What do I need to know before hiring a mold-cleaning contractor?
Mold clean-up contractors aren't certified by anyone. So anyone can say they are a mold clean-up contractor. You want to ask them how much experience they've had in cleaning up mold, what kinds of scenarios, whether its industrial or homeowner, how they're going to protect their own workers, how they're going to protect you from the spread of mold spores. Because as soon as you disrupt mold from the wall, you may be releasing the spores through the rest of the house. So what steps are they going to take to make sure that you're safeguarded? If you're doing the mold clean-up yourself or you're having a contractor do it, they want to wet the surface first. They might want to use a weak bleach solution or disinfectant to kill the mold. Let that work for a couple hours. And then with proper ventilation, pulling the air out of the room, so that if they are disrupting any mold spores, to have that air flow away from the rest of the house, pulling the air out the window. And then to carefully bag the mold, scrape it off the wall, either with a sponge if it's loose or with a gentle scraping if it's not loose. And then get that into a bag, seal it up, and get it out of the house. If it's a small area, say, this big, you could probably do it yourself. If it becomes much bigger in area and it's a heavily infested area, you probably need a professional.
