Summary
In this interview I speak with Kevin Core, a mold expert, about the issues surrounding mold in residential properties. Kevin explains that mold is a common problem in real estate due to its potential health risks and the difficulty in selling a property with mold. He discusses the factors that contribute to mold growth, such as temperature and humidity, and emphasizes the importance of identifying and addressing the source of moisture to prevent mold. Kevin also mentions the misconception about “black mold” and explains that there are many types of mold, each with different characteristics and potential health effects. He recommends professional remediation for mold issues and advises against using bleach as a cleaning solution. Kevin also discusses the challenges of insurance coverage for mold-related issues and the potential costs involved in mold inspections and remediation. He also offers his services to provide advice and inspections for mold-related concerns. The host encourages listeners to reach out to Kevin for assistance with mold issues and reminds them to leave a review for the podcast. The episode concludes with a reminder about the sponsor of the podcast, the soldbook.com, where listeners can get a free copy of the book “Get It Sold” by using the coupon code “freeship” at checkout.
Transcript
And it sure has been a long time since the last episode of the Beta Bay Podcast. What can I tell you? It’s springtime. It’s a busy time. I had a bunch of people lined up and there was some cancellations and schedule conflicts and all of that, and it just seemed to go on forever. And this week’s guest, I’ve been trying to get him on for five months, and there’s been a lot of scheduling conflicts with him. But finally I was able to sit down with him and pick his brain and explore the deep, dark depths of mold. Mold is a four letter word, especially in the real estate business because there’s so many issues around what causes mold, how to prevent mold, how to repair mold, mold, toxicity. I mean, there’s just mold is a can of worms. And if you have a house with a mold problem, it can be very difficult to sell that property because so many people are afraid of mold. So I learned a ton talking with Kevin. He really broke down so many aspects of mold in residential properties. I learned a ton and I think that you will too. So without further ado, please sit back, relax, and listen to what Kevin Core has to say.
Alright, Kevin, how are you doing today?
I am great, how are you?
I’m hanging in there. Hey man. Thanks so much for coming over and doing this in-person. Live in the same room, podcast episode.
Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Alright. Very exciting stuff. So listen, so our listeners can kind of get a feeling for who you are and what you’re about. I like to ask my guests if they could tell us a story, just sort of to help ’em get a feel for who is Kevin K, do you have a story you can share with us? Yeah,
I’ve got a short funny story on how my wife and I met, let’s see, I was probably freshman or sophomore in high school back when emailing and the instant Yahoo messaging was a thing. And so basically we had a mutual friend, she was in Texas, my wife, she lived in Texas at the time. Our friend lived in Gilroy, I believe her pastor Rob was either one. And so there was a big group email, something about, Hey, if you don’t send this to 10 people, you’re going to die tomorrow. One of those type of things. And so my wife, she had hit reply all rather than just replying to our mutual friend. And so then I responded like, Hey, who’s this Tara Roberts girl? So I responded, said, do I know you? And it just kind of took off from there. We turned into just instant messaging every now and then sending long emails, betting on, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m a New York Yankees fan. And so betting on New York Yankees games versus the Texas Rangers we hadn’t even met yet. We sent a couple pictures of each other, maybe, I don’t know, a year into it. And so our betts consisted of if the Yankees won the series, she would have to wear a Derek Jeter shirt to a family gathering, or I would’ve to wear a Josh Hamilton shirt to a family gathering. So yeah, long story short, we started talking. She came out for I think my senior prom and then we got married a few years after that.
Wow. Okay. Well let’s have episode’s over since you’re a Yankees fan. Thanks so much for coming by. I think I should mention it,
But I guess you said honesty is the way to go.
Alright, well that is cool. So there’s a random email. CC is how it all began, huh?
Random.
Wow. Well life is random though, isn’t it?
It is. And five kids later all of a sudden,
Five kids later. Wow. Are any those twins?
No.
No. Wow. That’s a lot of work.
Alright,
Cool deal. So where exactly did you grow up?
So I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I don’t remember anything. I think we moved when I was a few years old. My dad, the company that my dad worked for, the owner was a close friend of his, just suddenly died I think. I can’t remember if it was a heart attack. If he’s listening to this, you’ll kill me for not remembering. But yeah, he passed away. So then my dad moved us to, I think directly to Fremont because we had a cousin who was the principal of the school that is still going today, offered him a teaching job. And so my dad’s been teaching at this small school that I went to since then. So yeah, we went from Ohio to Fremont to San Jose and just kind of bounced around. I spent a little bit of time in Texas with my wife and that’s pretty much it. So
What year did you move? How old were you rather when you moved to San Jose
At Fremont? So when we moved to Fremont, I was probably two or so and then was there, I would say till 11, judge it all based on little league baseball.
Right.
So I think I was there till 11 because I missed out on a very good 11 and 12 year old All-Star team in Fremont that I would’ve been a part of. So I was a little angry towards my parents in the beginning, but you get over it when you get older and get wiser. So yeah, I would say 11 in Fremont then San Jose pretty much since.
So you were really into Little League as a kid, huh?
Yeah, yeah.
Really
I loved Little League. As I got older, I realized baseball wasn’t my favorite. I still played, but another funny story, in high school, I wasn’t going to play baseball senior year and the coach is our cousin and he went to my dad and said, Hey, why isn’t Kevin playing and my dad, he’s not going to force us to do anything. And he said, well, he doesn’t want to. And I was just going to start working, making money. And so they came to me and I was like, well dad, what if we make a deal? What if I play baseball? Can I get a cell phone and return? And so I got a cell one senior year, and so I played and it was great. I’m happy I did
Right, because just yesterday we lost my kid’s little league team. He’s in AAA and we were in the playoffs and the dreaded Aptos Giants beat the Aptos Astros and he was
Crushed.
But I mean it was a tremendous season overall just to watch all the kids grow as players and as a team. I mean it was a tremendous experience just to get there. It was really almost a privilege really just to sit there and watch them play. So that’s cool. So you were big in a little league growing up? Yeah, little league
And then basketball as well. They call it C Y O I believe. So basketball was more my thing. I played as much as I could. But yeah, baseball, basketball, pretty much nonstop.
Wow. And how about video games? Were you playing a lot of video games?
Not a lot. My brothers
Come from
A huge family, but my two closest brothers were really into video games along with good friends of ours.
But you were not,
I mean, I watched, I rarely played. If I did play, I would play Madden or N B A, whatever the basketball game was at the time or baseball. I was never really into the zombie killing and stuff like
That. Wow. Well that is pretty unusual really. Actually, most every kid loves killing zombies. Right?
