After six months of homeowner hell, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I have mold under my hardwood floors.

The alternative was termites, which would've been much worse (and creepier).

Since April, I've had... my entire roof replaced due to hail damage, my entire house jacked up for foundation repair, a gas leak repaired, three seperate major plumbing problems, vents and fans cut into the brick wall to ventilate my crawlspace, a tree limb spear through my roof and ceiling, and my hardwood floors buckled to the point where two of our bedrooms are almost unlivable. So far about $40,000 in repairs, $15,000 more needed, and only $10,000 covered by insurance.

The warped hardwood floor situation has been ongoing for years, but after a hot water pipe burst under my home in May, the problem spread from one or two spots to my entire house. I've had literally 30 people under my house in the past six months, none of whom could tell me more than "your floors are holding moisture". I spent a couple of thousand getting fans and vents cut into my brick walls, circulating air under the house, but to no avail.

Turns out the gas leak that was caused by the foundation people was a blessing in disguise. While the plumber was under the house capping off the gas, he found that I had a drainage pipe from my laundry room that had rotted to the point of having no remaining underside. So when I ran my washer, I had twelve feet of pipe saturating the soil under my house like an underground sprinkler system.

So the floors are gettng better, but there were a couple of boards that were turning black, with some sort of black sap oozing out of them. My first thought was termites (since they force mud from your walls and floors while they build their nests). But the bug guy came out today and assured me that it wasn't the case. I have mold under my floorboards, and now that the moisture problem is gone it's beginning to dry out and die.

After six months of contractors telling me, "I have bad news for you", I've had two contractors in a row tell me, "Good news!"

So I've got THAT going for me.

Wow. I've had some costly home repairs in the past, so I feel for you. Hope you can get everything taken care of properly and get your house back together again. Oh, are they sure it's not the "deadly black mold" everyone's been so fearful of? That's one of the reasons it's hard to get good insurance coverage in Texas. Everyone went nuts a few years ago with mold claims.

I don't think it's deadly. We don't have any health problems and it's been there in some form or another for a few years. The cats seem okay as well. I use them as coal miner's canaries.

ComgratulATIONS ON YOU'Re MOULD PROBLEM!!!

I worked for one of those companies, and it was pretty bad. I never had any problems with it, but we had to go in with "Bunny Suits" and sometimes Full face masks to remediate.

Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble. At least termites are a good thing to learn you don't have.

At our old library building the basement flooded all the time. The former director once learned that one of the restrooms was also draining straight into the basement....

Wow. Just one of the many reasons I fear home ownership.