Test for Toxic Black Mold

In Your Home, Office, Condo, Apartment, Workplace or Real Estate 

Toxic Investigation can Toxic mold inspection, mold investigation and mold testing requires the toxic mold inspector or owner of a property or property manager to do thorough mold inspection and mold testing in a home, apartment, condo, office, commercial property, or work place for the presence of both visible and hidden water problems and mold problems, higher than normal levels of airborne mold spores, or serious levels of toxic mold growth, toxic mold infestation, or  toxic mold contamination including black mold, toxic mold, and Stachybotrys black toxic mold.

First step: Hire a qualified, trained, and experienced Certified Mold Inspector or a Certified Mold Investigator to do mold inspection and mold testing. If you want to test mold problems yourself and be your own mold investigator and inspector, please visit the following mold advice pages: Mold Test Kit and Lift Tape Sampling.

Second step: Either the Certified Mold Inspector or Certified Toxic Mold Investigator or owner of a property [such as yourself] or the property's manager should do thorough physical mold examination of the home or other real estate building for evidence of possible visible or hidden water problems or mold infestation. During mold inspection, mold investigation and testing for mold, the following areas need to be checked--- 

          1. Do any of the home residents or building occupants suffer from any of the most frequent general mold health symptoms listed at: Mold Symptoms?  If so, you need to be very thorough in doing mold inspection and mold investigation and do mold testing of the home and workplaces of the residents to find all possible mold causes of any health problem.  

          2. Shrubs, trees, and other plants growing close to your home or building. Too many trees too close to the building protect mold growth from the killing effect of ultraviolet sun light. In addition, dead leaves and plants provide food to enable mold to grow. Growing mold creates airborne toxic mold spores to enter the building through open windows, doors, and the fresh air intake of today's modern hvac system [heating, ventilating, and air conditioning].

         3. Is the land around your building sloping away from the building [thus carrying rainfall and snow melt away from the building] or toward the building [thus bringing excess water to the building and causing possible water intrusion into the building's foundation, concrete slabs, and basement walls]?

          4. Is your roof in good repair [e.g., good shingles, no cracks or holes in flashings around plumbing vent pipes, air conditioning units, chimneys]?

          5. In the attic, are there water stains or mold growth on the under side of the roof decking, the roof joists, the attic floor, and on and beneath insulation? Mold cannot eat fiberglass insulation, but it can eat the paper backing of such insulation. It also eats and grows on organic dirt deposited onto the fiberglass strands.

          6. Are there physical signs or evidence of water intrusion or mold growth anywhere in water-oriented rooms such as bathrooms, the kitchen, and the laundry room? Be very thorough in inspecting and testing for bathroom mold, kitchen mold, utility room mold, and laundry room mold.

          7. Are their water stains, water damage areas, or suspicious discolorations of any other rooms' ceilings, walls, floors, and furniture that would indicate the need to investigate and to test for ceiling mold, wall mold, floor mold, living room mold, closet mold, dining room mold, bedroom mold, or, in other areas, attic mold, crawl space mold, basement mold, storage room mold, laundry room mold, utility room mold, or garage mold?

          8. Is there hidden water moisture inside wall cavities, beneath floors, above ceilings, or behind ceramic tiles of bathroom walls, tubs and showers? Your Certified Mold Inspector will use his or her Hidden Moisture Meter to test non-invasively [no holes required] such surfaces during mold inspection and mold investigation.

        9. Has the property ever experienced roof leaks, water leaks, floods, plumbing problems, or other water problems and water intrusions? If so, pay particular attention to inspecting, investigating, and mold testing building areas that experienced such past or present water intrusions. Your Certified Mold Inspector can use his or her fiber optics mold inspection device to inspect for mold growth and water problems inside walls, above ceilings, and beneath floors.

        10. Is the humidity level of the crawl space, basement, attic, or any room of the building higher than sixty percent [60%] humidity? Humidity levels above 60% in any area of the home can provide sufficient moisture to enable mold to grow!!! The higher the humidity is above 60%, the greater will be the opportunity for mold growth. Your Certified Mold Inspector will use a digital hygrometer to measure humidity in each area of your home or building, including the attic, basement, crawl space, garage, etc.

         11. Are there elevated levels of unhealthy mold spores in the air of the attic, crawl space, basement, and the various rooms of the home or other building? Are the levels of mold spores indoors greater than outside levels, and/or different as to the types of mold species present? Your Certified Mold Inspector will use use a variety of mold testing techniques to collect mold air samples both indoors and outdoors [called outdoor control test]. The various best mold sampling techniques and technologies are:       

           (a) mold culture plates upon which airborne mold settles onto after stirring up the air in the room with a disinfected fan for 15 minutes to 30 minutes; 
           (b) controlled air testing impactors that use an air pump to draw in and impact airborne mold spores onto the sticky surface of a mold culture plate; 
          (c) direct sampling of visually-noticeable mold growth through scraping of the suspect mold substance into a mold culture plate, or Scotch tape lift tape sampling, or actually cutting and saving a piece of what the suspect mold is growing on or in such as drywall, wood, carpeting, etc.

         12. Is there mold contamination inside the building's heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system [hvac], and/or hvac ducts?  Your Certified Mold Inspector will tape mold culture plates [sticky surface facing inward] onto at least one air supply register grill of each zone of your hvac system, and then run the hvac system for 15 minutes to impact possible mold infestation spores onto the sticky surface of the mold culture plates.

          13. Have your collected mold samples, grown for 5 to 7 days, accurately identified as to mold species and mold colony counts by a well-qualified mold laboratory such as the Mold Inspector Laboratory Int'l, Ltd.  Visit Mold Laboratory Analysis.

         The Lab's email address is: moldinspector@yahoo.com.

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