You tell your son, this is why it’s, I coach baseball now. I tell them whenever they get down on themselves, I say, Hey, I’ve got a story for you if you ever need to pick me up. And so you tell your son, come to me if you need a confidence booster. Because in high school I was probably our number two pitcher, not saying very much, but the number one pitcher he had pitched the night before. And so I had to go the next night against
Pretty
Good team. I think it was Head Royce out of Oakland. And I gave up three home runs in the first inning and didn’t record a single out. So
I’m there to give kids
Confidence on that. Know it could always be worse,
It can always be worse. Right on. So did you end up going to college or No,
Did not. So I got asked to play, not a scholarship, but a junior college Kenyata of two 80
In
Palo Alto I think got asked to play there, but I just said, well, I’m six foot, how far am I really going to go? I didn’t have anything that I wanted to go to college for at the time. I was actually doing the real estate courses at home senior year. And so I was really all into that. And so I said no to college at the time. I went and took the real estate exam, I missed it by four points probably because I wasn’t studying enough in high school. And then my brother-in-law was working for Paul Davis, restoration Remodeling, and they had five guys up and quit one day. And so he called me and they were just looking for bodies and he said, Hey, you want to work? And so I went and they offered me $14 an hour and I was like, whoa, that’s a ton of money. And so I was an 18 year old,
I
Jumped on it and really haven’t gotten out of the industry since.
So at 18 you started with Paul Davis remodeling,
Restoration,
Restoration and remodel. Restoration and remodeling. ReSTOR.
Yeah, two sides.
So what is that business? Is that a fire repair kind of thing or what do they do? Specialize
In fire, water and mold damage,
Repair, fire, water, mold, damage and repair. So you basically just jumped into it?
Yeah, I started out as just the grunt worker.
Grunt worker,
Sweeping the floors of the shop, organizing the storage bins. It was a good day When I got to go out on the field, I would say the first three months was a little rough. They didn’t have me out. I was still doing some training and so finally got to go out on job sites and really get to understand what it was all about. But yeah, I started out as just a skinny little 18
Year old. So now how old are you now? You’re what? 27? 27. This is nine years ago. So how did you go from that at 18 to today? Being in the mold inspection business? I worked for Paul Davis
For about a year and then spent a little bit of time in Texas with my wife now and then.
Oh, where in Texas did you guys go?
A small town called Decatur, near Fort Worth.
Decatur. Okay.
And so then I came back because my brother-in-law who had told me to come over to Paul Davis, he started his own so advanced restoration and remodeling. Some people may have heard of him sometimes I work for them work. And so I worked for him, same thing, at least I was already kind of past the labor, became a lead tech, worked in the field for a couple more years, just it was myself and him and a couple other guys. And so we were really responding to everything. So late night calls, middle of the night water damage floods, coming from a toilet supply on the third floor where they’re extracting water, removing base carpet pad and getting the drying equipment set up to prevent mold growth. And so I was there for pretty much
Up until a year and a half ago,
And that’s when I took over a r e because I had met Holland Woolley through Advanced Restoration. He was one of the guys that they would called to have come in and do a mold clearance test for us or vice versa, and we’ll do an inspection for you guys. And he would say, Hey, if you need an mold remediation, you can call advanced. So he didn’t cut corners. Some people can go out and take a swab of what in a clearance, you got to take a swab in air sample in that chamber. So they’re going to go and swab the cleanest area versus Holland’s going to go and he’s going to try and find something that you missed or you skipped hard to get area and he’s going to swab that. So you always knew you had to be on your toes with him. Two years ago or so is when the process started with Holland.
He just as a courtesy, he just said, Hey, I’m selling my business, we’re going to be competitors. And I said, that’s fine, you’re a great guy. If we’re too busy, I’ll refer you work or you’re too busy, refer me work. And I left that meeting, it was at Eric’s Deli on Soquel and I had to go to Daily City. So I’m driving to Daily City, do my inspection out there for advanced restoration. And I leave and stuck in traffic on two eight and I’m like, what am I doing? I mean, I like it, but there’s some headaches dealing with 30 guys at that times. And so I said, I’m already doing somewhat of what Holland his company’s doing. I could just get a few more certifications, take some more classes and maybe start to do it on my own. So it worked out, my brother was going through a process of buying the company, paving company that he had worked for.
And so I was able to call him, this was all new to me just a year before I told my wife I could never see myself owning a company. I just don’t think I can. I don’t know if I have the brains for it, all that that goes into it. So I was able to call my brother and just ask him, Hey, how do you get finance financing for this? What do you do? I had never heard of an SS B A loan, things like that. And so that’s it. I talked to my brother and he helped me get pointed in the right direction. My brother-in-law is also a mortgage vendor, so he helped me as well. And so yeah, it just took off from there. The bank actually accepted it. And
So you bought a R e, which is applied real estate inspections from Holland Woolley, and you used an S B A loan. And so in order to get an SS B A loan, what did you use as collateral that S B A loan.
Well, that’s what I was going to get to and that’s why I’m stuck for, just depends. I’m hoping I’ve got a goal just like everybody if five year goal to pay off my SS B A loan. And once I do that, it’ll be a little bit easier to move because my house is a collateral.
So that’s very interesting because Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vaynerchuk, you ever heard of that guy? No. He started a wine library TV on YouTube years ago. Fast forward, he invested in Uber and I don’t know Airbnb and now he’s a gajillionaire. And recently, a few months ago he gets up and he says, entrepreneurs should not buy homes because it’s just dead capital. But there’s no way you would’ve bought a r e without having a home first. It just wouldn’t have happened.
Exactly. And know and I couldn’t, I had no other collateral. It
Wouldn’t have been
Possible. So
Gary Vaynerchuk, check yourself.
They don’t allow kids as collateral. I don’t know why, but yeah, I know some people say, Hey, you don’t want to put your house up, but I said, well
What choice do I have?
I’ve got to make a little bit of, take a little bit of a risk to see if it’s going to work.
Right, exactly.
It’s so far, so good.
Alright, that is awesome. I love hearing that kind of stuff. Alright, so mold. Alright,
We got there.
How does mold get started? What elements need to exist for mold to thrive and take over your house?
Well, there’s a study that says the ideal temperatures for mold to grow are 77 to 86 degrees. And the newer study as far as relative humidity as mold can grow anywhere above 50% relative humidity. Back when I was going through all the classes 7, 8, 9 years ago, it was 60%. Not sure why they made the change, but they did down to 50. And so that right there in moisture source organic matter, just as an example, drywall the paper on drywall and then
Temperature, temperature
Has to
Be between that range 77 to 87.
Well that’s just an ideal temperature. It doesn’t have to be,
That’s where it really thrives
In
That example.
Yeah, exactly. And then the other thing, it doesn’t need sunlight and that’s why you’ll see if you ever pull your in an older home, if you pull your dressers or nightstands away from a wall that aren’t walls that aren’t insulated, then you might pull it away and see a nice black square right behind it
Right now. So that is basically it’s condensation, is that what
That is? Exactly, yeah. If there’s not an immediate water leak and then it’s going to be condensation, that’s pretty much a dead giveaway when it shows up in that little square that it’s just a difference in temperature and humidity from outside to inside.
