Thinking of Buying a New Home? Be Sure to Check for Mold First

A young couple with a new baby bought their first home in Portland, but after living there for only a few weeks, their baby became terribly sick. After weeks of not knowing what was wrong, someone suggested that there may be mold in their home. After hiring a mold inspector in Portland, OR, they discovered the culprit: black mold growing under the carpet in their baby’s room. Luckily for this couple, they discovered the cause of their baby’s illness in time and it only cost them a few hundred dollars for mold removal and new carpeting. Other families are not so lucky.

While some mold problems can be taken care of with a thorough cleaning, other types of mold are more dangerous and harder to get rid of. Depending on the type of mold or where in a home it’s found, removal can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. So if you’re thinking of buying a new home, you may want to have it checked for mold first.

When looking at houses, you will want to check for more than a fireplace and lots of cabinet space. You’ll want to be on the lookout for mold, too. Although not all mold growth is visible during a walkthrough, here are some areas you should check for signs of visible mold:

• Water pipes
• Windows
• Roofs and ceilings
• Basement floors and walls

There are other signs of mold to be aware of, even if you don’t see any mold. A musty or damp smell is usually an early sign of mold growth. You should also be checking for signs of previous leaks or flooding, such as watermarks on the walls or ceilings.

If you do your initial walkthrough and see no signs of mold, that doesn’t necessarily mean mold isn’t hiding somewhere in the house. Some homes are more likely to have mold depending on the type of home and the lifestyle of the previous inhabitants. For example, if you notice that the home is poorly ventilated, has numerous overwatered houseplants or even poor housekeeping habits, mold spores are much more likely to be present in the home.

It is always recommended that you have a home checked by a home inspector prior to purchase. In fact, most banks these days won’t even agree to give you a loan if the home wasn’t inspected. A home inspector may warn you of any obvious signs of mold, such as those mentioned above, but a thumbs-up from a home inspector is no guarantee that the house is mold-free.

The only way to guarantee that a home doesn’t have a mold problem is to hire a professional mold inspector in Portland, OR. Hiring a mold inspector may seem like an unnecessary cost, but when you compare it to the cost of mold removal later on—or even worse, putting your family’s health at risk—you will see that a mold inspection is well worth the cost.

Fore more information or to schedule an inspection, please contact Active Mold Control LLC today.

Categorised in: Mold Inspection

This post was written by Writer