It’s the nightmare that haunts every first-time home buyer, especially a young couple with a 2-year-old daughter about to purchase their first house: toxic mold.
Jason and Kerri Brown were thrilled when they found a five-bedroom, two-bath house that was in foreclosure for $75,000 in Greenville, S.C., a cozy town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, on Aug. 16, 2005.
The next day, they started renovations on the fixer-upper and ordered new fixtures and furniture. Later that week, Kerri was at home when she and her uncle started to remove some bookcases in a bedroom and discovered a passageway that led to a hidden room.
Inside the room was a chilling note from the previous owner:
“You Found It! Hello. If you’re reading this, then you found the secret room. I owned this house for a short while and it was discovered to have a serious mold problem. One that actually made my children very sick to the point that we had to move out.”
“I just couldn’t believe it,” Kerri told ABCNews.com. “The previous owner left his email address, so I got in touch with him and he said that he didn’t want the same thing to happen to him, that the mold made his children very sick.”
The note was the starting point in a long saga for the Browns, complete with hidden histories and lengthy legal complaints. And it served as a wake-up call to all the parties about the potential dangers of toxic mold, which has been shown to have damaging effects to the respiratory systems of young children.
The couple hired an environmental engineer who tested the air quality and found high levels of stachybotrys, which is known as toxic black mold, and other molds including aspergillus and penicillium, and told them that it was too dangerous to move in to the house.
“We found readings that were four or five times higher compared to outside levels,” says engineer Steve Hendrix. “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, I would say this house was a seven.”
So, the question remains: why didn’t the previous owner tell the Browns about the mold before they bought the house? continue reading the ABCNews.com article…
Tips and Solutions:
Having purchased a few homes in my lifetime I would certainly advise the purchaser to make an offer contingent upon inspections and have mold sampling done by a reputable person/company. Here is an article I wrote providing a starting place for you to find an expert.
While there are still many people and companies out there that say use bleach to clean up the mold that is extremely bad advice – yes, bleach will kill mold BUT that mold WILL begin to grow back within 24 hours! Even the EPA tells consumers to not use bleach any longer for eliminating mold.
While there are many toxic mold remedies and biocides on the market today there is one that is nontoxic which will eliminate and prevent mold. That solution is an essential oil blend by the name of Thieves from Young Living Essential Oils.
There are scientific studies using Thieves essential oil to eliminate and prevent black mold, you can read some of them here. There are specific steps one needs to take to remedy a black mold problem – the source(s) of the leak and/or moisture must be fixed. Toxic black mold thrives in moist situations where there is cellulose (wood, paper, fabric – anything like that will be food for the mold to grow). You can see on the chart how effective diffused Thieves essential oil is against mold. And unlike bleach Thieves keeps working even after the diffusing has stopped.
Once the mold has been removed, diffusing Young Living’s Thieves essential oil regularly for 15 to 30 minutes at a time should be adequate at keeping mold away, thus preventing it from returning. It is important to follow the instructions when using Thieves so that you will get the best possible results.
If you’re looking for a safe and effective solution for your mold problem, at a fraction of the cost of other mold treatments available, you may want to use Thieves for eliminating and preventing mold from coming back.
Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
1 bottle of Young Living Thieves Essential Oil blend -15 ml (for diffusing)
1 bottle Young Living Thieves Household Cleaner (for clean-up after diffusing)
1 Cold Air Diffuser (to diffuse and get the essential oil into the air to kill mold spores)
Each 15 ml bottle of Thieves essential oil is sufficient for about 1,000 square feet of space.
Additional articles on the uses of Thieves products:
33 ways to use Thieves products
How to avoid buying a car that’s been in a flood (which can have a mold problem)
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