So that right there is very, very common. So does that mean if you tear your house down when that happens or
No? No. I mean I’ve yet to come across a house where we’ve had to tear it all down. There’s typically a fix and so be the recommendation would be to obviously test it to find out the types and concentrations of mold present in that room and then the type of mold that is on the surface because then I can help better guide the remediation company. Or maybe it doesn’t need remediation company. Maybe it’s a level one where a handyman can do it. It just tells me what type of pp e what type of container,
What is PP e,
Sorry, personal protective equipment. So the full face respirator, the whole bunny suit, whatever you want to call it. Just the right protection.
So if you do see some mold, because we see that in closets a lot, right? And the closet is somewhere where there’s no water behind the closet or whatever. I mean, is this something that you could just take a Clorox wipe and just wipe it off or is that not effective or
No,
So first
I’m, I’m happy you mentioned Clorox. So bleach is actually the wrong product. I would stay away from it. It’s not the right pH, so it doesn’t remove the mold
Spore,
It just takes color out of it. So it makes it a little bit harder. So people say, oh, I wiped it with bleach six months ago and it came back. Well, it’s still there. You didn’t remove it, you just took the color out. And if it is drywall, you’re going to want remove that drywall
Because
Drywall’s porous, typically you’re not going to be able to clean it
Really, even just with a little mold in your closet from the, it really
Depends how severe. But the other thing is I can’t guarantee that it’s not on the paper, on the backside. Sorry, I can’t tell you. Okay. Did it come from it start on the brown paper on the back, work its way in that it come from inside the bedroom, work its way, it’s hard to say. So the recommendation is to remove, if it’s a solid surface and we say go ahead and give it a good wipe and have the back, then you can use soap and water, mild detergent and water. It’s the right pH to remove the mold spore or peroxide vinegar, things like that. But stay away from the bleach.
So what’s the solution then? I mean you just not supposed to have your dresser too close to your wall or Yeah, we, what’s I would
Say two to three inches, three might be a bit
Really, there’s actually an industry standard for that.
I don’t know if it’s an industry standard, but that’s a practice that we go by just to help increase the airflow. You want air to be able to travel between the wall and that
Dresser. Interesting, interesting. All right. Well I’m learning something here today. So mold is everywhere. They tell me I have, you come out and you do a mold test, you test outside too, and then you test inside, right? So mold is everywhere, so we’re always breathing mold all the time. Even if you’re in the purest, most cleanest, whatever alpine environment in the fjords of Norway, there’s mold. So given that it is everywhere, why are people so freaked out about it?
Well, it’s hard because the human body, everybody’s going to react or respond differently. So what might affect you maybe may not affect me. I mean, we’ve done projects where the lady has a son who’s very, very sensitive. And so it was a clearance test. And so what was deemed acceptable? It was well below the outside and it was just overall just a really low number. They took that to their doctor and the doctor said, no, that’s not acceptable for your particular son. That’s an extreme case, but that’s just an example. People can freak out because they’ll read black mold, and I don’t necessarily refer to mold as black mold because you can get cladosporium around a window, which is an allergenic mold, and that comes from the condensation or the humidity. It’s black in color, but it’s not the black mold that people are referring to.
So people will look it up and they’ll type that in and typically they’re referring to sta BOTAs or caton, which are key indicators of water damage. And they are toxigenic and they can release mycotoxins that can get into your system. And then if your body can’t flush them out naturally, then that’s when you need to see a doctor and the doctor would have to help get you in the right direction. And I kind of stopped right there, not a doctor. But yeah, I think that’s why people freak themselves out. Is it, I’m not saying that mold is don’t freak out, but you just have to find that fine line if you see something you want to get it taken care of and don’t take it lightly, but also you don’t necessarily need to panic panics never,
Because some people, I guess are just going to react much more severe late to certain types of molds and it might come up as an allergic reaction or an allergy or cold or something like that. And really what you’re doing is your body is choking up I guess because of the, it’s not able to process that mold, that particular mold. And every body is different is what you’re
Saying. Exactly.
So there’s no federal standard. People say black mold, black mold. Oh my god. Black mold even there is nothing as black mold. Right,
Exactly.
There’s millions kinds of molds and some of them might be colored black. Some of the
Worst mold that I’ve come across is pink. I mean he just, so
Pink mold, huh? What kind of mold is pink?
I can’t remember what it was. I was a tech at the time. I was removing the mold itself out of the carpet, so I can’t remember what it was, but I’ve been trying to track it down. It’s just hard because Right,
Okay, so when people say, oh, well does the mold black, that basically is a non-data point,
Correct? Yeah, it doesn’t mean a whole lot to me.
If they said,
Hey, I’ve got black underneath a bathroom sink or a kitchen sink, then I would say, you know what, let me check. And if it’s wet, then obviously I can’t say what type of mold it is and I don’t know until the lab tells me. But every now and then I’ll say, Hey, if I were a gambling man, it could be stacky ERs because it’s got the right ingredients, the right elements for it to be a toxigenic mold.
Right, okay. So there are no standards at all really though at period, at state, federal, local level, there is no standard for mold toxicity?
Correct. There’s no threshold limit value for mold. It’s not like asbestos on edge where we’ve got hard numbers to go by, which makes it tough. It makes it tough to govern and makes it tough to try and educate people as well because the documents aren’t out there for people to just go on and go to a state website and just read all this and this. It’s not spelt out like that.
Right. Okay. So are there areas around Santa Cruz or Santa Clara or Monterey or San Francisco or Alameda or wherever you work that are particularly good or bad for mold?
I listened to, was it Bob Owen? I can’t remember. Bob Owens, your termite guy.
Right.
And I’ll piggyback off of what he said, it’s very similar. So if it’s a more humid area, I know Boulder Creek can be pretty humid. I mean we can be humid here, but it’s just all about humidity, relative humidity is really what drives it. And then for app toss being closer to the water obviously because that’s going to produce more humidity. Being around trees, there’s mold that grows from plant decay and tree rot and things like that. So yeah, I would suspect in Arizona, I’ve never tested out there, but being in the desert would be maybe a little bit better than here. But once again, I’ve never tested out there. So yeah, really just the further you get into the woods, further you get into the mountains, I would say you’re susceptible to having more higher concentrations of mold.
So I’ve always assumed that the mountain thing was because there’s less sunlight. Right.
That’s part of it.
So mold came grow in sunlight though, is that
Correct? Yeah, it can
Grow in sunlight. So it doesn’t need dark, it’s not like light destroys mold. Correct. It’s just that if it’s light, it’s hotter or something dries it
Out or Yeah, it keeps everything dry. It should help the humidity level go down a little bit. And once again, it goes back to the humidity level being above 50% for mold to
Grow. What do you think of the humidity level is today? Right now today is June, what is it?
May 30th,
Right. So what’s the humidity level, do you think? It’s pretty
Foggy. I would guess between 50 and 60, maybe above 60. Right.
