Mold Cross-Contamination, Remediation and the Direct Effects on Your Health
When you have a mold problem the solution is not as easy as it first appears. Often mold issues can go unnoticed for quite a long time. By then, millions of mold spores have entered air currents in your home and floated throughout and settled into microscopic nooks and crannies of your possessions. Often, if the situation is bad enough, individuals will pack up their things and move, but it’s not long before symptoms return for these individuals in their new environment. Why is this?
Cross-contamination happens when mold spores are ejected into air currents and float throughout your home and settle overtime on your possessions. These spores are microscopic and are invisible to the eye. When you take possessions out of a moldy environment without properly cleaning them, you are taking those spores with you where they then reenter the air currents in the new environment and create trouble. If conditions are right, these spores can even lead to visible mold growth in a new environment.
Cross-contamination can occur on anything that is porous. A pillow, a table, a couch, even the clothes you wear can become embedded with mold spores and transported to other environments. Mold is all around us inside and outside. The important thing to remember is to always be vigilant on what you bring into your home environment. If you suspect mold is an issue in your home you should always have a professional assess the situation and follow any recommendations they may have.
***For additional reading on how to prevent Environmental born illness, and tips on how to keep a healthy home, please visit https://rezilirhealth.com/oursolutions/environmental/
3 Things to Look For In A Remediator
While Rezilir Home is more than happy to perform a full assessment of your home, we do not perform any of the remediation that may need to be done. Often finding and hiring a remediator can be a challenging and frustrating process. Once you’ve hired one, you want to know and feel confident in their ability to not only perform the remediation process but do so properly and correctly. There can be many challenges in finding a competent remediator. Here are the things we look for when recommending a remediator.
1. Do they have the proper license and are they insured?
Many people “say” they can remove mold from your home, but if it’s not done correctly the situation is often made worse by not being licensed and insured. Simply ripping out sections of mold-damaged materials and removing them from the home is not enough to remediate a home properly and safely. These contractors often do the work completely wrong and disappear afterward, leaving you to deal with a situation that is even worse than before.
2. Once you have found a company or contractor who is licensed and insured, you want to make sure they follow certain protocols when removing water damaged and mold damaged materials. We recommend that any remediator that is hired is trained and competent in the IICRC S500 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration and the IICRC S520 Reference Guide for Professional Mold Remediation. These two protocols are considered the gold standard of water damage and mold remediation. If they are not familiar with these protocols, find another remediator.
3. A remediator should never be the same person who performs the assessment. This is a conflict of interest as someone who performs both the assessment and remediation can charge you thousands more for work and labor than is needed. If a company does both assessments and remediation, we recommend that they are hired to only perform one or the other and not both jobs.
As previously stated, while Rezilir Health does not perform remediation, we will assess your home, business, condo, apartment complex, etc, in order to help inform you of the potential risk factors mold and other toxins in your environment that may affect both you and your loved ones.
For all services Rezilir Health provides in order to assure you are living in a safe and healthy environment, please follow this link. https://rezilirhealth.com/services/environmental-assessment/
For more information our IEP services or to schedule your Environmental Assessment, please contact Jessica Seay at IEP@rezilirhealth.com or please call the office at 1-866-REZILIR.
Rezilir’s Director of Environmental Services Justin Seay graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in the Fall of 2008 with a Bachelor of Science degree. Starting in October of 2018, he studied under Larry Schwartz (CIEC) of Safestart Environmental and obtained his Council-Certified Residential Indoor Environmentalist (CRIE) certificate from the American Council for Accredited Certification. After completing a year of apprenticeship and traveling throughout the United States for investigations, Justin became a Certified Indoor Environmentalist (CIE) by passing a rigorous test, submitting case studies, and getting a unanimous vote of approval from the American Council for Accredited Certification governing board. A Florida state certified mold assessor (MSRA# 3554), Justin is nationally and state certified for mold assessment.
