Urgent: Advice for mold in car trunk?

June 22, 2004

Urgent advice needed for A., a very giving person whose life work is helping

children:

" A " bought a four-year-old foreign-made car, sight unseen, from another state

and had it shipped to her. Alas, the car has whitish mold in the trunk and the

wood platform that sits over the spare tire compeltely fell apart into small

moldy pieces. " A " is somewhat handicapped and unable to do mold remediation

herself, but her sister removed everything that could be removed from the trunk

and treated the trunk with bleach (even though A knows bleach is not a long-term

solution for mold). However, there are pieces of trunk that cannot be removed

and moldy-looking places remain.

The dealer, a relative of A's good friend, says perhaps he failed to look in

the trunk. (I question how someone who was supposed to thoroughly check out a

car bought at auction could fail to look in the trunk....)

Dilemma: A also had to flee an apartment 1 1/2 years ago due to visible mold.

This was as a precaution; she does not know that she is hypersensitive to mold.

Should she reject the car and pay to ship it back and get her money back

(although she desperately needs a vehicle because her other vehicle was in an

accident)? Or try to get it remediated?

At this point, she has not signed the title or gotten a license in her state and

is unsure the car is legally hers; she has sent payment.

The front of the car has an odor, which seems to be a pet odor, but does not

appear to have mold. (I wonder if this is an odor to cover a mold odor.)

Thoughts? (This is made much more complicated by the fact that the car was

purchased from a relative of a friend!)

Know anyone honest who does mold remediation (on cars, etc.) in the San

Francisco area?

Thanks,

J.

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