Buying A Home? Don't Panic! with John Laforme

GOT MOLD? DON'T PANIC! Just Put Some Bleach On It! LOL. Mold Inspector Bret Pfeifer Explains The MOLD Process.

March 15, 2022 John Laforme/Bret Pfeifer Episode 19
Buying A Home? Don't Panic! with John Laforme
GOT MOLD? DON'T PANIC! Just Put Some Bleach On It! LOL. Mold Inspector Bret Pfeifer Explains The MOLD Process.
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Show Notes Transcript

The scariest word in real estate is M-O-L-D aka the deal killer! Everyone panics when this is found on the property which is typically unnecessary. Mold can be removed however it can be an expensive and inconvenient process. 

Bret Pfeifer of Golden State Mold Inspections joins John Laforme to explain the process when dealing with mold during a real estate transaction to help remove the buyers and realtors panic level when they find out there may be a mold problem.

Mold remediation (the removal of MOLD affected building materials) is a process that Must be performed by qualified professionals (Not Uncle Bob). In most cases the person paying for the mold remediation chooses the cheapest person for the job and when this happens the remediation is incomplete and typically will fail a final clearance test. When a clearance test fails the remediation process needs to be performed again.

This podcast will help you better understand the process when dealing with a possible mold problem. So follow the steps for proper removal of MOLD affected materials and have a safe and healthy home..


John Laforme
Home Inspection Authority
https://www.homeinspectionauthority.com/

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for video versions of the podcasts
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Bret Pfeifer
Golden State Mold Inspections
310-525-0619
https://goldenstatemoldinspections.com/

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John Laforme:

Buying a home. Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of home inspection of Straight Talk podcast with me, John laforme. I'm a CREIA certified home inspector from Los Angeles, California. And the topics we discuss on this podcast are about buying homes selling homes, inspecting homes. So if you're a home inspector, home buyer, real estate professional, this podcast is definitely for you. Okay, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. John here from home inspection authority. And I got to give a warning. A major warning here. This is a listener and Viewer discretion advised. This episode is not intended for the weak or squeamish. So if you are a weak or squeamish, we're done. Alright, so that was my little, you know. Dramatic build up for the four letter word, mold. We're going to talk about mold today. And my guest today is Brett Pfeiffer of Golden State mold inspections. What's up, Brett? I dude. I'm doing good. Good. I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. No problem. I ran into a few times recently. Yeah. And you work with some of the what I consider the higher end Realtors like I do. Yeah. So that tells me something about you. Right off the bat. Because those guys are very fussy. Yes. And they're picky with what inspectors they use. So yeah, you Yeah, I noticed you were kind of quiet at first when I first met you, but I started talking to you started loosening up a little bit like okay, this guy's alright. Yeah, he talks. It takes me a little bit of time to get to get talking. Yeah, yeah. So I have been just always entertained by my customers, when I have to tell them this, you know, water stains or moisture stains. You can call them whatever you want. That just stains. Right? You know, because a lot of a lot of the homebuyers that I deal with are just scared easily. Yeah. You know, they're there. They panic. And I am not an alarmist type inspector, right. I explained stuff. But this tone of voice right here. Well, ma'am, you know, you don't have any rain gutters on the house. And then oh, by the way, you have foundation cracks, right? I don't go Oh, my God, you have foundation houses gonna fall down? Oh, you know, it's like, I don't do that. So I know. It's not me, right. But honestly, I think people watch too much HDTV. They do and they just hear stories that are cousin had some issue and it costs 1000s of dollars, the daughter got sick, you know, so just gets that that's the situation with every everything when it comes down to water or mold. Right, right. Until it happens, you know, in the psyche. So before we really get into some serious straight talk about this mold, I want you to give me your you got a cool little backstory give you a little backstory you have Alright, so how I got it?

Bret Pfeifer:

Well, first, I guess I mentioned Bret Pfeiffer Golden State mold inspections? Yeah. So I started the company back in 2010. Prior to that, I was working in real estate, I've had a real estate license since like 2000, for 18 years or so. Oh, well. And after the, you know, the financial meltdown, I worked with an investment company, right? We were buying and selling properties, rehabbing them. And we went to a seminar and they're talking about mold inspections, and how they can be used to help negotiate price and how you know, and I just thought of it is, this is just another due diligence part that we can take when we're purchasing properties, right. So I got certified for mold inspections in order to help the our investment group out. And you know, nothing really came from it. Because at that point, we started fading out a little bit. But I knew a lot of real estate agents and through our little network, I got an email from one saying, Does anybody know anybody that can test for mold? And I said, Well, yeah, I can. I'm certified. Hey, guess how much one stop shop? Yeah. So after I did this forum, I thought, you know, I know so many, so many real estate agents. I could, I could help this out and make some side money on this. It's a no brainer. Yeah. And like I said, the investment side was kind of fading out at that point. We were buying less properties as Yeah, things started happening. So anyways, I just started Golden State mold inspections as a DBA got my contact database together and just started sending out little email blast letting people know that I do this and it's just started just like that. I do want to month, then that turned into two a month and then three a month. And then as it started just building and building, I got the experience I got, you know, the know how I started building more context. Yeah. And it just completely snowballed. And I'd say over the last six years or so, it became full time. That's that's what I do now. Sounds about right. Yeah. Sounds about right. 2015 was really busy. Mm hmm. I remember that year it just yeah, like a rocket. Yeah, it was crazy with so that goes for you know, look, it's doesn't matter if it's houses for sale or, or not for sale. It's still going to have mold problems. Right. Right. Actually, yeah, leaks equal mold. And that's just thought it's just that simple. Yeah. So is that was that your backstory yet? And that led you into doing now? Yeah. And that just came, you know, Golden State mold inspections, and, you know, been very, very fortunate to have the contacts that I've made. And you know, just the way it works, you do a good job for one agent, they tell their, their friends, and then they tell their friends and it just snowballs and you gain the knowledge and the expertise to really validate your, you know, professionalism. And yeah, so you're a one man operation, right? Yep. One man, that same here, man. And now I'm doing podcasts YouTube channel, as I'm a busy guy. Yeah, it's great. So it's good stuff. I love being self employed. How about you? It's great. It's great. Can't beat it. I love it. I advertise just enough where I stay busy enough. And I'd rather turn down work, turn down work, then that looked for work. Yeah, I mean, I work. I work every day. And I'll work as long as I'm getting calls. And you know, they're there. I try and get there. Same day or next day. But with that, I'll have you know, a day where there's nothing going on. So that's your vacation. That's my vacation day. And I'm able to set that aside and prepare for that to where I let my contacts know I be out of town for the next four days. If you need anything, you know, let me know cuz clearances. We'll get into that later. But yeah, there's some things that that have we are Yeah, and we already know that. You can work this schedule around it but sharing self employed tip. Exactly. So

John Laforme:

the word mold em, oh, as I think it's spelt M O LD Am I right? Yeah, that's about right. Okay. So this word the, the reactive mold panic initial reactions from customers. I really should start recording those. Yeah, before I started talking, because I could make one hell of a blooper reel. Yeah, it would be hysterical. So some of the questions I get are, and you can add to this, of course, for whether it's a client or a realtor. Oh, my God. Are you serious? Is that expensive? And what kind of mold is it? And last, but not least, can I put bleach on it? Right, right.

Bret Pfeifer:

Okay. So my response to that is, you can put bleach on anything you like, yeah. But it's not going to, it's not going to cure the problem you have, right? If you have a little bit of black mold around your caulking on your bathtub, because you're not cleaning it regularly enough. Mm hmm. And you just being dirty? Yeah. Well, then that's what you put bleach on, you probably you can probably scrape, get it off there with that. No, one's a good scrubbing. But that's not how you cure a mold. Right. So you got anything you want to add to that? Well, yeah, I mean, just to their initial reactions. Oh, my God. Are you serious? Well, we don't know yet. We have to get it checked out. Because just because there's water intrusion or water stain doesn't mean that there's mold, right. And just because there's mold doesn't mean that it's significant, and that it's going to cause a health problem, right, we have to find out what the extent of it is. And is it dangerous? And like you said, what kind of mold is it? We can't tell by looking at it. I get calls all the time. I have black mold in my bathroom. Oh, who tested that for you? Right? Because it was eye test? Yeah. You can't tell. Just by looking at it. You have to take a sample and more likely, there's gonna be several different types of mold there. So you have to test it to see what's going on. And then like you said, with putting bleach on it, yeah, you can put bleach on anything. But if you don't get to the root of the problem, or you're not going to solve it, and bleach is fine. It kills mold. The US EPA says 25% bleach to water is adequate enough to kill the mold, but you don't just spray it with bleach and call it a day. Right? Right. You got to properly clean it and there's a process sir. So yeah, I get the same same reactions and it is not just a yes or no. Right and here it is. Now we got to we got to look at it could be a problem. It could not be so what can you explain that process for what we just mentioned? Yeah, yeah. So a lot of my inspections do come from follow inspections from general inspections like yourself, I do do full moldings. inspections of entire home, but a lot of them are. My general inspector called out this area. So we need to have you come check, right? So let's just start with that. So my process is I'm going to assess the area. And my main tool is going to be the moisture meters, because mold is going to go grow because of two reasons. Excess moisture, and or poor ventilation. Moisture is the number one cause that's going to be the main reasons. So I want to see first off is this. Is this wet? Is this just a water stain that happened? Who knows how long ago and it's completely dry? Because one thing I tell clients all the time is that water stains happen. I'm gonna have a water stain in the future, you're gonna have a water stain a water leak in the future. They just, they just happen. Yeah, let me jump in real quick. Yeah. So what people mostly don't

