727. Is The Air In Your Home Making You Sick?
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Welcome to the Almost 30 Podcast. I'm Lindsay. And I'm Krista. And we're your hosts, guides, and friends on this path. Almost 30 is not about your age. It's about the feeling. All of us are almost something, seeking community and resources to support the rumblings of transformation within us. Our conversations are deep dives, shepherded by our insatiable curiosity and desire for connection, enduring inspiration, and a sense of levity that we can all benefit from.

Hello and welcome to Almost 30 Podcast. Hi, everybody. It's Lindsay and Krista. Welcome to Almost 30. It is a place where Krista and I have honestly grown up alongside you all. We've truly grown up. We've truly grown up.

We've had a grown-up and a glow-up and everything in between. You've been with us through just the highs, lows, zigzags of our life in the last nearly nine years, and we're so grateful you're here. So many of you I know listening have been with us since the very beginning. Yeah.

So thank you. But this is a place where we love to talk about all things health, wellness, spirituality, personal development, and really just support you all and ourselves in times of change, which is always. And I'm excited about today's episode. We'll get into it in a moment, but it is, we nerded out. Sometimes on Almost 30, we love to nerd out on very specific topics that

we know that you all out there will love. And this one is on air quality, which is something we do 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which is breathe. And I just found it to be fascinating, informative, and super helpful as we think about just becoming like the healthiest version of ourselves. So we'll get into it in a moment with Mike Feldstein. He's just such a

a knowledgeable expert in this space, but I wanted to share before, um, this morning I went on a, uh, like school tour and Mav is like kind of far out from going to school, but I just felt called. I don't know why, like there's so many schools. And I was like, I kind of just want to like visit this one school in our neighborhood. It's a Montessori school. Um,

and it's quite small, whatever. I was like, I just kind of want to like see what it feels like to be in the mix of like, you know, the school thing. And I got like, should we arrest this lady? I know. They're like, why are you here? How old is your child? Yeah, they're like, call the cops. But honestly, people like do this shit when they're like two months old. They do this shit when they're in utero. And I'm not even joking. Like here in New York, it's kind of crazy. And I've been the one that's kind of like, eh,

I think whatever, like I'll wait and that's what I'm going to do. But, um, so I went in and it was just me and like the head of the school. And she was, she gave me like, we were sitting down for like an hour talking, asking questions. She was like really passionate about just all things Montessori and the school and whatever. And then we took a little tour, um,

Y'all, I mean, it's probably inappropriate to cry in front of small children, but I was like so teary. I walked into, I walked into the classroom. They are all doing the Montessori approach. I'm sure a lot of you know about it, but it's like very much kind of a curiosity led, play-based, independent exploration led type of education, especially for those early years.

I mean, we had a child over here like planting seeds for their little garden. We had a child over here who was cutting his own orange and juicing it and having some orange juice. It was just so...

freaking sweet. And I just saw all their little brains and hearts just like so happy and so engaged and so like allowed, you know what I mean? Like that energy of just like allowing kids to be so themselves and do what they're called to do in the moment. And

And I was just frigging moved. I was very moved. I'm sure when I see like the total that it's going to cost to send a two and a half year old to school, I don't know how I'm going to feel. But I just, I was pleasantly surprised because I honestly thought I'd be like, this is fucking stupid, honestly. Yeah.

Um, but I'm, I was like very pleasantly surprised. What if they like are like, someone's coming in. They're like, all right, stations, Ryan, go juice the orange. Little, little robots. Yeah. Linda plant the seeds. They like have them acting. They're like, someone's here to watch.

I mean, thank goodness like that. They finally are doing some stuff like that. I had a friend or a woman came on my retreat. She has a son. They go to school in Austin. He goes to a school where it's basically entrepreneurship. Yeah. Their entire, it's like a, it's like a business school. So they have a friend who does that in Austin too. Yeah. I wonder if it's the same one. They build companies. They like do marketing plans. They all take turns being different aspects of businesses. Like it's so sick. It's so sick. Austin's a place that I think is really innovative and it's

um, ironic. So we're talking to Mike Feldstein today and he lives in Austin. He told me that his wife, they just bought a school and they're going to create this really unique hybrid education of like Montessori and other like approaches that is like very progressive in the sense that like we're talking about, you know, just not like your typical structure of school and the sitting in chairs. And, um, it felt like a

a Kanye vision. I say that with like the positive Kanye vision of like having the schools that like are circular and like not lots of natural light and things like that. He talks about it in the episode, um, at the end. So, but yeah, it's, I hope that's the future. Yeah. Same. You know, I mean, I, you know, this is the whole thing though. That's the future with money.

You know, I just, this is the whole thing about the whole thing. And that's what I've realized with, again, my dad being- What do you mean by that with money? Sorry. What I mean that is that I think since my dad's been sick, it really has shown me that you get so much better care when you have money and you get so much better schooling opportunities when you have money. And it's like, yeah, this is beautiful that this is happening for people that can afford it. I know. You know, and I'm like, and I'm not even normally like that, but it's just kind of, it just kind of breaks my heart that- So true. Yeah.

Throughout the start of your life, your birth isn't as good. Your care isn't as good. Your housing isn't as good. Your air quality isn't as good. Like it's just such a system where you get so many more privileges having money than, you know, like to think like that was such a beautiful thing. And then what about all the kids that deserve to have that experience too? And it's such a bummer that they can't. I completely agree. I completely agree. That should be like kind of the base thing

Yeah. I did see that they were, there is something with school lunches. I think I mentioned this before, but basically they're taking out the heavy metals and toxic chemicals and glyphosate in like more like public school settings, like having it be a law basically, which is pretty crazy.

I think revolutionary, which it shouldn't be at this point in time, but I'm really, you know, hopeful. That's really good. I think they're, you know, depending on what's happening in the climate in the next couple months, I'm hopeful that there are more regulation changes with that and that we can really support, you know, kids eating better at the very least. Yes, yes. That makes me so happy. Yeah, it felt really good. It'll be a while, but I just...

felt hopeful that that's even an option and they have schools all over the world. So it's not just here. Totally. So, well, while you were looking at schools for your son, I was lying to someone about my age that I'm talking to. Oh.

So I just want to call myself out with that. So we were like walking in. I don't even know what I'm going to say. You know what? I'm Beyonce now. I'm not telling anyone my age beyond this point. You guys can just wonder. We were talking and he's like, we were talking about something. He's like, oh, do you know this person? I was like, he's like, I think you guys went to school at the same time. I'm like, oh yeah, maybe.

And he's like, how old are you? He's like, how old are you again? And I'm like 12. And he's like, no, like how old are you? And I'm like 12. He's like, seriously, how old are you? And I told him an age that was a lie. And I asked first, I was like, how old do you think I am? And he's like,

said an age. And I was like, no, I'm this age. And he's like, oh, okay, cool. And I'm like, and that age is not even my real age. And this is like, I don't know what my plan is for the future. I actually am going to voice note him today and be like, hey, I lied to you. Let's never talk about it again. But I lied to you about my age. Yeah.

Because you're going to find out in March of next year. Yeah, it's such a weird-ass thing. Well, it's like an oscillating thing, at least for me. Like, I don't—you know, whatever. I'm not lying about my age, but I think about my age in certain instances where, like, there are days and situations where I care and days and situations where I'm like, of course, don't care, you know, and, like, want to embrace it. But it's a very—

interesting thing. How do you feel about like, I just am like, I'm so silly. I'm just a silly, silly girl. I was like this person, I think he's this, I think is a year younger than me, two years younger than me. I'm not sure. I think it's just that in this situation, I just noticed myself doing things like that where I'm like doing what I can to get him to like me. And it's so dumb. Do you find that like younger guys actually quote don't care about

what age you are and then older guys kind of have a thing. Yeah. I think that's a good one. No, I, I think, I know what you mean. I've seen it all over the board. Yeah. You know, I don't, you know, some that are like, yeah, some that are whatever, but it's just so dumb. I was like, I was like, damn, I'm two. So, but I'm going to come clean today and I'm going to, I guess, how would they find out? Um, on my birthday in March.

Okay. But you're not going to say like, Hey, I'm this age. Like you're not going to say I was born in 19. It's just an integrity. I also need to call myself out and be like, Hey, I've noticed that I've done this and I've been holding back or been changing the truth because I'm looking for you to like me and it's stupid and I'm not doing it anymore. So I kind of want to call myself out anyways. Yeah, totally.