So basically it sounds like pretty much anywhere in Santa Cruz County is like a mold farm, right? Because there’s trees and then there’s the coast and there is no hot dry area in between. Correct.
But a few months ago when we were having weird hot, hot spells, I would have days where the relative humidity was 24% out here.
So
Those are the nice warm, sunny days and it’s nothing to freak out about. I mean as long as you’re ventilating your home, you have dehumidifiers in the rooms to help the portable dehumidifiers is to help reduce that interior relative humidity. And once again, there’s crack windows and get the airflow going, you should be okay.
So that’s interesting. So do you recommend drafty houses that people shouldn’t have these dual pane windows and they should just go back to the log cabin thing with chinks of No,
No. The dual pane windows are nice because you see the old metal frame windows, they’re not very well insulated. So you’ll see that’s when you do see the black dots and actually visible water building up around the metal frame. So the dual pane is nice just because it’s a lot more insulated. I would say. Like I said, just try and keep the relative humidity down by cracky windows, not using your house as a vacation home because when the vacation homes sit and they’re not rented out for months at a time, that’s when you have issues, especially, I shouldn’t say the street, but if they’re not rented out year round and not having that constant opening and closing of windows, people coming in and out, then you can have an
Issue. So basically the moisture just builds up in the home from the air
Is
What you’re saying? So a lot of times I used to sell these foreclosures and the banks would want the heater to be left on. So is that a good, if you’re going to be out of town for a week, should you just leave your heater on to keep your house warm?
I would keep it at whatever level you normally keep it at. I wouldn’t.
But you wouldn’t turn it off though.
Correct. You would still want the climate to be controlled inside the house.
Right. Okay. And so you mentioned dehumidifiers, right? I always see dehumidifiers when I go in. I’m going like, what are they trying to hide here? But are you saying that really is just a good hygienic thing for your house in humid areas?
Yeah, I could go into almost a e home in Santa Cruz County and say, Hey, it’d be good to have a dehumidifier and potentially an air purifier as well.
Really
Just be a pretty generic recommendation without doing a whole lot of
Investigating. So do they have climate control systems that have dehumidifiers built into them?
Can I have a friend who owns an H V A C company and I asked him about it. I’m not very familiar and up to par on it, but you said it can be done. I don’t think it’s very cheap, but you can get a whole house system that’s hooked up on a humids stat. So basically you said,
And air purifier,
I would assume you can just, I mean the air purifier, you can get the portable machine, so I’m sure you can integrate it, have the filter into your H V A C system. So do they have
Smaller ones that are not built into your H V A system that because dehumidifiers, they fill up, the basin fills up, and then you have to be there to do that. Do they have ones that so you can plumb into a drain line or, so
I haven’t seen any home use dehumidifiers, but then again, I’ll just be honest, you
Haven’t looked,
Haven’t looked a whole lot, right, that
That’s not your bag. But
They do have commercial dehumidifiers, like the dehumidifiers we used when we were doing the dry outs. Yeah, you plugged them in and then you would have the hose going from the dehumidifier into a shower drain where we’d wrap around
Across
It and draining the system.
That’s a commercial dehumidifier, correct.
Yeah. So they have ’em. And
You would think
In today’s, today’s world that we would have home dehumidifiers that could do that? If not, maybe I should get on it.
Do they have combo dehumidifier slash air purifier? It seems like that would be a good idea, right. I mean they’re both sucking in air. I haven’t seen
One really. That’s something that I would recommend because the air purifiers that I recommend are not like they go to Costco and spend $200, they’re anywhere from 500 to a thousand for an air purifier that we would really recommend.
Right. Okay. So are there any particular kinds of houses that tend to have mold issues? I mean is it houses that are built of drywall and wood or is it houses that are made out of brick or is there any, the older houses are newer houses, or is there anything that would lead you to think this kind of house is more prone to having a mold problem or this kind of house is prone not to have a mold problem?
I would say the older homes, and it kind of goes back to what I mentioned about homes without insulation. So the older homes, I’m not a builder or contractor, but I would say pre seventies or so when they weren’t, that insulation wasn’t used every day like it is now. I would say those homes definitely. So
You want to see insulation in batting in the walls now. So does that mean that people should go and get blown in insulation? You can go have these companies, they drill holes in your walls and they blow in. Is that a good thing to do? Yeah,
Absolutely. As far as the method to get that insulation in there. Once again, I’m not a contractor, so I don’t know the best cost-effective method, but yeah, insulating the walls is a huge thing as well as insulating the crawlspace, insulating the attic, the crawlspace, because the house is going to breathe from the ground up and being Sienna cruise, it does get humid. It does get moist. So crawlspaces tend to be moist. The soil will get wet, and if the soil’s wet for an extended period of time, there’s another moisture source and it’s going to release humidity into the house. Not only that, it’s going to be trapped somewhat in that crawl space, so then you can have mold start to grow.
Well, I’m glad you mentioned crawlspaces as a matter of fact. So what about vapor barriers? I mean, is that a thing? I mean, Bob Owens my termite guy, he hates vapor barriers. He’s just think there’s recipe be for
Disaster.
What’s your take on vapor barriers and should the vapor barrier be on the ground or should be up on against the subfloor? Because insulation has the vapor barrier built into it, right? The backing of that batting is a vapor barrier.
They should, but they don’t always use the vapor backing as far as vapor barriers. A good vapor barrier done
Right
Is effective and it’s good. But Bob’s and his experience, and I’ve experienced it as well, going underneath houses, a vapor barrier that’s just done halfway is terrible. I mean, it just makes it even worse. So basically you should, there’s a company out there called Clean Crawlspace. If anybody’s interested, I look them up, they do a good job and they’ve got a nice seven minute YouTube video. But basically what you
Do
Is you’re going to want everything to drain towards a sump pump. So if you have to, you’re going to have to do a little bit digging down there and trench everything that way all the water’s flowing towards the sump pump get some gravel. So they’ll use gravel for gardens and they’ll use garden liner to try and line the drainage. That way it’s not getting built up with dirt and things like that. And then after that you’ll go in with maybe a 20 mil plastic or material, maybe not a plastic, like I said, clean crawl space, but no, but they use a good material and I can’t remember the name of it, but basically it’s 20 mils, so it’s really thick and then you’re going to lay that out over the entire crawl space. You’re going to seal it to the foundation, you’re going to seal it to the footings and it’s got to be a hundred percent seal. And then sometimes they’ll put a dehumidifier down there to try and help control the humidity. Yeah, I mean as long as you use the right product so people can actually crawl on it and not puncture it. I would say a vapor barrier is a good thing.
So how about insulating the subfloor? I mean, is there a blown in insulation that you can spray against the bottom of your subfloor? Is that I’ve
Never seen
It, but
Now that you’re putting me on the spot,
You’ve never seen that. So basically, so when you’re talking about subfloor insulation, you’re talking about the batting, right? Yeah,
I’ve seen the bat, but I’ve never
Seen a
Spray on or even a foam or anything like that in a crawlspace. It’s always just the bath that I’ve come across.
