Looking at investing in a house with mold.

[Brenda Hedges]

Yesterday I looked at a small ranch home that was priced substantially below it's assessed value. The inside of the home had mold every where, growing out of the cupboards, on the walls, the ceilings etc. The basement is obviously wet. It is a concrete block foundation and I could see leaks in the walls. The windows are in poor condition with cracked trim. Really, the only parts of the house that looked decent are the metal roof and the siding. Considering the cost of mold remediation, which would entail and entire gut of the structure, should I look at tearing this building down and replacing it with a modular? Is it worth trying to remediate that much mold? I know that ultimately I'll have to look at the numbers for both those options but if anyone has any prior experience with a home in this condition, I'd appreciate hearing what you did. Many thanks.

[Hattie Dizmond]

@Brenda Hedges

Have you had the mold tested?  "Black mold" is a very specific strain of mold, stachybotrys chartarum (atra).  While it is true that it is greenish-black in color, many more common molds are also dark green to black in color.  The problem with molds is not the mold itself, which are not toxic, it's the mycotoxins some molds produce, as is the case with stachybotrys chartarum.  The most common indoor molds are Cladosporium, Penicillium, Aspergillus, and Alternaria, which are mostly just allergens to those with sensitivities.

As for the stain blocking paint idea, that can be a dangerous tactic, even after you have completely dried out the mold.  Once mold is completely dry, it goes dormant.  It IS NOT dead.  Mold can be resuscitated simply by introducing water/moisture, unless that liquid contains an agent capable of killing the mold, such as bleach.  (It's a lot more complex than that, and there are parts of mold and other fungus that are incredibly difficult to truly kill.  The site www.aspergillus.org.uk is an amazing reference for all things moldy!  And, yes, I'm a microbiology geek.)  So, if you introduce a latex - water-based - stain blocker, you will likely do nothing more than reactivate the mold.  Anytime you're trying to block mold, use an oil based product.  I personally recommend Zinzer.

You can purchase a test kit on line to determine whether you have stachy or one of the other mold types.

Finally, there is some really good information here about stachy mold in dwellings and cleaning here...  http://www.cdc.gov/mold/stachy.htm