Roof leak and mould.

[elnuk]

Hello everyone.

Please give me some advice on this one.

I have a 3 year old single famaly rental that the tenant is complaining of mould infestation. She claims that there is a leak in the roof and water comes in when it rains, now the water is causing mould which her kids are allergic to.

My questions are:-
1. If indeed there is mould, how do i take care of it?
2. Is there a proven way to find a roof leak and what is the best way to fix this? (i have seen no evidense of the leak and she has not been very accomodating of me inspecting)
3. Are there any legalities i should worry about?

This tenant is notorious for comming up with issues when she is due for a rent increase and the last time she complained of this problem was when i notified her of a rent increase, the issue went away when i delayed her increase for 6 months. Supprise Supprise!

Also if anyone knows a good handy man in the northeast surburbs of Atlanta GA, please send a recomendation.

[dealmaker]

OK let's start with the simple stuff MOLD CAN BE HAZARDOUS, I'm sure some here will tell you it's all a scam. Your tenant is PROBABLY a scammer.

1. 3 YO units usually don't develop roof leaks.
2. Roof leaks, particularly those that cause mold can be found pretty easily.
3 I've never seen a roof, even one installed by the morons that do it for tract builders, that didn't come with some kind of warranty. Minor roof leaks are not easy to find. The do however show evidence in the form of SPOTS ON CEILINGS.
4. What do you mean she's not accomdating? You have a key, and a term in your lease that grants you "reasonable access". This is an emergency. Get over there and take a look.
5. Not a job for a handyman, job for a roofer.
6. WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE. Never let a tenant talk you out of a rent increase. You should be training her, not her training you.

BTW, it took me a long time of listening to crap from tenants to realize most of it was crap. But the only way to determine it's crap is to GO, LOOK, (and occassionally) FIX. Could be she doesn't want you hanging around because her boyfriend moved in (in vioation of your lease terms) or she's rented out the garage to illegal immigrants or meth manufacturers, or she's put down visquane and 6 inches of dirt in 2 bedrooms and is RAISING CHICKENS in them. Don't laugh at the last one, it happened to a buddy of mine who thought that "as long as the rent's on time, I don't need to check on a place".

Let us know what happens.

dealmaker

[eldorado]

A little background about my experiences with black mold..
I'm 47 and smoke.
In my youth, it wasn't just tobacco..
I have been subjected to a large variety of hazardous items in my day, everything from bodyshops,remodeling, paints,factory fumes, to working with transite (asbestos based sheetrock material). NOTHING ever bothered me.
I bought this house at a discount (so I thought).
I moved in, and started coughing persistently.
When I decided to remodel the bathroom, I discoved a leak that was neglected for years.
I ended up having to tear the basement hallway wall out to access the plumbing so I could replace it.
It wasn't sheetrock-God knows what material this was.-looked like compressed paper.
I ended up having to replace ALL the plumbing in the house.-But thats another story...
I found black mold growing everywhere.
It was totally gross.
After I removed this product from Hell, All my respratory problems subsided.
I have now found somthing that I am actually allergic to.
Butt.....
From the sound of it, This woman is simply working you to postpone a rent increase.
Take control,inspect the attic crawl, look for spots on the ceiling.
She made the claim, It's her responsibility to for burden of proof.
If she cant point,when you say show me, Raise the rent!!!

[elnuk]

You guys are awesome, thanks for the info. You can bet i will be there soon and inspect very well and if neccessary take concrete steps to fix ASAP.

You know one thing i like about this site??? People tell you just as it is, if you want to hear it or not. :lol:

Again, Thanks for sharing your knowledge and i will keep you updated as to how things shake out.

[Dan Auito]

I suggest you do not renew the lease. Life is to short to rent to tenants that do not appreciate a nice place to live. I'm sure you will have much more trouble in the future with this type of individual stirring up trouble!

[Aldo]

Just as a point of interest, numerous studies have shown that 95% of all mold is completely harmless. That includes the living mold spores carried on every living human being.

[elnuk]

Thanks again to all for the responses.

I was over today to inspect and did not find any evidence of mould in the bedrooms or in the artic etc. I did see some place in the garage where some water does seem to come in occationally. This is think is due to the gutter slanting towards the house rather than away from it and some water may be comming in where the gutter is attached to the house.
I will need to have someone more qualified look at this for me and figure next steps.

