Before the wet winter months come around and
beckon mold into our homes, State Senator Liz Krueger warns that anyone who
claims they can remediate mold had better know what they are doing.

Krueger is putting forth legislation that
requires commercial mold cleaners be certified by the Department of
Environmental Conservation according to requirements to be set by her task
force. The task force will define what is a toxic mold and who is qualified to
clean it.

Similar
regulations have been put in place for lead and asbestos abatement.

Krueger
hopes that with certification requirements, residents can effectively banish
mold before it banishes them. “Residents of an entire building had to move out
and sue their landlord due to mold that was never properly remediated,” Krueger
said.

Mold can
affect new and old buildings alike, as long as it’s moist inside. Because the
fur we know as mold is just the visible part of the organism, it’s hard to get
rid of it completely.

“You can
scrub your walls, you can scrub your bathroom, and it can be behind the walls
and in the walls and be doing just as much health damage whether you see it or
not,” Krueger said.

Mold
releases spores, which can cause allergic reactions in some people. Poor indoor
air caused by mold is a known trigger of asthma and other respiratory problems.

Jesse Goldman, the housing
organizer at Make the Road New York, a community advocacy group based
out of Bushwick, Brooklyn, says that current
practices are not regulated at all.

“There are
no specific requirements of who is qualified and who is not,” he said. “In
Bushwick, they (residents) basically bring in anyone who could do it the
cheapest.” Usually the cleaners would first paint over the mold, and if that
doesn’t do the trick, put plywood over the hole where moisture comes in,
according to Goldman.