Affordable Housing Institute : US

“That fungus is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are bankrupt.”

– Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), describing the Gobernator

 

 

Even as supplies arrive, and new homes are being built with astonishing speed, Under New Orleans is being destroyed by nature’s nanobots: mold.  As the Boston Globe describes it:

 

For the buildings left standing by the winds and waters; for the houses that escaped serious damage from the toxic soup of bacteria and chemicals still sloshing in Katrina’s wake, the next plague coming, experts say, is mold.

 

”These are the most successful organisms on the Earth. . . . They have this amazing ability to [survive],” said Michael Rinaldi, director of the Fungus Testing Laboratory and professor of pathology and medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. ”Many of those houses are useless, they are going to have to be rebuilt.”

 

Coping with the alien invasion

 

The reason is straightforward: homes exist in the lower Gulf coast solely because of human management, and human technology:

 

Residents in hot and humid New Orleans have long lived with the creep of mold and fungus everywhere from bathrooms to barroom walls, keeping it at bay with dehumidifiers, air conditioners and bleach.

 

Such activity does not kill the little buggers, it merely drives them into suspension:

 

When a mold’s environment goes dry, its spores enter a kind of hibernation, able to sometimes exist for decades in an inactive state. These microscopic dry spores are lightweight, and wind blows them virtually everywhere — into homes, businesses, and schools; onto furniture, countertops, and rugs. In dry conditions, they’re mostly invisible but can still make some people with allergies sneeze, cough, and rub their itchy eyes.

 

 

With enough moisture, mold spores can germinate in just hours …

 

Next time you’re hiking in the desert, find a patch of crusted soil at the base of a wizened push.  Pour just a smidgen of water on it and within minutes it will turn bright green as the micro-organisms in its cryptobiotic soil germinate. 

 

Imagine what they think of us!

 

Structural mold works similarly:

 

… and begin eating wood, sheetrock, wallpaper glues, and other organic material that are in the home. Within days, a few spores can produce millions more, which are then carried to other locations by air currents. By the time mold is visible — which can take from a day to several weeks after germination — it often has taken root in walls and may be impossible to get out.

 

In homes, mold hides behind visible surfaces.

 

 

Mold likes moisture and heat.  Humans like neither.  So humans can build huge cities near swamps, so long as their technology prevails.  But New Orleans has been dank for nearly two weeks now:

 

Moisture has crept into crevices of homes, schools, and businesses since Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. Most air conditioners and dehumidifiers haven’t been turned on since because of the lack of electricity. No one can reach the walls to coat them with bleach. And the mold has kept on multiplying.

 

When you can write your name in it, it’s time to vamoose!

 

Mold had already begun to spawn in Sandy Guild’s spacious Gulfport, Miss., home when she returned to it just days after the storm. In each spot, the mold started out gray then turned black and spread like a weed, she said. Guild’s husband is an architect and she knows about the dangers of mold, so she and her family worked furiously to rip out all the sheetrock and insulation on the flooded first floor of the house, leaving only the studs. She bleached her kitchen cabinets.

 

Removing mold is a surface-by-surface operation:

 

After floods, federal agencies often urge homeowners to strip homes of wet carpets and furniture and dry the building out within 48 hours to stop mold infestation — but there are no guidelines for what to do with a house that has been partly submerged for weeks.

 

“Maybe we shouldn’t have cut out the sheetrock”

 

The issue isn’t guidelines, it’s insurance, who pays for what, and tort liability in mold litigation that can bankrupt an insurance carrier:

 

Some of the insurance companies feel that they are looking [2001] bankruptcy in the face, and have decided to dodge all mold liabilities in the future by not offering insurance to anyone who has ever had a water claim for their house. If all insurance companies follow their example, the anticipated result is that no one could sell a house that had ever had a water or mold claim.

 

Meanwhile,

 

While debate continues over how dangerous household molds may be,

 

That’s journalism-speak for “major class-action lawsuits in process, rubber science frequently invoked, big settlements agreed.”

 

… people with allergies, asthma, or weakened immune systems can suffer severe respiratory problems when they breathe in spores. Some fungal organisms feed on wood for their growth, leaving a gooey, structurally unsound beam behind.

 

Forget structurally unsound, mold will render renovation economically non-viable.  The New New Orleans will be either (a) new construction, (b) built above sea level (”Over New Orleans”), or (c) both.  But the former Under New Orleans is economically doomed.

 

UPDATE (28-Sep): More on mold from CNN here. 

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