Mold and mildew can certainly be removed from the wood features in a home just as long as the mold and mildew have not infiltrated the wood itself. Surface mold can easily be cleaned by any homeowner willing to put in the effort to do it, explains Strong Home LLC owner Aniello Napolitano; however, deeper mold must be removed by a specialist or an expert.
As the owner of a home inspection company in Westchester, NY, Napolitano frequently works with homeowners suffering from mold growth in their homes. The presence of mold can actually make it nearly impossible to sell a home once it has been put on the market. However, if the mold and mildew have yet to infiltrate the wood in a home—and they are simply on the surface of the wood, instead of deep inside—then a homeowner should be able to clean the mold and mildew away with a simple solution of soap and water.
After the homeowner has thoroughly scrubbed the affected area, it is important to give the wood adequate time to dry before allowing any moisture back into the room. “The most important thing is that it is dried properly, or the mold will come back,” Napolitano says. Allowing the wood to dry could be as simple as opening a window; or, a person can rent a dehumidifier to help with the process.
Once a homeowner has tried to get rid of the mold, an inspection team in Westchester can come back in and test it to make sure that all traces of the mold, mildew, and accompanying spores have been removed completely. Although being able to do this is a great benefit to homeowners, Napolitano says it is not always necessary. That is because whether or not the mold inside a house is a problem depends on the sensitivity of the people living inside. “Everybody is different, and certain people are allergic to certain molds and some people aren’t,” he says. Therefore, unless the homeowner is selling the house, he might be perfectly fine living with some types of molds if they do not impact his health, according to Napolitano. “So it is really an individual thing,” he says.
Although basements are the most common area for mold to accrue in a home, Napolitano also checks for mold and mildew growth underneath kitchen and bathroom sinks when he handles full home inspection jobs. In Westchester, mold is a serious problem for many homeowners. It can be even more serious for a homeowner hoping to sell his property soon.
Nonetheless, Napolitano says that he would not necessarily consider mold to be a huge problem if he were buying a home. As long as the area of the water intrusion was caught—meaning, as long as a home inspector was able to determine what caused the mold to begin with—and the mold was removed, then the new home buyer would not necessarily have to worry about it coming back in the future. Therefore, Napolitano does not think it would be worth turning down a great home just because of a mold problem. It is important, however, that new home buyers make sure to have the current owner repair the mold problem and get rid of it before closing on the purchase, because otherwise that mold could just continue to grow.
Even if an inspector only finds a tiny amount of mold in a home’s basement, that mold will continue to increase and spread until it is cleaned up and stopped completely. “And that is basically what our job is,” Napolitano says.
