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This ran originally in Living in Style, a San Diego magazine, a couple of years ago:
IS YOUR HOUSE MAKING YOU SICK?
HIDDEN MOLD MAY BE THE CAUSE
By Miriam Raftery
If you’re suffering from respiratory problems, headaches or allergy symptoms, your house could be making you sick.
“If you’re fine outside, but every time you go back inside the building you start having symptomatic complaints, you’ve become sensitized to that environment,” says Patrick Moffett, an industrial hygienist at Environmental Management & Engineering, Inc. in Huntington Beach. While dust or pollen may trigger allergy symptoms, suspect mold if you’ve had water damage to your home.
In California, 10,000 cases of water damage occur daily, Moffett says. “A small percentage of those turn into a mold growth problem if the water is not cleaned up and dried,” he adds. Left untreated, mold can spread, causing potentially serious health problems and expensive property damage.
“I had one case in Manhattan Beach where a 2,800 square foot home was completely covered in mold,” says Tim Fellman of Air Assessment Associates in Oceanside, a certified indoor air quality investigator specializing in mold. A kitchen fire burned a hole in the roof, leaving the home open to rain exposure for over a year while insurance companies for the homeowner and a homeowner association squabbled over liability. As a result, Fellman recalls, “All of the drywall and floor coverings had to be removed from a three-story house, and then all of the framing had to be cleaned and sanitized.”
In worst-case scenarios, molds may produce actual toxins. Most notorious is Stachybotrys, a black mold that made headlines when it was linked to respiratory hemorrhaging in infants. Although prominent scientific organizations have since failed to find a definite cause-and-effect link between mold and the babies’ health problems, concerns over toxic mold claims have led to a flurry of lawsuits—and major changes in the insurance industry.
Today, most insurers either exclude mold damage or place caps on mold damage claims, industry experts report. “Most will try to tell you, `We’ll cover the dry house but we won’t cover to fix the mold. That’s where attorneys get involved,” says Fellman. “My experience is that if pushed properly, the insurance companies will take care of it.”
But filing an insurance claim for mold damage creates a Catch-22 for homeowners. “There is a database called CLUE,” Moffett explains. That database is used by underwriters, who search the database to find out if your home has had a claim for water damage or mold. A homeowner has no way to remove their property from the database once it is listed.
“I know of a $4.5 million home that went into escrow,” Moffett recalls, adding that the seller had filed a claim for water damage, which was remediated. “The next buyer had the same insurance company as the current buyer…but because the home went into the CLUE database, the same insurance company would not cover it—even though they were responsible for cleaning it up. So the home fell out of escrow.”
Such horror stories, coupled with caps or exclusions on mold coverage, have led many homeowners to foot the bill for costly mold remediation themselves, rather than risk losing insurance coverage by filing claims. “I personally think it’s a sad situation that you can’t even tell your insurance company without them putting it on your record,” Schneemann observes.
In some case, hysteria over mold has led to frivolous lawsuit filings, says Mike Schneemann of In Home Cleaning & Restorations in El Cajon. “It’s become a circus,” he says, adding, “Even though mold is a serious problem, people collecting millions of dollars because they had a runny nose or headache is absurd.” Concerns over legal liability from mold claims have also raised issues for home sellers and builders to address.
What should you do to minimize your risk of suffering costly mold remediation expenses or health problems?
If you have a water leak or other water damage, it’s important to take steps proactively. “There are a lot of hidden places that get wet in the home that people don’t realize,” Fellman says. For example, a flooded kitchen could result in moisture damage to drywall behind cupboards. “Most people will get water off the floor and leave it at that. Then you open up cupboards three months later and it stinks and the walls are black.”
Dr. Michael Welch, is a board-certified allergist/immunologist, co-director of Allergy & Asthma Medical Group & Research Center in San Diego, and clinical professor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. He observes, “The National Academy of Sciences has found that a moist indoor environment is not conducive for good health, even apart from the mold. It can lead to a variety of respiratory problems.” Thus, it’s important to get rid of water leaks or other sources of moisture penetration, such as water hitting the exterior of your home from irrigation.
