Stay Tuned For…

Selling a home that you no longer want or need can be a hassle all by itself, but when you add mold contamination to the mix, it just gets ugly.  It is not easy getting rid of a home that is contaminated with mold at the price that you want and a lot of times, you have to lower the price that you ask for it before you can even get anyone to come near it.  There is hope, however, for those of you who are willing to do a little work.

If you do happen to find a buyer, you should make sure that an environmental inspection clause is included in the sales contract.  This will assure the buyer that they will have a two to three week period where they can have an inspector come to take a look around the property and examine it for mold or any other hazards that could possibly exist.  If they or the inspector see that mold exists on the property without testing, then the only test that should be performed is to determine whether the mold is toxic.  Even if the mold does not happen to be toxic, it still needs to be removed due to the structural damage that it can do to the building materials the home is made out of.  Drywall that becomes infected usually needs to be replaced and so does any wood or other materials. 

Whatever you do, do not try to hide the mold contamination from your buyer by trying to cover it up or remove the mold superficially.  Even if you remove the mold off of the surface of a piece of drywall, odds are good that the whole depth of the sheet has been contaminated because drywall is a porous surface covered with paper both on the front and the back.  If your buyer discovers there is mold on the property and you mentioned nothing about it, they may suspect that you are hiding other things about the home, as well, and you will have lost your buyer.

You should also have a clause in your sales contract that says that neither you, your lender, or your real estate agent is responsible for any complications caused by mold after the home is sold.  Listing all mold and water damage that has been done to the home in the past and what you have done to fix the problems should be enough.

 White Plains Basement Flooding Emergency Service

If you think that your home or business may have a problem with mold, you might hire the first mold remediation company that you can find to come and take a look at your property, but how do you know if they are truly professionals or not?  One obvious way to tell is whether or not they employ the use of dogs in order to locate mold in a building. 

The use of these “mold dogs” is not only inhumane, but very unprofessional.  There are plenty of other techniques that can be used to detect the presence of mold in a household or a business and true professionals know this.  Professional companies often have mycologists on hand to determine just what kind of mold that you are dealing with and how dangerous it can be to your health.  Mold dogs only detect if mold exists on the property, not how much exists or how toxic it is. 

The use of dogs to locate mold in the home is also obviously detrimental to the health of the dog.  Dogs and other animals are no less susceptible to the health effect of mold than human beings and often by the time the mold infection in a dog or cat is recognized by the owner, it is too late and beyond treatment.  Dogs that are used to sniff out mold are very likely to develop respiratory infections and skin infections, especially around the nose and mouth.  The purpose of a mold dog is to actively inhale the mold spores and this is EXACTLY what people are advised not to do when they are performing mold remediation.  This is all but the deliberate infection of an animal that cannot do anything to help itself if it needs medical attention.  Dogs and other animals are not aware of the existence of medical treatment and cannot alert their owners that something is wrong with them.  It is up to human beings to care for them, since we are the only species on the planet capable of caring for another, especially when it does not benefit us. 

There are many other methods used to detect mold, such as mold testing kits that you can put around your home after stirring up the air in the room.  Mold spores will drop onto these tests and begin to grow.  When sent to a laboratory, they will let you know what kind of mold is in your home and also what level of toxicity you are dealing with.

Any company who uses mold dogs is not a professional company that you want to use to remove mold from your home.  Support the humane treatment of animals and help stop the use of mold dogs.

Houston Water Damage