I'm like, you're a figment of my imagination. You are a lesson for me and you're here for my growth. So I'm going to tell you the truth. You're a mirage. You're a mirage, dude. I'm so excited about this episode because I just had two people DM me. They're like, what is the air purifier that you use? And talking about air quality. And I, dude, if we're thinking, because this is the whole thing, when we're thinking about health, sure, we can take the supplements. We can like

do the workouts and do the things. If you're living in a home that has mold, that has bad air quality, if you're drinking poor water, it's like the very basics of what being a human is, is air, is water, is sunlight. And so when we get these things wrong, it sets so many things off in our health and in our life. And it's such an important thing. If you're living in a city, if you're living in a crowded area, our homes are like

little prison cells. Like we don't have a lot of airflow going in and out of most people's homes. And so the air quality is so poor. Like it's so important that we get it right. And so I love to have these conversations about things like this because

we have covered so much of the other things, but like, let's look at the nuance, nitty gritty things that really, really impact our life that we maybe don't see on the surface, but need to look at. Yeah. A hundred percent. I think so much of, so many of us are focused on water and food, which is a great, great focus, amazing focus. But I honestly, I have like, I had before like air purifier, I had one in our home and I was like, okay, you know, I'm checking the box.

And then when I got Jasper, I was like, oh shit, this is actually working. And like when I cook, for example, it goes haywire. So realizing it in this conversation with Mike, just realizing cooking is number one pollutant in homes. And so realizing kind of what is contributing to the air quality, whether it's cooking, whether it's the outside air. But honestly, so many of us, and we talk about this,

are living in homes that are like airtight now. So we're actually not getting the circulation that we once did when we were kind of living like indoor outdoor type vibes, open windows, et cetera. So

It's cooking, it's perfumes, it's candles, it's dust. It's, oh my God, there's so many things. Oh, off-gassing from furniture. Didn't think about that. It's poopy diapers. We talked about poopy diapers for a second because if you're smelling something, if you smell anything in your home,

It is a particle. It's in the air. It's not just like an invisible nothing of a thing. If you smell it, it's an actual thing, just microscopic. And so...

It should raise concern. And I've gotten so sensitive. I know you're super sensitive. Like I am so sensitive to smell anywhere I go. My mom had like a, a, uh, air, air, what are those things called? Like you plug them into the wall. Yeah. She had like an updated version of it, but I was like, mom, this is, what is this? This is toxic. It's like spraying things into the air for, to make it smell nice. Dude. Those types of things. But,

She's like, can I live? I just want cinnamon in the air. She's like, I thought it would smell cute. I'm like, absolutely not. But Mike is just, I love talking to him. He is an air quality expert. He has a background in wildfire restoration, air quality consulting, and home remediation during some of the biggest natural disasters. So he started Jasper to innovate air science and technology. He has one product. So he gets to perfect everything.

one product and they have just created the best air purifier on the market. It has like an air scrubber technology. It's really cool. We talk all about it. But, um, in this conversation, we get into, um, how to make sure that our home's air quality outside of using air filters can be the best that it can be. What's contributing to the actual pollution in the home. We also talk about, cause some people think like, Oh, if you're in a city,

air quality is not going to be good. True. That is absolutely true. But there's also issues with being in the country. There could be pesticides that are sprayed a few miles away. There could be just different things, dust that you're dealing with and the soil turnover, et cetera, that there's going to be issues anywhere you are. So making sure that the air quality in your home is

is the best that it can be is really important. We also talk about why, like what health issues is this causing currently? Like, what are we seeing? We also talk about mold. So I know mold is a hot topic and he actually like pulls behind the curtain a bit about like the mold industry. Like they're making a ton of money on these like inspections and they're not actually doing the proper work. Like he was in that business and like,

Yeah. I just found like a lot of issue with how they're remediating it. So, um, you know, we talk about just what mold to look out for, what causes mold, um, what you can do in practice. If you do find mold, what should be alarming, what should be, um,

what you can be looking for symptomatically. I saw a reel on Instagram yesterday of this dog that sniffs out mold. Oh, yeah. I was like scrolling and I was like, oops, stop. Let's see this mold-finding dog. I know, literally. He found mold. Honestly. I think mold is...

I need to search my place for mold. I don't think I have it, but I think mold is hugely underrated. Yeah. I mean, it's something that I think everyone should be aware of, especially if they're buying a new home, you know, if like they go to an Airbnb, if they go to a hotel, like another thing that, and I'll shut up after this and get right into it with Mike. But another thing that he's doing, which I think is so freaking cool, he is building a, um,

kind of like a Rolodex of hotels. He is going, he and his team are going to hotels. They're bringing their Jasper. This man actually bought a, brought a full Jasper to this interview. It was kind of crazy. I was like, are you lugging this around the city? Yes, he was. He brought it to his hotel, which was the one hotel Brooklyn.

He put it in the room and one hotel smells amazing. So you can imagine kind of the pollutants in the air a little bit in the room and he is recording the air quality of each hotel. So that is going to be kind of a piece of how you can rate a hotel because nobody's talking about air quality when it comes to like your stay at an Airbnb or a hotel. And what he would ultimately like to do is create like a

sanctuary in these hotel rooms. So partnering with brands like, you know, branch basics or say like a, you know, cozy earth for the sheets, like everything that is clean. And then you could buy it in the room if you wanted to and liked it. Wow. So just having this experience of like education and also just a really healthy, supportive experience to kind of give you,

Taste, I thought it was just amazing. It's genius. It's so smart. It's like... Because people are so interested in the biohacking thing. Yes. They should work with Six Senses. Six Senses is so wellness... Good one. Good one. ...forward. I'm happy to connect him. Yeah. Yeah. That's like...

Yeah, I'm so excited about this one. I have my Jasper. I love it. It's so beautiful. It's discreet. I have it right behind my really tall mirror. It's helped me so much because I'm allergic to cats, but I have two babies and it's...

I would literally die a hundred times over because of my allergies over getting over the babies, but it's helped me like temper that so much. My allergies has been so much better. Yeah. We talk about allergies too. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's been amazing. Um, and what's really cool. So this episode is coming out, uh, right at the top of like

Black Friday week. You know how Black Friday is like every day for a week or two. So Mike and his team were like, okay, we're going to give you an even bigger discount. So

They're going to offer an exclusive discount for our audience. You go to jasper.co slash almost 30. And then the discount will be increased from 100 to $200 off. And then in addition, they're going to have a Black Friday discount. So you're going to get like that double discount. It's going to be insane. It's not going to happen for a long time. And it won't happen again. Like he said, this is only happening once a year. So

Um, it's one of those investments that I know can be like, eh, should I, it has made such a freaking difference. I have a husband who has a lot of allergies. I have a son who's really sensitive. I'm really sensitive. It's made such a difference. So I highly recommend you can DM us questions about it. Uh, but enjoy this episode. It's so informative. If nothing else, just to learn about air quality and how we can just make it the best that it can be.

Yeah. And I love this was like about air quality. You guys talked about so many different things like mold that are really popular and lots of people are discussing related to health. So I found this one incredible. And I honestly, I've had a few different air filters. Jasper is the most beautiful, the quietest.

The best quality, 100%. I think every home for sure needs to have one. So I'm excited for you guys to get it. Okay. We love you so deeply from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for pre-ordering our book, which is out next year. We were so excited to see so many pre-orders and so many of the people that have supported us along the way, getting their guide to their...

getting their almost 30 guide. It is like the book that we wrote from the bottom of our hearts. There's so much of our wisdom and teaching and wisdom from our guests that we've learned over the years in this book. So you can go to our Instagram or my Instagram or Lindsay's and find the link to pre-order now, which is so exciting so that the book's waiting for you when it comes out. And again, get your Jasper. It's really, really good. Subscribe, rate, and review to the show and we'll see you on the other side. All right. Bye. Bye.

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to get 15% off your Lumen. That's lumen.me, L-U-M-E-N.me slash almost 30 for 15% off your purchase. Lumen makes a great gift, as I said, so be sure to give this to the people that you love. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. Okay, Mike's here, and I am so freaking stoked. I have heard you on so many podcasts. I am a new mom and obsessed with

and probably hypersensitive to air quality. So this just feels like a conversation I've been wanting to have just as a human on earth for a while.

So thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. So excited. And our audience is an audience who is very, very interested in the science and the research. And they're also very hip to just creating to the best of their ability an optimal environment to live and just have a great life. And me too. Yeah, same. You and I are right now in New York City. Yeah.

