Black plague: Mold spawns clean-up industry, insurance concerns

[Guest guest]

Black plague: Mold spawns clean-up industry, insurance concerns

http://www.norwalkadvocate.com/business/scn-sa-

nor.moldjul16,0,1575250.story?page=2 & track=rss

Norwalk Advocate

By T. Maar

Special Correspondent

Published July 16 2006

Long before it was the toxic tort du jour, environmental mold was

being fought by ancient domestic engineers and venerable men of the

cloth.

" The owner of the house must go and tell the priest, 'I have seen

something that looks like mildew in my house,' " according to

Chapter 14 of Leviticus, the third book of the Old Testament.

The priest, says the New International version of the Bible, " is to

order that the contaminated stones be torn out and thrown into an

unclean place outside the town. He must have all the inside walls of

the house scraped and the material that is scraped off dumped into

an unclean place outside the town. Then they are to take other

stones to replace these and take new clay and plaster the house. "

If the mold doesn't reappear, the owners can move back in. If it

does, it's time to tear down the house and build anew.

Fast forward a few millennia and the problem isn't all that

different. Mold and mildew in the home and workplace are making

people nervous, or perhaps ill, and property owners want something

done about it.

Olivia, and had already faced an unpleasant

experience with mold before they started Advanced Mold Testing LLC

of Wilton. The idea for the company came about when suffered

life-threatening allergic reactions from mold.

Mold, or fungus, hails from the plant genus that produces edible

mushrooms as well as poisonous mushrooms. And to a person with the

wrong sensitivities, the mold blackening your shower curtain or

lurking in the garage more resembles poison than pizza topping.

Certain fungi can produce potent, toxic allergens, making themselves

at home in your sinus cavities or lungs. The personal invasion can

come from indoor and outdoor sources -- leaky roofs, basements,

chimneys, crawl spaces, even from a high water table. Green plants

touching the house, or a home surrounded by woodland with leaves,

moldering away, also provide favorable environments for mold to grow.

The family's interest in mold started with its extremely

toxic effects on . Soon after the family moved from New

Jersey to Ridgefield 15 years ago, he got sick.

The house was in the woods, sitting in a lush, green dell. And

although the house was dry, mold, probably from rotting leaves,

began to eat away at ' sinuses, ultimately leading to surgery.

" The mold, " he said, " had gotten much too close to my brain. "

The rest of the family showed no adverse reaction from the mold, but

had severe allergic problems. Certain people are at risk due

to inherent susceptibility to these allergens, which also cause

trouble for people with compromised immune systems, the elderly and

the young.

In addition, people who are constantly exposed to high levels of

toxic mold spores can develop allergies even if they have no history

of them.

Today, living in Wilton, and 15 years after the infection and

surgery, has weekly injections, takes antihistamines,

cortisone and antibiotic nasal sprays.

When the chronic condition started, he had fierce headaches, a runny

nose and a feeling of pressure in his face and head.

" All I wanted to do was breathe. I was perfectly willing to do

whatever it takes to keep breathing, " he said.

The frightening illness led 's wife, Olivia, to form Advanced

Mold Testing. Today, Olivia , her son and partner, , an

electrical engineer, and Tialdi, an environmental engineer,

collect mold samples on slides from homes, schools and businesses.

They send the slides for analysis to Ralph , a mycologist.

" We begin the testing process by evaluating the area's environment, "

said. " We test the relative humidity of the space using

a computerized device, then we test the walls within the structure

using a computer that measures surface moisture.

" When we find an area that has a high level of moisture and other

telltale signs of a serious problem, we will drill a hole, with the

client's permission, to take a site sample of the potentially

hazardous area, " said. " Mold can grow, undetected, between

interior and exterior walls. "

The testing equipment sucks air onto the slides that are covered

with sticky silicone. If mold is suspected, they can test every area

of a building -- indoor, outdoors, walls, crawl spaces, attics and

basements.