John Laforme:

think of, I'm used to say I'll just say think of that they don't typically think of, well, the house I'm buying is 50 years old. So do you really think there was never going to be a leak there? And that only comes along with they're just there. Just because you can buy a home doesn't mean you understand the home, right? So like when my customers show up? I don't expect them to understand what I'm saying, right? If I was to expect my buyers to understand what I'm doing, I'm in the wrong business, right? Because it got it's not going to happen. Yeah, very few of my customers are savvy to what's going on. They understand the different team water supply pipe, train pipe. This comes up all the time, I'll be explaining a problem to realtors and the buyers and anyone else that's in front of me. And I'll be saying okay, so we get two types of pipes water supply, which is pressurized and drain, which is not. We have a leak at our drain pipe. Oh, is that coming from under the bathroom sink? Or is it part is a copper or galvanized and like that's not what I'm talking about? I just told you. It's the drain, not that and they and it's usually the realtors who are just in a panic now shit. Now they got to deal with this. Look, I get it. Your realtors are in a sales business, right? They don't want to hear bad news. And trust me realtors. I don't like given bad news. But it's part of the job. Yeah. So basically, most of the time when we talk about water stains and or visible water damage, because a lot of times it's just neglect. It's been leaking for months, and no one even bothered fixing it, which I'll show you pictures of something soon, a little later on in the podcast. So that's basically where everything starts to fall apart, right? They don't realize that an old house has had leaks, right, a new house is going to have leaks eventually. Because everything wears out over time, like a home between a good gauge for me, a home between 10 to 15 years old, is gonna start having issues with faucets, fixtures, toilets, and all that stuff. If that regulator wears out even faster, those things are gonna happen even faster, right? So that's where I find problems. And that's where you come in. Right? I just want to touch Yeah, so I'm going to be using moisture meters to see first off, is it wet? Right? Because if it's wet, I'm looking at an active water leak. And then whether it's wet or not, I'm going to be trying to determine how that stain or active moisture got there. Is it a supply line? Or is it a waistline, supply lines tend to be worse because like you said, that's a pressurized line, say like you know, think of your sink, you turn your faucet on, water comes out. That line is always pressurized. So whether that opening comes from you turning the faucet on, or you play a hole in it, water is going to be constantly coming out of pinhole leaks exactly where a drain line only gets a leak when it's being used, right as waters flowing through that. So I want to determine what their water source is. Because, you know, aside from the mold part of it, you have to stop that you have to stop the leak from coming before you can really address it seriously because you can clean them all that all you want. Like you said put bleach on it. But if that gets wet again, then it's going to have mold. You got to stop the bleeding you got to stop the bleeding. So I'm looking for the moisture to try and determine the source of the moisture then I'm looking for mold the extent of the mold. And of course I got to take a sample determine what type of mold it is. Because there's 1000s of different types of molds and handful that are potentially but of course you're an encyclopedia and you know all those things. How do you call it what would you call black mold statue buttress Have you bought yours? That's the only one I can remember. Yeah, that's important. And that's the one that everyone's like black. Yeah, yeah. Black Mo Yeah. There it is. Again, yeah. Board mold every time I'm gonna push that button every time we use the word mold now. So alright, so the talking about the reactions. You got you good on that? Yeah, like we covered that. So it's, it's the reactions that tend to send The conversation into a rabbit hole. Yeah. But you know, like, that just makes me sad. Yeah, because I'm just, I might have had a long week already. And my brain is drained from all the people I've dealt with already. And now I got this one yelling out this, this one's yelling out that and i got i Okay, now I got to be the referee, if everybody stopped, please stop your, your panic is not helping. I'm trying to explain this to you. But I can't do that if you're all interrupting each other and me. So let me get through this and explain it to you. It's a process. So I took the time to look up the definition of process. Process, a series of actions or steps, such as 1234 ABCD, to achieve a particular end. So when when a mold inspector gets involved, or if there's mold found, or if the stains found, and it needs further evaluation, which is my words to my customers, you need further evaluation before the end of your inspection contingency period. So then I'm saying you have a person, such as Brett come over, or somebody else, you know, I actually do mold inspections, too. Sometimes, if I have the time, I can take that extra step. And it's a different service I offer. If I have the time, I don't mind doing it. But that's step number one is to get the initial problem investigated, right, which inspected right, and after the inspection, while the inspectors gonna let you know, well, it's currently wet or it's not wet. There may be other factors going on inside the house that he thinks may be causing this, like no bathroom ventilation, no windows in the bathroom, tons of staining on the ceilings, it's probably a good cause of stuff that give you that nasty, wet dog smell, you know, that nasty mold smell. And then once the process, you know, once that's determined, if there's actual moisture, well, then now the inspector is going to try to find the source of the leak. Sometimes it's pretty simple to find. Sometimes it's just a bathroom faucet that's been dripping for months, and everyone just keeps ignoring it because it's underneath the sinks filled with storage. But it could be something inside the wall like a pinhole leak. I've found some really interesting leaks in houses over the years. Yeah, I got some great stories about that we'll get into. But so then that would be once the now if there is visible mold, or you take air samples. And the lab analysis comes back that you know what, there's an issue. There's a problem. So now you talking about you have to now write up a scope of work, right to get the remediation done. Yeah, because remediation contractors are not going to do anything until they know what they're dealing with. Right. Which means what I mean by that is what kind of mold it is. And the only people that can tell us that is the lab. Yep. So the lab has got to do their job. So the inspector did his job, he sends stuff to the lab, that's number two. If the lab results come back positive for the presence of mold. Well, then now we'll go into step three, which is going to be getting a mold remediation contractor there, give him all the paperwork the

Bret Pfeifer:

mold inspector has given you, as well as the lab results. And then they're going to come over and quote it or they're going to court at that point. Yes. So there's one little step in between, okay. One is going to be it's going to be my report, because my report is going to be based on my visual findings, my moisture readings, right. And then also the lab and my report is going to have the scope of work for the remediation company. So that's, that's really important, because those are the instructions for the remediation company. I don't do remediation, I only do the inspections, right. And now why would that be conflict of interest bias? How many times I've done inspections where the house needs to be vacated for two months, and it's going to cost $80,000? Where it turns out? No, it's just a$1,500 job. Wow. doesn't require anything. Wow. Happens all the time. And I look at it. Well, you had the remediation company, do your mold inspection. Yeah. And they're using the scare factor. To best scare factor. Yep, exactly. So very important to keep. There it is, again, a scare factor. Yeah. Okay. Use it very important to keep it separate as I'm prescribing the work. I don't I mean, I want you to use a remediation professional certified remediation contractor, right. I don't care who care who it is, as long as they follow my steps. Yep. is going to be fine. So yes, then it goes to the mold remediation contractor, they're gonna give you a bid based on my scope of work, right? Okay, so now once the mold remediation is done, well, so what is let's explain to explain what mold remediation means. Okay, so mold remediation, layman's term mold remediation is, obviously you have mold. And we have the scope of work that is going to tell you not only how to properly clean the mold, and how to clean it safely, but what needs to be done to ensure that it doesn't come back. Right. So that's cutting out the materials, that's repairing materials such as drywall, drywall could be wood framing may be based past, baseboard framing might be beyond repair, you might have to replace a couple framing members. Yep, and cabinetry. Anything that is basically you know, if it's not some sort of granite or concrete, if it's porous, and can absorb moisture, that's the material that can be affected it because want to get those wet materials out of there, right to make sure it's clean safely, and the source of water is properly repaired. So the big thing with the remediation, and what's going to make it a little bit more costly is the containment. Right? And what a containment is, is it's basically an isolation, you could make plastic off the room with a thick plastic, the remediation contractor is going to enter the room through a zipper. So that way, when they're demoing the materials, that molds gonna be kicked, not the zipper on your pants. Right, right, a really tall zipper, like it's like six feet high. So you can get in and out of the area and keep everything contained. Yeah. And furthermore, with that, they're going to set up a fan system in there. It's called negative air. So if there's any holes, or when they open that zipper, the air comes into the containment not out, right? Because when they're demoing that material that has that mold on it, that mold is just getting dispersed into the air. And is that machine called for the negative air? Well, you can use the HEPA filter air however, yeah, but those are a bore to clean they, they do use those but it's more of a matter of making negative air inside. So right pressure inside, basically they'd use a duct and it goes like to a window, air would go into the containment if there is a breach and it got it. Okay. Because when they're down, like I said, they demo it, it's going into the air. So you don't want that dispersing through the house. Right. Right. They're gonna take the material out in a bag, because somebody might walk by and sneeze. Yeah, I think some of it's a bit over the top. But yeah, well, I understand there are situations where it's, it's pretty bad, I think we'll see some pictures of that. And if there's a bet, if it's, you know, two adjacent bedrooms, and you got to make sure that whoever sleeping it isn't going to be exposed to it for prolonged amount of time. And then you know, they're going to do all the steps. And they have to clean the air inside the containment using what the HEPA HEPA filter air scrubbers, right, basically, they're going to run those machines to pull all that air through that right filter all the mold spores that got kicked up into the air, right? That's the last step of the remediation. Right before I come back. Right? So that would be step four, so far. Yes, step five would be you doing clearance you didn't clearance. So this is an it's very important. I even put a note at the scope of work that says, obtain more mold clearance before replacing material removing containment and replacing materials. Because I want to go this, the clearance is a visual inspection by me to make sure that the work was done properly. Moisture test readings are at acceptable levels, right. You know, there's no visible mold. And it's done as to my scope of work. And then just

John Laforme:

to verify that I'm going to take air samples, just for verification of that. And my certification basically certifies that the work was done properly. If do you take two inside the containment depends on the size of the containment. So normally, it's one in the containment and then you do a control sample outside. Right. Okay. So I hope that simplifies things a little more. Now, these the stuff in between all that that I want to make clear of and what makes this such a big undertaking is for example, if you've got granite countertops, and a kitchen and this kitchen, I've seen this, where a kitchen was completely remodeled, and I showed up in the whole back wall behind all underneath that counter behind all those cabinets was saturated with growth. Yep, it was everywhere. And I was like what the hell. And it turns out the house was vacant for a while and there was a slow leak coming from under the sink. No one's there to notice

Bret Pfeifer:

To sit, it just went on for months, and months. And it just so literally what you have to do is remove those countertops, remove all those cabinets to get to that back wall because that's where the damage is. There's no way around that. No and that's what takes so long and that's why it cost so much money literally DT UNbuilding a kitchen. Yeah. And then rebuilding it again. That's That's why these costs can be so high. Right? And that's the part that people really have a hard time grasping. Yeah, and you know, that's if that those cabinets are salvageable. True. Sometimes they have to be completely replaced. Yeah, talking about a $15,000 kitchen. Yeah, right. I tell clients all the time because one of the big contributor to that also besides a slow leak, is the grout at the backsplash behind the scene. Yeah, right. I tell number one problem. I tell clients, it's cracking back here. It seems like nothing but what you don't realize is that every day you're doing dishes and a little bit of water splashes back there. Every single day drip drip and it gets to the drywall. You know the wall covering behind that and drywall is like a sponge. It just gets wet. And it gets soaked in it grows mold and you don't realize it until you're cleaning out your sink cabinet because you realize you have you know too many cleaning supplies in there and you notice a strong smell and odor there I come I look at that the only way to access that cabinets have to come out. That's it for $1 A little tube of silicone, right or caulking will save you 1000s of dollars. If you just maintain that little backsplash there. Yeah, it gets, it gets better, it gets really bad and understand. For those of you who are not familiar with drywall, drywall has

John Laforme:

a crushed stone, basically it really find stone in the middle. And what holds it together is pieces of paper on the backside and the front side. So that's something mold loves to eat. And it gets its paper, it gets wet, it gets wet, and sure it gets stained. But that's what it is. But the problem is the drywall is on both sides of the wall. And then you get those cabinets right up against one side of that drywall. And that's where the affected areas. And that is the reason it cost so much money. And it's so time consuming and has to be done. In a process. Yeah, process is the word for today. Yeah, aside from the mold word. There it is again. Alright, so. So that kind of covers the process, I believe. Yeah. Anything else want to add to that? Yeah, I think for the first step of the process, when there's a sign of an issue, don't panic, I buying a home, don't panic, just notice.

