I bought an apartment I plan on renting out. It’s a studio. The previous owners didn’t disclose that they had a mold problem. It smelled a little musty when doing the walkthroughs with the agent but I didn’t think too much of it. As it turns out they painted over ALOT of it. I have to deal with this so I can get it rented out. Now anytime I walk into the place I can definitely smell the mold and I just want it gone.

Context: It started out in the closet that contains the air handler. Mold was visible in some spots, and painted over in others. Clearly there was a moisture problem at some time but it didn’t look like a present problem. I had a guy come and take a look at it, he did 4 hours worth of work and ended up removing some drywall, killing the mold with a spray, and scrubbing the air. He left some visible mold in the air handler closet and recommended that I paint over it with Kilz. He claims it is all dead. He claimed that he couldn’t get all the drywall out without taking out the air handler which would easily be another grand. He said he was trying to save me some money. However, isn’t that what I pay a mold remediation company for? To clean up the mold? I expected him to at least clean the drywall that he couldn’t take out. The guy seems honest enough, he said he would come back to fog the place again and remove the rest of the drywall once I get the AC company to come out and remove the air handler. He quoted me $950

…Few days later…

I didn’t want to wait for an AC company and I was naturally curious so I went in there myself with an N95 mask and some goggles and removed almost all of the drywall that he left in there. The other side of it was black as can be. I then did some very deep examination of the bathroom ceiling which is close to the air handler closet (they share a wall) and noticed some mold that was painted over in there. I took a small piece of drywall out and noticed it was partially black on the other side. So logically my mind is thinking “this mold guy isn’t all that great at finding mold”.

Like I said the guy offered to come back but my trust has waned. I confronted him and asked him why he didn’t remove all that infected drywall inside the closet and he said that his company doesn’t deal with air conditioners and didn’t want to be liable for messing up the ductwork etc. What do you think about this guy?

Any good recommendations for mold remediation companies near Tampa Florida? Or how about some solid principles for choosing companies/contractors to do jobs for you? I want to do this right

Tampa, Florida

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