, where dripping taps and billowing steam create a rainforest-like environment. Some of the fungi in our buildings blow through the windows or are carried in on food. We don’t need to worry much about most of them: small colonies that grow indoors are normal and play a part in training our immune systems to tolerate the impurities of our chosen habitat. It’s profuse growth that sets off the alarm bells. Indoor mould growth that increases the number of spores in the air is known as amplification. Modest amplification is tolerable, but we don’t want concentrations of airborne spores or M VOCS to get too high.

The meaningful biological divisions among fungi in the built environment are between moulds causing decay; moulds that amplify in wet places; moulds that amplify in dry places; and moulds causing allergies. Each zone of a house has its own guild of fungi that affect us in various ways.

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