Bret Pfeifer:

Because otherwise, I get your shirt there. Because you don't know what it is, you know, you don't know it is to get inspected. A high rise penthouse over and off Wilshire will show the other day. They thought they were looking at a complete demo of a bathroom. Kind of cost some $35,000. Just for that. Yeah. Turns out they have to remove 12 inches of baseboard. And that's it. You know, so you don't know. And then also, and I happens quite a bit with landlords because they don't want it. They don't want a problem. And they call him Lord some Yeah, where they call me the tenant saying there's a problem. But it's nothing like this is a problem. You know what I mean? So don't panic, because you don't know what it is until you get it checked out. Be proactive. Don't let it go. Yeah, but let's find out what it is before. Yeah, making assumptions. So step one, be calm. So the reason why I want to talk about doing remediation yourself, yeah.

John Laforme:

Don't do it. Unless it's a really tiny area. I mean, if, if you're in your garage, and you see you got two feet of drywall that has mold on it, just cut it open and rip it off and throw it in the trash. And you're probably done. But, you know, I've I've been called to come in and do air samples. And this one guy called me a couple of years ago. And I said, Okay, so why do you want me to come over? I always like to get a little backstory. So I know what to expect, you know? And he said, Well, you know, I moved in there was a real musty odor. A home inspector said there was probably a mold issue here and I should get someone to come over. And he didn't say that he tried to fix it himself in he left conveniently left that part out, right. So I show up. And sure he had some containment, he has some plastic hanging up. Nothing zipped or anything yet. No machines in there yet. Regular fans like that fan on the floor over there. Alright. And so I'm like, huh, this is interesting. So I start slowly picking out and going. Okay, so I did this happen. Yeah. Well, how did this get taken apart? Who did this right? And he finally broke down and said, Okay, well, I tried to remediate it myself. His samples came back and they were horrible. He didn't do it, right. He's like, Oh, man, he was he spent so much time trying to save money. And all you do is cost himself more money by spending more time trying to do it again. So he probably called someone to come in and handle it after I left. But he had me come in to do a clearance and didn't go well. No, not at all. So he didn't pull anything apart. Really. He didn't take the cabinets out he the places, they air samples were horrible, right? All the visible stuff was gone. But their samples were horrible. So I wouldn't attempt to do this yourself. If it's a big

Bret Pfeifer:

infected area. Yeah. If my if my report says containment protocol, like, like I said, build a containment? Don't do it yourself. Yeah, if I'm, if I'm recommended, recommending, you know, a surface cleaning and maybe cutting out a little bit of drywall, but not know, you know, then you know, right? It's it's debatable. But containment, don't do it yourself. Or don't need I don't use it, I still use somebody that's a professional. Like things cost money, unfortunately. So if you want to avoid mold, do some yearly routine visual inspections, under your sinks,

John Laforme:

in any kind of like around your water heater, stuff like that. It will save you 1000s If you have tenants, I have a few investment property. So I do have tenants and I encourage them to call me if there's a problem. before it turns into a huge problem. Yeah, and they do. But what that what I get when I do multi unit buildings when I'm inspecting multi unit, apartment buildings and stuff like that, is I look at the tenant go. Did you not know that was there? No, I didn't know was it? Why didn't you call your landlord? Well, they're gonna raise my rent, they always think they're gonna get their rent raised. So if you're not that kind of a slumlord, and you're not going to raise their rent just to fix something, let them know. Yeah. Because that's why this thing has gotten out of hand and now you're trying to sell the property, obviously, that's why I'm there. Right? If someone's trying to buy it now, I gotta tell you and the buyer. Hey, man, you got a problem here you're looking at ripping out cabinets ripping out complete bathrooms. It's just the way it is to just yesterday. I'm sorry, not yesterday before yesterday, I did a manufactured home. And I know what to look for in a manufactured home, under the bathrooms under the water heater. Typically, these were all the damages. Sure enough, the shower surround had holes in it. vertical cracks It was It would almost look like paneling. It was like a paneling inside the shower that when it broke open, it kind of looked like that's what it was, it had a lot of paint on like what the hell is this, I get underneath, and the drain pipe was completely rotted away. So not only with the surround walls leaking, but there was an I did see a lot of past and water damage. Looks like I'm pretty sure I saw some hints of mold growing behind the water here. That was all on the opposite side of the wall where the shower was. So it's all connected. And I was like that could have been avoided. All that could have been avoided. That drain pipe was literally rotted away by like six inches at the bottom. It was completely gone. It wasn't even there. Like what the hell yeah. So a little bit of, you know, preventative maintenance will take you a long way. And that's what homeownership is, especially if you have a apartment building or duplex. Don't ignore it, man, because it's not going to get better. It's just going to get worse never fixes itself. That right the best advice I'll give you and let your tenants know make sure they know or call you if there's a problem so you can get on top of it man because this is really unnecessary. Yeah, most of it a $500 repair can easily turn into a $10,000 Remediation Job. Yep, if it's not addressed so exactly dressed the less it's going to cost alright so

Bret Pfeifer:

to do so on your mold inspections Do you these are you specific to one area of the building the do outside inside crawlspaces attic what how far how do you take it and what what dictates that so there's two two types of mold inspections. One is what we just spoke about talked about was specific area inspection partial inspection. Okay, general inspector bathroom seek looks like there's some potential mold growth or water damage. I'll come check that specific area. The times that you see me at inspections, those are general home mold inspections where I'm starting on the outside I'm looking for poor drainage building defects, cracks, holes deflections, anything that's going to let water into the house sir. Then I go through the entire inside of the home looking for at those Eric not not only at those areas but everywhere for high moisture readings, poor ventilation, signs of mold, you know using moisture meters thermal imaging, going through Everything crawlspaces addicts are everywhere. Yeah. Okay. So you have different service calls? In other words, yeah. So yeah, the two main types specific area? Well, three main specific area general home for mold, and then the clearance and the cleaner and the clearance. Yeah. Okay. So you're going out? You're going out for one of those three typically. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. For most buyers. Yeah, they they get the full home inspection, full whole mold inspection, just to make sure of just anything, because I'm in there with specialty tools. And, you know, a lot of you know, as a general inspector, correct me if I'm wrong, you are looking for water intrusion for sure. Oh, absolutely. And mold because of that, but our process for how we're going about the building does differ. Right. Well, yeah, we can talk about that right now. Actually,

John Laforme:

the difference between Brett and myself as far as doing inspections, if I'm not walking around the house with moisture meters. I'm not doing that as a home inspector. I'm doing a visual only. I'm not using crazy tools. Sure, I might use a infrared gun. If I think I need to, just like I'd use a screwdriver if I think I needed to. I mean, I am the guy with the fancy tools. I'll admit that. I do like having nice tools. Buy nicer buy twice. Yeah, that's what I say. So we're going to get into tool shortly here in a minute. But as far as our differences that's the main difference. We're looking for the same things. Right. But how you go about it is a bit different than I would like I actually get on roofs you probably don't I do if it's walkable, walkable? I'm not Yeah, walkable, accessible. Yeah, I'm looking at flashings just general. Okay, so you do do that. Okay, I was curious about that. So good. Good to hear. A lot of homes I do. You the word is traverse. And not traversable. Trying to be specific and professional right now. I can't get on too damn roof. Yeah, it's too dangerous. I'm not going to risk my neck for a few 100 bucks. Yeah. Forget it. Yeah. So guess what, I bought a drone. So I just use a drone. And it can tell me a lot. Because don't forget, after I use the drone, I'm actually going to go in your attic. And I'm going to look to see if the vent vent stack pipes have stains all around the plywood, the sheeting and everything. And so there's other ways of telling if you have or had moisture intrusion, just by looking in certain areas. And you know, it just comes with the experience of doing it. I mean, roofs, deflect water. That's what they're for. There's a hole in your roof. Well, guess what? You're gonna have water coming in? Where's it coming in? To be determined. For example, let's talk real quick about a job. You and I were on the same job. Maybe you think that was January? I think it was the beginning of the year. That was for a realtor from a mafia states. Brian, huh? Yeah, yeah. And I noticed on the it had the Dome Dome, remember that? And then up in the attic, I was like, Hey, I don't know if you're going up in the attic. But there's a lot of stains around that dome from that where that that roof met the dome itself. And, you know, when I used to build houses, we used to build stuff like that. That is no easy task to take a sloped roof, and then build a dome and then flash it properly. You right. Yeah, that is the toughest part of that job is keeping it watertight. Mm hmm. And that particular house we were on that paper underneath had failed or the flashing had failed. But you couldn't traverse that roof. Right. But I did take a lot of good photos and I didn't see anything really, really bad in that area. But so that tells me it's probably the underlayment that was causing that leak, but it was pretty, pretty thick leak. I mean, not thick, but pretty. Pretty heavy in a big area. Yeah. It looked like it had been going on for some time, too. Yeah, it was a and I noticed it inside the wall to the show. You did too. Yeah, it was top of the entry. Yep. And guess how I found that?

Bret Pfeifer:

This guy? Yeah, this is aside from my brain. This is my best tool every day. Flashlights. Bam. You gotta have a good flashlight, man. Yeah, I went in, you know, 7000 lumen flashlight. I mean, when you go under, I mean, just in general, just having such a good flashlight going into a crawlspace. I call it the sun. Yeah, you know, lights up the whole thing. Even white walls. Yeah, yeah. Believe it or not.

