Mold Testing after rain

Specific Inspection Topics Ancillary Inspection Services
21

Mr. Connell

Not only do you not approve of Home Inspectors but IMO you are a “rogue” Industrial Hygienist (based on your views)!!:roll: Stop making this sampling process something it isn’t!!

Mr Connell states:

(Certified mould inspectors are not actually certified in anything, and usually have virtually no legitimate training or knowledge in mycology, aerobiology or microbiology. The “certification” process is not recognized, and certificates are frequently nothing more than what the inspector has printed off their own computer. As a general rule, “certified mold inspectors” represent the lowest quality inspection and assessment services, and usually lack scientific foundation, in favor of the more lucrative “toxic” mould agenda.)
For a discussion of mould and its occurrence in properties complete with many photographs, visit our“Habits” page.](http://forensic-applications.com/moulds/habits.html)

Wrap-up
Sampling, analysis and interpretation of aerobiology requires considerable knowledge in microbiology, sampling theory and statistical applications; it is not cook-book, black-box stuff and should not be performed by home inspectors (or industrial hygienists) who lack the necessary knowledge to understand the limitations.

</IMG>

22

Mario,

I went on your website. All I see is that you are IAC2 certified. That does not amount to very much.

23

Will

And your point is?

I’m assuming that you are an intelligent man,on my website under qualifications I mention ALL the courses I did.

Allow me to save you the trouble;

Certified from; Micro http://www.findamoldexpert.com/index.php?State=ON

Pro-Lab Both Introduction and Advanced certifications

ESA http://www.esaassociation.com/States/canada.asp

and a very advanced course with IAQ Resources Canada
http://www.iaqresourcescanada.com/

IMO I did four courses too many! It does not take an Industrial Hygienist to take samples or converse intelligently about Mold. And for you to say that IAC2 does not amount to much is ludicrous. You have no idea what you are talking about.

1 Like
24

Don’t mess with IAC2 Mario!!!http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cus/e_1_51.gif

25

He is always talking court, court. He would love it if the home inspector was out of it so he could charge someone $3000.00 for testing

1 Like
26

Hello Mr. Porter:

If you have been paying attention, you would realize that I make a habit of telling folks that testing is NOT necessary, and IS useless, and they are wasting their money when they hire (usually untrained “certified mould inspectors”) to do the work. So to argue the point you make both irresponsible and fabricated. I wonder if you make a habit of fabricating information.

For clarification, Mr. Gromiko, is the one who has been telling folks that they should spend lots of money on (useless) tests and samples, and send those (useless) samples to less than reputable laboratories.

Mr. Gromiko’s last post with his fabricated statistic is an about-face for him. I suppose that maybe he has been reading my information and is now realizing that I am correct.

I’m sorry that you have such a poor grasp of my positions. Perhaps it would be wiser to understand my positions on the issue before you criticize them – It may be less embarressing for you.

As far as going to court, hardly my choice, Mr. Porter. For example, today my subpoena was to provide testimony on a criminal prosecution as a law enforcement officer. Perhaps in addition to allowing sloppy HIs take people’s money for useless “mould tests” you also feel that criminals should not face prosecution?

In any event, perhaps you don’t know what the term “forensic” implies, so your criticisim is rather like complaining that a Judge seems to spend too much time in court; where else would you expect to find a judge?

Cheers,
Caoimhín P. Connell
Forensic Industrial Hygienist
Forensic Applications, Inc.
www.forensic-applications.com

The opinions expressed here are exclusively my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect my professional opinion, opinion of my employer, agency, peers, or professional affiliates. The above post is for information only and does not reflect professional advice and is not intended to supercede the professional advice of others.

AMDG

27

Gary
Aren’t you a lawman???

28

This clown ain’t even IAC2 or ESA certified. Go Figure!!:mrgreen: :mrgreen:

1 Like
29

Exactly Gary!!

30

Funny Linas!

31

So now you are attacking Pro-Lab and Dr. John Shane?:roll:

1 Like
32

He is the only one who is right. Read his posts.

You must be superman with x-ray vision if testing is not needed.

33

Connell you are the best. I put you up there with . Will I won’t say

34

One of the best things that happened for me in my life was the internet. Prior to that, as a NY ad agency owner, there was no way to tell if an ad was actually working or not. I often felt bad that I had to write ads that sold the client on my agency (ads that were clever, sexy, funny) but that (IMHO) wouldn’t sell much of my client’s product or service. My friends would often see one of my ads and tell me how great it was. When I’d ask if they remembered what product or service it was promoting, most didn’t remember. The ads were great, but they didn’t sell for the client and no one knew it, not even the client, because there was no way of knowing. So I quit the business.

