Feature
by Joe Petersen
It’s one of the biggest threats facing the multifamily industry—be quick, thorough, and utterly merciless in your treatment of mold.
You’ve got a mold problem. It came from a leaky dishwasher, a recent flood, or a resident who took showers for three years without turning on the bathroom ventilation fan.
Whatever the cause, there is mold growing in your multifamily community, and you must act immediately and decisively to eliminate it. If it is ignored and left untreated, it could release toxic chemicals called mycotoxins into the air. These toxins can pose severe health risks that include allergic reactions and debilitating respiratory and neurological injuries to your residents or, in the most catastrophic cases, render an individual apartment or your entire community uninhabitable.
Scary thought? It gets worse. As the scientific evidence piles up proving certain types of mold can cause damage, so do the lawsuits against property owners—often resulting in multi-million dollar settlements. Responding quickly, many insurers have drafted an “absolute mold exclusion” that eliminates coverage for any bodily injury arising out of mold at your property. As a result, you or your company could virtually be left uninsured while facing potentially huge liabilities.
What Really is a Mold Problem?
As a multifamily property owner or manager, you need a proactive
plan to eliminate any potential threats or actual problems. Where
do you begin? What constitutes a mold problem? What can you take
care of in-house, and when do you call in the professionals? Ultimately,
what is it going to cost you?
All of this, of course, depends on the extent of the problem. Identifying mold contamination is the easy part—noticeable musty odors and visible growth usually give away a problem. Regular inspections will reveal affected areas such as basements, crawl spaces, HVAC systems, and any areas where moisture is likely to come in contact with mold-friendly cellulose materials such as wood, wallboard, ceiling tile, paper and insulation as well. Mold often appears as a staining or discoloration on the surface of building materials. When inspecting the interior spaces of an apartment, look carefully for signs of water damage or excess moisture in the form of roof or window leaks, condensation problems, water stains, or even standing water. If no mold is visible but strong musty odors persist, you may need to remove portions of wallpaper, paneling, drywall or other materials to complete your search. Be cautious in the process, for disturbing mold growth sites can lead to massive releases of spores.
Once a mold concern is identified, an owner’s or property manager’s highest priority must be to protect the health and safety of his or her residents and staff. You will also need to encourage open communication between management and your residents. This is not a time to be an alarmist, but you must recognize that many residents and staff members have heard some of the catastrophic mold stories in the media. Don’t be vague, misleading, or indifferent in recognizing and understanding their concerns.
When tackling the mold itself, the most important factor is caution. Take steps to ensure that your actions don’t aggravate the problem. For example, don’t allow residents or employees to remain exposed to mold during the remediation phase or don’t spread mold spores in the air with improper clean-up techniques. Another critical factor is moisture control. You will learn very quickly that this is the absolute key to overcoming any mold problem. Mold simply cannot grow without a moisture source. Until you locate and correct any moisture problems, your remediation efforts will be only temporary, at best.
The Remediation Process
The first step in removing indoor mold growth is to identify and
correct the moisture sources that allowed the growth in the first
place: roof and plumbing leaks, flashing or window sealant problems,
flooding, ice damming, overflow from toilets, sinks or bathtubs,
and even humidity-increasing activities such as over-watering of
house plants, running humidifiers, or drying clothes indoors. Once
the moisture sources are identified and repaired, begin drying any
wet materials as quickly as possible. Use fans and dehumidifiers
and vent these areas to outdoor air by opening windows and/or doors
(unless the outdoor humidity is high). Many porous materials that
have absorbed moisture (such as wood, carpeting, drywall, ceiling
tiles, etc.) may not dry quickly and must be removed and replaced
with new materials. Non-porous materials such as concrete, glass,
metals, laminate surfaces, or glazed ceramic tile may be saved if
they are cleaned well and kept dry.
If the mold growth area is fairly small (under 10 square feet of surface area), your on-site and well-trained maintenance technician should be able to deal with it without great risk. Remember, all work must be performed in a manner to minimize the amount of dust generated, thus preventing the further spread of any mold spores. Your maintenance engineer should begin by sealing off the immediate area with plastic sheeting to separate the work area from the rest of the apartment. Then, wearing a properly fitted N-95 filtering face-piece respirator, gloves, and goggles, he or she can remove and bag any porous materials that are mold-contaminated. The remaining surfaces should then be thoroughly scrubbed with a stiff brush, hot water and a non-ammonia detergent. All surfaces and furnishings must be thoroughly vacuumed with a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) vacuum. Once this is complete, damp wipe all surfaces to pick up any settled contaminants or dust. Finally, a disinfectant can clear and kill any remaining mold.
