Why ERMI Can’t Tell You If Mold Is “Active” or “Dead” (And Why I Kept Trying to Figure That Out)
I wanted to know what was happening now. ERMI was showing me what had accumulated.
When I started to understand my ERMI results, a new question kept coming up.
Was the mold active?
Or was it old, inactive, and no longer a concern?
I kept searching the report for a clue it wasn’t designed to give.
This didn’t mean ERMI was incomplete — it meant I was asking it to answer a different kind of question.
Why Knowing Whether Mold Was “Active” Felt So Important
Active felt urgent.
Dead felt manageable.
I thought that distinction would finally tell me how worried I should be.
This didn’t mean I misunderstood ERMI — it meant I was looking for emotional clarity.
What ERMI Is Actually Measuring Instead
ERMI measures DNA from mold species found in settled dust.
Once I fully understood what an ERMI test actually measures, it became clear why it couldn’t label mold as active or inactive.
The test was identifying presence, not behavior.
This helped me stop looking for answers that weren’t there.
Why Trying to Read “Activity” Into ERMI Made Things Harder
I started interpreting numbers emotionally.
Higher meant something was happening now. Lower meant relief.
I turned context into a storyline.
This mirrored the pressure I felt when I treated ERMI like a diagnosis instead of environmental information.
How Dust History Complicates the Idea of “Active” Mold
Dust holds information from different time periods.
It doesn’t reset just because growth stops.
ERMI was holding memory, not reporting live activity.
This connected directly to what confused me about ERMI reflecting old dust rather than current conditions.
What Changed When I Stopped Asking ERMI to Confirm Activity
Once I let go of the active-versus-dead question, the report became easier to hold.
ERMI returned to being a baseline instead of a mystery I needed to solve.
Relief came when I stopped asking the test to reassure me.
This was when the information started to feel usable again.
Questions I Had About ERMI and Mold Activity
Can ERMI tell if mold is currently growing?
In my experience, no. It reflects what’s present in dust, not whether growth is active.
Does that make ERMI less helpful?
No. It answers a different question — one about overall environmental burden.