The internet changed all that. It made the effect of advertising quantifiable, right down to being able to count click-thrus. I no longer view advertising as a creative art… it is a science.

I use this science to find out things no one knows. For instance, I know that when a consumer hires an inspector to do a mold inspection… the consumer is not at all interested in the results of the mold test.

It is absolutely amazing what I can find out with my new science and a pile of data. Imagine a world where no one knows the phone book is in alphabetical order and one day you figure out that it is… and you are the only person who knows. It is so very exciting.

But back to mold. My research (market research) shows that nearly all consumers who hire an inspector to do a mold inspection… already know they have a problem. Wow! Like I said, it is exciting. The most striking example of this is the leads we get from the back of PRO-LAB mold test kits. The back of the test kits (millions of them) http://www.nachi.org/50000retailoutlets.htm recommend that the consumer hire an InterNACHI member to do a full mold inspection. Recently these kits have been changed to recommend an IAC2 http://www.iac2.org member. Now why would a consumer who has a mold test kit in his/her hand hire an inspector if what they want is a mold test??? For goodness sakes… they’re holding a mold test kit in their hand! This is very weird.

Well, it is only weird if you think that someone who buys a mold test kit wants the results, or if you think that someone who hires an inspector to do a mold test wants the results of that mold test. My marketing research shows that consumers who seek mold tests don’t want them. Nearly all consumers who want a mold test done, already know they have a mold problem. Most of the rest at least suspect they have a mold problem. Like I explained… it’s like being the only person in the world who has discovered that the phone book is in alphabetical order.

So what do consumers want? They want what they actually need (that isn’t the case often, but it is with mold). They want someone who can do a reasonably accurate test for mold, someone with some ability to talk about the subject articulately, to come to their home, confirm that they have mold (remember, we learned earlier that nearly all these consumers already know or suspect they have a mold problem), investigate the problem with some knowledge of an entire home (not just spore count). The consumer doesn’t want a mere lab report, they want a mold inspection. They want someone who can look at the home wholistically, someone who understands how to find the source of the problem, someone who can find a plumbing leak, a roof leak, someone who understands ventillation or lack of it, someone who can go into the crawl space, someone who understands how a basement is remodeled, someone who knows a sump pump when he sees one, someone who knows what a drip edge is and what exterior finish moisture problems are, someone who can get up into the attic, someone who understands what a gutter is, what a downspout is, someone who can look at the landscaping and the drainage, and someone with communication skills. Wow… who in the hell is qualified to do all that???

Answer: IAC2 members: www.IAC2.org. IAC2 members have to be members of InterNACHI which means they already know how to inspect an entire home, top to bottom. It’s what they do (it’s their day job).

Oh, and by the way… they can also do the mold test too.

It is unconscionable for a non-home inspector to do a mold inspection. A non-home inspector is simply unqualified.

The ultimate mold inspector is a cross between an InterNACHI member and someone who has taken a 1 or 2 day course in mold sampling using a laboratory. Oh… BTW… that happens to be exactly what members of www.IAC2.org are.

Anyone else is just a fella with a gold-plated tire gauge bragging that he can more accurately tell you the air pressure in your flat tire.

4 Likes
35

Something like engineers claiming they should be doing home inspections???

1 Like
36

My thoughts exactly

1 Like
37

An engineer doing a home inspection is fine as long as he is a home inspector. The engineering degree won’t help him much other than maybe to calculate whether a beam can carry a live load (something we don’t do anyway, and he probably won’t either… he’ll just look it up on a chart) but the degree doesn’t hurt him.

However, an industrial hygienist doing a mold inspection without being a qualified home inspector first, is criminal. He/she should be hung.

1 Like
38

I’m with Nick on this as well. When my clients call me about a suspected mold problem it is the rare (and I mean very rare) circumstance that their own description doesn’t give away at least part of the problem. Like this real question I received today. (We have this stream in the basement most of the time do you think that could make things wet). But when I inspect I will inspect the entire house as there’s frequently more to the story.

As I have already answered for them on the phone we know they have mold. The question is why is it bad enough to cause a problem inside. Which is a question of inspecting and finding causes and solutions as opposed to testing to confirm what is already known. (I’d stop testing in most cases but the insurance companies are hooked on the pretty graphs even if they can’t inderstand what they mean)

1 Like
39

with me they either see it or they smell it.

