Why are mold free living spaces so hard to fine?

[Guest guest]

I did a little un-scientific poll of rental property in the Cincinnati area this

week just for fun. I called some of phone numbers in the classified ads for

apartments to rent.

Among the questions asked where:

Has the apartment been mold tested?

or

Is the apartment mold free?

The most common response was a dial tone. (hang up).

Does anyone have a clue as to why this was the response?

I talked to a few friends who are landlords and they confirmed my feelings about

the response.

There were actually 2 reasons.

1. Anyone who would ask about mold in an apartment before even seeing it are

probably going to be problem tenants to be avoided.

2. If a rental property owner or manager has a mold test done, Ohio as in many

states requires that you must disclose the results of the mold test(s) to any

potential buyers of the property. If it was positive which all mold test are to

some extent, it can cost the seller 10% to 30% of the sale price.

Lead paint is very similar for disclosure rules even though if you are over 35

years old you grew up with it. Lead paint was on all your toys, baby crib,

walls, etc. If lead paint has been found in a house or unit and you have

remediated the lead, you must disclose it to every future tenant or buyer that

lead was there at one time - even though it has been removed. It is very

expensive to remove the lead including lost rent during the remediation process

and that is a cost that is NEVER recovered in a sale or rental. It doesn't

improve the value so therefore there is no increase in price to pay you back for

the expense. Just like mold - no increased value so you can't increase the

price at the time of sale.

Now I know that many tenants think that what they pay in rent goes directly into

the pockets of the greedy landlord as profit. In almost all cases that is simply

not true. Most rental properties have a mortgage, liability insurance, property

taxes, maintenance and repairs cost which are taking a bigger and bigger chunk

of the rent every time the President gives away another billion dollars.

In today's real estate market some landlords are lucky to have a positive cash

flow on their rental property. Further, because of the number of under employed

lawyers and the large number of people who are just looking for an opportunity

to sue anyone who appears to have more money than they do, having an

un-mortgaged rental property is asking for a law suit.

So why are mold free living spaces so hard to find? Because the government is

here to help you. They regulate - which isn't always a bad thing. There are

bad landlords who admittedly would NOT do anything to fix a mold or lead problem

and would allow tenants to get sick and continue to collect rent and maybe evict

them when they are sick and can't pay. But the " regulations " go too far. You

cannot mold remediate your own house. Even after taking classes on how to

remediate correctly. You have to pay someone else. These professional

mediators charge $10,000, $20,000 to even $50,000 to remediate a house.

Unaffordable by the most homeowner. Unaffordable by the most landlord. The

regulations by the government go too far.

So getting rid of the mold first BEFORE testing makes a lot of sense to me. If

it works (the mold is gone) then I don't have to tell anybody there was mold.

Because I officially don't know if there was mold, my tenant feels better, or if

it's my house, I feel better. Isn't that the point? Get well without drugs,

low cost and stop seeing doctors who GUESS at what the cause is, prescribe drugs

that have side effects and don't stop the cause or symptoms?