Matt Kelly explains why standard mold inspections miss hidden growth in walls, floors, and crawl spaces. Quick air samples catch only what's floating, while thorough inspections like Weinspect move appliances and test cavities. Look for bubbling drywall, staining, and tape separation as signs of mold behind surfaces.
Lulu, you're killing me. You found an inspector that won't do a proper job. Not a surprise, but it sucks for you. So for everybody listening, Lulu's question was, I'd like to know about hidden mold that professionals don't find in your house. I've had several inspections and they don't find anything, but they don't want to do things like pull out the dishwasher or look in the tool shed. Well, I don't know where your tool shed is, but if it's in the backyard, they're not going to look there. If it's in your garage and it's attached garage, they should be looking there. Dishwasher, yeah, absolutely. Needs to come out and have an inspection behind their appliances should come out. But it all comes down to the inspectors that you hire. And I've talked about this before on your number one look in the yellow pages. Get a mold inspector. They come to your house, put a do air quality testing, put a cartridge spore trap out in the middle of your living room. So check the main floor. If you have a basement, they'll put one there. If you have an upstairs, they'll put one there. And they suck five minutes of air through there, 75 liters through, and then they collect their check and then they leave. And then in two weeks time you get a report saying everything is well and within range. Okay, so that's on the one end and then on the other on the far end. And if you see a pin, the pinned post here about we inspect, I refer a lot of people to Weinspect. Now, it does cost a lot more, but it's far more detailed. They look. They're supposed to look. I've had really good or really good feedback. They scour your home trying to find those hidden things. So they will look a lot of places. Okay. Not everyone will move, will move appliances, but at least if they did a cavity test, you know, drill in the bottom under your sink right beside the dishwasher, wherever it is, and do a cavity test there with a spore trap, you can find out if there's a bunch of hidden mold there. But where are the common places for mold? It's very rarely obvious. Almost nobody know, almost nobody sees the mold. Okay, Lulu. So places it's hiding is in walls, you know, because a nail or a screw or something hit a pex plastic water line or maybe had old copper and it got a pinhole leak in one of the soldering joints. So in walls for either legitimate reasons, like something old just Started leaking or something new got hit by a nail or screw. So in walls, so in floors, because say, for example, your dishwasher leak, the water's on the floor, finds a crack or gets to the edge of the wall where the floor obviously doesn't seal against the wall and water gets under that and feeds out and then it just grows and grows and grows and grows because it's dark, it's damp, it's sitting on osb, likely. So it loves it. So it grows. So in walls, under floors, in ceilings, you know, usually because there's a floor above you and you had a leak in one of those water lines, it's in the crawl space. Crawl space. Crawl spaces are fine if they are encapsulated and whole home dehumidifier put in from new, you know, but very few people do that. New home construction doesn't really do that. People don't, you know, they see the cost savings by not doing it. It becomes after the fact matter, when they have a mold problem, they have to go back to remediate. So in basements, in crawl spaces, in attics, behind showers, under toilets, under vanities, all these places are hidden, not seen by, by the eye. Usually you're looking for signs. You're looking for bubbling and joints separating, drywall tape starting to puff out or move in the drywall, the rippling on the melamine on the bottom of the cabinetries in your vanity. You're looking for all these staining and bubbling and ripping and marks to say there was water there once. Because where there was water, there could very well be mold, right? So these things hide in crazy places. Look for my video about how to qualify an inspector. I think it's video number 130. 130, wow. I thought it was 130 something. Video number 130. How to choose a mold inspector. I sorry you're not having good luck. I'm sorry you have mold hidden somewhere. But I'm hoping that someone will come along and find that for you so you can get it remediated and you can take that stress off your body and finally start healing.
Do you have questions about mold in your home or body? Book a consultation with Matt, AKA the mold man to guide your home and body to the next level of healing.
