Not sure if I am going down a bad road here

I helped a couple out last week with a severe mold issue in a house that they were remodling. The job isn't complete yet as they still have a problem caused by the open dirt crawl spaces in the basement. I fogged them real well hoping to avoid the need to seal them off, but it failed. Now they need to be sealed off.

The owners have asked me to take on the job. Basically, you have to slither up in there, rake out the top soil and all the debris (old bricks, pipes, etc. that gets tossed up in there) and then cover the area with gas barrier sheathing attached to the framework. Slow, miserable job.

They are willing to pay "what-ever it takes" since the house needs to pass inspection by the Health Dept. before they can lease it out. The Health Dept. knows me and told them that they would be satisfied if I report that the problem is fixed, but I am not sure that I really want to get back into the mold game.

To make it worse, they gave my number to the facilities manager of a large office building that has discovered a mold problem in their building. That person wants me to come out and asses the problem right away.

It is nice that so many people approve of my work, but I left the mold business for a reason. The insurance costs were brutal, the work was miserable, and I just didn't want to keep doing it. I don't have a lot of cleaning jobs lined up right now though and these jobs can pay a great deal.

Just don't know if I really should commit to these jobs.

It can be a temporary right? I would do them just to get the full time biz off the ground and have a cushion for the winter.

When I first started I had a 120 mile radius service area and stocked shelves grave yard what a pain that was

It seems like I get myself into these type of predicaments far too often, so I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes it's just a great long time customer I offer to help, sometimes it being slow with other work, and then most of the time it's just foot in mouth disease......where I'll say I'll do a job while knowing in the back of my mind I really don't want to. It's usually money driven, because most of these jobs pay really well.

I don't think there's any one right answer for situations like this, because every one of them is different, so they have to be dealt with that way.

The potential long run risk and liability on a mold job does sound pretty scary though, not something I'd think you'd want to risk without good insurance coverage.......and is it worth getting it in place for just a job or two?

Like Mo said it's likely temporary, so for some good money maybe it can be tolerated?

Good Luck in your choice, Rob.

Foot in mouth disease is certainly one of my afflictions. It should be a limited run of jobs, but since this area doesn't really have a mold contractor local, my name gets passed around a lot. I also pop up more on a google search as a mold contractor from years ago.

I will likely do them just because I am still a little slower than I want to be as a cleaner right now and winter is not that far away. I will always have that uncomfortable feeling about it as I don't really want to have my phone blowing up with this type of work right now.....I am not good at telling people that I can't help them.

Thanks for the advice

I bid on a restaurant two weeks ago. I have always turned them down but out of curisoity I did a quote on this one. I gave the manager the quote and she looked like she just saw a ghost.

Well Im cleaning that bitch tonight at 10:00 the exact time I start getting ready for bed and of curse I have a big commercial job tomorrow but Im grateful for the work

PS Thirteen year old girls are expensive

That's why I only date those that are over 18.

Good luck on it, you know it will be delayed until about 10:30 and nobody will have vacuumed it nor put up the chairs.

Bring the rotary and your best grease busting spray and go to town!

milspec6 wrote:......I am not good at telling people that I can't help them.....

Same problem here.  I tell them I'll do it, before thinking to myself how much I really don't want to.

milspec6 wrote: Foot in mouth disease is certainly one of my afflictions

You can relate huh? lol...........I came up with that for myself because it's so fitting.

I can totally relate to it.  Even after thinking about how miserable this job would be with the tight access, high risk of running into a brown recluse or rodents, and needing to wear lots of protective gear, I still can't get myself to tell this lady forget it.

It will be a 2-day job that might make $1500 - $2000.  Not horrible, but not exactly raking it in.  IF I was still working for my old hazmat company, it would have been almost double that price....and there would have been a younger kid to slither into that crawl space.

I guess I am stuck....nice guy affliction can be a bad thing at times.  I guess it is time to become that hazmat tunnel rat again.

At least you don;t have to worry about running int a rattle snake while your crawling in there. That pellet gun might take care of it though

If there was a chance of a snake encounter....I would not be going in, hate those bastards.

Right now, it looks like rodent droppings, maybe a raccoon, mold, and probably a healthy dose of spiders. The house was vacant for over 3 years with an exposed dirt crawl space, so you can probably imagine.

That little CO2 pellet gun actually kicks some butt. It will take out anything down there short of a bear or wolverine.

Well this is starting to go bad already. The price tag is growing just for supplies and the customer is getting nervous. The Health Dept. has approved my remediation plan, but it is coming in at a greater price than they expected....although still about a third of my competition in the area.

I decided to pull the plug on it until we sit down and discuss this at length so that we are on the same page.

Funny part is that they already spent $15,000 fixing up this house to sell it and now the $2000 - $3000 is scaring them. This is why I left the mold business a few years ago, people do not value the work compared to the more visual upgrades.

Spending a few grand to install new hardwood floors excites them, but spending a few grand to properly rid their crawl space of moild, rodents, and moisture doesn't have the same affect.

No different than anything else Rob.

Carpet cleaning is valueless to most people here. So is window cleaning to the average Joe.

Mold is a different story. With all the bull involved, I would lay out my price, and if they don't like it, they can eat poo.

Why would people see this mold issue, any different than replacing a septic system? Not something you look at everyday and fawn over how great it looks. But it IS necessary for living in the home.

P.S. A septic replacement here, when your system conks out, is a mound system. They are 10K plus, to install them here. You can't sell a home here, with a bad septic or well. You can't finance a home here, with mold issues either.

I'm sure that isn't a lot different than Nebraska. They can either spend the money, or watch their house rot and their investment vanish.

