Mold in a rental property is often a landlord’s worst nightmare. At Bruni/Karr, we maintain a generous and flexible policy for tenants who have discovered mold in a home we manage. We give them the opportunity to leave without any financial penalties or responsibilities. Mold can lead to health problems and a lot of liability for owners. There aren’t a lot of acceptable reasons to break a lease – but if there’s mold in the home, we don’t want to put anyone at risk. We let the tenants leave.
When you have a report of mold in your Albuquerque rental property, take it seriously. Act quickly and do everything you can to solve the current problem and prevent it from happening again.
Finding the Mold Source in Your Albuquerque Rental Home
All mold is caused by some kind of moisture getting into the home, and finding the source is crucial. It could be a roof leak or a foundation leak. Maybe the gutters are not cleaned out and you have water running down the front of the property and getting inside. It could be an HVAC or plumbing problem allowing condensation to take form.
Look all over your property for signs. If you’ve had a water leak or you notice water staining on walls or ceilings, you might do a little digging and find some mold spores. Sometimes it grows inside walls and sometimes it’s easy to see on the outside of walls. Usually, it’s easily identifiable by its color, but not all mold is the same color. It might be yellow, green, black, or some combination of colors.
Hire an inspection company to conduct a mold test. They will usually take a sample of the air inside of the property and compare it to the outside air to see if there is an elevated level of mold. This test can also determine what kind of mold you have, and whether it’s hazardous to the tenant and your property.
Treating the Mold in Your Home
Once you have discovered where the mold is and what the source of the problem might be, you’ll need to hire a remediation company, which may be expensive, but is extremely necessary. It’s impossible to rent out a home that has mold. You can look for mold solutions that don’t involve a complete demolition of your drywall and flooring. A lot of great technology has been introduced recently to make the process of mold clean up less expensive. You’ll have to keep the home vacant for a much shorter time period, too.
After you’ve had the mold cleaned up and cleaned out, we recommend you have the home tested again. The goal is not only to clean up the mold that’s there, but to prevent it from returning. Talk to your remediation company or your Albuquerque property manager about how to prevent mold growth in the future, and ways you can detect it early enough to avoid problems and risk.
If you’d like to talk more about mold and the way we handle it with our rental properties, please reach out to us at Bruni/Karr Rental & Management Agency. We’d be happy to tell you more.
