"Mold is Gold" Crowd Still Capitalizes on Fears

[hausdok]

Last month after some hard rains in Florida, some fellow called my 78-year old mother and offered to inspect her roof for free. Naturally, when he came down off the roof, he reported that it needed to be repaired and that if she didn't have it fixed the "leak" was liable to cause "toxic" mold to flourish in her home. His estimate?; $3000.

My mother's bullsh*t meter still works pretty well, so she called me. My brother and I converged on Florida to investigate and I repaired the "leak," which amounted to a small crack in the sealant at a roof seam, with $5 worth of material. We then completely cleaned, re-sealed and re-coated her roof for $300 in materials.

It's not just in the roofing industry; it's in our business too. It never seems to fail; there's some rain or flooding somewhere and all of a sudden the mold is gold inspection segment of our business slides out from under its rock with dire warnings about how "toxic" mold is lurking in every nook and cranny waiting to wipe out consumers and reduce them to the status of pauper, as one mold "inspector's" cleverly worded press release seems to imply.

Have you ever wondered why mold was never termed "toxic" or why fungal growth was never termed "biological growth" prior to the Ballard case and the multi-million dollar settlement that spawned the "mold is gold" rush? I haven't; predators are everywhere.

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