Archive for December, 2010

Question : my newly purchased townhouse has mold (long)?
First let me say that I had the townhouse inspected and the inspector found no mold.

I purchased a townhouse on Oct 30, 2009, within a week started to smell an extremely strong must smell coming from the crawl space and cavity that the air vent runs through in the upstairs bathroom. I called the HOA, they in turn sent out a repair man who called a mold remediater. Within minutes he identified the water source (broken drain pipe) in the crawl spacewhich was repaired by the HOA, two days later the c/s was remediated for mold, the following day the repairman started to put down a vapor barrier in the c/s but didn’t finish due to time.

2 days later I was still feeling light headed, had a killer headache and my skin and eyes were extremely irritated so I went down into the crawl space again and found more water damage this time on the opposite end of the crawl space. I contacted the HOA and they once again sent over the maintenance man. After a few minutes he said the water was coming from a broken sewage pipe on the other side of the foundation which was the HOA repaired within a week. (Keep in mind the crawl space had already been remediated for mold before they fixed the water damage and allowed the crawl space to properly dry)

An 8 foot section in the ceiling of the living room clearly had water damage but had been repaired, beings I was still getting light headed and had skin and eye irritation and there was an extremely strong musty smell coming from the bathroom air vent I contacted the listing agent and asked what had happened. The seller said that when they were putting in a new tub he cross threaded the drain fitting and which had leaked and ruined the drywall on the ceiling so they went ahead and replaced it, he said he rented 2 industrial fans and throughly dried it out before they put the new dry wall up but it had been wet for about 2 days and never did check for mold.

Im thinking that because the crawl space already had mold and the ceiling/floor joists had been wet for 2 days mold had quickly grown not just on the dry wall but the floor joists as well. I’ve already had air tests done by a Industrial Hygienist but wont know the results for another 4 days. The Engineer that inspected the townhouse said because the musty smell is so strong in the bathroom there’s definitely something going on there but didn’t want to say anything more until the test results came back.

My question is, would the seller be responsible for the mold beings the area that is contaminated was caused by him? I’ve already spent close to $ 2000 and have had to move out of my townhouse and am now renting an apartment because both me and my girlfriend become ill if we stay there longer than a few minutes.

Also, when the IH came she checked for moisture in the walls but none was found, is it possible for mold to still be an issue if it doesn’t have any water to grow?

Thanks in advance

Tug
.
Thanks Clayton but in the disclosure it asks if there are any leaks or water problems and at the time there weren’t any. Im 99.9% sure that mold grew in the 2 days that the dry wall and floor joists were wet and even though the seller tried to dry the area wasn’t successful thus resulting in mold
Joe, all my communication is done through email and I’ve saved everything. I was wondering why the listing agent has gone out of her way to make sure this is resolved, now I know why
industrial ceiling fans

Best answer:

Answer by Clayton
Yes it`s against the law to not disclose such things when selling a house, take to small claims court! If they tried to repair they knew!