The decrepit house, the dank, abandoned orphanage—the sites that inspire fear and ghost stories could also be hotbeds of toxic mold. An associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Clarkson University in New York, Shane Rogers, is studying whether hauntings may be attributed to neurological problems caused by mold.
He will visit “haunted” sites in northern New York State this summer to test for mold. Even if his investigations do show high concentrations of mold at these locations, however, it remains unclear what links there are between exposure to toxic indoor molds and psychological effects in people, he said in a university news release. These links have not been well established.
Yet, “some people have reported depression, anxiety, and other effects from exposure to biological pollutants in indoor air,” he said. “We are trying to determine whether some reported hauntings may be linked to specific pollutants found in indoor air.”