John Laforme:

You know, I don't have the best eyesight. I'm 56 You know, I'm not 20 anymore. So yeah, I need a flashlight. I do wear glasses, but tell me

Bret Pfeifer:

You can you can walk right by a stain on the ceiling if it's all white. Yeah, easily. Yeah. And you know, my flashlight I use in every room, I have a little process that I use with my flashlight to try and find leaks that you can't see with your eye or signs. And clients asked me all the time does that light detect mold? No, just it's just like it and so and I tell him what am I what am I doing? I'm standing in the corner and I'm going across, you know, trying to get as parallel with the ceiling as possible. Yeah, because when the building materials get wet, they bubble and they can sag and it can sag and so you can't see it by looking at it but when you go across the flashlight, you'll see little shadows and it's really you can see it and I go along all walls and I find a lot of water intrusion that you couldn't normally see with that and flashlight I mean you know you think it's everybody has a flashlight

John Laforme:

of the best tool I see guys pull out flashlights like this thing like this big and they expect they think they're gonna find inspect the house and not and not and find everything that's wrong with I don't think so they look to dollar Harbor Freight lens or the$20 purchase. You need to upgrade. Yeah, by just this is a stinger Streamlight is a fantastic. I would I do wish they had a rubber base though. Because if you drop it, which occasionally we do, if it drops on like a fancy tile floor, you have a chance to crack in that thing. I think about that all the time. Yeah. So I think what I'm going to eventually do is just put some khaki tape around the bottom. lessen the impact, so you can still take it on and off. Yeah, I put it death grip on my flashlight. When I'm going into a corner. I'm going up a ladder and I'm on like a marble floor. So then death grip. Alright. And another tool. I have I don't know what you use, but I use the pro Demeter Yeah, mines. I mean, is that one pronged? Yep. Yeah, it does the Yeah, prong. That's, that's most important. Yeah. For the meters. I use two different ones I see get the hydrogen meter. Yeah, this this is I did a lot of research on them. It's expensive. But like I said, I just my whole life, I've always just bought the what I think it might be the best of in that in that category of a tool. Only because I feel better about giving people information using a much better tool. I've had cheaper tools fail. And I've one guy I was a GFCI tester. I was testing outlets. And the first couple I tested that were okay. And then all of a suddenly as I kept on going to the apartment. I'm getting all these weird readings. Yeah. And I didn't think, well, maybe my test had just failed. Didn't even cross my mind. I said, Hey, you know what? These ones were okay. But you should have these ones looked at. So the guy called electrician. Let's just come by, you know, everything's good. He goes, I'll call your inspectors his device probably failed. He wasn't aware of it. Yeah. So he called me goes, Do you mind? I had to pay the guy. 60 bucks for that. Do you mind reimburse for that? No problem at all. I wrote him a check. I just paid them because yeah, something I just didn't think of, you know, at the time. But Shit happens. Yeah, like I said, tools are very important and, and trying to buy a tool just to have a tool, I think is just not a good step forward. Yeah, I think with moisture meters.

Bret Pfeifer:

aside for myself, when I'm looking at other people's opinions or report, I don't really try and go and analyze other people's mold inspection reports. But General inspectors reports that note something they use their moisture meter, right. I want to know what type of moisture meter they have. Because that come out all the time. And I mean, I'm not charity, you have to have a business. Right? Yeah. To come out. And I have to be paid for what I'm doing, sir. And I'll tell the client, what type of moisture meter is using? I'm not sure if it was it prongs? No, just like this flat on the wall. Those. They're good because they don't make little pin holes on the on the wall. Right, which we don't try and do right. But they're very inaccurate. And you don't get the same accuracy as with a product like that. And you want to show Yeah, well what we mean with the prongs. So the prongs of these two shiny things that you could stab somebody with? Yeah, so it's also a weapon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if they could turn this into a stun gun, too. That would be the ultimate tool, right? All I'm gonna have to write down that's actually I just thought of that right now.

John Laforme:

All right, pro Demeter. If you're listening, you're going to turn the MMS two into the mmm, MMS, two plus V. Yeah. For voltage. Yeah. So we could turn this into a stun gun as well. This This has a lot of different things on it. I don't even use so. I'd like I said, I bought it. It comes in handy. You know, it's like anything else I have. It's a tool. It's got a purpose and then I put it away. Yeah. So I needed again. So no, no science behind that. But you brought your floor. You want to show us that? Yes.

Bret Pfeifer:

So sorry, this is thermal imaging, it takes a second to turn on. But basically, this doesn't detect moisture. But it's a tool to help me detect moisture. Everybody listen to this as important. Because just think about a beach towel, you have it out, you get half of it wet and half of it dry, there are going to be different temperatures. Right? And it's the same thing with building materials. If it gets if part of it's wet, it's going to be colder than the rest of it. And it's not telling me that there's moisture there. But I know to use my Pronk meter, that's an anomaly. Yeah, so I use this for blanket because I don't want to go and because like I said, those little teeny, they're not really visible, but they do their prompt, right, they have to put a little pinhole in there. So I don't want to go through your whole home and put a little pinhole so I'll use this in blanketed areas to try and see if there's anything there, I just found a property there was it was a closet above, there is no bathroom above, it was the first level. So there was another, you know, level above. So it would have been a roof leak would have been a plumbing leak. But the whole ceiling was completely saturated. And I found that because of this and you wouldn't have thought otherwise to look there. Alright. Unfortunately, you have to cut it out to find out where the water intrusion is. But it was significantly wet. So I don't know if you can see. But basically, it's just going to give you a thermal image of what's happening there. Yep. Another useful way of using this that I do is on two story homes, I run all the hot water. I run all the hot water, right? And then I go through the bottom level. So that's what that's what Brett looks like. Yeah, under the gun. So I run all the hot water and I run it for a while because like we were talking before about plumbing. waistlines right are only going to be dripping if the waistline is being used. So run the hot water if that's dripping. When I use the thermal imaging downstairs, I'll see a hot spot. Yep, at the ceiling. found many, many leaks. That's a very good, that's a very good way of doing it. Yeah. Because it might not have been long enough or heavy enough for it to cause a discoloration or what we could see what the flashlight. So it's a very good way to detect leaks right throughout the house. Very good tool. Yeah. So the first thing anyone ever says, If I pull that out, is what does that tell you? If there's mold? Yeah. Yeah, that tells you if there's a water leak? No.

John Laforme:

It tells me there's an anomaly in there. Yeah. So I'm not telling you that there's a leak. But I'm telling you there's an anomaly of a temperature difference in materials. Yeah.

Bret Pfeifer:

Right. Here's showing that it's, you know, maybe 60 degrees and a foot away. It's about 80 degrees. Yeah. So the temperature difference there. Now, that could be a lot of things. Yeah, that could be a HVAC duct team. home inspector might have been there with you running the air conditioner. And you see this big rectangular thing all going all the way up and down the wall. That's the that's the HVAC ducting. Yeah, actually a story about that is I was doing a follow up inspection from a company. Very, very nice house, and they, you know, they see this house, it's, you know, probably $10 million house, these people are willing to pay. So they gave this inspection where they were the remediation contractor, of course, you know, saying they need $40,000 worth of work or something like that. And they were using their thermal imaging as proof. And they were saying, see around the can lights, the recessed lightings, how to different temperature right there. And I went and I looked at use mine, you know, my own, and I told the homeowner look at it's a perfect square. There's no insulation right there. Right. And remove the insulation was the last time you saw a water pool and a square. Yeah. That's really funny. Yeah. That's a good explanation. So like you said, and then they went? Yeah. So like you said, there's a lot of reasons why there could be temperature differences. But so it's not definitive, you have to look further. And you have to use things like that square, you know, it's candlelight there. Yeah, there's been insulation removed. So it's going to have a different time. Yes. So you really,

John Laforme:

did you get any training on yours? Did you go to any, any schooling for it or anything like that? I did. I went to the infrared training course. Bill Fabian, is the guy that trained me how to use it and it was good that I did because he brought up some things that you know, you really need to understand how this thing works. Doesn't work on reflective surfaces. Right? If you try to, if you try to put it on a pipe, you have to wrap it with tape. Yeah. Otherwise you're not going to get the correct reading on it because it's just reflective. And and we talked about light, and then your customer asked you if your flashlight could detect moisture damage or waterhole mold mold? Yeah, okay. Well, these thermal imaging guns do not use light at all, they have nothing to do with the light spectrum whatsoever, you can be in a room and turn all the lights off, and still use that right? Just just as effectively. So there is a little bit of science behind it. And I find that really interesting. So I was like, wow, okay, I'm learning something I learned. If I learned one thing from a course, I'm happy, right? Because that's all it takes just over time you build and build and build on that. But So the moral of the story here is the thermal imaging gun does not detect mold. Now, for a quick word from our sponsor, are you a music lover, but don't know how to play a musical instrument. And check out guitar ninjas.com Ellie's leading Music School for both kids and adults specializing in guitar, bass and drum lessons, locations in Los Angeles and Orange County or worldwide with online lessons. A unique gamified way of learning to play music. membership includes access to our app and desktop portal loaded with lesson videos and other useful learning tools. To book a free trial lesson go to guitar ninjas.com and mentioned this podcast, rock on

Bret Pfeifer:

it does not detect moisture. It is a tool that helps you determine if there's moisture, right. It's not the end all sale. Right? You're always gonna follow up with a moisture meter. Yeah, I just like with mold and moisture. Moisture doesn't mean mold. Right? It's an indication that we need to look at this. Yeah, thermal imaging doesn't mean moisture. It's an indication that we used to go need to go further and use right moisture meters. So it's all a process and you putting all these tools together plus the knowledge of not only mold inspection, but construction itself. Yeah. Let's, I think of it as a story, a story of everything that's going on, you know, let's just say there is mold. What's the story behind this mold? Why is this material wet? What's making this wet? Yeah. Where's the potential source of this? Why is that leaking? How's this all happening? And I just put a put up, put a picture together of everything that's going on using all the tools that I have. Yeah, yeah, another thing I want to point out too, is as far as water, when there's a water leak, whether it's drain pipe, or you know, water supply,

John Laforme:

just because the area above your ceiling is wet, that doesn't mean that's where the water came from, that water is always going to go to the lowest point possible. It's called gravity. Gravity, that you know what that's gonna get busted. Gravity is important that you understand it. So it hasn't changed from afar, as I know, water will roll to the lowest point, it'll pull there, it'll just build up and build up and build up if you don't fix anything. So keep that in mind when you find a leak in your house. It doesn't mean that's exactly where the sources coming from. Could be, you know, three, four feet away, it could be if it's further Yeah, it could be weighed out, you know, that's the ceiling joists. If it's running down the ceiling joists, it could be at the complete opposite side of the road. That's true. That's true. Our event flashing or something like that running down a pipe? Because So yeah, that's some good info man. Yeah. Let's see, something I want to point out to you is

Bret Pfeifer:

how do you do? Do you mark? Do you spend money on marketing? Do you need kind of any kind of marketing for your business? So I, um, I mean, I use an email service, okay. And I send out a monthly email blast with information or information about mold and obviously my contact information. I do some SEO, but that's about it. But that is there. I do that because I have the database. I've anytime I've received an email and handed a business card, seen an email address, and it's a real estate agent, I kept it and they go into my database, you know, hi, you're a hoarder, you're an email hoarder, right and they go into my database and you know that and I market to them and but the majority of my business is all this person referred me to this person furrows is great. I'd say it's a great The only thing better now he's just doing a good job every time. Well, that's how you get there. You know, I mean, so I wanted to point this out to you. This is a website called the home inspection and repair.com this person his name is Dave wildrick.

