More Serious Than You Think: The Financial Effects of Mold Exposure in Your Home
Buying a home is a significant expense and a personal investment. It is sometimes considered the last great investment of a lifetime. Perhaps not a significant financial investment, but a personal investment for oneself and a family to care for. The average price of a new home in the United States, including accompanying land ownership purchasing rights, is about $400,000. The effects of things like mold exposure can be dangerous for your health – but also costly.
The Financial Effects of Mold Exposure
Most homeowners, like myself, understand that when you buy a home, you are a making a 15-year to 30-year commitment to pay a monthly mortgage. The average cost of a monthly mortgage payment is about $1,200 a month. However, when you take in the cost of utility payments, insurance, food, homeowner association fees, taxes, and repairs, that cost can rise to about $2,400 or more.
Homeowner repair bills will always be a recurring expense. Something always breaks down, needs to be replaced, or needs to be repaired when you own a home. Additionally, as the homeowner, you are 100% responsible for paying all such expenses. One important responsibility of home ownership is regularly inspecting your home for recognizable initial problems before they become financially and physically unmanageable.
One problem that can virtually destroy a home if left unrecognized, or recognized too late, is pervasive mold contamination. Mold can cause you incalculable repair and or replacement expenses. Or, cause you to totally write off your home as a loss.
House Mold Contamination
Mold contamination of a home’s interior and foundational structure is a serious problem that can hit any homeowner. Also known as mildew, mold can grow and thrive in dark, damp, humid, and oxygen-starved areas of a home. Mold can also grow in dry environments with poor ventilation. Like attics, basements, garages, closets, and crawl spaces. Mold is a living organism that grows and reproduces via spores. Once spores become airborne and grow, they can spread throughout the structure of a house.
Mold contamination can break down a home’s structure in the same manner that mold breaks down and rots fruit. In their beginning stages of growth, mold is imperceptible to the human eye. It can resemble greenish, greyish, or black colored staining on wood, drywall, or carpeting. It can then reproduce out of control and weaken a home’s structure. Or, necessitate costly replacement and renovation work.
There are over 200 different kinds of mold. Some kinds of mold are actually classified as toxins, like black mold. Black mold isn’t technically poisonous but is capable of releasing toxins that can cause allergic, irritation, and breathing risks. Most kinds of molds can cause eye irritation, wheezing, and possibly asthma.
How Do You Recognize Mold In Your Home?
Unless you a trained mold removal or remediation technician, you can’t know for sure. You can hire a mold removal expert to remove visible traces of mold. However, removing visible traces of mold may not solve the problem. Especially if mold spores have spread or infiltrated the structure or walls. Mold remediation involves an expert inspecting your home, looking for mold infiltration, its sources, and analyzing how pervasive the damage may be.
Schedule a Remediation Inspection if You Spot Mold
Mold can be like an iceberg. What you see may be the start of something bigger. So, if you think you may have a problem, you should call for a remediation inspection before planning any removal. It can cost you a few hundred or thousands of dollars. If you spot mold in your home, get it checked out as soon as possible. Otherwise, you could be facing expensive replacement, removal, and clean up costs. Or, the total loss of your home.
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Allen Francis was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years with no money, no financial literacy, and no responsibility when he had money. To him, the phrase “personal finance,” contains the power that anyone has to grow their own wealth. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including focusing on your needs instead of your wants, asking for help when you need it, saving and investing in your own small business.