For five years, Carla successfully homeschooled her son. Over time, however, her bright and happy eleven year-old gradually developed health problems and his learning ability became impaired. Carla took her son to several doctors; his symptoms were treated but nothing seemed to help. Finally a doctor recommended she have her home's air quality checked and inspected for mold...

Judy Harrison's story is one of physical, emotional, and financial tragedy. What began as a sound investment, soon turned into a nightmare as Judy and her family began to suffer from the consequences of poor building practices...

I will never forget the look on the face of a young mother I met one bright September morning in September 2003. Her two story brick home appeared to be solidly built and was situated at the end of a narrow, winding street facing a golf course. The terrain appeared to slope away from the house – a good indication that the drainage was working properly. She had done her homework, too, and had spent many hours researching the web looking for a solution to her problem. The only problem was…she didn’t really know what was wrong. And that confusion, frustration, and helplessness was written all over her face...

Earlier this year, I received a call from a homeowner in Buckhead - an affluent area of Atlanta, Georgia. She asked me if I could come out and perform an initial mold assessment - the second round of mold testing on the $1.7 million home she and her husband had recently purchased...

I was called out to test for mold in a detached one story single family dwelling. The owner was a brilliant engineer specializing in coal burning power plants. During his career he had consulted on projects in seven different countries. He and his wife had recently retired in Marietta Georgia. They had chosen a retirement community designed for and restricted sales to people fifty-five and older...

Some people seem to have an uncanny since of smell for mold spores. After receiving a call from one such customer, I was asked to perform a thorough mold investigation, utilizing all the resources at my disposal. Upon arrival, I prepared for my inspection of the eight thousand square-foot, two-story house, wondering how I would ever locate the needle in this particular haystack...

As a professional certified mold remediator, I have been remediating buildings and performing mold inspections for seven years. I live in a neighborhood about eight years old. One Saturday, a neighbor was out walking her dog while I was working in the yard and stopped to chit chat a few minutes. She was familiar with the work I do and began to tell me she believed her home was making her sick – something I often hear in my line of work. She spoke of chronic fatigue, chronic sinus infections, headaches and that she no longer had the energy for her daily jogs around the neighborhood. She also claimed she felt much better while away from home on a recent vacation in Florida. I offered to do a mold inspection to see if I could find any problems that might be causing her illness...

A few months after I began inspecting buildings for mold I was ask by a real estate agent representing a potential buyer to test for mold in a four year old home. The home was bricked on all sides. On two sides of the home the finished basement was completely below grade with a third side about fifty per cent below grade. The basement on the back side of the home opened out onto a brick patio. Although the patio was about the same elevation as the concrete slab in the basement, the patio sloped away from the house at about one-quarter inch per foot. This should have been sufficient to provide adequate drainage away for the home. But because to ground was almost level with the concrete slab on the backside of the home, other problems were being created...