And, um, I know we should have, I love it so much. Um, I was actually, uh, looking at my Jasper this morning and I was really thankful because I have an insane construction site across the way from our building right now. It's like they're taking down the building one piece at a time. And I've been a little anxious about what the heck is in the air. And I leave my windows open sometimes and all the things, but

Air quality is looking green, you know, according to the light and amazing. And I'm just really thankful. But let's we'll get to that later. I would love to talk about just your work in the world that kind of inspired this brand, this product that I think is just unlike any other. So give us give us your background. And by the way, it's good. It's a good thing that they're taking the building apart one piece at a time. New York's really good at that.

Okay. Because they have to be. You don't have much space between buildings. They can't like dynamite it. Yeah, they can't just like smash it. Right. And when they do, that's when you get way more air pollution. Like I see them using water. Yeah, they have to. So depending on the year the building was created, would change the standards of how they have to hydrate the building. So if it was between 1930 and 1980, then the asbestos would be more likely.

even if it was before that renovations could have had asbestos. So then they need to basically consistently put water on the building because that would lock in the fibers. So they wouldn't aerosolize. Wow. But even if there wasn't asbestos, there's still a lot of like dust and construction materials. Yeah. So yeah, wetting the building and taking it apart bit by bit means you're not breathing it because normally when a building is going, actually when buildings are getting built, it's way worse than when they're, you know, when they're digging the hole and they're

Jack hammering. There's only so much you can do to control dust then, but taking it apart, you can be pretty methodical about it. So the fact that your Jasper is not like looking orange and red is a good sign that their dust control is solid. Oh, I love it. Okay. Thank you. My work. So yeah, before, before Jasper, the reason I started Jasper, I used to be a bit of a disaster chaser, but after the disaster, not during. So floods, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes,

massive toxic mold removals, that kind of thing. And we would use these huge air purifiers that were called air scrubbers that are like three feet by three feet, like 100 pounds. They look like a photocopier or a subwoofer. Massive. So good at cleaning the air, but very unpractical. Too loud, too big, great for a construction site, useless for a homeowner. Right.

And then I was able to like, you know, being in the air, air testing and toxic cleanup industry, I have all the science gadgets. So I was able to test our equipment against what you would get at like Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot. And the difference was staggering. It was like a 20x. So a quick little story is there was a family in Fort McMurray, Alberta, we restored their home from wildfire smoke. And then a week later, their baby was in the hospital.

And we went back to test the air and their house was contaminated. This was just a week after we told them they could move home. And that's because after the wildfire, the indoor air, we cleaned their house. It was fine. But the outdoor environment can stay contaminated for months after a big fire. It's in the soil. You know, some homes that are just piles of ash. The wind blows. So the house got recontaminated. Baby got sick. Called the insurance company. I was like, hey, guys, we should have that family move out of town.

and stay out of town for about another month or two until the outdoor air is good and they can safely move back home. And insurance basically is like, so sad, too bad. We're paying you. They signed off. We don't clean twice. And I mean, it would be horrible for them to clean twice. We probably just shouldn't have started when we did. But they don't want to keep people in hotels for three months. And it was kind of an unprecedented situation. It's that whole regional wildfire situation is not something that we have a ton of experience with.

So that was like, oh, we have a problem here. This family has a sick baby. We're kind of on our own. So that's when we left those giant air scrubbers there. And that brought the air quality to a good level. This kept happening. That's when I went to Walmart, bought like six or seven little air purifiers. I'm like, let me just have them keep it because we needed our equipment for the next job.

But within a couple hours, the air quality was bad again. And that's the like, I still vividly remember the picture that came into my head. I felt like I was trying to heat a bathtub with a kettle. Kettles are great at heating water if you're making tea, but you can't really fill a bathtub with it. Or it's like if you were trying to heat a small room with a space heater, works great. If you try to heat your old house or your big living room area with a space heater, it won't do anything. So I just saw this contrast.

And that's what kind of set me on a journey to want to create a product that was very commercial industrial grade, but also beautiful and quiet and made from metal.

And yeah, that was the journey. But preceded that was basically 10 years of air quality consulting. So we did the disaster stuff, but we were also the guys who, if you were sick at home and didn't know why, you've done all the testing, you've got all the blood tests, you've changed your diet, you've tried the allergy meds and gone to the doctors. And then one day you go on vacation, you go camping and all your symptoms go away.

Then you're like, oh, I'm better. Then you come home and you're like, I'm sick again. And you have this aha moment. Is my home making me sick?

We were the guys you would call when you had that level of awareness to come in and basically do a deep dive into your home. We were like the MRI or like the functional medicine doc of the house. So the carpets, the paints, the furniture, we would deep dive and look for leaks and see, is there something in your home that might be contributing to the way that you feel? And then more often than not, that's an air problem because the four ways things get in us, eating it, drinking it, absorption through our skin or breathing it. And, you know, if you have a problem with your paint,

That's because you're breathing it. If it's a carpet or paint or mold, those are all air problems. So that kind of put me in my lane. I was like, okay, I will commit the next 20, 30 years of my life to this air problem. Yeah. It's really interesting, like where we tend to focus depending on like kind of a trend or a, you know, hot topic of conversation. What I mean by that is like,

Water filtration. Okay. So everyone's getting the water filters and they're making the osmosis and this and that. And then making sure we have, we clean our food from pesticides and or by organic. But I feel like very little conversation has been had around air quality. Maybe because it's so overwhelming because we're like,

We got to breathe air. And so if I knew sometimes with this health, wellness, and just lifestyle changes, I'm like, I just got to do one at a time. Yeah, yeah. Keep it simple. But air is so, so important. So let's actually start with your work in these homes because I've heard...

at least a dozen friends who have had to move from an apartment or from a home temporarily or permanently because of air quality, whether it's mold or other things. So can you give us some just like top, you know, toxins and or places to be aware of in our home that could be affecting the air quality? I can, but usually when you hear about people moving out of their home, normally that's the mold thing. Okay. Almost always if someone's moving, it's a mold problem. And so,

The sad thing is most of the time, not most of the time, a lot of the time when people move out of their house because of mold and then they move into a new apartment, they don't check the new place. The new place is usually moldier than the place that they left. This is a big problem. When I was in the mold removal business, in the training and stuff, there was two sayings in the industry that I did not like at all. One was the mold rush and the other one was mold is gold. So

Simply put, if you want to get your bathroom ripped out because you want to renovate and put a new bathroom in, let's say the bathroom's $15,000, $20,000. The disposal demolition phase is maybe $1,000. Now, if there's a little bit of mold in that bathroom, that disposal demolition phase is $7,000 to $15,000. That was a whole new bathroom.

Because, because mold is scary, the price to remove that piece of drywall goes up dramatically. But really, it was fairly simple. All we were doing is sealing off the room, removing the stuff, double bagging it before we took it to the house, putting an air scrubber in that room, putting an air scrubber outside of the room, and wiping all the surfaces with antimicrobial

Wasn't a whole lot more. Yeah. But the market price was a lot higher. And you can get 10 quotes to remove mold. They might range from 2,000 to 60,000. The Wild West. Wow. And typically the difference, not always, but typically the difference is how good could that company sell fear? And oftentimes, like if you have...

You test your water, let's say, and your water is contaminated. It's like, do you get a water filter or do you rip all your pipes out? You just filter the water. So when there's like visible physical black mold growing, you got to get that remediated. But the amount of people who are unwell, they go to a naturopath, they get some blood or urine testing. Ah, I got the mold. Then they test their dust. Mold again. And then they bring in, then they start really ripping apart their home in search of the mold.

Really, I call this whack-a-mold because that's what it is. I always tell friends, if you ever want to get out of a lease early, call me. I'll come over. I'll find the mold. You'll be able to break your lease because it's everywhere. I basically never found a house that didn't have some amount of mold. But that's okay. Mold's not the devil. If you checked your blood right now, you're going to have heavy metals in you and allergens and mold, of course. We're like,

living sponges. So we got that stuff in us. It's a matter of how much and what species and are we detoxing regularly? And it's an allergen. So everyone's impacted differently. But often it's just a little bit of elevated mold spores. And some folks have gotten to the business in the last few years really rapidly, aren't really doing things properly. So when we would test for mold, you test inside the house and you test outside.

called the control sample. And you look for the difference and you're never supposed to test within a few days of rain because it's elevated mold spores. So a lot of people, and how bad of a business would it be if you'd have to cancel all your jobs if it rained? Like, so no one actually practices that. They don't look at the humidity and the weather and do the indoor test, the outdoor test. They just come in, test,

So they look at their blood. I got the mold. They look at their house. I got the mold. But if they checked outside, there likely would be more mold outside. It's naturally occurring. Right. Outside, not a problem. We got the sun. We got the wind. We got the trees. We got the rain. It's nature's air purifier. Inside, when we trap it inside, we're inside all the time and our doors and windows are shut. That's when it's more problematic. So air, just mold is really, it's typically an air problem. If you can't see it and find it,

If you just filter your air or open your windows more, it's not an issue anymore.

