5 Things Every Employee Should Know About MOLD
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1. Mold spores are everywhere, unless you are in a clean room assembling microchips, you are breathing mold spores of one type or another and likely hundreds of different types as you read this, so are your residents, no matter how clean they keep their units.
2. Mold is a living breathing, eating, drinking, and reproducing organism. All it needs is a solid surface to land and stabilize, food source (loves organic and wood products, IE paper, think sheet rock), and water. Once these condition make themselves available the spores in the air will land, feed, and begin colonizing.
3. Mold growth is the symptom of a larger problem. It doesn’t do any good to simply come in and clean the visible mold. It is being caused by multiple conditions. The two most common are high RH (the amount of moisture in the air) and water leaks.
4. Air flow is critical to inhibiting mold growth. If the airflow is continuous it is harder for mold spores to land and grow since they are constantly in movement. Therefore having properly working exhaust fans, and ensuring that they are positively connected to the exterior is critical.
5. A well-defined moisture & mold response protocol is a life saver. It should clearly define the different levels of mold events (typically 1-3) and identify who is responsible for managing them (site – professional) and what the approach will be as to how those events will be handled (cleaning, remediation, containment, relocation, documentation, etc). That way when an event occurs you have a ready response not only keeping fair housing compliance, but a standardized documentation trail as well.
