2003-09-05-11:30 p.m.
Well, we had the mold remediation people come to the house today. Getting rid of the mold is going to cost about $4,000, which our seller is going to have to pay for because it's in the contract that they will address the mold problem. However, they thought the mold was mildew and that they could clean it themselves sometime before closing. That's what they were envisioning by saying they would address the mold problem. Are they in for a rude awakening or what? Ouch. Our attorney says they can't really get out of it. I feel sorry for them because they accepted our low offer out of desperation and now we're sticking them for an additional $4,000. I think they'll officially be losing money on the house at this point.

The basement of this house has 4x the EPA tolerance for stachybotrys, which is a really nasty mold. Besides the stachy, there's an astronomical amount of mold from the large aspergillis/pencillim family, some of which is nasty, toxic and even carcinogenic. Yee-haw. The Mold Man says the mold has built up from long term condensation in the basement and poor ventilation. All of which can be remedied, so once the basement is decontaminated there shouldn't be a persistent problem. Mold Man also said that everything the sellers have in the basement has to be destroyed as well. I hope they didn't want that extra couch. Dang.

To clean the basement, Mold Man's team will dress up in white suits and ventilators and clean and decontaminate the basement with lots of devices that utilize stacks of HEPA filters. HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Arresting) filters are known for their ability to filter 99% of particles smaller than a micron, so we will have a squeaky clean basement. There won't be a cobweb or a spider or anything left. Even the washer and dryer have to be sterilized somehow as well as all the air ducts. Then, we're probably going to install this HumiVent-2000 system. Mold Man told husband that dehumidifiers were kind of gross and ended up becoming mold spore factories. Then, they looked at the seller's dehumidifier and it was full of mold. UGH!

In a weird way, I'm kind of glad about all this mold business because I'm kind of freaked out by basements. Houses in Arizona (or much of anywhere in the South/Southwest) typically don't have basements. I could see the obvious storage benefits of having a basement but otherwise they seemed like a nasty, dark, damp room where spiders lived. And, why would you want one of those? At least our basement will be spider free and not damp at all.

Another good thing about this is that I can tell people how important mold testing is. I think a lot of people skip it, because it's pricey. Our realtor was acting like I was a wee bit paranoid about the basement mold for even wanting to have it tested -- but she doesn't think so anymore. He he. She said she's never had this situation come up before. The tests are well worth it if you see any visible mold anywhere.

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