40

Hello Mr. Dapkus -

I think I can safely speculate that Mr. Porter is not a lawman. Law enforcement requires a commitment to ethics, truth and professionalism, and it is clear from Mr. Porter’s posts that he not quite up to the standard.

I noticed on another post today that Mr. Porter promoted sampling for moulds for no apparent reason, and sampling in the absence of knowledge of the drawbacks. So, it seems that in fact, Mr. Porter was projecting in his post in this thread that he would like to see industrial hygienists out of the way (and the EPA and the CDC and the ACGIH and the AIHA, etc), so that he can get on with taking money from good honest home buyers by performing useless mould testing, and producing results he can’t interpret.

Linus, we have seen your prowess and technical expertise in previous posts, and I think they speak for themselves. But regarding you recommendations of using pro-labs – again, you are wide of the mark. I have rebutted several of the reports from pro-labs who make a habit of interpreting samples from properties they have never seen. In most cases, the pro-labs reports have explicitly stated that the property has a mould problem when in fact the property has not had any kind of problem at all. The foolish “mould inspectors” who relied on the pro-labs reports were similarly and subsequently discredited along with the reports; actually precisely because they did rely on the pro-labs reports. Pro-labs, like “certified mould inspectors” made my life easier in that they are the easiest to defeat as technically incompetent.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have been informed by the AIHA that they have received numerous complaints from legitimate scientists about pro-labs. I was told that the AIHA would review the pro-labs AIHA accreditation in light of those complaints upon renewal of the accreditation.

In essence, Pro-labs interprets sample results, and generally, based on my experience, provides erroneous interpretations (for the benefit of Linus, “erroneous” is just a big complicated word for “wrong.” ) I have seen several Pro-labs reports claiming that a property has a mould problem, when in fact the property has had absolutely no problem whatever. Now although Messrs. Porter, Grominko, Kyriacou and Dapkus certainly don’t have much interest in facts, (as those undoubtedly just get in the way of making money), nevertheless, many casual readers who are not home inspectors also read this forum and for their edification according to the US Centers for Disease Control: (1)

The results of samples taken in your unique situation cannot be interpreted without physical inspectionof the contaminated area or without considering the building’s characteristics and the factors that led to the present condition.

That is Pro-labs cannot, cannot, cannot possibly interpret the swab samples and air samples being sent in to them by poorly trained (or indeed mis-trained) inspectors such as Messrs. Porter, Grominko, Kyriacou and Dapkus.

Don’t get me wrong Gents. I’m not suggesting that you stop what you are doing. You are the primary source of my mould inspection paycheck. The longer you run around taking useless samples, and providing erroneous data and nonsensical “results” interpreted by laboratories who have never even seen the property, the more people end up hiring me after they find out they have been duped by “ESA Certified” or “iac2 certified” (whatever that is) inspectors.

I find Mr. Gromiko’s comment “However, an industrial hygienist doing a mold inspection without being a qualified home inspector first, is criminal. He/she should be hung.” particularly interesting since to this day, without exception, I have never yet seen a mould inspection performed by an home inspector that was valid, or accurate or provided the prospective buyer with actual technically competent information. Instead, I have only seen useless sampling, hyperbole, and myths such as indoor/outdoor comparisons, that have mislead the client. That is in fact, why I get called in; to correct the work of these unscrupulous home inspectors who think they know something about mould.

Gents – I wonder if you realize that this forum is not insular – it is searchable, and viewable by anyone and that my detractors on this forum are some of my best advertisement, and their posts could become the rope by which you hang yourselves in the event of litigation?

Please don’t stop. You are the kind of “inspectors” that prove my point. Because the general public reads these pages and see you for who you are. It’s ironic that you are actually my best advertising. Prospective clients read these exchanges, make their own conclusions, then hire me.

Cheers, Gents – and thanks for all the work.

Caoimhín P. Connell
Forensic Industrial Hygienist
Forensic Applications, Inc.
www.forensic-applications.com

  1. US Centers for Disease Control, Mold: General Information: Basic Facts | CDC APRHB, 2007

The opinions expressed here are exclusively my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect my professional opinion, opinion of my employer, agency, peers, or professional affiliates. The above post is for information only and does not reflect professional advice and is not intended to supercede the professional advice of others.

AMDG