I am very grateful for all the insights you all shared, Thanks! :praise:

[txrigdiver]

I got out of the Navy in 93' and went to work for environmental remediation companies and did an incredible amount of different things, my last job at Shell I worked in the environmental dept's R&D
microbiology lab. (prequalifier). Now that I'm a rehabber I love anything black growing on walls, in the attic and bathrooms, kitchens, around ac vents, and all the much better if it stinks real bad.
There are typically around 33 kinds of molds and that can infest and live in our homes on surfaces from sheet rock to wood and concrete. Typically when someone sees something like this they automatically jump to the conclusion that its black toxic mold. The main reason for this is because black toxic mold is in the main stream media and it's a buzz word, and that's what all the fuss is made about. Tell your insurance agent you think you have black mold and see what his reaction is. Of the 33 molds only 2 are dangerous. 80% of the time you see some kind of growth it isn't mold to begin with it's mildew, very big and major difference if you know what to look for, if you don't then I'm sure it's black toxic mold and you should sell the property to me immediately at a greatly reduced rate so I can clean it up.
Whether it's mold or mildew, both of them live under two conditions, semi dark (no direct sunlight, mold and mildew don't like UV light) and a constant supply of moisture. In most circumstances there isn't a lot you can do about the lighting but you can find out where the leak is and correct that. Once you have the moisture problem under control the mold and mildew will die. To help this process along a mixture of 1:5 bleach and water will instantly kill both mold and mildew and clean up the stains at the same time.
When I'm rehabbing a house after I know what I'm going to do and I get all my labor lined up and scheduled, I leave a three day period in EVERY house I do to put in an ozone machine, I'm not talking about one of those models you put in your own house, I use a jensco fm1 at full blast set up right into the return air vent on the ac system, with the ac fan and all the ceiling fans running at full blast. (There's a lot of concerns about ozone so pay attention to the warnings) This ozone machine kills all foul smells, animal urine, smoke from cigarettes and structural fires, it also kills all molds and mildews and their odors. I couldn't imagine rehabbing without an ozone generator
In the great great majority of of cases what you'll have is mildew but if the seller of the house wants to believe that its black toxic mold all the better for you.
On the very off hand chance it is Black Toxic mold then you have to do a pretty thorough rehab and if you want more info on that let me know and I'll get into that too.
On a side note, I'm dumb, I smoke cigarettes, about a pack a day, I also run an ozone machine at low levels in my house constantly with the ac circulating fan going and I can almost guarantee you you can't walk in my house and tell that a smoker lives there, very few people ever can and they are amazed when they find out.

[Dan Auito]

Donny's black mold to pure gold program, come one come all I eradicate mold from roof to crawl! Wahoo, way to make sense of this issue Don! It really helps to know your in our corner and on board for future reference concerning this hot button issue. Great report and I thank you for it. That was good! :thumbsup:

[ChrisGA]

i would definately check the sheetrock for some water rings....

also bleach and water will kill mold..................

and dont renew the lease, obvoiusly there is a problem with her and rent increases that are making her child sick.

Trust but Verify..........if the mold and leak is there then have it fixed.

[elnuk]

Such insight, i guess something has to be said for your military trainning. Thanks for the info. :praise:
Just to update all, I did have the leak in the wall taken care of by a handy man. There are some (Black Mildew?) that i discovered in the downstairs bathroom and thanks to txrigdiver i now know how to clean that up, i also plan to use some concrete sealant on the floor beneath the tiles.

I am sorry txrigdiver, but this is one of my long term properties and do not plan to sell at this time, much less for a reduced price :smile:

I also do not plan on keeping this tenant if she wont pay the rent increase. thank you all for all the wonderful insights.

[txrigdiver]

Elnuk, anytime I can be of help it's yours.
My military training really didn't have anything to do with construction, more destruction then anything else. Besides other ships I spent 3 years on the USS New Jersey BB-62, an Iowa class battleship, not too many battleship sailors walking around these days. While aboard I also became a golden shellback.
I was a Fire Controlman 1st class (SW) I was notified after I got out that I had been selected for Chief Petty Officer but it was to late. You may actually have heard of some of the weapon systems I worked on Tomahawk anti-ship and land attack cruise missiles. What about Harpoon anti-ship missile system and it's SLAM variant. OK, heres one you may not have heard of CIWS. check out this link ciws (http://www.answers.com/topic/phalanx-ciws) Do you see that sensor on the left hand side of the white dome? That was my concept and I designed the very first system to engage high/slow speed surface craft. The one they are using now has no resemblence to what I designed, it has become very advanced.

