Are you interested in purchasing a foreclosed home, but wondering what it will take to get the mold cleaned up? Can it even be cleaned up? This helpful video was produced by Dan Moyle of AmeriFirst Home Mortgage and our very own Ron Kilian here at SMKazoo and details the inside of a foreclosed home with mold and the steps necessary to get it remediated.
QUICK CONCLUSION
Mold remediation is a common and effective way to get rid of mold. Almost nothing is impossible with a renovation mortgage. Just make sure the experts are helping you out and make sure that you educate yourself as well.
Amerifirst put this video together to help aid in the decision to buy a foreclosed home. If you are interested in purchasing a foreclosed home, consider downloading their guide here: Buying a Foreclosed Home Guide.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Dan: If you’re considering buying a foreclosed home, a house that’s been sitting vacant since the owners left, you may find a diamond in the rough that has some minor repairs, like peeling paint, maybe a ripped screen door. You may find yourself saying, “We can do this. Not a bad deal.” Just be careful. You never know what nightmares lie in wait inside for you.
Ron: This particular project I’ve already seen some pictures, so I kind of know what we’re going to be looking at today.
Generally, in a house like this, all the finish materials are removed, like the flooring, and the wallboard, and the ceiling. We need to find out if there’s any mold up in any cavities in the walls. Usually, when you see mold on one side, on the finished side of the wall, it’s usually two or three times worse on the back side of the wall, where there’s no air movement and there’s moisture trapped in the cavity, maybe wet insulation. All these things are food sources for mold, anything cellulose is.
We’re going to go in and basically demo all the finish materials, and then we’re going to evaluate structural materials. Structural materials may be addressed just by, we call it, soda-blasting, use baking soda like a sandblaster, and it peels the mold right off. If there’s been any long-term deterioration, where the mold has actually eaten pr compromised structure, then you’re going to have to bring a structural engineer in to evaluate.
First thing that normally happens after I do an inspection, write up a guesstimate or estimate, so to speak. Then the hygienist needs to come in and test the air or take lift tests of the mold and find out what kind of mold it is, how much is in the home. It takes two or three days to get that report back. Then, once we start, it’s probably just two or three days of remediation and then re-test again two or three days, waiting for the clearance results.
First thing I notice here is, this is the source area. You can see that. I saw pictures, and I knew intuitively what it was just because of the rust that’s coming down. As you look up here you can see the pipe that has burst right there. There’s still a little moisture seeping out of it. That pipe probably froze and burst up there, sprayed water up and then also came down.
I do have contamination on the structural materials here, where it’s open here, so I’ve got to consider that this is going to have to be remediated. Everything behind these cabinets is going to have to be remediated, cleaned up. I’ve got finish materials and structural materials that I have to evaluate and write my estimate. This is all mold on the bottom there, that greenish color. It’s probably an aspergillus penicillin.
The black mold … We didn’t talk about that a whole lot out front, but there are probably thousands of black molds. The one that gets the bad rap is Stachybotrys, and that’s the toxigenic mold. It is toxigenic for people. I’ll just pull a piece off. This is actually, in this case, worse on the front side than it is on the back side because of the styrofoam insulation. It still has mold on it, but not near as bad as the finish side. Even the furring strips and things like that aren’t bad at all. They can be hepa-vacuumed down and wiped down with a fungicide, and we should have good results.
I’ve seen about 3500 of these. We’ve not run into a situation at all where it could not be remediated and restored.
Dan: From minor repairs, like a ripped screen door, to the major house repairs, like a mold remediation, almost nothing is impossible with a renovation mortgage. Just make sure the experts are helping you out and make sure that you educate yourself as well. Download the e-book, How to Buy Foreclosed Homes, in the description below
For AmeriFirst Home Mortgage, I’m Dan Moyle. We’ll see you next time.
