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I wanted to post our mold story here as education for everyone, if this is not ok mods please delete. But, if anyone is sick and does not know why, check your enviroment. I would never want anyone to go through what we have, and talking about mold and letting people know, is the only way I can think of to help people. Since I have been so vocal, I have received many phones calls from people who have heard my story and need help. I hope maybe today, I help someone here.
THE MOLD STORY
We bought our dream to be home in May 2002. It was perfect for what we were looking for. A nice 1 ½ story 1929 bungalow with 1.5 acres, and the right price. The home needed a lot of work but we had done the renovation on our 1900’s historic home and knew we could do the repairs. My husband David had always wanted a little acreage to grow his grapes for his wine making, but I wanted to be closer to the city. This home had both plus a two car garage and fireplace! The kids fell in love and so did we.
We sold our home, moved in and jumped right in to the renovations. One month later I began to get sick. We were working hard on the repairs of the home and trying to get settled. So I at first thought the overwhelming fatigue and digestive problems were caused by what was going on. By August in a lot of pain I went to my doctor, then over time, doctor after doctor trying to find out what was wrong with me. Test after test came back negative, but I was still very sick and the different symptoms began to appear. Tremors, numbness in my face, headaches, vision problems, joint pain, digestive problems, nose bleeds and the continuing fatigue. Of course since nothing could be found medically wrong I was finally told maybe I need a psychiatrist. I even spent a week in the hospital running tests, and after about 3 or 4 days I was feeling so much better, (because I was away from the mold, which I didn’t know at the time), so this reinforced the notion that I was a neurotic, menopausal, hypochondriac. I knew I was a little high strung, and some may call me crazy, but these problems were not in my head.
In April 2004 I began to suspect that maybe we had a mold problem, caused by water seepage in our basement. I had read a mold story in my local newspaper and decided to do some research. The first thing I discovered was the many varying opinions on mold and how serious a problem it could be. So I called in a mold consultant to do an assessment on our home.
The first thing the consultant told me was since we had a brick foundation, and that it will naturally hold water, the basement should not be finished at all. My two sons had their bedrooms in the basement. Paneled walls and carpeting. While he did not see any mold growing in the basement, he said that if we do have mold it would be behind the paneling. He performed air quality tests and took the time to explain about mold. I learned a lot.
That weekend it was raining and I convinced my husband and sons to start tearing down the paneling in the basement. All day they harassed and harangued me, complaining and crabbing about all the work. The first wall we took out was an interior wall, no real problem. (so, of course the abuse from my husband and the boys got worse!!) The next wall was an outside wall and there was evidence of some mold. By the end of the day, with the first room about half way torn out, and we were ready to quit, I decided to pull one more piece of paneling off the front wall. That was when the fun began. Behind this paneling we found a leaking main water line. I became sick immediately, and we had committed the first error (and not the last) in our mold remediation.
The main water line into the house was leaking; a drip, drip leak onto the wood framing and black board insulation behind the paneling. Perfect, 24-hour water, food and darkness, a mold spore’s dream. We knew that it had to have been leaking for over 2 years, because there was a piece of black tape wrapped around the pipe to stop the leak!!!!! And now we had opened the wall and released the toxic mold into the air in massive quantities.
I was right about the mold, but there was no satisfaction, just a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then all the questions began, what can we do, and how? The only thing I knew for sure was that the mold is what was causing my illness. We spent the next few days moving everything out of the basement. The boys had to move into an upstairs bedroom together. Thank goodness their beds were bunk beds, because the room is so small. Everything else went into the garage.
After discussing what we had found with the mold consultant, we sealed the stairway to the basement and put duck tape over all the air vents. The basement needed to be gutted, vacuumed with a hepa vac and sprayed with a biocide chemical. A plan, ok, we could do this. Oh the power of delusion.
Step 1: Gutting all the walls in the basement. By the weekend we were ready to rip out the rest of the paneling and other walls. This time we were a little better prepared, we had sealed the basement, were running exhaust fans and wearing respirators. I left the house while the guys were tearing out, and went to host an open house at one of my listings. I had forgotten something at home and called David to bring it to the open house. The minute he walked through the door I knew something else was wrong and he didn’t know how to tell me. Then the story came pouring out of him. While taking the last of the paneling down, in what had been my 11 year old son’s bedroom, they discovered a room that had been blocked off by the paneling. He told me it had a 6’ ceiling, dirt floor, brick walls filled with cardboard boxes and old wood doors. Then it was sealed off with no ventilation what so ever. The guys, even with respirators on, had to run outside the mold was so bad. The perfect haven, a hidden room.
I didn’t know where to begin at this point. We defiantly had a huge mold problem. This was not a visible mold growing on the walls, but dry mold spores, leaking out from behind the paneling and getting into everything. Now step 1 had to include not only the basement but also the whole house and all our possessions.
In hindsight, I began to put together all the pieces. My illness had begun after moving in this house, I was always burning candles and opening windows because the house smelled, but I didn’t know why. I just assumed it was because we smoked cigarettes. My symptoms did get a little better as we worked on the renovation. Especially after pulling up and replacing all the carpet. My husband and kids were sick too with constant headaches, bloody noses, sore throats and sinus trouble. And, above the hidden room was my office where I worked all the time. The heating and AC vent was right by my desk. So for two years every time the furnace came on, I was sucking in the mold. I was home the most and the most affected.
