Moving

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

If I seem to not be as much of an activist as I was when I was waiting for remediators, testers and builders to show up and do their work, it is because I am now at the stage where I am putting my condo on the market and looking for a new home to buy in the Providence area (where a lot of my work is and where prices are lower).

This means a lot of phone calls and travel between Haverhill and Providence, no small drive. In addition, I must research people who can inspect the new home and try to guarantee that I am not moving into another mold farm.

It turns out that the insurance industry has its hand in also preventing people from doing the necessary testing in ways they can afford. Ie. May, a leading home inspector who is abreast of the mold situation, is not allowed by insurance companies to do both an inspection AND mold testing. This forces the consumer to have to hire two separate agencies and possibly more, to inspect homes to make sure they are not filled with mold. In addition, I have to research to see if there are any companies that will actually probe the wall cavities to see if there are conditions there conducive to mold growth (presence of particle board and wetness, for example). Sellers may not be willing to allow buyers to drill holes.

I personally don't think I could go thru buying a house without the assurance that probing the walls would bring. I am more sensitive than I ever was to mold now than before I lived in this condo. I am told that countless home buyers want this service and yet no one will make it part of the home inspection or part of mold testing. As a mold victim, I have learned that air quality mold testing is no guarantee that a home is safe for a person like me. There are false positives, and false negatives. In addition, Stachybotris spores aren't airborne. In many cases, it's the VOC's that are the illness producers.

So what do I do? Gamble that everything is okay? Pay thousands of dollars for testing that is inconclusive? End up in a home that makes me as sick as I am here? A little bit better? Much worse?

Will I have to once again have to go thru a nightmare where the insurance company refuses to pay any damages? I guess I'll take out mold insurance, if I can afford it. This is a sickening state of affairs and it's mainly because no one will touch the issue for fear of alienating the insurance industry and the building industry. It's all about money and backscratching. The public health is not an issue. Sickening.