Even if you haven’t had a water leak, your home could have hidden mold, such as mold covered over during a prior remodel or even mold on lumber inside a new home. If you’re having health problems that worsen at home, mold could be the cause.
If you suspect mold, or you’ve recently suffered water damage, step one is to have an inspection. California has no standards for mold inspectors, however you can look for professionals with credentials from organizations such as the American Indoor Air Quality Council, the American Industrial Hygiene Association, or the Indoor Air Quality Association. Avoid inspectors who also do the repairs, to avoid the potential for an unscrupulous individual to recommend costly but unnecessary remediation work.
Inspectors use moisture meters to find hidden dampness, such as inside walls. An inspector also takes samples of any visible mold, plus air samples to determine if there is airborne contamination. Indoor air samples should be taken at different days and times, and should always be compared against exterior air samples to determine the normal environmental levels of mold present in your area. Mere presence of mold spores, even stachybotrys, does not mean that the mold is currently toxic, so further tests may be required.
Another option is to utilize mold-sniffing dogs--canines that receive special training--similar to drug-sniffing dogs used by law enforcement. “The dogs are 98% accurate,” says home inspector Leon Thompson of L.D. Thompson & Associates in Santee. “They’re amazing.”
“They’re unbelievable,” Moffett agrees. “Properly trained, a mold dog can find mold faster than an environmental professional any day and time.” But to protect yourself in the event of litigation, scientific measurements are needed to back up the dogs’ findings, he adds.
For small amounts of mold, an inspector may advise a homeowner on do-it-yourself cleanup techniques. But large amounts of mold will require cleanup by a professional mold remediation specialist. “You want somebody that’s certified,” Fellman cautions, “or you can wind up with a small amount of mold that ends up cross-contaminating the entire house.” Opening a wall without sealing off the area properly could spread microscopic mold spores airborne, spreading through air ducts, for instance.
“We set a containment, or plastic barrier to protect the rest of the house,” says Schneemann, who then uses a Hepa-filtered air machine to suck out and filter air from mold-contaminated areas. He also sets up a “clean room” for employees clad in protective gear to enter and leave the area.
Surfaces contaminated with mold, such as carpet, padding, or drywall, must be removed. Framing wood in walls can generally be sanded and cleaned with bleach. “After that, we remove the negative pressure in the room and put an air scrubber in that scrubs the air for 24 hours to remove any spores still in the air,” Schneemann adds. “After 24 hours, an industrial hygienist will come and do air sampling as well as a visual inspection to make sure that work has been done properly.”
Mold inspections range from under $200 to several hundred dollars or more, depending on the size of the home and type of inspection conducted. “Your average mold remediation usually runs from $3,000 to $5,000,” says Schneemann, adding that extensive jobs may run many times that amount.
Repeated exposure to mold can lead to sensitization in some individuals. “I get severe headaches when I’m around wet mold,” Schneemann notes. “I had a cut one time in my hand and I just touched the mold a little bit. That night, it was completely infected, so we know there is something to it.”
Dr. Welch notes that concerns over toxic mold are overblown, but adds that even common molds can lead to health problems requiring treatment. Homeowners who suffer health problems resulting from mold exposure may obtain relief from symptoms through allergy medications, nose sprays, antihistamines, or asthma medications, he adds.
Fortunately, Dr. Welch, “The solution is pretty simple.” Eliminating water intrusion and mold sources in your home are keys to restoring your health. “If you can reduce these elevated levels of mold,” Welch concludes, “your symptoms will improve.”
RESOURCES
Mike Schneemann
In Home Cleaning & Restorations, El Cajon
(800)420-5370
Tim Fellman
Air Assessment Associates, Oceanside
(888)783-2675
Leon Thompson
L.D. Thompson & Associates, Santee
(619)316-0657
Patrick Moffett
Environmental Management & Engineering, Inc.
(714)379-1096
Michael Welch, M.D.
Allergy & Asthma Medical Group & Research Center, San Diego
(858)292-1144
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