Article Courtesy of The
Tampa Tribune By Jerome
R. Stockfisch
Published August 17, 2015
It started as a patch of soggy carpeting.
Now, after several months and tens of thousands of dollars of work, the Foley
home is mold-free. A remediation company, plumbers, flooring experts,
woodworkers and other crews set up shop in the Clearwater home, finally
eliminating a potentially dangerous infestation that stemmed from a leaky
shower.
“I thought we were just going to dry the
carpet out,” said Shayne Foley. “When someone’s telling you your
whole house is going to be ripped up, it’s like, ‘Are you
kidding me?’?”
Plenty of homes and businesses in the Tampa Bay area may be in
for a similar experience after recent flooding. Weeks of rain
exacerbated by a Sunday-Monday deluge left Pasco County rivers
over their banks, inundated South Tampa and turned streets from
Tampa’s Town ’N Country neighborhood to St. Petersburg’s Shore
Acres into streams.
“Whenever you have a storm surge like this, it’s inevitable that
we’re going to get some mold damage afterward,” said Scott
DeMalteris, owner of Lightning Restoration of Tampa. Homeowners
“don’t really realize how bad it can be, and a lot of times they
don’t get it taken care of. And we usually find there’s a big
surge of mold work that comes to us.” |
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Sam Crosby of Air & Surface Disinfection vacuums in a flood-damaged
Tampa home where wood flooring and some drywall has been removed.
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It doesn’t take floodwaters to breed the molds, viruses, bacteria and
odor-causing organisms that can hide between walls, under floors or in attics
and crawl spaces. Leaky roofs, broken pipes or even an untended open window can
do the damage.
Plain old humidity — anything above 60 percent for a sustained period — supports
mold and microbial growth, said Kevin Renner, owner of Air & Surface
Disinfection in Tampa. That was a widespread issue with the so-called REO homes
of the late 2000s: “real estate owned” by lenders that sat vacant sometimes for
years after foreclosure.
A moldy home can be dangerous, particularly for people with immune system
issues, children and the elderly.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency advises that homeowners usually can
handle mold cleanup if the area is less than about 10 square feet. But experts
caution against do-it-yourselfers taking squeegees and bleach bottles to a major
outbreak and calling it a success. Or worse, simply masking the damage.
“I’ve gotten into some REO stuff where people have painted over it and the (new)
homeowner closed on the house,” Renner said. “You open one wall where they
thought they had a little bit of mold, and you open up a can of worms because
half the house has it.”
The pros segregate contaminated areas with plastic or similar sheeting and
typically wear sterile suits and masks during treatment. They use specialized
equipment, from commercial dehumidifiers to drying fans and high-efficiency
particulate arresting air filters.
“We’ve come in behind a lot of other companies, and we’ve come in behind a lot
of homeowners that ask us to step in at that point because they’ve actually
agitated everything,” Renner said. “They’re not sealing air vents, they’re
running air conditioning, and then they’re calling us down the road saying,
‘Hey, now I’ve got mold in my ductwork, in my AC system.’ It’s very easy to
cross-contaminate and spread this stuff through the entire residence.”
A small mold remediation project can cost $1,500 to $2,500, the experts said.
Treating an entire property can run into tens of thousands of dollars.
Whether homeowners insurance policies cover the damage largely depends on the
cause. If the source is something covered by a policy, such as moisture from a
burst pipe, it’s likely to be covered. Separate flood insurance is required to
cover mold damage from rising water, likely the case for much of the recent
damage.
The experts say homeowners looking to treat a mold infestation should talk to
licensed remediators. It’s now the law, after the state Legislature cracked down
on a high-growth industry rife with fraud.
Effective in 2011, lawmakers required licensure, mandatory education and
examination and college-level courses in microbiology for practitioners while
placing the industry under the regulation of the state Department of Business
and Professional Regulation. The law separates mold remediators from mold
assessors — splitting the tasks to eliminate the obvious conflict of interest
from a remediator testing his or her own work.
A smorgasbord of acronyms help police the industry. DeMalteris is involved with
the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification, the Indoor
Air Quality Association and the American Council for Accredited Certification,
among others.
Both Renner and DeMalteris said they strongly support the oversight. “It weeds
the riffraff out of there,” DeMalteris said.
Foley, the Clearwater resident, said after she and her husband discovered the
damage to their home, “some jokers showed up” and proposed a major demolition
project. Working with her insurer, she eventually called in DeMalteris’
Lightning Restoration.
“Be sure you deal with professionals that aren’t going to rip you off,” she
said.
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