Mold in Your House: Where to Look In 1994, Harvard conducted a study that revealed a shocking fact: over half of the homes in the U.S.A. in Canada may have some kind of mold in them. Why is this such a startling figure? Because mold in your house may be the unknown, unseen cause of a variety of symptoms you and your family might be experiencing. Chronic sinus infections, respiratory difficulties, and chronic fatigue are three of the more tame symptoms that mold in your house can cause. The more severe symptoms, caused by a vicious mold called Stachybotrys, can actually lead to dizziness, memory loss, hearing loss, extreme difficulty with breathing and loss of balance.
In fact, mold in people’s houses has been connected to the deaths of two children in Cleveland in 2004. So how can you know whether you have mold in your house? Assume you do. Taking the proactive approach to finding the mold in your house will help you know where to look, and assuming you will find mold will help you leave no stone unturned.
When searching for mold in your house, where to look comes down to just one simple, major point: water. Mold grows due to water, so anywhere that water is used, runs or sits can be a place where you would find mold. So start in the obvious places.
First, check your kitchen. Look in the cabinet under your sink for any discoloration or warping in wood or drywall. Mold can be very nearly any color, but the most common colors you will find are green, black and off-white. Also keep your nose busy; mold and mildew are often associated with pungent smells that are pretty much unmistakable.
After you’ve checked your kitchen, look for mold in other obvious places in your house, such as the laundry room and bathroom. If possible, check under linoleum, as water can seep under weak flooring and then sit causing mold to grow on your subfloor.
Once the obvious places have been checked, you need to start looking for mold in the less obvious places. Firstly, it can be useful to know that if furniture is touching or very close to an exterior wall, condensation can occur in that wall, so that is one place you want to check for mold. You will also want to take it as a rule that your furniture should always be somewhat distanced from these outside walls. The same is the case for pictures that hang on these walls.
Also look for mold in your attic. Just because you don’t have any leaks coming through your ceiling doesn’t mean that you don’t have leaks coming through your roof. Imagine the scene: on a stormy night, your roof springs a very minor leak. Water sits on the insulation, then ends up on the wood beams or drywall, or nearly any other material, and goes undetected. There it sits, the insulation keeping it wet because it blocks out air flow. This is a prime place for future mold growth.
When you’re concerned there might be mold in your house, another place to look is around air conditioning units, pipes and duct work. Condensation is very common in these places, and if condensation lasts long enough and is in contact with your wall material, mold could very easily form and start causing serious symptoms to you and your family.
Which leads us to the final way to search for mold in your house: get a professional. The truth is that it can be quite difficult for the non-expert to find mold in your house. Where to look is good to know, but sometimes we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for. Thus, if you are concerned, call an expert and have them search and take samples. While it might be rather expensive to have this expert come out and check for mold, the savings in health and quality of life can more than make up for it. To get a hold of an expert, you can contact Olympian toll free at 866-476-2056.
Finally, it is useful to know whether you are in an area that tends to have mold in homes. While fully half of the homes in the U.S.A. and Canada might have mold due to water damage and other things, occurrences of mold are far more common in wet and humid states, such as Texas, Louisiana and Hawaii. What is more, newer homes tend to have mold more often than old homes due to the simple fact that they are more airtight.
In conclusion, when searching for mold in your home, where to look is only the one piece of knowledge out of many. The best weapon against mold is being aware and informed. |
| Mold Testing In Your Rental Properties Mold is an organic matter derived from various types of fungi that can act as a nutrient for plant-life and also as a toxin to human health. Mold spores, which are the microscopic particles of mold, can be found virtually anywhere. If there is an area in a home/rental property that is high in moisture, then mold will grow more rapidly, which will eventually cause much damage to the material it was growing on. The main way to prevent mold growing indoors, is to limit the amount of moisture in areas that have an excess of it. While there are no strict scientific studies relating to any immediate health risks from the appearance of mold, some health concerns that can be brought on by mold include, but are not limited to, nausea, headaches, asthma, and depression. It is important to test for mold in your rental properties to ensure proper living conditions for your tenants, to warn landlords of the appearance of mold, and to also lessen the possibility of a litigation suit brought on by a tenant.
As a tenant, it is important to notify your landlord as soon as mold is noticed. In most rental situations, the landlord will take on the responsibility of mold removal, so long as it is not from a lack of the tenant’s care. It is important to notify tenants of ways to reduce the growth/spread of mold so that they may take necessary steps to help prevent it as well. Some of these steps may include, using the ventilation fan while showering, cleaning up spills on the carpet immediately before they settle in, using any overhead fans when cooking on the stove, and making sure the airflow in the living space is constant.
There are many ways to test to see if there are mold particles in the air, growing on home furnishings, or settled in areas of the property with low traffic volumes. While test results do not give an accurate reading of the whole living space, they will show how much mold is in a general area. Depending on certain state codes, if the appearance of mold is too high, then personal belongings must be removed from the living area so the space can be cleaned. In drastic cases of mold appearance, some furnishings would have to be completely discarded. To correct any apparent mold problems will require the landlord to correct any moisture problems that may be in the rental area. Special attention should be paid to areas that often go unnoticed such as plumbing areas, any type of crawl space, non-porous pieces of wood, concrete, dry wall, or tiling, and behind any mirrors (especially in bathrooms). If the job of removing the mold will be too daunting a task, the landlord may seek assistance from a company who specializes in mold reduction. There may also be policies set in place that cover moisture problems under the renter/landlord insurance policies.
While there are no specific legal requirements that are upheld in most rental communities, owners of these rental properties must be willing to correct any type of mold problem that a tenant may have. A lawsuit brought on by a tenant who has suffered severe health conditions due to the appearance of mold can be very time consuming, and also very costly. This could also affect possible future tenants, if they read reviews about the rental property and see that mold issues were overlooked/not taken care of in time. When setting up the lease agreement, it may be a good idea for the landlord to include mold policies and how to correct them. There are normally local mold inspection that can come in and test for mold, so that way the rental area can be checked before an occupant moves in.
While tenants are responsible for their personal belongings inside the rental space, there are lawsuits of negligence that can be brought against a landlord for not taking a certain duty of care in making sure their living area is free of mold. A tenant should seek their own renter’s insurance policy to cover any damage that may be caused by the appearance of mold. The tenant should keep documentation of the damage caused by mold, by keeping a daily journal of findings and also taking photographs of the areas/furnishings consumed by the mold. It is imperative for landlords to keep track of any findings of mold in their rental properties to ensure that future tenants will not have to worry about mold.
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