Vicious, Zero Tolerance Policy
Aaron and I have an aggressive, maybe even vicious, zero-tolerance policy for mold in our homes. We can’t stand it. Its presence offends us. So when the inspector for the home that we were interested in buying reported that there was mold in the basement, we assumed that the sellers would be surprised, aghast, and perhaps a little embarrassed – and then take care of it.
Not so.
If anything, the sellers seemed confused by our concern about the mold. They were inheriting the home but seemed to think that the presence of the mold was already baked into the price of the price. That argument might have worked if they were selling to amateurs but Aaron and I have been burned on transactions before. We’re am-pro. We know that mold is insidious. It lurks. It bides its time. We understand that the appearance of mold in one place implied the presence of unseen mold everywhere else in the house. If we were full professionals then we’d have been able to detect where the mold was ourselves but – alas – we weren’t at that level yet.
Honestly, we could have walked away from the transaction at this point and been just fine. But this house is right next to ours and we saw a lot of potential in it so we played hardball. We knew that nobody would be willing to buy a house that was possibly teeming with mold and – moreover – we knew that the mold problem was getting worse every day. And we also suspected that the sellers were motivated to sell the home quickly. So we ignored their protests and let the real estate agent know that we’d need to get quotes for mold remediation before moving forward. This effectively pressured the seller on time and helped us get a handle on the size of the mold problem in the house that we wanted to buy.
Three Quotes
We got 3 quotes from mold remediation companies but had some trouble deciding between them. The major problems were that the sellers had a basement full of moldy shit and they refused to clean it out. That left us with one quote that had a great price for the remediation service but was high on junk removal. A middle of the road quote that was for just the remediation. And a quote that was middling on the remediation for fewer services, but thousands of dollars lower on the removal of the stuff.
We went with quote number 3 because we deemed it better to have 1 company that could do it all rather than working with multiple contractors on a house that didn’t even belong to us.
We ended up paying for the remediation but negotiated a reduced sales price on the house to cover a good portion of the remediation expense. Still, we were pretty worried about the risk we were taking by paying for the remediation before closing on the house. There was nothing guaranteeing that the seller wouldn’t have us pay for the remediation and then pull the contract. Because – duh – the house would be worth substantially more without mold. So having someone else pay to have the mold removed and then pulling the contract from them so that you can sell the property to someone else would be a baller move. So we went through the whole mold remediation process with the concern of the sellers pulling the contract hanging over our heads. Lucky for us – it all turned out alright.
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Day 1
The remediation company showed up. It was 2 younger guys and 1 guy that was a bit older. They started things off by setting up a HEPA air filter, a large fan for air flow, and a dehumidifier.
The day was spent getting rid of all the stuff in the basement. They were nice enough to take a video of the basement because I didn’t want to go down there.There were two bedrooms, several alcoves, and a lot of open space. All of it was filled to the brim with random stuff that had to be cleared away so that the mold could be remediated.
At the end of the first day the older guy told me that this job didn’t seem so bad.
Day 2
The company continued to throw things away. I can’t believe that it took 3 people 2 days to remove all of the items that were in the basement. Notable finds included a freezer that was unplugged but full of food. The team discovered the contents of the freezer the hard way. I never caught a whiff of the smell but the older guy did run up the stairs and dry heave in the lawn.
The older guy told me that the job was a little worse than expected.
Day 3
The company finally began to demo the basement. Part of their quote included removing anything with mold on it. So the basement was essentially guttedt. Everything except for the furnace, water heater, and some shelving was removed. Unfortunately for the company, there were more to the removal than expected. The two bedrooms in the basement were raised off of the concrete slab so the contractors essentially had to remove a small deck in addition to the drywall, insulation, trim, and any other porous items.
The second half of the day was spent on the actual mold remediation! The walls were scrubbed, pressure washed, and a shocking agent was employed. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the remediation could take place once the seller’s items were out of the way.
The older guy let me know that he would like a strong review for his team’s work.
Days 4 and 5
The basement was allowed to dry out. Fans, filters, and dehumidifiers were kept running the entire time.
Day 6
The remediation was complete! For the first time I went downstairs and got to see the full basement that I’d contracted to buy.
We secured some great benefits from gutting the basement. The ceilings in the basement bedrooms would now be 6 inches higher because the decking was removed. And drain tile had apparently been installed in the portion of the basement that previously had bedrooms! That discovery was worth the price of the remediation itself!
The bad news is that the egress windows were rotted out and would need to be repaired or replaced. You could see streaks of water running down the foundation walls. We also learned that there was mold in the furnace so our battle with the mold was not over.
But all in all – this big risk paid off for us!
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