John Laforme:

Pardon me, Dave. I think I said it wrong. Weed rich, weed rich, okay, weed rich. They've weed rich. He was apparently listening to the podcast and found that interesting and, and he contacted me and asked me to list my company on his new directory. So what he's made is this website called home inspection and repair.com and home inspectors and contractors around the United States if they want The list on here. They can just click on the join now. And I believe he's offering a special if you do it if you sign up soon it's you get like six months to a year free, free listing. So I want to point it out to you. It's free. Check it out anybody else listening out there if your home inspector or contractor check out this website, it looks like it's very well done. And as you can see, he's already got my already get my podcast on so yeah, I'm a little bias he's having he's got my little video on here too. He just a really nice guy. He reached out to me, I called them right back, we started talking. And they say what can we do? Like? Well, I'll tell you what, let's just talk about each other. On my platforms, you put me on your platforms, and we'll get some people and get some get some energy going on this thing, you know, yeah. get something going. So anyway, once again, home inspection repair.com. If you're not familiar with it, check it out. And that's it. Alright, so I want to get into some photos here. All right. I know you took the time to send me some photos. Yeah. Which is good. I love pictures actually cleaned up a few of them for you. I went in there and Photoshop a little bit. So that nice and clean. So on this one here

Bret Pfeifer:

Do you remember which one that was? Yeah, yeah, just kind of tell me about. Alright, so this was um, this is a homeowner that was moving close of escrow. So terrible time to find mold. Yeah, because they have to disclose it to their their buyer. They close escrow yet. And they move some cabinets and they found out found this and what we what you don't see is on the other side of this wall is a bathroom. Okay, okay. This is actually a post remediation, clearance inspection picture. And this is a situation that we talked about before where they didn't use a remediation contractor to do it. And I can see all this. Yeah. And you could have all been removed, the water damaged? Or there? Yeah. I mean, when I walk into a clearance because like I said, this is a clearance inspection, I can tell right away, whether it's not you know, whether or not a professional did or not sure, I can tell by the grade of the plastic that they use, how they taped it. Yeah, everything. And then obviously, in this case, they didn't follow my instructions, part of my instructions are to remove building materials to a minimum of 12 to 18, depending on the saturation type 12 to 18 inches beyond any mold growth, water damage and a high moisture rate. That's to make sure there's nothing further. Exactly, exactly. And obviously here, there's still water damage that's clearly visible. Not only that, at the top left, you can see it there's also mold growth. Oh, it's obvious. Yeah, that's not done. Right. Right. And the unfortunate thing about this is, they were trying to do it in a cost effective way. But they're at the close of escrow. And they're not getting a clearance from me on this. Oh, so now they got to redo the job with a professional remediation contractor. And another important thing is that my clearance inspection, the fee for it isn't for the certificate. It's for the inspection. Right? You know what I mean? So unfortunately, I have to get paid for this. And I have to tell them, you're not getting a clearance certificate at this. And then I have to pay me to come back and do it again. Yeah. So all time. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So um, yeah, unfortunately, this is a case that didn't pass. And they had to do further work by removing more of the building materials more of the floor covering because that floor is completely saturated with water. And there's mold growth underneath it that you can't really see from this picture. And it looks like they should have scrubbed that wood to which they didn't. Yeah, and so part of it is they scrub it, and then I do recommend to sand it as well. sanding. That's That's what I meant to say. Actually. Yeah. All right, cool. Let's check out another one. That's good stuff. This the same place, that's the same place that just over and clearly, you know, think about it. How are you going to get mold clearance? You can't get a mold clearance when you still see mold? Yeah. Yeah, shocker. Yeah, so this one and I didn't even take air samples. I took the swab sample just to show because it you know, the clearance is several things at visual inspection, moisture, meter inspection, air sample, right, passing, passing the air sample pass. Oh, I smell so everybody listening, just so you know, we are looking at photos on my computer right now. And you can see all this on the YouTube version of this podcast episode, which is going to be podcast episode 19. So you can view all of this stuff and have fun with us laughing because that's what we're laughing. Yeah. And, you know, with this client and a lot of clients when this happens, they're not trying to be necessarily, you know, cover up or right. Skirt the system or anything to do right. They they've heard from somebody that is their handyman or some I'm experiencing Uncle Bob. Yeah, and they just let him go. with it because they're given a price. I've been doing this for years, you know, not me, they're saying I've been doing it for years and I'll get it taken care of don't even worry about they're charging me three grand. I'll do it for 600 bucks. Right? And unfortunately, it's just, you can't get around it. It has to be done properly. And this is this the Yeah, so this is the same job after they hire. Okay. And contractor. Yep. And actually, if you want to go back and you can see, what's the first picture? That's one yet. That's a containment. Is that a proper containment? That's the plastic. Right, the zipper in the middle of going through the other picture. The first one I have of this closet is is just the closet. Just an open it just showed up in there it was Yeah. So you know, like I said, right off the bat at that first one. I didn't see this. Yeah, I knew it wasn't gonna. Yeah. But yeah, this is the follow up inspection. That picture there. And this here is a HEPA filtered air scrubber, you go so I go into a lot of properties when handyman or somebody that's not qualified. I say run a HEPA filter air scrubber. They take the one from their bedroom that they've been using every night. And they said it, they get that from customers. And one of my humidifier. Yeah. And I go in there adulation, they say, you know, it's an air purifier. I'm like, No, an air scrubber is an industrial. Yeah, HEPA filter, air scrubber, this thing. If this is in your bedroom, and you're trying to sleep in ain't happen. Yeah. It's pretty. It's loud. And that's another thing is when I go to do the clearance inspections, because of the isolation that a lot of times occupants still lives there. Yeah. How long is going to take to get the results? It takes two business days. But those fans don't have to be on anymore. Oh, thank God. They, they don't even I mean, at that point, as long as they don't have to listen those anymore, or they're, they're happy. But yeah, that is a proper air scrubber right there. So if you have to do containment protocol, for any type of job, you will be inconvenienced. Yeah, absolutely. So you can expect to have contractors in your house plastic up there. These noisy machines running 24/7 until it's that's was it, typically 48 hours, I recommend to run them 24 to 48 hours, depending on the job. You don't want to run more than that, because those filters clogged up and recontaminate Oh, no. Sure. Yeah. But so it is an inconvenience, but it is still safe to be there. Right as they're doing the job in the container because people ask me all the time, do I need to vacate? No, you'll be fine. But you know, it's gonna there's gonna be some inconvenience to it. Yeah. But yeah, this is the picture of that same job done properly. Yeah, yes. I mean, you can clearly see it. Yeah. So let me leave that picture there and go back to the other one. So we can do a comparison.

John Laforme:

So

Bret Pfeifer:

So here's the here's the wrong way. Right. Yeah. And here's the right way. You had this required removal of drywall on both sides of that wall, not just on this picture. They only did one side. Yeah. And then also you see the floorboards have been removed. Yeah. You see the dark stain? See the dark stains over here? Yeah, bam. Yeah, that's Yeah. And what I do with the clearance, inspection that's that fail, is I give my original scope of work. And I put in bold, you know, because it's gonna be a nine step process. Yeah, it's part step one, you know, completed not completed. And I tell them exactly where they went wrong. And I give them a new scope of work, right for what to do. But yeah, this is a it's clearly different. And like, like you said, it's reason why you don't want to do it yourself or have somebody not qualified. So let me ask you this because this is

John Laforme:

to me, it's still a kind of a gray area. Who is the oversight? On for mold? This is this is interesting topic here. We're gonna get into this, but give it to me straight. There is no, there is none. None. Okay. So the FDA

Bret Pfeifer:

nothing USEPA nothing. EPA. There's there is no regulation on how these are supposed to be these remediations are supposed to be performed. Am I correct? Yes. And on top of that, and even more importantly, on how the lab analysis has to be interpreted. All right, so it's all just Yeah, it's like it's almost like it's in its infancy? Yeah. Yeah, it's been forever Yeah, there have been recognized standards that have been ASTM, it's it's it's like not even really anything. It's mostly like kind of a bunch of guys got together and said let's do this more like yeah, it's more like upstanding companies or known inspectors. They kind of just kind of go along the set the same line standards, but there is no regulation. What's required for interpreting a lab analysis? What's required right mold remediation? At all that alone is that alone is kind of scary. It is it is. And I'm anytime you hear somebody say that federal standards say this, they are lying to you. Number one, that's bullshit. Yeah, is what it is. Yeah. And so the scary part of this is, from what we're trying to, you know, communicate here is

John Laforme:

there's no big brother coming in to look at this. So it's really important that you find the most qualified person for this because you can get lied to you can get robbed you, there's so many things going on here. So whoever, you know, like Brett pointed out earlier, it's real important to keep your inspector separate from your mediator. And which also separate from your clearance. No.