The fee to test one room in a house is $199, which includes tax and

transportation and the analysis of the slides. The price per room

tested drops for multiple rooms in a single location.

Property values

Mold's costs are not limited to the health arena. Remediation costs

can include expensive abatement and structural reconstruction, and

are increasingly not covered by standard homeowner or commercial

property insurance.

" During the early 2000s, the insurance industry was hit with a surge

in mold-related claims, " said Wilkinson, vice president for

Global Issues at the Insurance Information Institute.

Attorneys Burke and Johansen, writing in the trade

journal Central Florida Constructor, in 2003, attributed that surge

to a " media frenzy " over mold, driven by " a well-funded and media-

savvy plaintiff's bar (that) feeds an insanely competitive media

machine that is desperate to break the latest " big " story. "

But growing jury awards against contractors and homeowners insurance

companies mean the issue was critical enough to affect the bottom

line.

" Insurers responded by inserting exclusionary clauses into standard

homeowners and commercial property insurance policies, " Wilkinson

said.

" More than 40 states have now approved mold exclusions and/or

limitations, " she added. " That said, coverage for mold is available

in a limited way. Some companies cover all mold claims and price

their policies accordingly. Others exclude mold, but add on the

coverage via an endorsement. Others exclude it completely. "

U.S. insurers paid out at least $3 billion in mold-related claims in

2002, more than double the $1.3 billion paid the previous year,

according to the institute.

People selling their houses can be tempted to less-than-ethical

behavior when there's a mold problem, Olivia said.

" We've tested homes, right here in upscale communities of Fairfield

and Westchester counties. In many of these homes, we have found

dangerously high mold spore counts. The owners should clean this up,

but they often do not, " she said. " They simply put the house on the

market. Mold can be disguised by paint, but it is still there.

" There is no law requiring homeowners to disclose a mold problem, "

added. " There ought to be a law. People with very expensive

properties are extremely discreet about removing the mold as this

could affect their property values drastically. "

Anne Carbone, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker in Norwalk,

said not everyone is allergic to mold, however, " When an inspector

found black mold in a crawl space, my clients backed out. I don't

mind losing a deal if the home will make someone sick, " she said.

, an engineer by training, said mold problems can be

spotted or prevented by following some basic guidelines.

" There are red flags, a crawl space is one, siting that drains

downhill into the home, foundation plantings too close to the house,

and of course, a leaky roof or chimney, " he said. " Leaders and

gutters need to be positioned to send rain water and melting snow

well away from the house. And sometimes, a drywell needs to be built

so that water drains away and does not build up and come into the

basement. "

Prominent people are making mold an issue. Bianca Jagger, Mick's ex-

wife, had to leave her multimillion-dollar Park Avenue apartment in

a posh but sick building. She was shown on television, wearing a gas

mask and pointing to black mold on her walls.

New Jersey Gov. Corzine is suing the developers who sold him a

multimillion-dollar condo in Manhattan where mold is eating his art

collection off the walls, reports say.

In its January 2004 issue, Consumer Reports published a major report

on shoddy new home construction and devoted considerable space to

the topic of mold, saying that toxic mold lawsuits are a rapidly

growing phenomenon. Only desert communities are immune to invasions

of mold.

The high visibility of the environmental mold problem has lured

entrepreneurs into the testing and remediation industry. Advanced

Mold Testing has many local competitors, including EnviroTech of

Bethel, which does testing and cleanup.

Many in the industry warn people to hire different companies for

testing than for making fixes to avoid potentially expensive

problems, such as a contractor overstating the mold infestation.

" We only do cleanup if another firm has done the testing, " said Ron

Passero Jr. of EnviroTech. " If we test, we recommend that the owner

get another firm to cleanup and remediation. An average inspection

and testing can cost in the thousands. We do not remediate if we

have done the testing. "

Fry, owner of F.D.X. in Norwalk, does no testing, but his

company remediates and restores. " Public trust is most important to

us, " he said.