We could not afford to hire a mold remediation company to come in and do the clean up. So, we began the work ourselves. Everything had to be cleaned or thrown away. The guys worked on the basement and I started upstairs. Three dumpsters later, what was left and could be cleaned was in our garage. We had to throw out anything paper, since it cannot be cleaned. Books, pictures, office paperwork ect. Our couches, chairs, and mattress’s also could not be cleaned, gone. Dried flower arrangements, small kitchen appliances, Christmas decorations, and all our food, gone. Keeping anything that may have had mold spores in it was thrown out, it was not worth it, they were just things
Our neighbors must have thought these new people have lost their minds. Our garage was full, the back patio was piled with all our clothes, and behind the barn was another pile of debris from the basement and most of our furniture. We were up by 5:00 in the morning working and never stopped before 8 or 9 at night. We slept in the house with the windows open and no heat for a week.
The one thing we did contract out, was replacing the furnace, AC and cleaning the duct work. There were times I had my doubts about how big a problem the mold was, and began to think we’re nuts, why are we doing this. Then something would happen to remind me how insidious mold can be and we were doing the right thing. Just like when the men cleaning the duct work took the tape off the vents, there was mold growing on the tape. Or I would walk into the garage and immediately begin coughing with bronchial spasms and vomiting. I was the human mold detective, if it was around I reacted.
Step 2: Finally the furnace was in, the duct work cleaned, the house emptied and we could begin vacuuming with the hepa vac. First the basement, walls, floor boards, ect, then the upstairs, all the walls, floors, ceilings, baseboards, moldings ect.
We did not do the walk up attic, because it was just too much, at that time. We sealed around the door with tape and just left everything stored up there, to deal with later.
Step 3: Spraying the biocide and cleaning. We sprayed every square inch of the house. Shock wave (brand name) became my new best friend. I used it to clean everything. I washed all our clothes, bed clothes, curtains ect with it. I must have done over 75 loads of laundry. But of course before I could begin, I had to clean each hanger with the shock wave too.
We ended up taking all of our possessions out of the garage, one at a time, spraying with shock wave, and wiping them down then taking them back inside. Little by little our house was beginning to be put back together. In all this took about a month. My husband and boys were wonderful, through all this. We all took our turn having a little nervous break down, but then back to work. Of course we were really stressed out, because Dave and I were still working full time and the boys were still going to school every day. Of course the boys friends stopped coming over because if they were here we put them to work!
I haven’t yet touched on the financial aspect of all this. The insurance would not cover the mold remediation because it was not a “sudden water event”. We did discuss with an attorney the possibility of a lawsuit against the previous owners. We would have had to put up several thousand dollars to file a suit, spend two or more years fighting in court, there would be with no certainty of winning, or if we did win whether the previous owners would be able to pay a judgement. We needed every penny we had plus all our energy the make our home livable again. The strain of dealing with the mold was all we could handle. A lawsuit was not going to help.
Finally by the end of May with our house back in semi order, we took a break!!! The boys would have to stay in the little bedroom for awhile and we began to slowly replace most of the possessions we had thrown away. I began to feel much better, my energy was back and the other symptoms receded. Next on the agenda was to water proof the basement walls, then gutting the attic.
We had to keep the basement dry so any mold spores left would not begin to grow again. We knew that it is impossible to get rid of all the mold spores, but we had brought the level down and fixed the cause and now hopefully we could get our life back.
A major cause of the lack of good water drainage around the house was that the previous owners built a new two-car garage several years ago. They placed it too close to the house and it was trapping rain water next to the foundation, which then came in. My husband and the boys spent to summer, trenching around the foundation, tuck pointing the brick, and painting the brick with black tar. We also, dug a dry well and put perforated piping around the foundation to carry the water away. We got half the foundation done and next summer will do the other half. We also have kept the dehumidifiers and exhaust fan running to keep the humidity down and the basement dry.
By September we were ready to begin gutting the attic. (I don’t think ready is the right word, it should be more like no choice but to begin gutting the attic). We needed the space and we wanted to be able to have use of our whole house.
Sooooo, David and the boys (thank goodness we had boys!!) began tearing everything out. I wish we had stock in a dumpster company because we now were on our 6th or 7th dumpster!!! I was feeling really good the end was in sight, until David came downstairs. He discovered there must have been previous and serious roof leaks. The insulation and old drywall was filled with mold and he could see signs of the old leaks. There was no flashing around the chimney and the vents were not sealed correctly or in the right place. The current roof was approximately 10 years old, but apparently they let the old roof leak a long time before it was replaced. Ok…………we veterans now, sooooo…everything came out, we vacuumed, and sprayed with the shock wave. It was not enough, I could still smell the mold and would get sick if I went in the attic. At this point, we sealed the attic again and began discussing what to do.
The only option we really had was to refinance the house and have the attic redone by a construction company. We were beyond exhausted and worn down. There was no way we could do the construction ourselves this time. The plans were drawn, contractor found, and everything ordered for the renovation. Before the work started I began to get sick again. It was now winter and the house was closed up all the time.
Soooo, I began to look around again for any other cause of mold. Every room had either a tile ceiling or a drop ceiling, so that is where I started. Sure enough, I found several areas where the past roof leaks had damaged the ceilings. After all we had been through the denial was still strong. Duhhhhh, if the attic had mold from water leaks then the ceilings and walls on the main level would have water damage and probably mold. Plans for the attic were abandoned and we started with the kitchen. Gutted all the way to the studs, found lots of mold in the lathe board and floors. The reason the attic still smelled was that all the studs, floor joists and floors were filled with mold. We found this in the main level rooms also. Now the clean up would have to include sealing all the wood and sanding and sealing all the floors. We could not live there anymore and do all this work, but giving up was not an option either.
We have now moved out, and have gutted, cleaned and sealed the wood in every room of the house. We hope to have the new drywall finished soon and move back home. Will this finally be over????? Time will tell.
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