Bret Pfeifer:

Inspector does the clearance because I'm sorry. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah, you're right. Thanks for correcting me there. So you can bring back your mold inspector for the clearance. Yeah. And, or another person. And it's recommended to use that because I if I did your initial report, I saw the initial project, I gave the scope of work. I'm going to say that okay, Don, to my standards. That's good point. But yeah, like you were saying, I know, the reputation of mold inspectors around town. Yeah, we are deal killers. That's like, you know, I see the look on the listing agents face when I walk in. But that's because there's a lot of mold inspectors that have given the business a bad name. Same with home inspector. Yeah. And I find, I don't know what it is, I think I've been in business for long enough where I have a very sustainable business, I have a good clientele base. I don't rely on scare tactics to sell samples to sell my business, you know, because I've seen all the time where, you know, a $300 job. And then next thing, you know, the mold inspector from some unscrupulous company is selling$1,000 worth of air samples. Because they can Yeah, I would never do that. You know. And it's important, like you said, to find somebody that's reputable, that understands the business and is not going to scare your clients or you know anybody. Because they want to make more money. First and foremost, for me, health and safety are my biggest priority, but I'm never gonna blow anything out of proportion. No, you don't need to know. There's no need to there's no need to be an alarmist. No, no, I had a guy call me the other day relative and he's like, yeah, the inspector, I'm looking for a new inspector, the one to use now as an alarmist. He just blows everything. I'm like, sorry to hear that. But just because you're good at being an inspector does not doesn't mean you're good at relaying the message, right? Talk, you know, talking to people I don't know what it is about the mold inspection business because I've just done so many jobs follow up jobs, where it was unnecessary what they've recommended and what they've reported. I don't know if it's they thought they were going to get into a business and make a ton of money and then realize it's harder and if I can just sell a scare tactics, then I can do it. You know, but I don't know what it is. But it is important to get somebody that's honest reputable out there. So here's a quick little story that might give you some little chuckle.

John Laforme:

My brother lives over in Torrance. Yeah. It says he comes home and his whole Bathroom Ceiling caved in, right above the toilet and like a good thing you're working on. Apparently, there was a leak upstairs that went on for a long time and it just it just saturate the drywall and it just nails wouldn't hold it. The screws wouldn't hold it and everything just fell straight down. Just like holy shit. So I had to put them up at a hotel for a few days. It was a pretty extensive job. Yeah. So that just happened like two weeks ago. Yeah, it's like Damn. Yeah, so the wholesaling collapsed on my wife, Alicia. Okay. Yeah, Alicia, one sitting there. Right. That would have sucked. Yeah, that would have really sucked. Man's peace. Yeah, leave us alone. That's our one area of peace certainly ruin your day. And let's see what else we want to talk about here. I want to ask some questions. Have you ever done a grow house? Yes, I have. Let's talk about grow houses. I've heard some stories about how bad those can be. First off, they're sketchy. Hang on. What's a grow house? Oh, I forgot to put a little you know, magic marker on that one. A grow house. Homes that previously we use for growing cannabis, aka.

Bret Pfeifer:

Weed illegally. Yep. So this is when somebody goes into a residential dwelling and turns it into a weed factory and absolutely destroyed the house and destroys the house. Yeah. Well, first off, my first couple that I went to I remember the first one I went to the agent was saying are the representative whoever hired on or forgive him as a manager, the owner whoever they said there's a lockbox on there. If you go around back there is a little you know padlock that you can lock unlock either. So these are rated houses, they are boarded up. And it is, you know, this is some criminal thing going on here and you go on the back and all the windows were boarded up. There's just remnants of blowing everywhere, lights going everywhere that place has been destroyed ducting everywhere. There's usually one bedroom with like a mattress on the floor. Because that's where whoever was guarding the place. Was there any no in your sitting, I just remember thinking like, I hope nobody thinks that there's still something in here and it's worth coming in and trying to Yeah, you know, come in gotta bring it right in like it's dark. There's no electricity. And I've even heard where the people? Oh, well, you know, they said, you know, he's gonna get $2,000 a month for the place. They told me they pay me 10,000. And just to not ask him any questions about it. And then what do they do? They do like 200 $250,000 worth of damage to the house. Right? Right. Yeah. I've heard some stories

John Laforme:

about home inspectors ignoring

Bret Pfeifer:

circles on the ceilings and stuff like that. And yeah, and then I got a phone call later. Yeah. And the whole house had to be gutted. Yeah. Well, should we tell them what they actually do to the house to make it a girl house? Sure. Okay, so first, well, they're growing wheat. So every single part of that house is going to be used to grow wheat. And to grow weed, you need light, you need water, and you need ventilation to keep that air circulating through there. So first, they rip out all of your electrical and run all new electrical through from the panel to every single room to put in these massive light structures. Second, they rip out all the ceilings and do all this really intricate duct work throughout the entire house. They break down walls to make rooms bigger, they build false walls to rake make room smaller. And then also they're running plumbing to every single room to fill these big bins up that have all the plants in them. And they line them with tarp because that's that's the moisture barrier this century right? Yeah. tarp never fails. Yeah. And basically that's what they do the house and then you'll see holes cut and every wall you'll see all the writing from the police that say well how many how many plants were in each room? A little bedroom? You know about the you know the size? This was the studio here? Maybe twice this size? 1000 plants 750 plants they packed? I've never been in one with the police writing on the wall. That sounds interesting. Oh, yeah. I've done several mostly out in like Hesperia. Yeah, if I'm in one if I'm if I think I'm in one typically find remnants of lighting outside, like, tucked in behind the garage. Like I see an old light this lane and like that looks like I think this might have been a grow house, you guys need to investigate that. So you're talking about a house that somebody is buying that was previously agreed? Yeah. And and it wasn't disclosed or someone didn't know what okay, we can go. So what I'm talking about is a condemned house. That's post raid. Oh, got it. Okay, grow house. So this is. So when the city finds out that there's an illegal grow house, what they do is first off, they bust everybody there, they take out all the plants, they board up everything. water, gas, electricity gets shut off, until you get a ton of reports, because he has to show that and it's kind of a bummer. They won't let you do anything to the home without getting all these reports, right. And they're really vague because they're just environmental reports. Yep. And the thing about the environment, and contaminants in the environment, mold is one of them. But there's so many other things and I call it city manager like so you saying a clear environmental report. What are you talking about here? Well, anything in the environment that can make? Like, what? Like I do a mold inspection can can that knock off and I've worked out with several city managers that, you know, if I do a mold inspection, it's clear I do air samples and you know, the majority of the living spaces and that's that's clear enough. But yeah, I've never been in I don't I can't recall one that was was a grow house. It's been remodeled. And now some he's buying it. And I'm I've been only in the ones that are. I say like yeah, happened the week before. I've seen a couple over the years. Not too many. But and I've always been triggered but my evidence was there's weed lights out back. Yeah. It doesn't look like they were for the garage. Yeah, because nothing's changed in the garage just looks like an old garage. So I don't think it was in there. So you might want to dig into that some more. So I let them know. Yeah. When I'm there for the ones that I've done. They're still because they're clearing out the plants but they can't get everything. There's weed all over the cause it's all over the ground everywhere. There's still you get the contact I just by walking in.

John Laforme:

Come on now. set it on fire.

Bret Pfeifer:

But they're still the tubs. They're full of water sometimes and yeah, it's bad. It's bad, just destroys a house. Yeah, it's it's 1000s of dollars. And but I would imagine if I was in, you know, it's serious, because when I'm doing a normal house, I'm looking at areas of potential water intrusion, which some of the main areas are wherever there's plumbing. And that's going to be your bathrooms and kitchens. Right now, if you've turned every room into having funding.

John Laforme:

Now, every room is a potential subsidy is more expensive inspection for you? Yeah, yeah. What's the what's a fee for something like that? You don't mind? That's

Bret Pfeifer:

so weird. So Okay. I'd have to get into a little deeper, but just in general, yeah, just in general. $800. Okay. $800. And that includes two samples, because there's one city that I said, this place, they've gutted everything. So everything's very visible down to the study, even though they didn't have electricity. And I told the city inspector, he said, We want clear air samples. And you can't really do that economically, because that's an air sample in every single room. And this is a five bedroom, three bath house with, you know what I mean? So I said, If I don't find any signs of mold anywhere, and I do, you know, upper level and lower level main living spaces or hallways, is that adequate? He said, That's fine. So that saves, you know, instead of having 14 air samples only have to do two. Right. But yeah, that's kind of general somewhere in there. But unless it's bad, right? It's bad. And you're talking about a couple 1000. Right, yeah, I'm talking about if I go to one that's been gutted, and they're just trying to get the city report, the report to the city for the electricity go back on. Right. All right. Let me go back, I want to show you a report that I had done. So

John Laforme:

I want to this, this leak, I was called for this job. And I just did a Mold Inspection here. I didn't do the home inspection. Someone else had did the home and they referred me and, and I go in there and I'm looking under the sink. And it's a good picture over here. Yeah, this was actively wet. And the person living there had their stuff under there. So I know they've been you like going in and out of the cabinet. And the odor that come out of that cabinet was just horrible. So this has been going on for so long. So this is what I was trying to explain to everybody listening and watching is these little things turn into big things. And if you just ignore it, and when you open a cabinet, you can just get smacked in the face by this odor. Yeah, you might want to look into that. Start by taking all of your hundreds of pounds of storage out of there. First of all, don't try to determine anything when it's full of storage. Take everything out. Grab a flashlight, and just take a good look and look for a leak run. Run your faucets. Let the drain pipe fill with water. Sometimes the faucets themselves are leaking from underneath the counter. Yeah. And a lot of faucets leak from inside and the drip just into the cabin. You won't even know it unless you look. The faucet. Yeah, it's loose. Yeah, move the faucet, move the drain pipes, all these things can be loose and just improperly installed. So it's a real simple way to save yourself a lot of problems because my protocol on this was removed the whole vanity, the whole the whole bathroom sink, countertop cabinet everything it all had to be removed. Because it's most likely affected the sub flooring below. Yeah, saturated it was on a second floor. And I didn't see any issues below in the ceiling. But it's definitely that definitely turned into I got the right mind to call this customer and ask them how that went and see what that what else they found. So But anyway, I think they'll gonna remodel it. So that's why why they didn't call me back for clearance. Right? Right. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, that's, that's, that's how simple it can be to fix these things. If you just stay on top of it. Yeah. But if you ignore your stuff, and you just gonna it's gonna wind up the moisture in theirs. Right. To 60. So yeah, it was still wet. Yeah. So anyway. So yeah, and I noticed this, oh, that's not a problem. Why is there a cup underneath the that's kind of an indicator that might be a bigger issue. So I think there's a drip going on there. Right. And that was the toilet. And he also here were situations they sell is that they knew nothing. They didn't they put a cup underneath it. Yeah, you know, happens all the time. Most of the time when I find water damage. I honestly don't think the sellers know, right. It's just people just don't know where to look. And say I think he had sent me not going to show the Yeah, we can't show the right. Yeah, I'll get that. I won't do that. I'll go right to here. So Have you had any photos in here? Yeah, so the field clearance as well.

Bret Pfeifer:

Like the plastic. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So do you think it was once touching the ceiling or in a fell down or what? Yeah, it was, but they tried to use one little, you know, they use painters, painters matte painters tape. Oh, across popcorn ceiling. It's gonna work. Yeah. And one of the reasons why I sent these ones to you is because 99% of the time that 99.9% of time I do a failed clearance. It's because they didn't use professional mediation. Right. Professional mediators. I rarely, rarely will have an issue with their their clearance. Any you know, it happens every once while they get a little bit of an oversight. I didn't take enough material out or something. But it's it's really rare. But let's scroll down there again. That bottom picture on the left. That's one blood. Okay. Asking for a clearance. And look at that one. Right above that. That is the window. Yeah, there's mold growing all over the window. All right. That's this was this job was actually the highest highest four counts that I've ever seen. Wow. Yeah.

John Laforme:

Years ago, I used to work for this company A, they were kind of, I don't know, couple of rich guys. And they just wanted to buy properties. And I mean, these are distressed properties. These are all properties from people who are in trouble. They had to get out of their houses, they couldn't get out. Because they were just so bad at how the condition of the homes were so bad that they couldn't fix them. And they just had to go. I walked into one of those houses one day, and this was the last one I did for I quit after this one. I walked in, and I got smacked in the face by the thickest, heaviest scent of mold that I've ever experienced. And it was a full family living there. Oh my god. That's so terrible. It was a kids. Yeah. Mom and dad, teenagers. They were all living there. Yeah, no masks, no masks, nothing when those are closed.

Bret Pfeifer:

So I'll be right back. I go get my respirator. Mm hmm. I didn't enter the house without a respirator. The whole time I had a respirator on. Yeah. And for people that have never experienced a heavy like that cabinet where there's heavy mold growth in there, it hits you. And you'll start coughing quit and then like I find these in coffin. I wear protective equipment. But when I'm doing a general mold inspection around a house, I'm not going to wear a respirator the whole time. But if I find an issue, then I'm gonna change but sometimes I get into situations where it hits you in the face. I'm in like for the next couple hours. I can like, feel it. Oh, yeah, I'll feel weird the rest of the day sometimes, like you just feel it like you know, it's like you could still smell it. Yeah, for like six hours. So this house

John Laforme:

that I walked into with the family, I look up and all's I would I was I could see was stained ceilings. Some of which were missing. sagging hanging drywall. Cover with mold. You could see the floor framing on the second floor. two storey house, you can see all that kitchen, same problem. bathrooms, everywhere. And it was a family living there. Wow. Geez. That was the worst condition I've ever seen. Yeah. And that that there those those people they better hope that you know, they weren't they probably were affected had no idea that we're being affected by it. Yeah. And the simple part of this. Most of the damage came from just needing a roof repair. It was a very basic roof. I'm pretty sure it would have cost no more than seven grand to re roof that house. And the roofing that was done was just so badly done. And that's why it was leaking. And, and then they just left all the mold in there. Just festering. And a lot of areas it was still wet under the sinks is still active leaks everywhere. worst thing I ever saw, and that was the worst place to this company sent me to and the guy shows up and is what was he driving back down? Miles Herati gets out of his car. I was just like so I was reading it to him. No, he was the guy that hired me to go inspect it because he wanted to buy it because it was a distressed home and they had to get out. Yeah, so he was trying to what they do is they would try to work out a deal I think with with the owners. Yes, I think the people that live there, but they just couldn't afford to fix anything. Yeah and no income. They were just poverty, total poverty. I mean the poverty level to kids. Kids teenagers. Yeah.

Bret Pfeifer:

I mean, really one thing I thought, you know, for me, I have the option to get up and get out rather kid.

John Laforme:

You know, that's awful, let's say and I had it Yeah, I just had to stop working for that client cuz the one they sent me to prior to that was wasn't a mold issue, but it was. I went into a crawlspace while I tried to go into a crawlspace it was infested with pigeons. She's, they were attacking, they were trying to attack as I put my room and they were like running tours. Yeah, that's how bad these houses were. I said, Dude, I don't need your business. I don't need to expose myself to this kind of filth. Right? It was so bad. I just in for weeks. They had all their people trying to call me to get me back. No way. We like your reports were like how thorough Forget it. I have no interest in Don't you guys and I had chasing for money. Let me ask you what's the

Bret Pfeifer:

the worst you've encountered in the crawlspace? Dead or alive?

John Laforme:

No people yet? Haven't haven't done that. crawlspace is the worst is sewage leaks. Yeah. Which just happened on Tuesday, did a five, five unit building and had a crawlspace throughout. And I walked up to the left side of the building, where I noticed there was a crawlspace. And that's where the the main plumbing was coming in. And, and I could see the sewer clean outs on the left side, and then bam, get hit in the face with sewage. And as I'm experiencing that the maintenance guy comes over. He's like, Oh, by the way. Yeah, they found a drain pipe leak. I'm like, Okay. I think they did. Yeah, I think you're right. And so I go check it out. I could check it out. And there was I see a good 1/3 of the crawlspace was three inches deep and sewer, man. So I couldn't go, obviously all the way around, because I'm not going to crawl through dirty water. No one's going to do that. But I did find one pipe. That was the main source of the leak. But I think there was other ones too. I couldn't see that we're probably under the water. But yeah, it was pretty nasty. Nasty. So that's typically the worst. And that was not the worst sewage problem I found in the past. I've actually seen a I called it Lake Poopoo. Because Dude, it was so big and so deep. It was crazy, huh? This crawlspace was really tall. And I also see is like black thing and I took a picture. I'm like, what is that? So I had poked my head and even further, as I knew there was a leak on next. You could smell it. You can always smell it from the outside because of the crawlspace vents. Yeah, it just has a bad odor. So I've looked closer, I'm like, holy shit. Two thirds of the crawlspace were underwater. And it was all sewage. Blackwater just had, how long it takes to fill up a crawlspace with series that's been going on for like over a year. It's an SP. It's so that is that is. Yeah, that's, that's probably the worst. I did go into a crawlspace once and there were skunks in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I haven't had that. I did do that. And the one time I actually that happened twice. Two times. I've been there with skunks, I actually have YouTube videos on this, by the way, you can watch if you haven't seen. And one of them actually have my robot in there. And I went around a corner and there's a big shit that that's going to be three feet long. Two and a half, three feet long with the tail out. Yeah, at least at least that big. And I cornered him with my robot. So I'm like, I don't want him to spray my robot because then I'd have to clean it. So I slowly start backing up. And then when it since it had just enough room to get by it ran right by me. And I just kept following it. And I found three more in there. Wow, the whole little family in that city. That was one of the hill communities. That was very nice. Oh, really? Mm hmm. And that wasn't that nice. And then I had a helper at one time working with me and he loved doing cross basis. He's all he's all because he thought was interesting looking for shit. And so I sent them in there and I sent them in one side. And I had the robot going in the other side. And I saw the skunks I had a runner I do get out of there.

Bret Pfeifer:

Right. Oh yeah, get out.

John Laforme:

Yeah, so that happened. And that was a different time where I was by myself and I had I entered a crawlspace through the interior closet. And as I'm crawling i Oh, as soon as I do and I always want to make sure I'm alone. I always use my eye spotlight and I scope the whole thing as far as I can to see if anything's moving around or anything fuzzy is fuzzy. Sure enough way across. I'm in the middle of the crawlspace. In the far right corner, there was a skunk just slowly walking around. Probably just woke them up with a flashlight. Yeah. You know, they're nocturnal. No. So, so I was like, Okay, time to go. Just get right back out. Sorry, but I can't speak to crawlspace because it gets, like getting sprayed, or attacked or anything. But, uh, so yeah, that was that was that was pretty good. And

Bret Pfeifer:

so yeah, that's my that's my best crawlspace story. How about you? Um, well, I mean, sewage is always the worst when we're talking about. Yeah, just so you've seen it. I've seen it. I don't crawl through it. And I'm not gonna, you know, I've had one client, you know, they said, it was so bad last week, but it seems better. So you should be fine to go under there. And I just take a look with my flashlight and like, no matter. I don't care for your use of the smell. I'm not going in there. You know? Yeah. But as far as critters, you know, it's just always at first. It's a shocking because you don't know what it is. And you see these glowing eyes looking at you. Typically the runaway? Yeah, unless it's a raccoon. Yeah, they may. They may challenge you. Yeah. I haven't run into one. Yeah. No bears either. Hear about that? Was it up in like, Pasadena or out Sierra Madre? That Spectrum was under and there's like a mountain lion? Oh, shit. There's a mountain lion. Yeah, you're toast? Yeah. And they had to like, vacate the house, because he wouldn't the mountain lion would come out for like three days. And I do remember that. Yeah, you know, now remember that. But you know, also as my crawlspace inspections, they're not as I don't have to go around as much as you do. Because you have to look at all the foundation. Yeah, I know. Where I'm mostly looking at. I could you know, I have the bathrooms and stuff. Yeah, I have to look the plumbing. And then I can kind of just get a general idea of whether the soil is damp or not. And I can look at the perimeter. I don't need to go up to it. See if there's water intrusion from drainage. Sure. Yeah. So I don't spend as much time in there as you. Yeah. But just in case you're not aware. Because I've seen people do this. It's a dumb move. If there's water in a crawlspace in this other smells really, really damp. Don't go in there. Because if there's electrical touching, bear electrical touching that inspectors getting killed over that. Yeah, I've heard stories about that in the past. Yeah. I just not necessarily inspectors could be electricians, plumbers, whatever. Yeah. Because you're going to get zapped. Yeah. So you got to be careful. And I tell people that I'm not risking my life for you. I have no problem telling someone. Yeah, I there's somebody that told me they wanted me to look at the roof is a two story or three story apartment building. And I said, I don't have a ladder tall enough of that, like, well, you could set your ladder on the stairs. Go you go up the stairs, go right ahead. And I was like, no, he's like, Well, that's your job. Like, no, not a daredevil. A lot of stunt man. Ladder is not meant to be at the edge of a stair of a three storey building. And what about what about the suicide ladders on the side of buildings? Yeah, I'm very, I'm very picky of which one of those climbs right, you get to the top and there's like a grab and pull up. Yeah. Yeah. And I've climbed up several to learn my lesson. I mean, I'll go up. And but when you get to the top and you realize, oh, my, you know, this thing's barely hanging on hitting it just so people know getting on a roof typically easier than getting off. Yeah. Much even when you use your own ladder. Yeah. Because if that's a really steep pitch, and you only have the ladder, this high above the gutter, yeah. And when you come back down, you got to grab onto something. Yeah, I always extend mine up like two feet. So I can grab the top of it and kind of have a base. And I'll try and do whatever, I can inspect whoever I can. But, you know, people got to realize our clients got to realize that we have to ensure our safety, especially, you know, not everybody, not only if it's a big company with their employees, they have to manage them. Even with somebody that's, you know, the owner operator, the company if I fall off a ladder and break my leg. That's it. Yeah. That's it. I can't work for however long it takes for my leg to heal. That's a long time. You know, I wanted to see if you use this kind of pump, no, I use a different type. Okay, same company. That's Stefan, right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same company. But a different type. Mine's in external and uses the hose. Okay. This one I think is those ones are preset, right? Yes. So that one, you tell it how many liters you want and adapt? Does it? Yep. My 10 minutes. Yeah. So mine because I have to factor in the environment that I'm in. I like to use the one where I use my own timer and set my own gauge, basically. So we can just tell them how it works is what these machines do is the other air sample cartridge. So it's a little cylinder, and what it does is that on one side, there's two sides of it, one for the air to come in and one to the air to come out. And in the middle of that is a collection plate where anything that passes through there gets called collected onto that plate. And then when that goes to the lab, they crack that open and put that plate under a microscope and see how much more you know, identify the mold and count what's on there. So to get an accurate reading of what's going on in the environment, we have to send, say, 75 liters of air through that for outside and inside. And I do that by doing my arrow cells are 15 liters per minute. Run for five minutes. Yeah, these are also 15. For 10. We do them for 10. Yeah, yeah. But I adjust mine. Because if I'm in a clear, like doing a clearance, the work that's been done in there, there's too many like particles from the anticoagulant. Yeah. And so it'll clog it up. And I learned this a long time ago, the lab, they have a detection limit. So if there's too many drywall particles in there, they'll say, you know, Stacie Boucher's detected that, but they won't give me the count. And the count is what I need to know whether they passed or not. So I'll lower it down to 45 liters in those cases, or I see that you have the Yep, cavity, these ones. So basically, if you can't see if you're not seeing the video, this fits, the cartridge fits onto this tube, and then you stick the end of the tube into the ceiling or wall cavity and able to pull the air through there. Sure, because the ceiling and wall cavity, you had to drill the hole first, right? There's so much particles in there of building material. I'll just drywall dust alone. Yeah, so I'll only run these for a minute. And only, you know, only do 15. And it's I mean, people will say is that enough? Well, we have to be able to get account of the mold spores, right? If we're just getting detection, that's not enough to interpret the the lab, right. So basically, sorry, got sidetracked there, but that's what that is this. This is an air pump that allows you to pull air through these cartridges to get an to get an air sample. Right. And this here is a swab sample. Yes. It's simple. You know, just like cleaning out your ears. You know? Yeah, I think if you're just listening, think about a medical Q tip. Yeah, a long medical Q tip into a little plastic like, was this thing's called?

John Laforme:

So oh, it's called a container. beaker. Yeah. Sterile polyester swab. Yeah. Dry transport system. That's what they call it. It's worse. I think it's the first time I read that. I like it test you like it's a plastic. Yeah, it's sealed off test tube. Yeah. Yeah. So these are some of the, you know, tools that bright uses, and I use on occasion.

Bret Pfeifer:

And, as far as you had, you mentioned your camera. Yeah. So tell me about your camera you had you had a backstory behind that. So how you do your how you do your inspection, right. My camera as a tool is not necessarily for detecting mold or anything like that. I use my camera for efficiency of my inspection process, where you'll see other mold inspectors, they'll have a notepad and they're going through and they're writing down. And it takes them a long time to do the inspection because I know that your agents there, you're an agent, you're have to be there for the inspection and your time is valuable. I'm not trying to rush my inspection whatsoever. But using the camera allows me to not have to take notes, the way I want you building your report photos, and then you can type it out later, every home that I do, I have the exact same process as far as how I go through the homes or my camera tells me the story, right? Here's the picture of the room. Here's the picture of the area, here's the picture of the mold, here's the picture of the moisture. And really, if I had an apprentice, and I had them go out and do an inspection, and they followed my process, they could give me the pictures and I'd be able to write the report as long as they follow my, my process. So the reason I bought this is just because I try and be as efficient as possible, and getting the inspection done in the best amount of time. And then on top of that I'm able to provide you with a picture with the pictures I've seen I've reviewed so many reports that you know, here's his write up like why didn't he give you a picture? I know it's like someone doing a sewer inspection but no video Yeah. So hang on. I'll show you mine

John Laforme:

so this is a camera I've been using for years. Check it out. It's waterproof. Nice. It's got a great flash. I've dropped it off ladders it's got a I think it's got a 13 foot drop rating it's a really good camera if you ever gonna upgrade I'd suggest you spend the money on that because if it's raining outside you still good just that's my that's one of my main tools. Yeah, that my flashlight Yeah, am I that thing in beside my head there.

Bret Pfeifer:

The other thing benefit is I like having the oh okay cuz I can you gotta flip I could see around

John Laforme:

Things that I can't ask. That's true. Yeah, I usually have to just go like this.

Bret Pfeifer:

Just snap a whole bunch of edges. Yeah, that works. That works too. So yeah, tools are good. And

John Laforme:

don't forget the hydro shark. Yeah. This I found to come in pretty handy for certain situations what situations they use it that I use. I love that tool. A mine. I have a different brand of it, but it's the same. Exactly.

Bret Pfeifer:

Yours Yours beeps when it? Yeah, so the handheld one gives you the actual moisture reading. Or this one just will beep. You can't really hear it's the lights going off? Yeah, I've taken it's not picking up to the microphone, right. And so what I use this for is it's long, so I don't have to bend down it. Yeah, move on the property. And I use it to mean it just keeps you moving. keeps you moving. And you can also reach like, say if there's a washer dryer. Yeah, you can reach between the washer and dryer to hit the wall back there that you wouldn't be able to get your arm into, right. I love this tool. It's also a weapon. It's also a weapon. Look at those pointers. I know I open it up when I'm walking through some sketchy neighborhoods.

John Laforme:

Look, look at the size of these prongs on here. Trust me that will cause some

Bret Pfeifer:

personal damage. Yeah, so don't mess with us. Yeah. And so mine has a really loud paper. I you know, how's the inspection gone? Well, if you hear beeping, not going well. You have a sense of humor at work. Yeah. But then I tell him you know, but if you hear it like just two beeps. That's just me making sure the batteries are working.

John Laforme:

Oh, that is funny. That is funny. But anyway, you got any other thing else you want to talk? We just talked for a good? Oh, right. An hour and 40 minutes. Oh, man. Yeah. So I think we covered I think we covered everything I wanted to cover. I don't think we missed out on anything. I think we explained to everybody you know what the process is and Stop panicking. Yeah, until you have all the facts. So there's no need to flip out or stress. Ignoring it does not make it go away. Find the source of the leak, stop the bleeding in other words, and then remove all the damage. The number one problem I find in most houses is there was a leak is no longer leaking. But all the damage materials were never remediated, which means they were not removed. Yeah. And that's what you want to make sure you get you look into because just because you don't see mold facing you doesn't mean it's not the other side of that drywall. Yep. And that's why, you know, Brett was, was looking at some of Brett's photos earlier, showing, you know what proper remediation is and what a non proper remediation is. So

Bret Pfeifer:

it unfortunately, it sucks. Yeah, it just sucks. It has. I mean, it happens, it happens, it sucks. You just want to get it done by someone who knows what they're doing, who has a good reputation. Don't go for the cheapest guy. And don't go for anybody that has any affiliation, or anything to do with remediation. I've had them set up with two different companies. And then you look at the Secretary of State, you know, they're there. Yeah, it's their filings. And you see, it's the same person. I've seen that. And then also, like you said, Don't go for the least expensive because those ones, you know, they're doing something right. You got something going on. I saw a company that offers like, eight air samples for $165. Oh, and it's like how how is he's negative before he walks in the house? Yeah, yeah. I mean, negative cash flow. Yeah. Cuz the negative cash flow before he walks out. You have to pay the lab, and you got to pay for the sample. Yeah. Well take the samples cost more than that. Yeah, that's crazy. So yeah, and look out for that. And when you're revealing reports, use you know, think about it in a rational way. Sure, you know, cuz you can see when there's things that don't mess up, you know, they don't line up or, you know, people claiming it there's federal regulation red flag, right, you know, certain things like that. So yeah, there is none Yeah, my my main thing is health and safety overall. Yeah, but I keep things in proportion. I don't use scare tactics. I just want to make sure it's a safe environment and what needs to be done or done but I'm not gonna scare your clients and let it rally there. You know, it's it's over. Well, if I if somebody wants to hire you, how do they find you? Golden State mold inspections. You can find me just google the name my website, Golden State mold inspections, calm, call me at 3105 to 50619. I try to accommodate same day next day. Sometimes if I'm busy, I can go out it takes two days but I try and be there as soon as as possible, how long is your lab take for test results? Typically, so Okay, so there's two parts of it. My, if you're doing like a specific area, just, those usually only take about 1520 minutes for the inspection. But the lab takes three business days. So they can expedite it. They just charge of course for that. If you're doing a general mold inspection of the whole home, I can have the report out same day. Right, you can't finish your report unless you have your samples. Exactly. Another thing most people don't understand why I can't get the report because of the samples made back then. Yeah. And if I, you know, and they told me, but basically what I say in cases where they don't want to take a sample, where I recommend, which is fine, I just say I have to assume that this is dangerous. And I have to write my scope of work, but they declined declines. And it needs containment protocols, because I can't verify whether this is a virus or not. So after.

John Laforme:

That's interesting. All right. So you got Brett's information. Once again, Brett Pfeiffer Golden State mold inspections. And this is John liforme. You know me already, home inspection. And thanks for listening. And like I said, there'll be a YouTube version of this eventually. And check it out. And you'll see the photos and stuff and more visual aids that we just mentioned. Hey, thanks for coming, Brett. Thanks for having me. Very helpful and take care. Okay, just a friendly reminder for buying a home don't panic, home inspection. Gotcha cover. You can schedule us online or go into home inspection authority inspection authority for seven leaving calls at 800-950-8184. We offer general home inspections, mold inspections and testing sewer camera inspections, indoor air quality testing, swimming pool and spa inspections and light commercial inspections. Use specialized tools to provide the most thorough inspection possible such as drone or roof inspections that are not accessible. Crawl bought under homes and tight crawl spaces to get to those areas otherwise not accessible. And we use thermal imaging technology as well. So give us a call at 809 50818 for like I said you can schedule online at home inspection the forty.com 24/7