Kitchen Mold

Jan'2006: I've found signs of mold/mildew coming out from behind a DotCom Kitchen cabinet mounted flush against the wall. FlickR:KitchenMoldDetail.

Two most likely sources:

• the dishwasher is just to the other side of the cabinet. Early on, the housing was damaged and some water leaked out. The whole unit was replaced. You'd think that when the contractor put in the new unit things were dried out enough, but of course if there was already moisture collected back behind the cabinet that wouldn't have been taken care of.

• there's a soffit running just in front of that cabinet, where there's a hidden tunnel holding the exhaust vent from the clothes dryer which is on the other side of the kitchen. Right at the edge of the cabinet that vent house makes a 90-deg turn, so maybe there's some leakage of warm air, or maybe warm air flowing through that section has some weird effect? But you'd think that would be more of an issue with cold tubing causing condensation, etc.

After my history of frustration with contractors, I'm not looking forward to having someone come and pretend they know what they're doing. Ugh, a Reputation Management problem.

Phillip Fry acts like an expert. But I'm wary about paying for a whole library of EBook-s about mold.

• and JimHobuss slags Fry for selling a Siamons Mold Control product which doesn't work (or at least its makers didn't prove its effectiveness to the EPA).

  • and Fry also runs a Certified Mold Inspector program that Hobuss also slags! (That page lists a number of certification programs; Hobuss likes a couple of them, and slags the rest.)

    • here's another article that slags that certification.

• Hobuss has a quiz to give inspectors/contractors.

This page says that only Stachybotrys Chartarum is nasty enough to potentially cause health problems. And that an amateur can't distinguish it from other black mold.

Cleaning materials:

• Phillip Fry says that Chlorine Bleach isn't sufficient, and sells a home recipe

• This page recommends Hydrogen Peroxide for getting rid of mold, but that page's focus seems a bit on "health-friendly" methods, which often sacrifices effectiveness.

• the EPA's guide just recommends detergents, and says that bleach is usually overkill

• but other pages just suggest common household detergents, so maybe it's not that big an issue (in terms of getting rid of what you can get to).

I guess I'll print this EPA guide (and this one) to molds...

• the latter focuses on (a) wet-vac a wet area; (b) clean (water/detergent); (c) dry; (d) HEPA-vacuum to suck up any dry/dead spores

What will probably have to get done:

• remove cabinet from wall

• detach and pull out dishwasher

• establish source of mold: how? who will really know?

• eliminate source of mold, if not already gone

• clean everything, dry everything, vacuum everything

• put things back

Who could do it:

• building staff? unlikely

• someone recommended by building staff? a bit dubious

• original DotCom Kitchen contractor? maybe

• someone recommended online

• someone found [through](http://www.servicemagic.com/servlet/Redirect Servlet?m=yahooiyphs&D=CATEGORY&catOID=-10371&entry_point_id=138) Service Magic

• ?

Or is it really lint from a Clothes Dryer Vent issue?

Outcome: we decided it probably wasn't mold, and did nothing.

Mar'2007 - it seems worse, want greater certainty.

Ordered testing kit from Ims Laboratory. Had also seen this page agreeing that tape-test is better than swab.

Apr1: got test sample kit earlier this week. Just took sample and 2 fresh photos (FlickR:KitchenMoldDetail). Mailing out.

Apr10: got results

• have Cladosporium, which is "generally regarded to be allergenic". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladosporium |wp

• do not have Stachybotrys

  • were other 3 toxigenic molds not tested for? Yes, they just don't bother mentioning the others if they're negative

• remediation document from NYC.

  • is it worth doing much without first eliminating the cause? What is the cause? The Dish Washer? The Laundry Machine? (DotCom Kitchen)

    • I suppose if I remove the mounted cabinet next to where we found the mold (the Dish Washer is right next to the cabinet), then the pattern back there might give the answer (if mostly/only high, then it's the Laundry Machine - dryer venting through the soffit) (it seems mostly high beside the cabinet, but since hot air rises, it's hard to be sure that's a fair measure).

Apr18

• NYC has no list of qualified inspectors/contractors

• Home Owners Insurance apparently won't cover mold, unless it was caused by a covered event, like a window blowing out.

  • person at insurance broker noted familiarity with vendors like Paul Davis Restoration and Crystal Renovation.

Apr23

• emailed the family allergist to try and get some real medical context

• the supplier of the mold test pointed me at inspector-directory at NAMP https://www.moldpro.org/directory/display/index.html?state=NY

  • didn't find anyone near me

  • the closest person they did list has CIE, CMI, CMR, CMA certs, but those are all slagged in the site linked way above.

• found this list and found a couple folks with CIAQM certs, and called one.

May-August

• inspector came, took samples, sent to lab

  • confirmed Cladosporium

  • believes area of mold is pretty limited to that 1 cabinet

  • recommended a few remediation contractors

• had contractor come do cleanup

  • had to handle back of cabinet, plus entire corner ceiling area (inside drop-ceiling)

• want to switch to ventless Miele Laundry Machine-s but they're 2" taller than current units, so need to change cabinet above the units

• considering possibility of putting exhaust fan into space above kitchen window now used to vent the soffitt. Because concerned about heat exhaust from dryer