If you are the property manager of an older building, then you may have faced this issue before. “Mold can be highly destructive to your buildings; highly toxic to your residents; and highly damaging to your profits, too.” If you don’t know how to properly treat these cases and to work to remove them from the scene, then you could have some big and possibly-dangerous problems on your hands…
Property Leaks Can Lead to Mold Growth
Mold isn’t only unsightly and fairly disgusting, but it can also pose enormous health risks to you and anyone else who may live or work on site. If the health concerns don’t scare you, then consider the huge effects that you could see as a result of legal battles, should someone decide to take action based on any negative experiences they have with mold in or around the building. “A Texas jury awarded a homeowner millions from her insurance company over a mold-related claim.” You don’t want that to happen to you.
Depending on your property, there are different kinds of “challenges” that you’ll have to face as a manager trying to control mold. It’s often up to maintenance teams to address these situations, so if you don’t have a solid crew, then there’s already a big issue. Another difficulty is that you don’t really have control over the ventilation situation within individual units or offices, so you may not even know if one space has a problem of mold that the rest of the property doesn’t have, for whatever reason. If there are empty units, though, then make sure that they are regularly inspected and/or cleaned, as inattention can lead to growth if you aren’t careful.
Something you may not have considered is the state of the property if it has changed hands: that is, if it’s come to you as an older property from a different manager. They may not have disclosed the dirty details about mold growth and other things if they were trying to be encouraging rather than to scare you away. Unfortunately, this might mean that there is already an issue that you don’t know about, so make sure to do a thorough inspection once you start work as a manager in a new place no matter what you’ve been told.
“The battle against mold is ultimately a battle against moisture.” So, how do you stop that buildup within your building? Start by trying to craft landscaping features that direct the rain and snow away from your building rather than toward its base. You also need to make sure that the roof and gutters are clear of debris to prevent them from becoming – you guessed it – moldy. There is also “mold-resistant plastic” that you can use outdoors in a variety of places to create a sort of moisture barrier, so look into your options and then make the best decision for your property.
You aren’t the only one who has to deal with this problem, of course. “Your maintenance crew needs to have the right tools to protect themselves against toxic mold, as well as to fight mold where it may appear.” You both want to take care of the people who work with you and don’t want to open yourself, or your company, to the liabilities that come with associated health risks. OSHA, for example, would be looking out to see if maintenance workers have the appropriate gear to combat such situations. Unless you want to risk fines and more, read up on their rules and requirements.
Do you know where some of the most likely places within your property are to grow mold? They include: shower curtains, water heaters, basements, washing machine hoses, and more. Some of these may seem obvious, but others are less so, and many are hard to get to, let alone to clean out on a regular basis. Mold can also grow within the walls, which is obviously a problem in terms of going to try and clear it. Luckily, there are some technologies that make it easy to monitor these situations, such as fans that automatically turn on at a certain level of humidity, or alarms that alert you to leaks from, say, water heaters.
If you need a little extra help within your work as a property manager, then get the Budgetrac Property Management Software working for you. It has the capability to access to your real-time information, 24/7, anytime, anywhere on any device so that you can manage your building and its functionality from wherever! No property manager should be without a reliable software, so look into what Budgetrac can do for you today.