The Terrifying Truth about Mold

So the Miami home you just bought has mold – is it the end of the world?

The mold issue here in South Florida has almost become a “trendy” topic – to such extremes that building inspectors have all kinds of special gadgets now to reinforce the fact that all homes have mold.

We always warn our clients that Miami’s climate is extremely humid and not unusual to hear the weather man on TV announce that we are at 100% humidity! Always expect a house to have some mold.

Did you read that correctly?  ALWAYS expect a house to have mold.

It’s good to know what the standards are and to keep in mind that empty homes without air conditioning will have a higher percentage of mold just because of common sense.   Getting rid of mold will include setting on the air conditioning to cold temperatures, sometimes even buying or renting dehumidifiers and if you are very concerned, hiring a mold remediation company.

I am concerned however when mold is identified as “toxic” – sometimes remediation companies cannot address tough toxic mold issues. It’s always good to get an expert’s opinion, but make sure you check credentials, a lot of so called “mold experts” are just taking advantage of the trend and are not very proficient in the subject.

A lot of inspection companies will even charge you an extra fee to do a more extensive mold study, but that doesn’t necessarily identify the problem, just gives you a lot of data to interpret – if you are really concerned, go on-line and do some research – that way you won’t have to take anyone’s word for it. An educated consumer is our best client 🙂

originally published 8/26/2009