Last week, I made a long trip from Boulder, Colorado to Lewisville, Texas.  The purpose of my trip was to wrap up some loose ends with our new Dallas mold inspeciton company (www.MoldInspectionDallas.com).  I arrived late, after a 14 hour drive, to my hotel.  It turns out there were lots of problems with the hotel, but the one that I thought was ironic was that my room had a mold problem!

My room was on the first floor.  The second floor had a similar layout of rooms.  Thus, the bathroom of the unit above me was directly above my bathroom.  In the bathroom of my room there was a large water stain on the ceiling above the shower enclosure and there was visible mold growth all over the drywall above the enclosure.

The majority of the mold growth was under wall paper that was peeling off.  This particular hotel is a three star establishment and a well known hotel brand.  It baffles me that this problem was not seen by the house keeping staff, maintenance staff, or by someone performing a routine walk through of the suite.

I called the front desk and asked them to send a manager to my room.  When the person arrived, I gave them my business card and explained to them the problem in the room, asked if we could be placed in a new room, and suggested that they have the rest of the rooms professionally inspected.

We were moved to the room directly above the current room.  Although the bathroom in the new room was not in as bad shape visually, it suffered from the same poor design of wallpaper directly above the shower enclosure. 

I didn’t get the sense that the management of the hotel understood the problem and potential liability they face.  However, I did send them a nice letter indicating what I saw at their hotel and suggested that they contact our Dallas office to schedule an inspection.  It will be interesting to see if we hear from them…

Website: http://www.moldinspectiondallas.com

The last three basements that we inspected all suffered from the same source of water intrusion.  Water entered the basements because poor exterior grading allowed  either rain water, or water from lawn irrigation systems to flow into the basement through ventilation points or seepage into the foundation.

Elevated indoor mold spore counts were a problem for all of the occupants in these homes.  In each case, the people living in these homes called us because they and their families were experiencing health issues they believed were related to mold exposure.  The ambient air samples we collected in these basements all showed minor to high elevation levels. 

We provide our client with detailed reports of our findings and recommendations.  But, the key items these homeowners needed to do to remediate and clean up their moldy basements are:

1. Fix the source of water intrusion!  Before you can remediation basement mold and clean the air, you must fix the source or sources of water intrusion to help ensure that the problem doesn’t happen all over again.
2. Have a professional mold remediation company clean up and/or remove moldy materials.
3. Ensure that the mold remediation company uses, among many other things, HEPA air scrubbing machines to bring the indoor spore counts back to normal tolerances.
4. Engage a mold inspection and testing professional to return to the home and ensure that the mold remediation project was performed to adequate standards and that the indoor air has been returned to normal.

If you are wondering if your basement may have a mold problem, consider hiring a mold inspection investigation if you answer ‘yes’ to one or more of the following questions:

1. Does your basement smell moldy, mildewy, or musty?
2. Have you had flooding in your basement?
3. Do you or members of your family experience more respiratory problems inside your home as compared to when they are outside?
4. Do you see water damage or mold-like growth in your basement?
5. Has your sump pump ever malfunctioned?

If you believe you may have a mold problem and you live in the Denver Boulder area of Colorado, please contact Mold Inspection Sciences at 303.339.0133, or visit us on the web at http://www.moldinspectioncolorado.com.

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