re: Slab leak in condo and a couple of questions

[Guest guest]

Hi, Folks, I haven't posted for a long time. We had a slab leak in our condo

last Sunday. Half the carpet in the living room was wet and needs replacing.

There was mold under the padding.

It's day 8 now. This is how things have proceeded:

The remediation company that the landlady hired wasn't really that great, by

CA standards. They methods weren't that great. (They were better than the

company that did my mom's house in AR a few years ago.) They put a plastic

containment area and ran a hose out the patio glass door to run the air

scrubber. They did use a dehumidifier and ran the drain hose into my kitchen

sink drain.

Anyway, it's an area 12' X 14'. Parts of the walls are open where they cleaned

the slab under the stairway. They put sealant on the exposed wood without

preping it first. They did wire brush the concrete to get the black-looking mold

up that was under the carpet padding.

Don't think they have wiped down the walls. I'll have to clean out my tiled

entry way since that's where the guys came in and out of the containment area.

No white suits of course. Glad to see that they did wear respirators. They put

down water-resistant paint on the concrete on day 3. Day 5 they took down the

plastic containment area.

This is day 8 and I'm waiting for the dry wall guy to replace the cut out areas

of drywall.

The ruined carpet is still in the living room. They removed the moldy

padding.

I'm feeling itchy and my lungs hurt just to be downstairs. My mother lives with

me too. Of course, I'm concerned for our health.

I priced replacement carpet today. If the landlord doesn't replace, then, I

guess we'll have to do that myself or move to another residence.

The lower kitchen cabinets and the drawers still smell musty when I open them.

We have tile in the kitchen and the water did not surface there.

They guy they hired is charming, but not so effective in his efforts. He was

trying to vacuum the dried out carpet using a shop vac with no attachment head.

Pretty ridiculous effort.

He put it back down on the remediated concrete with no padding for right now.

The dumb plan is for the damaged carpet to just be steam cleaned and call it

quits on the job.

Landlord made a point of getting the HOA to do the remediation work so she

wouldn't have to use her Travellers Insurance.

Of course, no measurements were taken before or after the work. Minimal

pictures taken.

I've been through this before with my mom's house, but that doesn't make it any

easier.

Do they need to drill holes in the kick plates so the slab under the kitchen

cabinets can dry out? It's so musty in the cabinets!!

Can you think of any steps I might have missed that are important in this

situation?

Thanks for your imput,

Jocelyn in CA