To those who actually see physical mold because they had a leak or something, problem. Remove it. But just to test your air and think that you have a real problem, 100% of homes have mold. So this is like an issue that unfortunately it's growing in popularity. It's a scary thing. And the naturopath is trying to get educated because all of a sudden they're getting inundated with calls. People wanting to do mold detox.

So they take a two day training course. By the way, when I got certified in mold removal, it was a two day course and lunch was half of the time. Yeah. Yeah. Like you learn nothing in that course. You know, you learn it on the job and it's like at most things you don't learn the trade in school. Wow. So there's a lot of people rolling around out there, certified mold men, um,

And yeah, so it's really an interesting thing that people have to navigate, like advocate and navigate wisely. I always tell people get a whole bunch of quotes, but this is not a binary black or white thing. It doesn't have to be this scary complex thing. And I just like to like paint some color because some of that is not known. And then when it's unknown, it's scary. Right. So what I'm hearing you say, if you can't see it,

let's test the air quality. Let's try a filtration system and see how you feel. Yeah. Because testing your air is a fine thing to do. But if that company is not doing an outdoor test and an indoor test, this is no good. Okay. Like if we submitted to a lab without an outdoor test, usually they wouldn't even test it because this is, you need, you need to know the outdoor levels that day. You're literally just comparing the contrast. If you just look at the levels, um,

It could be high. It's always going to be high. You're just comparing it to the outside that day. Right. And I've seen a lot of tests that don't do that at all. Yeah. So if you have like a leak or water damage, that is something worthy of addressing. Sure. But just like... And I felt horrible because when we used to test people's air, you know, it was $1,000 or so. Almost every time they had reasonable... They had some amount of mold. And then...

There was now they have no budget for a solution. And honestly, that's why I got out of that business. Because people would spend all their money on testing when if all they did is they put the if they had good air filtration, like I tell I tell people in a city, I wouldn't even spend the $400 testing your water.

It's not going to be good. Yeah. Just put that money into cleaning the water. Yes. Get a water filter anyway. You can skip the testing phase. And if you really want to test, test after you put the filter in. Yeah. Not before. And if you really have an unlimited budget, you want to do both, go for it. But most people are operating on some amount of constrained budget. Yeah. So it's better to put the money towards a solution.

than a test a lot of the time. Okay, that's amazing. So it felt bad being the one who was taking all the budget and then they had no money to actually just clean the air. Yeah. So, yeah. That had to be a part of your path, though. It did have to. It did have to. And, yeah, so broadly speaking, with air that's bad inside...

There's the outdoor pollution that comes from outside, which is also mold. You know, the rubber from the tires of the cars, the restaurants, the pollution, smoke, construction, all that. And then inside it is, and then of course allergens outside. And then indoor you have cooking and cleaning and furniture and off-gassing and air fresheners, which I like to call air makeup. I literally, I'm an air freshener, like,

I go into more. Well, I think since I was telling you this before, but since becoming a mom, actually, since I was pregnant, I was going to ask if it was pregnant or after. Holy moly. I just I've always been sensitive. But since then, I've

anywhere I go. I mean, even when I walk past people and they have a lot of perfume on, first I get sad because I'm thinking about all of the endocrine disruptors on their body. But I really am so sensitive and I can't be around it going in an Uber and they have an air freshener in there or they have cologne on. My mom had this air freshener plugged in. It was like so not her thing, but I think she just felt like, oh, I just want the house to smell nice for the kids when they come home. I'm like, mom,

We got to we got to get rid of it. This is not the vibe. I have a new baby. No. So I'm pretty crazy about it. Even my husband with his cologne. He can't wear it if he wants to wear it at work, which pains me. But I'm like, if you want to have a little spritz on your clothes at work, fine, whatever. But not in the house. I don't blame you. And I think it's kind of like, you know, we have a couple we have young children as well.

And my wife already had the best sense of smell ever. And then it went to a whole new level. Whole new level. And I think it's pretty cool, actually. I mean, it can come with...

From the human experience, it can be a little bit annoying because all of a sudden all these things are bothersome. Yeah. But it's like the motherly instincts and senses have heightened. Yes, for a reason. You know, you get your sleep sensitivity, obviously. It gets way more sensitive to where like a little noise and everything can wake you up now because you have this little one to take care of. And then the sense of smell, it's like, you know, natural healthy things don't bother you. Right.

So it's your internal ability to smell harmful stuff to keep yourself and your family out of harm's way. It's pretty awesome. It's amazing. Pretty cool. I mean, it can, I always say there's the one bad, I wrote an email about it last week. The one bad thing about buying a Jasper is becoming an air snub. Yeah. All of a sudden the hotel that you used to stay at, you know, the mall maybe used to walk by Lush and Bath and Body Works and that would kill you. But then all of a sudden it's the whole mall.

Everywhere. The whole mall. Uber is horrible. Yeah. I always open my windows. Same. I've had like fights with Uber drivers because it's like the winter or it's like Arizona. It's like 120 out. And I'm like opening the window and they're like closing it. I'm like opening it. And they lock me out. I'm like, no way, man. First of all, unplug your air freshener. I live in Austin. So, you know, half the time the Uber drivers don't speak English. So thank God for ChatGPT. I got the...

- The translator. - The Spanish. I just say, "I'm allergic to air freshener. I have a headache. Please open it." - Exactly. I always say I'm allergic. - And then they're like, "Oh, okay." And then they unplug the thing. - That's my new MO. I'm allergic. - Yeah. - I'm allergic to canola oil. So please don't put it in my food. - Yeah. Allergic makes you take it more seriously. - Exactly. - And as soon as I get to an Airbnb…

I run around, yank them all out. So fun fact, I'm trying to work with a group called the Building Biology Institute. This is happening no matter what, but I'm trying to do it with them because there's about, I think, 300 or 400 of them. These are the guys who travel around the country testing people's home and air and water and EMF and all that. So what we're going to do is basically create the TripAdvisor of Hotel Air.

So we're going to test for mold, dust, allergens, and chemicals in hotels everywhere and then put this online and basically have a directory of hotels in various cities. Because it's silly. Like you go on Airbnb or whatever hotel site you book and there's no filter box for like mold and toxic chemicals because if there was, most of them wouldn't be able to be there. So yeah, the reason that this...

me was, first of all, as you can see, we're here. I literally travel with my Jasper. I lugged it in the building today. And I was staying at the one hotel. It's a nice hotel. And I even take it there. Do you plug it in when you get in there? Well, I can show you the pictures after. I test the air when I get there. No way. Yeah. I have the results last night. So we went from 330,000 particles by

in the room to 20,000 in half an hour. Stop it. I took videos last night. So when I stay at hotels, I test the air and I video it all in real time where you can see the air test happening and I'm slowly building up my database, but I want to empower this army of air testers across the country. I don't know if I'm going to lug my Jasper, but I'm down. The whole point is the number one question people ask us is can you make a small one?

I said, no, we cannot make a small one. Because if I cut the filter in half and the fan and the motor, all of a sudden it's not effective. Like you can't make a pickup truck to pull your boat the size of like a Honda Civic. It just doesn't work that way. So I'm like, we won't make a small one. If you want a small and effective one, you can get, there's lots of those. But the people ask us for the small one for travel.

Because in a home, the footprint is the same as a small one. It's just a little bit taller. But for travel, this is not fun to travel with. So I'm like, you know what? I can't make you a smaller one because that would be ineffective and I won't do that. What I will do is I will raise as much awareness as I can about the importance of it. And I will twist the arm of all of these hotels to start using better products.

So I'm trying to basically, I'm working with a few hotels now to turn, it's three-pronged approach. Number one is helping them reposition the marketing of their hotel rooms into sleep sanctuaries.