[OzarkVU]

I was reading this thread and remembered that I had read something about mold on another website that I frequent. It's run by Tim Carter, and it's quite outstanding for people who want to make repairs to their homes. There's a series of articles about mold. Try this link: http://www.askthebuilder.com/Mold.shtml

And, Dan, maybe we could persuade Tim Carter to come over to Magic Bullets and offer his expertise on building and home repairs.

Ed :SM023:

[W3ATB]

The most recent issue of Forbes magazine has a spectacular article on Mold. You can read the columns at my website about mold, but it might be better to wait until I update them with facts I learned in this article and very important facts I learned from a three-hour course I toolk about mold 6 weeks ago. The course was part of a 30-hour CE series I have to take to maintain my Ohio RE broker's license.

The botom line is:


some people are hypersenstive to different molds
many molds are pretty much harmless
unless one just happened recently, there is not a definitive court case where it is absolutley proven that a specific mold caused a specific health issue


The things that are absolutley known about mold are that all of them need varying amounts of water to grow and multiply.

If your roof is leaking, get it fixed immediately.

[Jeff Harris]

Whether it's mold or mildew, both of them live under two conditions, semi dark (no direct sunlight, mold and mildew don't like UV light) and a constant supply of moisture.

Hey Don,
A rental property I'm considering has some minor mold (or mildew) issues in the crawlspace. Talking with Dan, we figured a French drain outside would eliminate the ingress of moisture but I'd never heard that UV lighting would kill the stuff. Does this mean that I could put a couple full spectrum lights down there and they, along with the drain would do the trick?

Thanks,
-Jeff

[txrigdiver]

Jeff, Unless you have standing or flowing water on the ground I don't think a french drain is going to work. Unless you use it to control flowing or standing water from a rainfall or something, that will help keep the moisture out in the first place I guess. What is the source of the moisture? is it just bad drainage so that any accumulated rain just clings to the ground and doesnt soak in or evaporates slowly and then accumulates into the crawl space? The whole key to controlling mold is controlling moisture. Even airflow in the crawl space will help draw out some of that moisture. Maybe you can regrade, throw some top soil up under neath the house.

If you have any kind of mold and it's on the exterior you can use bleach undiluted to not only kill the mold but it will also do a heck of a job at restoring the natural color of the wood (but who cares under a crawl space right?). There's another product you can use, it's expensive but for the interior there is nothing better it's called Microban (http://www.baneclene.com/catalog/microban.html)
As an off topic side note, if you are ever doing anything to get rid of odors and everything else hasn't worked, try this stuff, I swear by it Odo-ban (http://www.odoban.com/Products/commercial/OdorControl/OdorControl.html)

[Dan Auito]

Don this type of situation is most prevalent in Kodiak. What Jeff has here is the water that runs off the home tends to fall near the foundation walls, we dig trenches and put in the perforated black plastic drain pipe and stone to keep the water from seeping in around the foundation.

This completely eliminates standing water and resolves the issue every time. I have seen and done this fix more the a couple times myself and it is a cure in this case!

Once the water is allowed to run off, the mold dies out!

[txrigdiver]

Excellent quick fix. I just finished installing the exact french drain system you described around the perimeter of a house with foundation problems to stop water from actually entering the house every time it rained.

[Jeff Harris]

Thanks for the help. Dan's right. I'm seeing several houses here that show this type of moisture in the crawl spaces. One problem I see is that, with the ground being so full of rocks, its awful hard to dig a trench. One sure way to ruin a shovel...I will try to find the products you recommended. Knowing Kodiak and the people who sell those types of things here, I figure it'll probably cost me about $400 to have a half-gallon shipped here...oh well...

Another big problem here is the mossy fungus that grows on the ground, especially in areas with little sun exposure due to numerous trees that block it. The ground is usually spongy and wet and even when a lot is cleared for construction, the fungus reappears soon after the construction crews are gone. Try growing grass in this stuff and the fungus just laughs at you. It's humiliating to be sneered at by mold...
We've been in our new house for four years and have yet to have any substantial lawn in the back yard. Any ideas on how to cure that one?

Thanks again,
-Jeff

[Dan Auito]

Move to Florida with us Jeff. :SM140: You know everyone has a golf course for a lawn down there! :smiley3: Been looking at houses without me Huh! Well look at that gratitude would ya folks~ :mad: