My wife and I moved into a house about two years ago that was very nice. It was an older house, but had been remodeled down to the studs a couple years before we moved in. It was on the side of Mt. Soledad, and everything appeared to be in good shape. Shortly after moving in, my wife started to have trouble breathing. Also in the middle of the night she would wake with lots of pain in her chest. After several more months and many many doctor visits, someone suggested to us that maybe there was mold in the house. It seemed odd, since the house was in good shape and there weren’t any water marks on the walls or leaks in the roof. Just to check things out, I crawled under the house, and sure enough under our bedroom there was a good bit of mold growing.
Fortunately, we didn’t own the house, but were renting. My wife spent the next month and a half with friends or living in hotel rooms, while we moved. It took months to recover from this episode, and boy was it a pain.
So what’s my point? Forget what the disclose says, forget advice that unless the house is in a swamp you don’t need to worry. Forget whether the house is new or old, REO or regular purchase. GET A MOLD INSPECTION! They aren’t that expensive and the cost of getting mold fixed can be huge, and I’m not even counting all the doctor bills or the inconvenience and disruption to your family. But definitely get a mold inspection. Just as I would never buy a house without a regular inspection, I would never buy a house without a mold inspection.