We are of like mind Freemind, they really don't have a choice. They can go with my service, hire someone else at 3x the price, take the loss on the home, or try and do it themselves.

Personally, I don't really care which one they choose.

For Pete's sake......she moved her mother into that house.

How can people be this dumb....making it very difficult to help.

Why is your price so much lower Rob?

Mo wrote:Why is your price so much lower Rob?

1. It is in my service area, so no added travel costs.
2. Low manpower costs as it will just be me instead of a crew.
3. I have a better resource for supplies....some are actually my old stock.
4. No insurance company involved....exactimate usage not required.
5. I am not a thief who is trying to take advantage of the situation....kind of the biggest one really.
6. I don't waste their money on lots of testing.

Testing is a big one on mold jobs. To test correctly, you are looking at 3 air samples in the basement, 3 outside, and at least one if not 3 on the first floor. This gets expensive fast with all the lab work to tell you what you already know...there is mold. They didn't call asking if they had mold, they already knew that they had mold.

The only value the testing has is determining what types of mold are present, but really, it only tells which kinds of dead mold is there....not live unless you do culture tests. Knowing what is dead has little value.

I do have the air tested by a third party when I am done to ensure a clean bill of health, but that bill comes from someone else. My job is remediation only. Most companies down here will do all the clearence testing as well which is not a good policy.

Of course, it may not happen now. Them moving someone into the home hasn't helped matters at all. I already have to tent off most of the basement and now this person will want the A/C running since it is in the upper 90's right now. The two don't really go together. I was planning on working at night with the A/C system off.

The Health dept knows; good luck selling that house.
Its gonna have to be done to sell it. With the lowest price; your their best option.
Couldn't find a couple of tunnel rats to go in their, instead of you? I know; technique procedures done properly.

I can find a lot guys to crawl up in there actually, but I would hate to have one get injured or sick because they didn't take their safety serious enough. I will have one on-hand to help pass equipment to me and to be around if I get into trouble, but that is about it.

It just sucks that the opening is only about 2 feet high and goes back 15 feet. Pretty tight for 6'3 220 lb guy. Anything gets encountered back there and it will be difficult to escape quickly.

So is the life of a cleaner who couldn't just say "No" when they called. I will be meeting with all parties involved tomorrow afternoon to go over the remediation plan and costs. If they challenge it, I walk away.

It is official, this is a bad road....a very bad road!

I went back to meet the owners to inspect the dirt crawl spaces and explain how I plan to encapsulate the area using 20 mil thick sheathing.  After getting up into the space, it became clear that the West area of the basement was not feasible without cutting down the retaining wall, removing 2 feet of soil, and then installing proper floor supports.

For those not familiar with basements like this, let me show you why this is a very bad road.

This is your typical nightmare basement found in this area on homes built in the early 1900's up past WW2 era.  The Floor is cement and the dirt walls are a thick poured cement used mainly as a retaining wall.  Beyond the walls are dirt crawl spaces that rest beneath the house and were vented to the outside.



The dirt crawls on the East side are pretty open without any pipes or supports, so I had planned on a simple, yet messy job.

The dirt crawl to the West is a whole different story as it runs beneath the kitchen and a bathroom.  One of the common things about dirt crawl spaces are that owners tend to use them for trash heaps.  They are often full of beer cans, old windows, pipes, construction debris, etc. and this one is no exception.  There was probably 40 fluorescent tube lights smashed all over the place alone.

That isn't the worst of it.  The biggest problem is that the pipes are not laid out correctly and many are resting on the soil now.  Add to it, they chose to support the kitchen floor transition with stacked bricks on wood blocks!!  The whole thing just will not facilitate an encapsulation project.





That is what I am up against.  Her 87 year old mother is living there now with a 3 year old grandson.  The Mother was displaced from Hurricane Katrina and has been living in Government housing until now.  The Grandson is there because the daughter wasn't able to care for him for some reason.

The whole thing is a mess and the smell is pretty bad.  In just 30 minutes, my eyes were burning and sinuses affected, so there is something in that crawl space.  The room humidity is 40% and the soil samples were dry about 4 feet into the crawl space, but my fear is that there is a pipe leak in their somewhere that has allowed a bad mold situation to form.....they are the worst kind being that wet and in a dark area like that.

I will be making plans this weekend and then going into that crawl space all the way back (18 feet) to locate that mold source and make repair.  After that, I might have to excavate some of the top soil (without disturbing those shoddy supports) and then go back, seal it off and wet fog the hell out of it with fingers crossed.

Bad road....definitely bad road.

Oh man. They couldn't pay me enough to do that kind of work. Way too much risk involved. Good luck tomorrow. Listen to your body and take breather if you need it

Oh, I am not going in tomorrow....just sitting down with customer a second time. They really have a big problem here, not just engineering-wise, but with mold mvoc's. There must be a leaking piple way back in that crawl space and those are the perfect conditions for some very toxic mold varieties.

I am tempted to report back to the health department, but they would condemn it and force the old lady out. I need to find a way to attack this and right now, I am a little stumped.

Don't make it YOUR problem!

Are those little beady eyes back in the dark corner?

There are a lot "beady eyes" in there!

I know, the old rule of never letting their problem become your problem is a good one, but I have never been able to keep to it. They need help (they even understand how much) and I am the one that they reached out to. I am not good at walking away from them.

Still, I really don't see a lot of options. I must slither back into that space all the way back and find the problem. What I will be able to do to correct it is wide open right now, but it starts with the crawling.

I don't think I can even get to it until probably Monday due to some family events this weekend. Just something to look forward to.