Got mold?

77GreenMachine

77GreenMachine

Phillip Talton
Joined
Mar 30, 2010
Location
Trinity, NC
So some of you know I do disaster clean up for AdvantaClean. Today I seen the worst flood/mold problem I've seen so far. This house belonged to the current owners parents who died back in October. The house sat vacant and no one went there from the beginning of November to just last week. The basement had flooded due to the pipe from the well to the pressure tank bursting, and the sump pump not working. The lady said "we've always had some water and a little bit of mold but never like this". The water line can be seen in the pictures. The water was up to the windows, everything was floating and the water is estimated to have been there since late November to when it was pumped out last week. I could only go to the bottom of the stairs since water was still 5" deep thru the whole basement. These are the only pics I got but will add more in the morning as we are pumping the rest out right now. Rain water is also coming thru the foundation so that's why there is another 5" even though it was pumped out last week.

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This is what I found when I opened the door to the basement.

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Note the water line

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The curtains in the window looked like they were cut straight across but that's the water line. That's some nasty water!

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Check out the door to the left in the lower center of the picture. There is another door adjacent that has mold growing downward from the top of the door frame!
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That's all I got, I can't wait to add more pictures when I get in there to get my crew started in the morning. Glad I'm paid well and don't have to do the bulk of the work or else I may be looking for work, this place is gross!
 
I have been on several job sites where I felt it would have been better to strike a match and start over vs what it cost for us to fix it. This is one of those jobs. The house is in much need of remodeling and updating to be worth anything, and now the basement has to be stripped down to the bare bones and redone.
 
Yeah I really have to wonder if It's really even possible to completely get rid of something like that.
But, I guess thats you job?
Yick.
You need to get Mike Rowe out to spend a day with you.
 
How in the hell can the insurance company think it costs less to fix that dump.

That house needs to be burned down.
 
Yeah they actually live out of state, that's the crazy part!

And RatLab yeah that's my job. I put the plan together to follow IIRC protocol and have my guys go in and execute the plan (I also help at times) and then afterwards We have a 3rd party come in and do a clearance test to compare the mold spores in outside air to inside air. It's extremely tedious work with great attention to detail. This particular job is REALLY gonna bring the suck!!
 
I'm suprised that insurance would pay off on it at all. You cannot leave a house unoccupied and expect insurance to pay off.
I'd be interested to know if this is paid by insurance.
 
drkelly said:
How in the hell can the insurance company think it costs less to fix that dump.

That house needs to be burned down.
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That's the kicker, insurance will not cover this incident due to neglect of the pump and occupancy. As well as it also having an existing outside water intrusion problem.
 
If rain is seeping into the basement I wonder what the parents died of and if their deaths were expidited by the moldy basement?
 
That's what the lady claims. Says she was just there November 11th and the water wasn't there. We aren't so sure it hadn't been there longer.
 
I imagine the backside of the paneling is worse than the ceiling. I'm w Ratlab, I don' see how it can be cleaned up w/o tearing the house down to the leaky foundation and starting over.
 
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Yeah what you see on this side of the walls is on the inside too. We will be stripping it all down to the studs and even replacing most of the studs too. There is a load barring wall in the middle that has to come out and be rebuilt too.
 
The owners of the house are paying for these repairs out of pocket?!
 
Yep. Most all of the mold jobs I do are paid out of pocket since insurance will not cover mold unless it came from an inside water source that was not discovered in time.

In this case the house was changing owners since the death of her parents, it was unoccupied, and they were aware of outside water and existing mold before the big flood happened. We have had several calls from the insurance company. I believe she is fighting it, but as of now she's paying for it and hoping they reimburse her.
 
Holy crap guys! I got in to take a better look. It's unbelievable. I don't have time to post all of the pics I've taken right now but I will.

I also took a video if someone can post it I will email it to them. It's just over a minute long.
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Lots more pics to come. And now that I've done a full evaluation, I'm positive that the water has been there for longer than she says.
 
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