I'm allergic to mold

I'm allergic to mold.. or at least sensitive to it.

It's been a while since I made a blog post, simply because it's been a while since I had these eye issues. But recently, all of a sudden I started having itchy eyes in my bedroom. And to be honest, having something bugging your eye while sleeping is pretty annoying. Sleep should help your body recover, not agitate it more.

I already removed lots of different things from my bedroom, including but not limited to: an old bookcase made out of particle board, some cardboard coasters to raise the bed a bit. Nothing seem to help. Although removing those cardboard coasters seemed to help a bit, I kept having itchy eyes in my bedroom. Washing the bedsheet also did not help, btw.

I also noticed the effect was worse when the windows were open as opposed to when they were closed. So I also cleaned the windows as well as the roller shutters but no change.

I decided to play "the elimination game": take out everything one by one until I feel an improvement. I started by taking out some paintings, closed the bedroom door and stood in my room for about a minute. Nothing changed. Then took out some drawings from my kid, no change. Then another painting, no change. Then another bookcase, no change. Then 2 small cardboard boxes which I had been using all summer to hold open the windows. BAM! All of a sudden I felt a stress relieve on my eyes. It's hard to describe it but it feels as if a needle was lifted from my eyes. Then I brought those cardboard boxes back into room and the itchiness came back. To be absolutely sure I worked on my laptop for 5 minutes, then took those cardboard out boxes again and the stress relieve was there again. Finally! This had been bugging me for over 2 weeks now. 

The box holding the window open.

A closer look at those boxes revealed some tiny black spots. I'm unsure if they are dust or if they are mold. If they are the latter, that would explain a lot. That would also explain opening my windows worsening the symptoms. The wind then blows the mold spores into my room which makes it worse.

A close up of the box. Not sure if that is dust or mold.