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San Diego Homeowner Regrets Not Hiring Mold Inspection Company

Posted on: January 10th, 2013 by Peter Sierck No Comments

Here is ET&T’s latest sad mold story! A few months ago, a homeowner located in Carlsbad, CA (San Diego County) had a roof leak. She contacted a roofing company and the roofer told the homeowner that she had mold on the ceiling and referred her to a drywaller to remove the ceiling drywall instead of hiring a professional mold inspection company.

This is where the trouble started.

The homeowner hired the drywaller to remove the mold damaged building materials and thought things were taken care of. The homeowner later became ill and went to the doctor who suggested they have mold testing done at her Carlsbad, CA home. When we were called to do the mold inspection, our consultant found the ceiling void space was still open to the rest of the house and that the drywaller had left some of the removed moldy ceiling drywall inside the ceiling void space.

We also found additional moldy ceiling drywall.  Our mold consultant collected a surface sample from inside the ceiling void space and the sample showed Stachybotrys, Penicillium and Aspergillus mold growing in the ceiling void space. Our inspector also collected spore trap air samples throughout the home and the analysis showed that Stachybotrys and Penicillium/Aspergillus mold spores had been spread from the ceiling void space throughout the rest of the house!

Mold Growth in ceiling of San Diego Home

mold growing in ceiling void space

Our recommendations in the written report for the homeowner were to hire a professional mold remediation contractor to contain (isolate) the mold from the rest of the house and to remove the moldy and water damaged building materials.  We also recommended a thorough deep cleaning of the rest of the house and the use of HEPA filtered air scrubbers to capture and lower the levels of Stachybotrys and Penicillium/Aspergillus spores in the air. Thankfully, the homeowner followed our recommendations and hired a professional mold remediation company.

A containment, plastic room with HEPA air filtration equipment, was set up to isolate the moldy ceiling area from the other areas of the house. They removed the moldy and water damaged building materials and air scrubbers were set up throughout the rest of the home to capture and lower the levels of Stachybotrys and Penicillium/Aspergillus spores.

A professional deep cleaning (HEPA vacuuming  and damp wiping) of the rest of the house was done. We returned for a follow up inspection called a post remediation verification or clearance inspection.  Inside the containment, we verified the mold had been removed properly, the work area was clean and dry and the air sample spore levels were acceptable. We also repeated the spore trap air sampling in the rest of the home to verify the deep cleaning had returned the spore levels to be similar to the outside air. Our results showed the mold remediation company had removed the rest of the moldy ceiling materials correctly and had cleaned up the contamination in the rest of house.

If only the roofer had referred the homeowner to a professional mold testing company and mold remediation contractor in San Diego, the job could have been done correctly from the start!  Not only was the health of the homeowner affected, but there was the additional cost for medical care, the additional work done by the mold remediation contractor to clean up the mold contamination to the rest of the home and extra mold testing by our company.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, please consult with mold inspection and mold remediation professionals.  This is definitely a case where using the right professional for the job would have made all the difference!

For a free phone consultation call Environmental Testing & Technology (ET&T) at 760-424-2259 or leave us a message on our Contact Form and one of our mold experts will get back to you shortly.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this blog post helpful.

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