Okay. Alright, interesting, interesting. So how about you talking about the dehumidifiers in your crawlspace? What about a fan, right? I hear that all the time from home inspectors like, hey, you should hand install a fan underneath your house. Is that effective? I
Recommended to install humid stack controlled fans in a crawl space.
Oh, that means that when it gets too humid, it turns on
And you can set it. The ones that I recommend, just like anything, you can get ’em on Amazon for about a hundred a pop and they’re dual blow and you can set it to 50% relative humidity, meaning it’ll kick on once it hits that 50% mark. So depending, I don’t go into every house and say, Hey, you need to do a vapor barrier isn’t always necessary and they’re expensive, so I don’t want people to think I’m just coming in and trying to cover my backside by recommending every tool possible to protect themselves. I try and go in with an honest mind and I tell people I put myself in their shoes. Do I think it’s necessary? Sometimes I’ll say start with two humid Astat fans. Give it a few months, give it a rainy season, check on it, see what it’s looking like. Did it work? If it didn’t, then you might have to move to the next steps because the humid stack controlled fans are a lot cheaper than going with a full blown VA barrier.
Right, okay. So you mentioned earlier that you have never seen a house where you had to tear it down because it was so mold ridden, but you also hear in my business that’s a moldy house, right? Mold is an ongoing chronic problem and that they haven’t been able to get rid of it. Are there some houses where that’s true, where there’s just, I mean maybe a cabinet in the woods just no matter what you’re going to do? Or is there a protocol for every home that will actually make it mold free, not free mold everywhere, but acceptable?
Yeah, like I said, it goes back to I have never seen or come across a house personally where it couldn’t be remediated. And so basically once, if there’s in a house like that, I would obviously do the inspection and see if I can find any building material that is contaminated. If it was depending on if it was like a wood cabin without any wall coverings like drywall, things like that, then I would say sand that finish hepa vac wire brush. Basically you’re just trying to remove the mold, the mold growth, and then you’re going to want to damp wipe and just make sure all the dust is gone around the HEPA air scrubbers to filter down any airborne mold while you’re disturbing the mold contamination on the wall. And if that’s the actual source, sorry, if that’s the only area, then you move on to what is the source? Was it just humidity related?
Was
There a roof leak? So you’d want to correct the source. If it’s a roof leak, obviously you want to make sure the roof’s not leaking anymore. If it’s humidity, then we’d move into saying, all right, you need to get some dehumidifiers or some sort of dehumidification system to get that relative humidity down at all times. Once you identify and correct the source, then yeah, and you practice the habits of opening windows and keeping things off the wall, things like that, then yeah, I would don’t see why you couldn’t make it mold free.
Obviously not
Obviously that will be mold, but as far as elevated mold,
Right, so I think that’s pretty interesting. I think a lot of these mold houses, I think it probably does come down to humidity. I mean, humidity, that’s just what it is. The house is humid and that nobody’s running a dehumidifier because you see that a lot. Vacant houses in the woods, you go in there, they smell musty, right? And so that’s not a good, is that good? I mean, is that bad? What does that mean? If you go in a house that smells musty, does that mean you’re doomed? What does that actually mean? I wouldn’t
Say it just for me, obviously it’s a red
Flag, a red flag,
And that’s what we refer to things as. So it’s going to make me search that much harder. If I don’t find anything, I’m going to try even harder to see if I can find something wet or because I want to be confident that it’s just due to it sitting vacant or stagnant for a while versus maybe there’s a wet spot on the ceiling due to a roof leak. It just makes me work a little bit harder to make sure I’m not missing anything. Because when I look at you and say, all right, I think it’s just because it’s that stagnant for three months, I want to be confident with that. I make sure I’m not missing anything because musty typically isn’t a good thing,
Right? I mean, to me that musty means there’s probably mold spores, and it could be in the carpet, it could be right, depending on
If it’s furnished. Yeah, absolutely.
Could be in the furnishings. Those old
Cabins, they’ve got nice old rugs or old carpet or old, I’m trying to think of the material, but just any soft porous couches, loveseat, things like that, they will absolutely harbor that musty smell.
So you’ve heard of flea bombs, right? Do you have mold bombs where you can just set up a canister and then set it off and then install a air scrubber, anything like that? No, there’s nothing like that.
I mean, with mold, you want to physically remove it,
Physically remove it. That’s all there is to it.
Whether it’s, like I said, if it’s on a building material that’s porous, you want to remove it. If it’s in the air, the air scrubber will remove it. It just depends. The air samples help tell us what level of remediation is needed. Because if it’s, say it’s 30,000 squares per cubic meter of penicillium aspergillus inside this room and it’s only 1500 outside, then I might say, you know what? You’re going to want to have the vacuum and damp wipe, not you, but a professional, have a vacuum and damp wipe, all the horizontal surfaces, window sills, tops of the doorframes, things like that. Depending on what type of furniture, I might say, wipe down the solid surface items like desks or tables. If it’s a couch, hepa vac, the couch, it can get extreme, but we can typically come up with a fix. So if there’s no visible mold on content, sometimes what I’ll say is perform all that remediation, clean the contents the best you can, and then have them leave them in that room. Then I can come back and do a clearance test and see where we’re at. If we’re still elevated, then I might get a little more extreme and say it might be time to dispose of some of those porous
Items. So if
Anybody is curious, there’s a house, there’s a famous case too, I can’t remember the insurance company, but this is partly why mold isn’t covered anymore. Or if you do have mold coverage, which it’s very rare, not many people do. The coverage is typically max out at $10,000. Melinda Ballard, I believe it was in Texas in 1999, that’s a fun one to go and look up. That is a house that had to be torn down, if I’m not mistaken, I believe was torn down completely. And that was due to many, many leaks for a very long period of time. I can’t remember what the husband did, but he was very smart. It was a beautiful house, but he ended up, once again, I’m not going to say what he had, but the video will say it, but he ended up getting very sick and I’m pretty sure he had to stop working. And so yeah, she sued whatever insurance company it was for millions. And it’s, I think there’s some YouTube videos on it, but Melinda Bauer, b a l l a r d. Alright,
Well that’s good to know. So speaking on the musty thing, right? I mean one word people use is the word mildew,
Right?
Ah, it’s just mildew. What is mildew? It’s
Mold. Mildew. They’re still, they’re both a type of fungus. The only difference really is just their color and style. So mildew is kind in the name. It’s a little more dewy, but that’s So
Mildew is a mold.
It is. Like I said, it’s a type of fungus. They all,
So mold is a fungus? Yes. Mold. All mold is a fungus is what you’re saying here.
Mold, mushrooms used,
There’s spores, like fungus has spores.
And so yeah, mold will obviously they’ll produce spores and then once the spores are released into the air, it’s called germination, and then the cycle just starts. Once germination happens and they release their spores and the cycle starts over again and one mold can grow from there. If there’s a moisture source, mold can go dormant for up to two years. And what that means, we call it dormant, not dead, because some people say, oh, the mold is dead, we killed it. The correct term is dormant and it doesn’t matter whether it’s dormant or active or alive. If you come in contact with an allergenic type of mold, then you can potentially have a reaction,
Even if it’s dead,
Even if it dormant, dead, whatever you want to call it. So that’s why we say you want to remove the mold and not just say, oh yeah, we caused it to go dormant. You want it physically gone.
Well, can you kill mold? Can you physically kill it or no, it’s like a zombie, zombie mold. You can do
A test for it to find out if it’s dormant or not. I’ve never done one because for me’s, hey, it’s there, let’s get rid of it.
Right, right. Okay. That’s pretty interesting. So let’s see here. Now how about basements? Right, so I got a listing right now and it has a basement and periodically water gets into the basement, but you know what, it doesn’t really smell like mold down there. Right. So what can you tell us about musty smelling basements? It seems like almost every basement does smell musty. Does that mean that every basement has a mold problem?
I wouldn’t say so. I think obviously the air is going to be different down there, and then the building material typically is different down there. It doesn’t breathe the same as a house. If there’s no windows, there’s a lot of variables that go into it. So just because it’s musty down there, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily got elevated mold. It very well could. And if you’re going to be using it as a living space, then I would recommend to do an air sample. But typically we don’t do air samples in non-living spaces, so as long as there’s not a lot of transferred air from the basement into the house, I would say it’s
Transfer of air from the basement into the house, huh?
Yeah, if it is musty, there’s just like a crawlspace. You don’t want the crawlspace air getting into a house. We don’t do air samples down there.
Oh, you don’t do air samples in a crawlspace? No,
No. Just swab or surface
Or just swab or surface samples. Okay. Alright. So what’s the worst mold case that you personally have ever seen? Give us a story about, you’re like, oh my God, you’re hosed.
There’s one Now, it may not be the worst, but it’s fresh in my brain. There’s a really nice house in Los Altos area, beautiful custom home build. The guy built it himself. He owns custom home building company. It is down in his, what he told me, his million dollar theater. And it started out as just some mushrooms, I shouldn’t say just, but mushrooms growing on his carpet and it was hard to tell what the building material was. It’s a theater, so it’s dark. Obviously I’m using a flashlight, but still overall it’s dark and you can’t necessarily tell because there’s some raised platforms, so you don’t know that they build it up with concrete and he thinks they did. And so you go back and forth. If it was all concrete, it would’ve been a lot easier. But they got into it, they removed the carpet.
There is concrete slab, but those areas that are stepped up for the seating, they were raised up by wood. So the water basically came from the ground because these, forgetting the term, he had an aquifer that they cut off when they built the house. And so he said they spent tons on drainage and he had a sump pump with an alarm that failed. So basically what happened is the water pulled up in the theater and nobody had gone down there for some time and it made its way underneath the raised platform built up by wood. And so they just had to chase it, start removing the wood. It went up the wall where he had custom made wood columns from la custom wood paneling from LA and all of it’s coming down. And for me it was bad just because, not that it was my obligation to tell him and he didn’t ask, but it was a case where I didn’t
Think
Just professionally, I didn’t think it was going to be a huge issue. I never said that to him. And that’s why I don’t say anything. I don’t have to eat my words, but that one kind of sticks. It’s going to be a huge project where it looked like maybe just a simple remove and replace some carpet, do some detail cleaning and some HEPA air scrubbing. But no, it’s most likely going to have to throw away the theater chairs some wall fabric because the air samples came back the highest that I’ve seen since I’ve done this. And for a year and a half. So I would say that one just because it was just not expected and the dollar amount is just climbing and it affected his office upstairs as far as the air, his office is right above it. So it somehow traveled into his office and caused the office to have elevated mold as well.
And so you’re saying insurance does not pay for that? He has
Very good insurance and if it is covered, it’s only going to be covered up to 10,000.
Really.
Sometimes insurance companies will try and work it out for him or for clients and they’ll try and cover certain items under a water damage category. Basically they might cover this case will be tough. They’ll say, Hey, the carpet could have been dried out, so they won’t pay for replacement of that. If they treated it like a water damage claimer, maybe they’ll say it was category three water, which is sewage water or category two, which is brown water. And they’ll say, okay, we need to remove and replace that carpet, so we’ll cover it under a water damage claim versus a mold claim. So sometimes they can get creative with it, but yeah, if I were a gambling man, I would suspect it will not all be covered.
Right. Okay. Alright, that’s good to know. So water damage claim could be a separate claim from an actual mold claim?
Correct. But once again, if you had a flood in a kitchen and the cabinets were covered in mold, if it was just water, they would say you can probably dry it out or detach dry ’em out and reset versus having to with mold, you’re going to have to remove and replace those so you won’t get the full value.
Okay. So are there any kind of home remedies, I mean I talked about the Clorox bleach rag and you mentioned peroxide and vinegar. I mean, are there places where people can go to look at, because I hate to see people have to tear out their whole bedroom because there was black mold or whatever behind the dress or I mean, are there resources available for people to take on small, maybe mold issues themselves? I mean,
As of right now, not that I know of. And the reason is the sampling is really what determines what level of remediation. Even for me, if you have a spot here, it’s hard to say because you want to know if it’s stacky buttress and it’s a small amount, I might not necessarily want you to remove it even though it’s under 10 square feet. So it’s all about knowing the type of mold, the type in concentration of the mold is really the key factor in determining if it’s a level one, which is a handyman or a level two, level three, getting into a professional remediation company. So it’s a little tough without having the lab work to tell you
What type of
Mold.
So can I go on Amazon and get a mold swab kit online? I would
Stay away unless you can find, do your research. The key is you want to know if you’re doing air, you want to have a baseline. And so those hardware sampling cassettes or sampling media you get, it’s tough because you don’t know how long they’ve been stored, where they were stored, what type of climate it was inside that storage facility. And then there’s no baseline. Typically if you just set it up in here, you’re going to have something grow, there’s going to be some sort of mold, you send it off to the lab. Once again, if I a gambling man, it’s probably caught a spore am or penicillium aspergillus or sidio spores. Those are all commonly found indoor and outdoor molds. So that doesn’t tell you is it elevated? You don’t know because maybe it’s just the same as what it is outside.
Alright, so Kevin, I got to be honest with you. When I hear a mold guy, I hear big dollars. So when I am, so somebody finds some black mold behind a dresser and what you’re saying is there really is no good way for a lay person to figure out what they need to do about that. So what does it cost to have you come out and evaluate something simple? If you’re getting ready to sell your house, you find this black mold behind the thing, right? That’s a disclosure item right there. So it could end up being with this big deal. So how much does it cost to have you come out and evaluate that? Just a small item like that?
Typically I’ll charge a minimum charge and it’s two 50 and that’ll get you the visual and the moisture inspection of that room. I’ll use a protime survey, master moisture meter to take moisture readings just to help beyond what my eyes can see. It’ll tell me if there’s anything currently wet. If there is a couple things, the mold could still be growing. And also we want to know why is it wet? Is there an active leak somewhere? So that would be two 50. You get a full report with all my photos recommendations, just a few generic paragraphs on mold exposure guidelines, things. But
That’s not any lab work.
That’s no lab work. So if you wanted to do a surface sample of that suspect growth, it’s 1 25. So each sample is 1 25, whether it’s an air sample or a swab sample. And that covers shipping to the labs.
So air and swab is two 50 right there. So plus two 50 for inspection. We’re 500 bucks right there. Well
Then if you decided to go air, this is where it does start to add up. You’re right, if you decided to do an air sample, you got to do the interior sample of whatever room.
Oh, and exterior sample too, so that you’re really at 3 75 plus two 50. So you’re at 6 25 now or whatever.
Exactly. So it adds up
Fast for a little thing behind your, but are you saying that I wouldn’t necessarily need to have those samples? If you could come in, you could look at it, you could say, you know what? I would just recommend X, Y, Z without doing an actual lab work. So
It ties hands up a little bit and everyone’s needs are different. I get it. If you’re listing the house, you’re not going to want to spend a ton of money. You just want to find out, okay, this is what we need, this is what I have to disclose and make sure you’re covered. So you can have me out do the visual. You could do this swab sample only to find out what type of mold. Then you’re at 3 75 and that’ll tell you, alright, it’s stacky bunches or it’s ktom, whatever. And then from there I can decide if it’s a level one, level two, level three, or you can say, Hey, just take some pictures, take your moisture readings, write up a report, and I can make recommendations based on my professional opinion. It’s not concrete, it’s not set in stone. It won’t be on the areas of remediation, portion of the report. It’ll just be under the recommendations. So
This is real world example. So Kevin, in a few minutes we’re going to go down and check out those property that I’m managing and they’ve, the reason why I’m having to go down there is because they said that the vanity in the bathroom smells musty. Right? Or it smells like, I don’t know what the, I think they used the word musty, but it’s something like that. And it might be because the vanity is made out of M D F and it’s in a room with steam frequently that it’s not well ventilated. And it could just be that, I mean, that sounds like a formula for mold, right? I mean in the actual material itself, because it’s in a damp environment and it’s made out of M D F probably. Right. But I’m going to have you check in the crawl space as well. Maybe there’s a leak or something like that. So in a situation like this, would you go in and just say, Hey, would you do moisture readings underneath or what would you do to, there is no visible mold. We don’t necessarily think that we need to do any lab tests. Would you just go in looking for water or what are you going to be doing exactly?
Yeah. So I’ll go in, once again, I do the visual inspection, which is, I’m just going to go and look and see if there’s anything out of the ordinary, any visual red flags. Are there cracks in the paint, which it doesn’t necessarily indicate a moisture problem, but that’s just something that we look for. Is there potential visible suspect growth underneath the sink, things like that. And then the moisture meter is really key. I’ll check around the ankle stops. I know the Toyota isn’t necessarily the van, but I’ll check around the toilet, see if maybe there’s a leaky wax ring, check around the back of the sink, things like that just to see if there is anything light. If there’s not up there, then I’ll work my way down. In the crawlspace, same thing. I’m going to check underneath the bathroom as it look like there’s anything leaking from the drain line from, I dunno if there’s a shower from the shower line, things like that. If there’s somebody there, it’d be great. They can flush the toilet a few times while I’m down there. And that’s pretty much it. If I don’t find any visual red flags, then I come back and I say, I didn’t find any visual red flags at this point. I don’t have a direct recommendation on where or what to sample. It’s just your preference.
But I can make a report. Basically it says, here’s what it is. And when you do these reports, do you recommend, I recommend you put in an air filter, I recommend you put in a dehumidifier, I recommend you put in a hemostatic ventilator, whatever. What do you call that? Humids stat controlled fan. Humids controlled fan?
Yeah. Just depending on what I find. Absolutely. Sometimes people are okay with it. I’ll pop the register and look inside, take a picture inside the ducting. Sometimes it’s just dirty H V A C system.
We just had the ducts cleaned a few months ago as a matter of fact.
So that’s something that I look at as well. If it’s dirty, then I’ll say, Hey, have the H V S E system professionally cleaned. But yeah, whatever I see. And it’ll be, once again, there are recommendations, and I don’t go overboard. If the duct cleans, it’s relatively clean, I’m not going to put it in there If I don’t see, the crawlspace is pretty dry. There isn’t any suspect growth, anything like that. I’m not going to say install humid that controlled fans, like I mentioned earlier, you can almost go into every home in Santa Cruz County and say these things, but I don’t. I only if it really is, if I think it’s necessary.
So let me ask you this while we’re on the topic. I always recommend people get a home inspection and turn my inspection before they list their house for sale. Should they also call you before they list their house for sale to do a pre-inspection?
I mean, there’s pros and cons to it for sure. I’m just being honest. Obviously I would love to say, yeah, call me every time, but it just, it’s, it’s tricky. Obviously you want to disclose and make sure you’re on the up and up for liability reasons. It wouldn’t be bad. You would get ahead of it and show some good faith for everybody that might be trying to come in, contract on it.
But then the buyer could say, well, why are you getting mold guy out here?
What’s
The issue?
I would say, I don’t want to say I don’t want to speak against myself, but typically in my experience, it’s always come from the potential buyer.
Right. Oh really? You’ve never had a seller? Actually,
I have, but But
Very rare.
Very rare. And I had one recently in Boulder Creek and it was pretty obvious. That’s another one. I forgot about that. But there were mushrooms growing out of the walls. There was mold, pretty much visible mold and water damage in every room.
In every
Room. It was a vacation home. The house just sat, I walked in and you can hear the mice running, eating underneath the hardwood floor. You can see water sitting on the island countertop dripping from the above bathroom.
Oh my God.
Yeah. It was actually, I forgot all about this one. The floor was cupping so bad that if you walked in without shining a flashlight, you would’ve tripped. I mean, so cupping basically, if you picture the hardwood floor pieces, sorry, that is buckling, sorry, buckling. And it’s basically the hardwood four. It makes like a teepee, the
Two.
And so yeah, there was visible mold on the ceiling. There was mold upstairs on the landing, pretty big landing area at the top of the stairs. It was pretty bad. So on that one, I was called out by the seller because he knew there was an issue. He just wanted to get ahead of it, and I think he was going to remediate it, not him, but he was going to hire somebody to remediate before we put it on the market. It was so severe. So typically, unless you know of an issue and you just want to get ahead of it,
It’s typically the buyer. So that sounds like a lot of work. So what did that, I mean, did you guys do multiples like swabs and air sample SaaS?
That’s what it goes back to. He said, I’m selling, I don’t want to spend a ton of money on to have you out. I said, I get it. So we went through the different options. Obviously I said, we can do about nine samples in this house going by the book according to A C G I H, which is the American Congress of governmental, industrial hygienists and E P A. That’s where I get my sampling strategies and protocols and say, Hey, according to these two agencies, we can take about nine. So I
Believe we did just two swab
Samples. He didn’t have any air samples done. And the reason for the two swab samples is there were two. So we swabbed a bathroom that had a pretty heavy black color. I’m not saying black mold with black in color, along with the mushrooms growing out of the drywall. We swabbed that and then we swabbed another area that was green in color. So the idea is if the mold is similar in color and style throughout the house, typically you can get away with one sample because it’s safe to assume that what that mold is, and the kitchen is the same as the adjacent room. So it was two different colors and style. So we did two different swabs. Yeah, it came back with some of the good stuff.
Some of the good stuff. Then you just referred him to a restoration company. Yeah, if he
Hasn’t asked yet,
But if he
Asks for referrals, I’ll give him some. I don’t go out of my way and say, Hey, call this guy, call that guy. I don’t want it to be like, why is he so pushy? Why is he recommending this company or that company? I try and keep it clean, and if somebody comes to me for recommendations, I’ll tell them who and tell them why. But in the end, I
Let them decide and I stay out of it. So I mean,
Are
A lot of companies that specialize in this kind restoration work? I mean, you used to have a restoration company and Yeah, don’t
Get up. There’s quite a few out there.
Is there something that you should look for in a restoration company if you have some? I mean, well first of all, there’s the remediation and then there’s a restoration, right? Correct.
Correct. Not everybody does the remediation and the restoration.
Are there anybody that does remediation and restoration? Is there an All the
Company that I used to work for, advanced
Restoration does it. And now Holland Woolley owns that. Holland
Does. He owns Cleantech.
Oh, he owns Cleantech. And they only do clean, not restoration.
Correct?
Correct. So what’s the name of the company that does the both?
Advanced
Restoration. Advanced Restoration. And they are
In San Jose?
They are in San Jose. And this is your brother. Brother-in-law.
Brother-in-law.
Right. So he runs that. He’s an honest person. Hey, advanced restoration. What’s their U R L on the internet in our webs? No idea. What’s your
Mine’s? A rre inspections.com.
A R E inspections.com. So that’s the best way to get ahold of you is go to www a r e inspections.com.
Correct. I’m probably one of the worst, what we call ourselves, the millennials. I’m probably the worst when it comes to something.
You’re the worst millennial when it comes to online internet stuff, huh?
Yeah, I don’t, my wife started a Facebook page for me. I haven’t done anything yet with it.
If only you would’ve played more video games than you were kid. See, this is your downfall. That’s what happens when you don’t play video games as a kid. You’re not into all this geeky crap. So we got to wrap things up here. Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that I should have asked you?
I think that’s it. You were trying to ask about things to look for with remediation companies, just to see if they were good and honest. Some of the things that I’ve come across, and it’s pretty silly to even say it, but I’ve actually seen it. If you have mold and you have a guy coming in from Restoration Company A, B, or C, and he says, Hey, we’re going to get some air movers in here. We are going to inject foam into your walls. We’re not going to do any removal. We are just going to try and treat all this mold on the drywall in place. It’s a red flag, especially the air mover, because you do not put a fan essentially in our mover as a fan, just a high powerful fan on mold. That’s number one nono, because then you’re just spreading it around. So that’s just something, I’ve come across it at least once a year and it blows my mind that people still, professional companies still have guys that will throw that out there. And I think it’s just a lack of education. And I get people get busy, so they throw people into these positions of power and that might not have all the right training. So if somebody throws that at you, maybe want to push back and just see what they’re all about.
Right. Good deal. So any last parting words of advice to our listeners before we wrap this interview up?
No. I got to tell people, you’re more than welcome to call me anytime. We just went over the pricing. Other services aren’t cheap. So if I’m in the area and you want me to stop by and take a quick look kind of unofficially, I will. But if you ask me to write a report, then I will have to charge because it’ll take more time. But yeah, if you want me to just come take a look, you want to send me a picture and just say, Hey, what do you think? I’ll give you my professional opinion. Obviously it’s not concrete without the lab work, but I’m more than happy to talk to you anytime of the day and help you out the best I
Can. Is there a phone number? People can reach you on
2 2 7 0 8 0 5 anytime.
So just give him a call and just pick his brain and he’ll come take a quick peek for nothing, which is subject to your availability, right? Obviously. Yeah,
I’m here. My office is in Scotts Valley. I’m here every day. Yeah,
But you also work in Santa Clara County, God forbid.
Yeah, San Francisco,
Unfortunately. San Francisco, unfortunately. Probably a lot of
Mold up there, I’d imagine. Yeah. I even go as far as Vallejo for old clients. Vallejo, huh? Right. How far south do you go? Do you go to Big Sur ever? I haven’t yet, but I would absolutely go. You would, right. Just an excuse to get out to family camping. I’ve had request to go to Pastor Roll Wolves and I can take my wife with me and get away. Then I’ll do it. So I’m not against traveling. So yeah, like I said, anytime I try and give you the best answers that I can. And I don’t claim to know everything. I’m still learning every day, but I’ll do my best for you, that’s for sure. Alright, very good. Well, Kevin, thank you so much. I feel like I’ve learned some very important stuff here today. Well, thank you s I appreciate it. It’s awesome. Alright, good deal. Alright Kevin, we’ll see you around town. Alright, see you later. Bye.
Alright, that wraps up this episode of the Beta Bay Podcast. I really hoped you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Kevin Core and that you got a lot out of it. Maybe mold isn’t so scary after all. So listen, if you do have any kind of questions about mold, give Kevin a call. As he said in the podcast, he’s happy just to let you pick his brain time permitting. He’ll even just pop by your property and just take a quick peek at no charge, just to let you know what he thinks. So that’s a tremendous benefit because a lot of people, they see a little bit of mold, they freak out, they don’t know what to do. But now you do know what to do. Give Kevin a call. Alright, before I close things up, I do want to ask you to please like and share this podcast.
Give me your review on iTunes. That would be fantastic. Or Stitcher or Google Play or wherever it is that you get your podcast. I would really appreciate that. And as always, remember that the Beto Bay Podcast is sponsored by the sold book.com. That’s right. Go to the sold book.com to get your free copy of my book, get It Sold. Get It Sold is all about how to quickly and easily sell your home for the very highest price possible with the least amount of hassle and risk. So check it out. This book sells for, I think it’s 13 bucks on amazon.com, but you can get it for free if you go to the sold book.com and check it out if you use a coupon code free ship at checkout, that’s F R E E S H I P. Use that coupon code. I’ll even ship it to you for free. What a deal is that? Alright, that wraps it up for this episode of the Day-to-day podcast, and I’ll do my best to have another episode up for you before.
