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Mold Remediation - What is Florida Law?
4/5/2019 (Permalink)
Laws regulating mold-related services in Florida went into effect in 2011.
Miami and Miami Beach property owners want contractors that are trustworthy. One way to know if your contractor is trustworthy is whether or not they are following the law.
Back in 2011 the State of Florida got serious about mold. The government implemented rules regulating mold-related services, which for the first time required Mold Assessors to be licensed in their trade, and Mold Remediators to be licensed in theirs. One of the key elements of the mold services law was a provision to ensure that homeowners get treated with transparency -- it required that Mold Assessors should be separate from Mold Remediators on a particular job. If a Mold Assessor provides an assessment on a job, he/she cannot be the Remediator on that job -- and vice versa.
The statute reads: A person may not "Perform or offer to perform any mold remediation to a structure on which the mold assessor or the mold assessor’s company provided a mold assessment within the last 12 months."
Unfortunately this statute is being violated in Florida still today.
We at SERVPRO of Miami Beach point this out for a couple of reasons. First, we are strong supporters of this statute -- we strongly believe that your mold assessor should be separate and independent from your remediator (e.g., us). The remediator should be separate from the assessor to avoid conflicts of interest. Second, we see evidence almost every day that some contractors are violating this rule, and that this lack of integrity is costing building owners and occupants.
Here's a recent example. One of our competitors performed an assessment at a retail store on Lincoln Road. The employees were complaining about headaches, sore throats, fatigue, and mold-like odors. The corporate managers truly wanted to do the right thing, so they brought in a local provider. This provider provided an assessment, and prescribed a scope of work to "address" the mold problem. The bid to "address the problem was $8,000.00 and the treatment took 4 hours. Of course, the provider "cleared" themselves out of the job.
We can all guess what happened. The employees had all the expectation that their workplace would be safe and healthy. Soon enough, the headaches, sore throats and fatigue came back -- and it happened only when they came to work. They felt fine on weekends when not at the store.
The corporate managers called us, and we recommended an independent assessor, who prescribed a scope of work that would take 3 intense days of contents cleaning, packing and protection, then demolition of parts of the store that were known to be effected by a water intrusion, followed by a detailed microcleaning of the entire store. Our bill: the same $8,000 that the other guy charged to spray some "magic juice" in the course of 4 hours.
Were we successful? Don't ask us - ask the independent assessor, who has no financial interest in the remediation job, nor any affiliation with our company. They cleared us full time, and the corporate managers report happy employees.
Too many of our competitors don't even understand basic mold remediation concepts, or they're just too lazy to perform the hard work the right way. It's much more profitable to sell some snake oil and spray "magic juice," leading unwitting occupants to think they're doing the right thing.