Remember never use a shop vacuum or any other form of standard vacuum in an area that may still contain mold spores. To do so could pull the potentially toxigenic spores off flooring or wall surfaces and distribute them into the air and throughout the apartment unit. Also, spraying the affected units with a 90 percent water-10 percent chlorine bleach mixture, commonly known as a biocide, is an extremely questionable practice since water-based products can cause even further mold growth.
If the mold contamination covers a surface area greater than 10 square feet, remediation will be most likely beyond your staff’s capabilities. In that case, you must consider temporarily vacating the affected units (you should definitely vacate the units if the residents have complained of health problems they think could be caused by mold, or if you enter the areas and immediately notice bad, earthy smells or see large areas of visible mold). Then, turn off the HVAC to prevent ingestion of excessively humid air and/or airborne mold spores and consult with an industrial hygienist to prepare a thorough clean-up plan. When the remediator worker or team steps in, a thorough and effective treatment will be executed—one that, while not inexpensive, will save you considerable time and money over any delayed or poorly executed remediation.
Generally, there are two types of problems a remediator can address: a water event that could lead to mold infestation or an identifiable existing mold problem. For example, there could be a flood that brings water up to two feet in the ground-floor units, yet there is not any obvious mold. The remediator will remove the carpet and pads and dry them out completely. (If the flood contains river water, sewage, or contaminants, the carpets and pads will be disposed of immediately.) The worker will then pull off the baseboards and remove the drywall and insulation up to twice the height of the water line. Industrial dryers and dehumidifiers will finish off the drying phase. If the remediator can determine that there is no active mold growth in the unit, he or she will set the air-conditioning to its lowest setting to eliminate humidity in the air, ideally creating a humidity of 40 percent or less. Finally, when a moisture meter applied to the drywall and wood registers generally less than 12 percent, the remediation worker will apply a mold inhibitor and a sealant to the areas and then clean the HVAC systems and the walls, floors, and ceiling with a HEPA vacuum.
All of this is done with respiratory, eye, and hand protection in an environment where mold has not yet had a chance to take hold. If mold has proliferated to a substantial degree, though, the remediation worker might have to execute a full Hazmat protocol. This approach requires the worker to don full-body disposable protective clothing in order to dry the contaminated areas and scrub the mold off the various surfaces before proceeding with the remediation just described.
The Secret for Solving the Multifamily Mold Crisis
The truth is that there is no special secret for overcoming potential
mold problems at your apartment community. The real answer lies
in simple common sense. A prepared property owner or manager should
never have to deal with a major (or even a moderate) mold problem.
An educated on-site staff will be alert in treating every indoor
moisture problem as an immediate concern. Your staff must also educate
all residents so they understand their responsibility to keep their
apartment homes clean and to immediately report any evidence of
water leaks or moisture penetration. Routine monitoring by the on-site
maintenance staff of ventilation and plumbing systems, coupled with
frequent building-wide inspections and prompt response to flooding
or other water damage, including drying-out of damp areas, will
also help protect you from almost all types of mold growth.
Finally, managers must be ready to react in advance of any mold problems. Pre-qualify a remediation/reconstruction expert who is not an alarmist but can make a realistic diagnosis of any concerns and can offer reasonable and responsible solutions. If you do not take precautions and prepare in advance, you may find yourself with a mold situation that can cost anywhere from several hundred dollars for a small, localized contamination to $10,000 to $25,000-per-unit for a full-blown mold invasion—though it can go much higher.
My goal in this article is merely to provide basic guidance relative to eliminating mold problems. To find out more about mold, contact a good remediation and reconstruction service. In addition, Web sites for the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Multi-Housing Council, the National Apartment Association, and the National Association of Home Builders are excellent sources of information for your concerns about residential mold
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Joe Petersen is with nationally recognized Flagship Reconstruction Services, which specializes in multifamily reconstruction and mold remediation. For specific questions about mold in apartment structures or for more information, go to website. Joe Petersen can be reached at (888) 695-1339. © Copyright 2002.