So when you walk into the room, there's going to be pretty signage, welcome to your sleep sanctuary. And it's going to talk about the lighting, what they use and don't use in the room, and then the filtered air. And then it will have a, you know, for optimal settings, use fan speed two and dark mode for the best sleep of your life. And then if you want Jasper filtered air at home, we'll give them like an affiliate link. And so from the hotel's perspective, number one,

We're going to vastly increase your guest experience. So people are going to, you're going to get more five-star reviews. It's going to get you about more new bookings, more retention, more repeat guests. So reviews, money, guest experience. Awesome.

And then some amount of revenue on the back end because people can then have the felt experience. So, yeah, my and then what I want to do is create a sleep. Next phase will be creating a whole sleep sanctuary stack for them. I was talking with Bethany from Primally Pure. And I'd like to chat with, you know, Branch Basics and maybe Caraway and some good bedding and then essentially give the hotel rooms the sleep stack.

Right off the bat, the whole thing. So their housekeeping will use better products. Their cosmetics will be better. The whole situation will be dialed in for them. And then they'll have a, you know, shop the wellness room. And then people can get discounts and shop everything in the room from the room. So you don't have to go into the store to buy the robe. You can buy everything in the room and create like a really nice boutique wellness shopping experience. That will be all e-comm. So people can buy directly from the stores.

with the hotel's discount. That's what I'm here to do. Oh, this is genius. I'm very, very, very excited about this. It's funny. I didn't realize it at the time, but like our tagline when we started was, this is the old box, but it was clean air everywhere. And back then I didn't know what I meant. I thought everywhere meant like every room of the house. Yeah. But now I'm like, no, like actually everywhere. Yeah. Wow. This is going to be awesome. Yeah. Let's get into the nitty gritty because- Let's do it. The-

Let's talk about cleaning products. Okay. Um, cause I am also pretty obsessed. My building I've offered, I live in a apartment building. I've offered to pay for the clean cleaning products for them to use because I can't step in the elevator. Um, they said they're non-toxic. I said, no, they're not. Um, we're still kind of in talks. They're a little bit, they think I'm just a little annoying about it, but, um,

Let's talk about what that does to our air, what we need to be aware of. Because, you know, I think we think disinfecting good, you know, with germs, all the things which I get. But what is it doing to our air? So, yeah, cooking and cleaning are the big two. We'll start with cleaning. And it's funny because like I'm not a body health expert. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a naturopath.

I'm a consumer in that space. I care about it for myself, but I'm not no expert. So I only see about the products through the lens of air. So if they didn't, you know, which pan makes your air worse, which and then to me, it sends me down a rabbit hole like, oh,

Typically, the things that pollute the air the most are also the most toxic. Yep. So it's been a cool way to... It's like a low-tox detector. Yes. If you're using the Walgreens $10 hairspray stuff, Jasper goes crazy. It's not happy. But if you're using some better products...

Won't go too crazy. Maybe not at all. If you wash with water and vinegar or some, you know, less more gentle cleaning products, then it won't go crazy. So that's the lens in which I've got my kind of awareness. But yeah, the main thing with the cleaning products is VOCs.

which are volatile organic compounds, which is honestly probably an overly simplified term because it means just chemicals, thousands of them. And, you know, formaldehyde versus benzene, they're all different. So kind of like labeling them into one bucket, we had, you know, the industry had to sort of simplify it. But a VOC is not one thing. So just that's how we have to talk about it because different VOCs are some are problematic, some are not.

Some we can filter easily, some we can't. But generally, anything that's manufactured has stuff. It doesn't get to breathe.

So whether that's your drywall, your flooring, your carpets, your cleaning, everything off gases and cleaning products are kind of the same. And really like a comprehensive cleaning strategy needs to involve cleaning the surfaces and cleaning the air. Because if you just clean your counter like crazy, it's still in the air and then it comes back on the surface. So you really like whenever I was cleaning up a home from mold or any toxic cleanup, it's always a two-prong approach of air and surface. If you just clean your air,

You haven't dealt with the surfaces. And if you only clean your surfaces, you haven't dealt with the air. So every time you vacuum, walk on the floor, your dog runs through the room, goes back in the air, back in your HVAC system, and it's just recontaminating your home. And generally, a good way to know you have an air problem at home is if you have dust. You shouldn't really have dust in your house. What? Well, where does the dust come from? It doesn't emerge from the metal counter. It comes from the air.

And you don't typically see dust outside unless it's like sandy, you know, like sand. You don't really see dust forming on like your lawn and on your driveway and things like that. Unless it's like a dust storm or pollen or something. But it's generally an indoor problem. And that's because our homes, especially in the US and Canada, our homes are so tight. Since the 70s, we've been optimizing for energy efficiency. So our homes are like Tupperware boxes. We're sealed inside.

Which I'll tell you right now and I'll pull out my CO2 detector after. It's not bad in here. You have pretty solid ventilation. Okay. Outdoor CO2 is 400 carbon dioxide. Indoor, you want it to be like 600 to 800. Okay. Once you get past 1,000, that's when brain fog, fatigue, kind of a bit of panic kicks in and you're like… And that's because it's so sealed is what you're saying. Yeah. And we call it stuffy. But when you say like it feels stuffy…

That's your body saying the carbon dioxide in here is high. That's your CO2 detector going off. Wow. And like the same way that you're now sensitive to chemicals. Yes. Like you basically have a VOC detector built in.

Like you literally have tuned into that sense. Yeah. Which is awesome. I love this game. If you take five people, you go outside, everybody writes down the temperature that they think it is and then like flips over their paper. Everyone's usually within one or two degrees. It's pretty uncanny. No one says 90, then the other person says 60. And that's because you have a temperature sensor in your skin and you've calibrated that sensor by looking at the weather every day.

Like you've really attuned to the temperature sensor. It's like if you had, if your cup, when you were drinking, had a thermometer on it, just by putting your tongue in water or putting it on your lips or drinking it, you would know the temperature of the water. We have all these crazy sensors. If you...

If you checked relative humidity every day, you know that the rainforest feels humid and the dry sauna or the desert feels dry. You can feel it. I got dry skin. You're feeling the dryness. So it's pretty cool. Like you can tap in and actually know what the humidity is. So I've now unlocked the carbon dioxide sensor by using because I have a CO2 detector everywhere I go.

You know, if you had a VOC monitor with you, you would then calibrate to your chemical sensitivity and you would have a general sense of what 400 parts per million feels like and what 3000 feels like. It's pretty neat. So that's why you said it feels pretty good in here. I know it does. Wow. Yeah. Like I'll pull out my CO2 detector after. Cool. Even with these fake plants. No shade.

No shade half studio. Okay, cool. Cool. Um, but yeah, so generally with, with, with cleaning stuff, the, the, the cheap stuff is the worst stuff. Like no surprise. Um,

But, I mean, we have to clean. I know. But using more gentle, less toxic stuff is better. I use like, and this is not an ad, but I use Branch Basics. I use Supernatural, which is basically distilled water with essential oil blends. And then Symbiotica briefly made some home cleaning. Briefly?

They're still doing it, but it's kind of... Yeah. Okay. They're wrapping it up, they said. They can't do everything. They make so much. They can't do it all. I want them to do it all, but they can't. But phenomenal. I'm amazed with how much stuff they have been able to do. Oh, me too. Me too. I'm so impressed. I only do one thing. When I tried to do even two things, I didn't have that ability. Yeah. The fact that they can do as much as they do is quite impressive. But it's an incredible line. So those are the three I kind of rotate between. Yeah.

Do you have any thoughts? Vinegar, water, you said? No, I think you're doing it perfectly. I think you're doing it perfectly. Unfortunately, some of the better products don't work very good. Yeah, I don't care. I'm kind of like, whatever. What are you using for dishwasher stuff? Because that's the one I haven't... Blue land? How does it work?

It's fine. Works fine? Yeah. Yeah, my wife tried a couple of like the, you know, we're like in the middle with our dishwasher stuff. We don't have the best stuff. But luckily, when we do run the dishwasher, we open all of our windows. Because, you know, you smell the dishwasher. Yes. And that's one of the only appliances in the home that has bad air that doesn't vent outside. Yeah. So like your dryer vents outside, your oven vents outside, but your dishwasher doesn't vent outside at all.

Okay, that's a good one. That's interesting. Also, those places too, I feel like we got to be aware of mold. I just learned that you leave your... If you have a front-loading washer... Oh, yeah. Crack that front door. Yeah. I did not know that. And ideally, you take a paper towel and run it under that basin. Yes. Because otherwise, they always get moldy. That's why washing machines stink. Yes. On that note, the...

Cooking. Yes. So there's a bunch of free stuff, you know, buying air purifier is great, but there's a lot of free stuff people could do right away. And I think that's, you know, step zero. So making sure people's range hood works is really important. Like the vent, the vent over your stove. People think it's just for bacon. It's not.

Take a tissue, tissue test, hold it up to the range hood. Make sure it's actually sucking it up. Okay. If it's not, then it's not working. It's not working at all. Okay. And then even if it is, where is it going? So it should go outside, but a lot of times it's going into your drywall, into your attic, up into the cupboard. So it's like vented it out of your kitchen into somewhere else in your house. This is not great.

What about in apartments? Where do you think it's going? Apartments, the best ones, they either go out the side or at the top. Okay. But like, just make sure they leave your unit. Yeah. Gonna ask that when I get home. Well, if you do, is yours built into a microwave or is it? Okay. So yeah, for space, they do that. So like, I'm curious if that's the outside wall of the apartment. It is.

Well, that's a good thing. Hopefully. Yeah. Okay. I'll ask. Another annoying question from tenant Lindsay. Yeah. Annoying tenant Lindsay. Okay. So cooking. So the ventilation. And if you can use the, when the weather is good.

you know, open your window, open your balcony door. Great. Like get the windows open because cooking is one of the most polluting things possible. We only really started cooking indoors in the last hundred years. So now all of a sudden we've built tight homes and we cook inside. Oh, that's crazy. I didn't even think about that. But cooking inside is pretty intense. So intense. My Jasper goes off, goes crazy when I cook. So I need to be, I want to actually ask you about that. And if you don't,

either vent it outside, which is great, or filter it, then all those particulates get caught in your carpets, your clothing, your furniture. They don't leave. So it's crazy. If you take an air sensor, no Jasper, so you know your Jasper goes red when you cook, and then how long until it comes back to green? I would say 10, 15 minutes. 10, 15 minutes. That's fairly normal.

If we put an air sensor in there, no Jasper, that could often be 12 hours to two or three days. Wow. It's a big difference between filtering it and not at all. And then like a lot of it doesn't leave your house. It stays in there. So what happens? Let's say even you're cooking a grass fed, grass finished steak and you're using avocado oil, you're doing all this stuff.

And your air is still going red. You're like, what's going on? I'm eating clean food. Two things. Number one, it's not just the oils and the meat that you're

putting into the air, when you have protein in high temperature, it creates off-gat, like other byproducts, other chemical compounds. Okay. But also, just because something is good to eat doesn't mean it's good to breathe. Because when you eat it, it goes in your digestive system, which can break it all down. When it goes into your respiratory system, that can cause a ton of inflammation and impact your respiratory. So when you're smelling, say, probably not in your home, most homes, but like a wood fire...

pizza oven or like a wood fire? Because I feel like a lot of restaurants are like, oh, everything's wood fired. Is that? I mean, we're pretty robust creatures, so we can handle a reasonable amount of stuff. But like if

First principles, it's like if you're smelling something, it's because you're putting that thing in your nose. Yeah. Like if you smell the asphalt when you're driving by constructions, you're sniffing it. It doesn't just smell like it. It is it. Yes. It's aerosolized. Yes. If you smell whatever, if you're... I don't know if you ever heard me talk about my diaper poop thing. No, tell me. So I also have young children. Uh-huh. How young is yours? He's almost 14 months. Okay. Um...

We still got a good healthy dose of the diapers for sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're talking poop in the air. Yeah, we are. When my wife Rachel was, when Aria, she's four and a half. She was like six months, maybe a little less. Finally, it got to me. I'm like, enough already, Rach. We stopped using, you stop putting the diaper, the dirty diapers in the pail. Take it directly outside. Yeah. She was like, no.

You do it. And I'm not home all the time. Right. She's like, I got enough shit to do. It's like 20 diapers a day. Like, that's annoying. It's a long walk. It's a big hallway. So luckily I had all the gadgets so I could test the air for bacteria, which there was a ton of. And I was like, hey, Rach, fine. Has a rite of passage tonight. Let's put the diaper pail in our bedroom. You see how it feels to sleep in a shitty room. P.S. I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight.

And she was like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not sleeping in the room with the diaper pail in our room. That's gross. Little, but I'm like, whoa. But anyway, as soon as she said she wouldn't sleep with it, it was game over. That diaper pail never went back in baby's bedroom.

You know, it's so funny we're talking about this. I've been thinking about it. And we have a nanny a few days a week. And she was like, you know, I'm going to start taking the poopy diapers just and throwing them in the chute because we live in an apartment building. I was like, oh, amazing. And she's doing it just because it smells right away. It's like it just is airtight. But I didn't think about the quality of the air and the bacteria.

Yeah. So what is happening? So it's off gassing. Well, just very simple. If it smells like poo, go back to the, the, if it, if it smells like it, it is it. So if it smells like poo, it's because it is poo little bits of airborne poo floating around. Wow. And yeah, if you, if you took a sample of the air and you put under a microscope, there's poo there. That's why you smell it. Um, so yeah, it's, it's gaseous poo particles. Okay. Um,

And adults breathe 10,000 to 20,000 times a day. Babies breathe 60,000 times a day. Their respiratory rate is much higher. Their immune system is much weaker, not yet developed. So all of a sudden, fresh baby...

throw it in the pretty nursery. And we got new carpets, new cribs, new mattresses, fresh coat of paint, like VOC toxic heaven, throw in a load of 10 loads a day of poop. What are we doing? So yeah, it was just a total like, it just goes back to that air awareness thing. It's just not even on the radar. I think that's because air is the first thing we do when we're born. It's the last thing we do before we die.

You know, you can go three weeks without food, only three days without water, only three minutes without air. So if we thought about air too much, life would be very annoying. It'd be very annoying. Yeah. So that's why I try to keep things simple because that's not fun. But like air is the only thing that you do consciously and subconsciously.

When you're sleeping all night, there's no food, no water, just air. So I call it sleep fuel. I call it thinking fuel. It's the only thing we've been doing this entire conversation. We never stop. And when we do, it's game over. But yeah, if it smells like poo, it is poo. If it is poo, there's a ton of bacteria. And then we got that little door shut and like...

This is not ideal. So yeah, once Rachel realized that she wouldn't sleep with it. So I tell all the moms and dads out there. Yeah. As a rite of passage, if you want your baby to continue to sleep with the poopy diapers, put it in your room tonight. See how you feel. Mm.

And then you may not want to ever do that again to your kid. Wow. Okay. Pee, I'm less concerned about. Okay. I think you should still clear it out like probably a nice end of day routine. Yeah. Get it out as well, at least every couple days. Yeah. It's not as harmful. It's a cleaner substance. Yeah. But nonetheless, and I wish I could say, don't worry about it. Put a jasper in your nursery.

It's not the solution. Yeah. You want to clean your air, but you also want to remove sources. Yes. In this case, you should do both. But no matter what, table stakes is no poopy diapers in baby's bedroom. Oh, my gosh. I got to share about this ASAP. It's pretty crazy. That's crazy. And I'm doing that right away. It makes you think how many blind spots. What about human poop in the bathroom? Do we want to... What did I hear? Baby poop is still human poop. Oh, sorry. Yeah.

um same thing but like should we be flushing with the lid closed like do we flush as we're pooping like what is courtesy it's funny my my daughter also same one aria um now she's like wiping herself now but it has that potty training journey was yes happening um

You know, she'd be like, it's a messy one. Meaning like, come give me a once over. She was starting to learn to wipe. She's like, once over, please. But she would flush. The funny thing is, as soon as she pooped, she would flush. Yeah. Instantly. And then I would come, she goes, I did a courtesy flush. It's on her well. I guess. I didn't even teach her that step. Sometimes I'm like, I don't know where she picked up the word courtesy flush. Maybe her teachers are teaching her really good. But like.

She instinctively was flushing instantly. Wow. She wasn't waiting. She was flushing right away. So I wonder if her instincts were. Yeah, she's like, get the smell out of here. Instantly. Wow. Okay. So you would recommend that? I mean, I'm also like conserving water. So I'm kind of torn. I know. If the bathroom fan's on, then at least we're evacuating the stuff. The bathroom fan. Oh, yeah. So bathroom fans are mostly for humidity and then secondarily for poop stuff.

Because when you shower, think about how much water your towel can absorb. So you have like liters or gallons of water that are just sitting in your bathroom. So if you don't, if you're not venting it out, then all of that's stuck in door and that contributes to airborne mold. So these are like little things that then same tissue test as you do with the stove, you got to do with your bathroom fan to make sure those are pulling. What if you don't have a bathroom fan? Well, if you don't have a bathroom fan, you should always have a window.

What if you don't have a window? Your place is not to code. That's very rare. No way. Yeah, you got to have... It's like a bedroom is not a bedroom without a window. Third thing I am telling my building today. No way. I swear to God. Come on. We do not have a bathroom ban in either bathroom or window. No way. Yes, I swear to God. That's not cool. Where do they want the water and the poop to go? I am dying. Okay. This is a separate conversation. That's crazy.

- Oh my god! My husband's gonna be like, "Yo, you need to take a chill pill." But I... - Yo, those are two things you don't want to be living with. Extra moisture. I mean, I guess.

Open the bathroom door and open the window that does open. Yeah, I have that. It's cold here in the winter and it can be hot in the summer. And it's New York. It's not nice that every time you have to shower, you got to open the windows. That is insane. Yeah. Bedrooms are supposed to have windows and bathrooms are supposed to have a window or fan, one or the other. Are you sure there's no fan? I swear. I've been there for three years. Hmm.

Don't you think I would have like turned on the fan accidentally when you… Yeah, I'm just surprised. Okay. All right. Maybe it's a really old building before codes were a thing. It's not even? Nope. I think the building is maybe seven, eight years old. New building? Yes. Ah. Maybe there's an ERV or an HRV or some like modern ventilation system. I would ask them about that too. Add that to the list of annoying tenor onesies. I'm curious if it's in the bathroom, but yeah. Okay.

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what's already in a home or apartment, like an HVAC type situation? Are those working? What's happening with like the air conditioners? They work to heat and cool, but they were not designed to filter your air. That's why a furnace filter is called a furnace filter. It's the filter for your furnace. So, you know, chunks of hair from a pet or debris from construction or a nail that falls in the vent doesn't break your furnace. That's what that's for. So I actually use the lowest grade furnace filter I can get.

because my it's not designed to filter your air from a marketing perspective some of them say it does allergens and dust and mold that's not true at all yeah well it's this teeny little filter that's like barely a sheet of paper wow that is not for that um

So also your furnace was designed to heat and cool. So if you try to turn it into an air purifier, then what happens is you create a lot of resistance and then you can burn out the motor. You can void the warranty. Your home now won't heat and cool properly. So it's not a bad thing. It's just,

Sometimes people want to make one tool for everything. Sometimes you need different tools for the job. So before we made Jasper, we spent a couple of years trying to make an HVAC style air filter system. Just didn't work. We tried. I'm like, oh, that's so elegant. Out of sight, out of mind. You know, the best design could be the one that you don't see at all. Just built into the mechanical system of the building. Didn't work that way. They were loud. They were ineffective. And from an energy efficiency standpoint, you want your furnace to turn on and off only when you need it.

So when it's not on, the air wasn't being cleaned. So yeah, I really wanted that to be a good solution, but it wasn't. Okay, got it. And then if you think about like, you know, during COVID, we were selling into lots of schools. It's like, what makes more sense? We got 20 classrooms. The kids, one kid comes in sick. What's better? An air filtration system in every class that gets captured. It's going to capture whatever the child has in them, has their breathing in that spot. Yeah.

And if anything gets in that class, filtering it or putting one filter on the rooftop. Because like only some percentage of the air makes its way to the roof. A lot of it's just like dispersing generally. Yeah.

So yeah, the trying to put one filter on the roof for the whole building. It's a nice idea. You can see why I look for a building property manager. That would be a simpler solution, but often a very ineffective one. Wow. So yeah, furnaces are good for what they're meant for. Okay. I wanted to just quickly round out the cooking conversation because we didn't talk about pans and like,

different coatings and not coat like what should we be cooking with ideally? Because I feel like there's a lot of marketing out there about ceramic. This is a lot. I don't know what the perfect answer is, but I do know if I, if I clean my nonstick, like I have one nonstick pan, I don't cook very often. Rachel does. So she, she uses a stainless steel pan and sometimes cast iron. Yeah. But like, it's crazy with the nonstick pan in particular,

And when I do use it, I got my jaspers on, my windows open, and my rain shirt on. But when I turn it on to high heat, it's like you can see it's off-gassing. And jasper goes red even when it's clean. Yes. So clearly those coatings are aerosolizing. Also, the pans do have expiry dates, and they're not very long. It's like a couple years. Oh, wow. Most people don't change the pan very often. So I don't know what's best. My friend Kyle…

His belief is the best thing is rotating them. So he has one. He uses a cast iron, a stainless and a ceramic. Yeah. He's like he's hedging his bets. Yeah, totally. He went with all three. Yeah, I do, too. My instincts tell me stainless steel and cast iron are better. Yeah. Because a ceramic pan still has its own coatings. Whereas stainless steel, it's hard to cook on, though. I know that's the thing. I don't know how to do it.

I don't know the proper... Like, I... Yeah, it's like you have to have an oil or a butter or whatever, but still, you're going to get stuff on the pan. You've got to get the water drop and supposed to bounce around. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. Luckily, I cook outside. We cook outside a lot. Love that. Well, what about the grill and that stuff? It's fine because it's outside. Actually, yeah. So even when we open our door and window, Jasper still goes red and it's like 100 feet away. But we cook outside a lot. And we even started, I have like an outdoor camping stove. There's a lake park near my house. We actually go there often and we'll make breakfast and dinner at the lake park. And we bring our little camping stove. And it's funny, like the more we do it,

the more everyone's starting to do it. It's just like, you know, it's pretty annoying the time between you'll see in a couple of few years, whenever the time between like picking up a kid from school, it's like three.

So now you're working on dinner and it's five. Yeah. And by the time you're done cleaning, it's 637. And you're putting the kid to bed. So where did three to 9 p.m. go? Then you're exhausted. So 3 p.m. becomes like 10 p.m. Yeah. And like a flash. And all you did was make dinner. Everything accelerates between that time. I'm like. It's the worst. All you did was cook and clean and your house is still a mess. Yeah. And seven hours are gone. Yeah. And let's just say in a 24 hour day, we get 16 waking hours.

those seven hours is half of your waking life gone to nothing. So that's why we're like, okay, pick up the kids.

go to the park, cook outside. So now there's no cleaning time. Cooking time is also park time. Obsessed. Very leisurely. And then we're done by like five and then we can like do some evening stuff and there's no cooking or cleaning. You get that last light of the day, which is nice for them. My optimal diet is just like a four o'clock feast. Love that. Just that. Yeah. Wow. I'm lucky in the sense, I mean, it's a blessing and a curse. Guys can kind of intermittent fast like that. I don't get hungry. Like I can go two or three days without food.

I could also eat a tiny bit of food or eat all the food. Yeah. I don't like, I'm not super in tune to... Hungry cues and stuff like that? Okay. I feel like guys, that's like more common in guys. I feel like it is too. I feel like we're like less in touch with those senses maybe. Yeah. And also like hormonally, I feel like there are differences. But from what I've heard, like intermittent fasting, which I would kind of call that is...

Guys can do it much easier and more consistently. Women need to be aware of their cycles and things like that. Yeah. I found that by doing some fasts, I really learned the difference between hunger and a desire to eat. And I realized that very often hunger…

It's sneaky and it's really a desire to eat to get away from doing the hard task or being bored. So I trick myself with saying, we're hungry, let's go eat. Or you're just thirsty. Or you're just thirsty, yeah, dehydrated. So after some intentional fasting, now hunger, I know the sensation, it happens sometimes, but it's usually just a sneaky desire to eat, which is for me very similar to a desire to check my phone. Yeah, oh, I feel that with my phone. I'm being...

This week, I'm like hyper aware of that. I don't know why. I want to talk about pollution in like cities, rural areas and the suburbs in between, because I feel like a lot of people listening are in major cities. Some people listening have moved out to the burbs right outside of the cities. And I don't want to like stress anyone out, but I do want people to be aware of kind of like

What is happening in the outside air that we can be a little bit more aware of? Good and the bad news is no matter where you live, there's going to be a problem. If it's Arizona, it'll be dryness. It'll still be mold via the dust because all the sand used to be underwater. So there's still a lot of mold there. There's mold on the coast. There's cities have pollution. Other cities have allergen like COVID.

You can't really run from this stuff, nor should you really try. The blessing and the curse of the home that you spend 95% of your time indoors, of course, because that's way too much time inside, but it's a blessing because it's this one environment that for a few thousand dollars, you can completely dial it in. You can have a sleep sanctuary. You can have a clean air haven.

It doesn't cost that much. For the price of a couple hotel night stays a year, your own house, you can really dial in your own environment. And it's kind of awesome that you spend as much time as there as you do. Because when you think about the cost of the home, you can spend a million dollars on a home or many thousands of dollars a month on the box that you live in without actually...

And making it healthy is like 1% of the cost of the thing. And I used to be a, well, I am, I guess, a certified home inspector. I wanted to see what that training was like. People buy a home, they pay like $800 to test their home for a crack in the drywall or a loose lock or like the furnace, like stuff that might cost you some money. But in the general home inspection process, there's nothing that makes sure the home is healthy for you. You're spending all this money making sure there's like not cracked drywall.

Or, you know, old floors or a water heater you need to change in a few years. Like, is this house going to make me sick? They don't check that part. Kind of crazy. There's a term I've been obsessing over lately called zookosis. Zookosis is what happens to animals in captivity. So elephants live 17 years in zoos but 55 years in the wild.

So pretty much across the board, all animals, animals in zoos are not. I mean, go to a zoo and see how sad. So they all have depression, anxiety, obesity, inflammation, arthritis, mental health disorders, banging their heads on walls. And they're like, sounds like another species of animal that. So, you know, because when you take the animal out of their natural wild habitat and you put them in cages, get really sick right away and they stay sick.

And you're like, ah, feels familiar. All those things I listed seems like what's happening to humans. So I call suburbs the zoo and the homes the cages. So it's like self-induced prison, basically. Right. But they have the ability to get outside. Literally in prison, they get an hour outside a day. That's more time than most people have that live in their house. That's crazy. So if you look at the... Yeah, they have the ability to get outside. And...

you know, the way homes built are built right now, they're not really. So the Jasper is this bandaid solution. The real solution to me long-term is building better homes, better. Like we call it a living room and it's usually just two or three couches facing a wall with a TV on it. That's living. So like between all the drywalls and the paints and the flooring and then the lighting and the layout,

The way we build homes is horrible. And you hear like, oh, America has a housing crisis. We're short 4 million units. I'm like, you're literally calling them units. That just implies that we can just like look at it like on a spreadsheet. Oh, you know, we need 800,000 acres, build this many homes this fast, this cheaply, and we'll solve the housing crisis. It's like, no, you're building the housing crisis by creating these horrible homes. So once I'm done twisting the arms of these hotels, next up will be developers and architects and builders

And I'm working on building some healthy homes in Austin right now. Cool. Getting 21 acres, building seven or eight homes, communal pool, communal co-working house, gardens, shared resources. Sick. Just to create a model that like shows people how to do it. Just on that piece, like what would your ideal living room look like or feel like?

More around, more depending, more courtyard-y, massive screened-in porches where we can cook outside, where we have heaters and misting fans. So basically more of an integrated indoor-outdoor space as opposed to a fully confined indoor space that looks at a wall. But making an indoor space that's more conducive to play, spending time together.

As opposed to just like, you know, we're trying to deal with our phone crisis. Like literally, even if we put down our phones, we look up and there's a big TV staring at us. It's just a giant iPad. So yeah, I'm going to first do our own home and be seven or eight homes in the neighborhood and then create a lot of content around it. And we'll have a podcast studio there. So I'll be able to really show it off a lot and.

Show people what's working for us and kind of open source everything. We're also buying the school in our neighborhood right now. Stop it. Yeah, it's a Montessori. That's my wife's new passion project. I'm obsessed with that. And it's going to have clean air, clean water, good lighting. The classes are all going to be in screened in porches. So they'll only go inside. The indoor space will only be if it's too hot or too cold. If we need to go inside, we will.

But otherwise, it'll be in screening porches. So it takes care of the bugs. But there's fresh air, good lighting. Is your wife a teacher? Is she like more of the administrative? Okay, cool. I love it. She's just a smart lady. Yes. A smart lady who cares, who loves trees and children. Oh, I mean, okay. You're inspiring me.

We're almost out of time. We're almost out of time. Yeah, this has been phenomenal. I really, I really appreciate you. I would love to just, you know, my experience with Jasper thus far, I've had the unit in my apartment and I don't, I live in a two bedroom apartment, two bed, two bath. I don't know how many square feet. It's not huge. Yeah.

And so I was like, can I fit this in my place? You know what I mean? It is so beautiful. I'm so thankful. Aesthetically beautiful. It fits in perfectly. The roundness I feel like is so aesthetically pleasing. It's just subtle. And it's actually like a piece. Like people walk in there like, they're like, wait, what is that? In a way that's not like, what is that? They're like, what is that? And I was like, well, it's an air filter. Yeah.

So the quick, like the 20 second thing that makes a difference. Yeah. It's steel instead of plastic, which is why we have a lifetime warranty.

It's about the equivalent of five Dyson's in terms of airflow. So usually air in real time. So the simple version of it, it's a commercial great air purifier because of my background being in industrial stuff, but with the modern as minimalistic, modern aesthetic that you would want in your home. And because of the cylindrical design, you can put it in the corner against the wall. It doesn't have to sit in the middle of the room, no vacuuming filters. So if it's not beautiful and silent and then no one's ever going to use it. It's silent. Um,

So in the bedrooms, fan speed two, dark mode is the suggested setting. If it's in a living room and you cook, then smart mode. And we have a 60-day money-back guarantee. So if it's not...

The number one review we get is I've owned like six air purifiers before. I wasn't really sure if they were working. This is the first time I got one that I know works because I see it and I feel it every day. Yes. So that's why we do that. And our warranty is badass. So let's say it breaks two years later. It doesn't turn on or something. We ship a brand new one the next day. You take a new one out of the box.

You put the old one in the box. So you have our box. You don't have to keep your old box. Inside the lid, we give you a prepaid UPS shipping label. And we schedule UPS to pick it up from your front porch at 9 a.m. the next day. I hate when I buy products with a warranty and I need an obscure box. I got to go to FedEx. I lose half a day. So our belief is if Jasper ever breaks, that's a Jasper problem, not a you problem. So we own no shipping costs. We pay for everything because they shouldn't break.

So yeah, this episode comes out November 19th. So that is today. Yes. Because everybody listens today. So because it's almost Black Friday season...

What we'll do is between today, November 19th, and the end of the month, November 30th, code ALMOST30. I'm sure you all know how to spell that. With a three and a zero. So ALMOST30 will be $400 off. That's insane. So we don't do Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon. Because A, all the money would go to them. And B...

We wouldn't be able to actually give the experience and the support and the service that we give people because we wouldn't be able to work with everyone directly. So yeah, code ALMOST30 starting today, November 19th is $400 off at jasper.co, J-A-S-P-R dot C-O. Slash ALMOST30.

I think it will work regardless. You can either use the code or the link. Perfect. And that will go until November 30th. Great. So get it. And we're going to for sure be sold out by Black Friday. Yeah. So this is going to be the biggest sale of the year. So it works out great, the timing of this. And then to anyone who this is not, you know, it's not every day or every week is air purifier buying day. Totally get that.

December 1 onwards, it'll still be 10% off forever. But for the first 11 days, November 19th to the 30th, it'll be $400 off. Also, if people buy more than one,

We have bulk discounts on our website. They combine. So if they buy like two or three or four, they'll get your $400 off plus our bulk discount. So it could literally be like Jaspers for like $600 or something. And even if it's too much for people, open your windows, crack your doors, keep your shoes at the door, use the range hood. There's a lot of stuff that you got, you know, checked. Yeah, this episode kind of, yeah, we went over it all. Do what you can. I'm just here to raise air awareness, speak to educated audiences and parents and all that.

So hopefully everybody learned something today. Thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. Thank you, Mike. All right, y'all. Thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one.

Thank you so much, Mike. That was a blast. We learned so much. And to get your Jasper, you can go to jasper.co slash almost 30. And again, this like nearly $400 discount, I believe is a Black Friday special where you'll get $200 off because you go to jasper.co slash almost 30 and then an additional discount on their website because it is Black Friday. This

definitely take advantage of it. Jasper.co slash almost 30. Thank you all so much for listening. It's just the best to have you along for this incredible ride. We have a book coming out next year. Pre-order it now. So it's on your doorstep, June 3rd. You can get the pre-order link in the show notes here, as well as in our Instagram bio, on our website, on our personal Instagram bios. We got you. Thank you so much. We love you, love you, love you. We love you guys. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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