Day 52 - 39 to go.
This seems to be our largest issue. Oh, could you guess? Our mold test came back… and it’s not pretty. The laudry list of molds in the house is a bona fide smorgasbord of spores and not the psychedelic kind: Cladosporium, Penicillium (this is a bad one!), Alternaria, Aureobasidium, Arthrinium, Curvularia, Stachybotrys (black mold), Chaetomium, Pithomyces, Epicoccum, smuts, Periconia, Trichocladium. I can’t even pronounce these things let alone believe they’re in my HOUSE! I asked myself, if I was buying this place and I knew this mold exists would I bring my two kids into this situation? No. So really there is no question… We have to take care of it ASAP! Repeat after me… REMEDIATION! Time to bring on the mold guys!
Our real estate agent recommended a few companies and we got on the horn. Our guy is here now with my husband in the basement going over our “options”. I really like this guy! He’s big on personality, seems to be quite knowledgeable, likes what he does and is originally from London (love the accent!) Who better to exterminate mold than a Brit?
Curious myself, I went down to check up on them. Wow, hire the professionals to do what the professionals do. This guy found even more areas than the home inspector did. This is what he recommends… The Fog! (yep, bring on John Carpenter and Adrienne Barbeau!) Team of guys in scary white outfits and a fog machine. Well, it sounds easier than it is. They spray the fog into and onto the affected area(s), the fog will then travel through our air system and annihilate those mean ol’ spores! Hey, I think I’ll leave my sons hockey equipment in front of the air duct and perhaps kill the mildew that I’m sure is growing in there. Maybe it will also get rid of the “hockey” smell too! ooo… this is getting interesting, what else do I want to bomb?
The process he says will take two days and they will also dispose of the extra junk that has accumulated over the years in the crawl spaces (extra insulation, wood, paneling, old wiring, etc.) some of it with visible mold. Now that’s worth paying for! I’m not crawling in there touching that crap and dragging it out. It’s spooky, disgusting and way too claustrophobic for me. So then after the fogging they put on their dehumidifier and hepa filter and that’s pretty much it. We asked if our computers and electronic equipment needed to be covered and the answer was no. The fog is so fine it does not affect these things. Wonderful! We also don’t need to fret with ourselves. He recommends us leave during the actual fogging, which we will do, but the fog is not even harmful to our pets! Great! After all that… we test again, and hopefully we win the war!
So, how much is this all going to cost me?… I was estimating upwards of $3,000 but it seems more like $1,200 – $1,500. Which, don’t get me wrong, is still a lot. Wonder where that money is coming from.
My friends, in the end, I highly recommend getting a mold test done. Whether you are buying a house or not. It can’t hurt, it can only help. Better to be safe than sorry sharing airspace with a pestilent fungalfarm.
