When it comes to mold, finding a source to trust can be overwhelming. Conflicting opinions, endless information, and costly recommendations can make it difficult to know what to believe or where to begin. We believe the most valuable knowledge comes from those who have lived the experience themselves. Our mission is to bring together a family shaped by shared experience, transforming individual journeys into collective wisdom and helping each other find safer places to live, smarter solutions, and answers we can trust.
Katie's story
MoldFam exists because our founder, Katie Cavallo, lived the problem it solves. Years ago, her husband Patrick's health collapsed. Standard Lyme tests were read as negative while the disease and its co-infections tore through his body, until light and sound themselves became unbearable and he was living in a blacked-out, soundproofed closet. Doctors had few answers. So Katie went and found them — studying Lyme disease and its treatments day and night, comparing notes with other patients, and slowly, over years, helping pull Patrick back. Today Patrick still suffers, but he has seen real improvement as they've become more aware of how to live safely around his triggers.
Katie lives with chronic Lyme herself. And along the way she learned what this community knows too well: for people whose systems are already fighting — Lyme, co-infections, mold illness, mast cell activation — a moldy building can be the tipping point that turns a manageable life into a crisis. Safe places to live, stay, and travel aren't a luxury for this community. They're the foundation of getting better.
So Katie started helping people find them. She built the Mold-Free Traveling community on Facebook — 11,000 members strong — along with regional mold-safe housing groups, and for years she and a few friends hand-maintained the group's famous file of member-recommended safe hotels, updating it post by post, month after month, for thousands of sensitive travelers.
MoldFam is that labor of love, grown up: the collective wisdom of thousands of people who have lived it — every stay, product, provider, and pro they've vouched for — findable in seconds instead of buried in years of posts.
This took all of us
Katie may have started it, but a community built it. To the moderators and helpers who kept the group safe and kind through the years. To the members who answered a stranger's midnight post about a moldy hotel room when they were barely well enough to type. To everyone who shared the name of the doctor who finally believed them, the purifier that let them sleep, the room number that was safe and the one that wasn't. To the people who paid for ERMI tests out of pocket and posted the results so the next family wouldn't have to guess.
Every recommendation on this site is one of those acts of generosity, passed forward. Thousands of them, from people who understood that the knowledge that saved them could save someone else. Thank you — this exists because of you, and it belongs to you.
What we do
MoldFam grew out of an 11,000-member Facebook community of people navigating mold illness, and it brings the things that community asks for most into one place:
Stays
Thousands of hotels across the US and around the world that are safer bets for sensitive travelers, browsable by state and city — plus mold-aware cruise options.
Products
Air purifiers, cleaning solutions, testing kits, and gear ranked by how often real members recommend them — not by who pays us.
Providers & Pros
Mold-literate doctors and practitioners, alongside inspectors, remediators, and builders that members have used and vouched for.
Community
Real discussions from people who have lived it, so you can ask questions without explaining your symptoms from scratch.
How a stay makes the list
Every stay on this site earned its place one of two ways:
- 1A member vouched for it. Someone in our Facebook community or here on the site — a real person with mold sensitivity — stayed there and did well.
- 2It's newly built or freshly renovated. We confirmed it by scouring news articles, press releases, and construction reports. Newer buildings simply haven't had the years of water damage, aging roofs, and neglected HVAC systems that make older buildings risky for sensitive people.
No property can pay for a positive review or a better ranking — sponsored placements are always labeled — and nothing appears here just to fill out a page.
How we pay for this
Running MoldFam takes real time, every day. Someone reads every recommendation before it goes live. Someone keeps the hotel list current when a property changes hands or a member reports a problem. Someone scours construction news to confirm a hotel really was just built or renovated, answers member questions, moderates discussions, and keeps the servers on. For years Katie and a few friends did the heart of this by hand, unpaid, while managing their own illnesses — and the workload only grows with the community.
We are funded by affiliate commissions on hotel bookings and product purchases made through outbound links on the platform. When you book a stay through one of our Booking.com or Expedia links, or buy a product through an Amazon link, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Listing a property or product on this site is never contingent on affiliate participation, and we do not allow affiliate revenue to influence which properties or products appear or how they are ranked.
So if MoldFam helps you find a safe place to stay, booking it through the links here is the single best way to keep this resource alive — it costs you nothing extra, and it pays for the hours that keep the information trustworthy. And your member information is never shared with sponsors or advertisers.
We also sell a small number of clearly-labeled sponsored placements. Sponsored slots are always badged "Sponsored", are capped per page, and never change organic rankings, ratings, or member recommendations. If you serve this community and want to sponsor, see our advertising page.
What we are not
We are not a medical resource. We are not a remediation company. We do not test, inspect, or certify properties, products, or providers — we make a place for our community to share what worked for them, and we pass it on to you with its source visible. A recommendation here means a real person did well somewhere; it is not a guarantee that you will. Always do your own due diligence, and work with a qualified, mold-literate practitioner for personal guidance.
Get in touch
Questions, partnership ideas, or want to flag something that looks wrong? Email hello@moldfam.com.