Our amazing office manager, Vicki, kept coming to the Yeti Restoration office early in the morning because she knew (she has special senses) that there was a dog on the loose, and she wanted to help it. Yetis make great pet people.
There were some obvious (to Vicki) signs that the dog was there – and finally she saw it on the security camera,; came in at 3am, caught him, took lots of photos for Amy and the rest of the team, and got him safely to a shelter. True story 🙂
There were signs letting Vicki know there was a problem.
Mold is a sign that there’s a problem.
You know it shouldn’t be there. Maybe the black mold wasn’t there when you moved into the office, or your family bought the house. So what’s causing it?
Think of mold like a mushroom in the forest. It’s a simple organism; needing something to eat, something to drink, and somewhere safe to thrive.
Enter…moisture.
A national retailer we worked for had mold on the ceiling joists of a new store. Everywhere. Could it be that there was water coming in… everywhere? Seems unlikely.
Believe it or not, we see this quite often – high humidity is enough for some molds to drink and thrive. When you consider that our sales leader, Jim, needs more to drink than my youngest son does, who in turn needs less than his friend’s pet rabbit, you can start to imagine that some molds are so small that they can actually drink the humidity in the air.
After a drink, mold just needs something to eat (dirt/ dust is fine), and somewhere safe to thrive. Ceiling joists don’t get touched often, have very little airflow, and tend to be located just above the bright lights in a warm place. So we ended up cleaning every inch of this retailer’s ceiling with dry ice blasting technology; full mold removal, and cleaning of the remains.
If it’s not universal, like the ceiling mentioned above, mold on drywall may be pointing to a water leak or intrusion. So we’ll often remove the drywall in safe containment with negative pressure to expose the problem and get it fixed.
This means that the crack in the foundation can now be seen and fixed.
The high moisture can now be addressed.
Or the plumbing leak, or other concern can be remedied.
With the signpost (affected porous materials) removed, and the space cleaned, the mold can’t grow back like it wants to, giving you a chance to repair the source of the problem.
Note: Drywall with mold is a non-starter. Because the drywall is porous (and covered in paper), affected drywall has to be removed. If you cut through moldy drywall, you’ll see the roots may go all the way through – there’s no cleaning the surface and getting it done. Indeed, when you understand how mold grows, you’ll know it’s happier and stronger on the back of the drywall than the front. Without appropriate remediation, you’re only cleaning the front…
Adapted from the book: Yeti’s Eat Mold For Breakfast, first published 2022
