Considering a Rehab with Mold

[J Scott]

I have a house under contract that has some decent equity, and I'm looking to rehab and rent/sell it. During my walk-through, I noticed that there is mold in several places -- including the ceilings of two bathrooms and around the frames of most of the windows.

The house has been empty for a while, the windows are not well-insulated, and the bathrooms have little ventilation, so I'm not surprised that mold has started to grow. That said, I know very little about mold remediation.

My question is:

I have a 7-day inspection period on this house (it's an REO, and sold as-is), and I'm wondering what I should do in those 7 days to ensure the mold problem isn't a significant one (or one I can remediate myself)?

I'm planning to get a property inspection, but I don't know if the inspector will know enough about mold to tell me the extent of the problem.

If necessary, I'm happy to get a mold specialist out to take a look? But will he be able to tell me pretty easily how bad the problem is without opening up the walls? Or will he have to get into the walls to determine the extent of the problem?

Should I pass on the deal just-in-case the problem is bad?