Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Listen and learn how some stand out from competition and gain market share. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
The Importance of Home Inspections for a Healthier Living Environment
Unlock information for maintaining a healthy home environment and protect your loved ones from unseen hazards. Have you ever wondered if your home's air could be silently impacting your health? Join us as we share an intriguing story of our environmental home inspection journey, revealing startling findings that go beyond the surface. We recount a fascinating case involving a unique home with a mysterious past linked to unusual diseases. Through comprehensive testing for radon, heavy metals, VOCs, and more, discover why these inspections are crucial for health-conscious homeowners and what hidden dangers might be lurking in your living space.
Laura and I also shed light on the often-overlooked menace of mold and mycotoxins, discussing how these can persist even after standard remediation efforts. Hear how one homeowner's persistent health issues were traced back to indoor air quality, emphasizing the need for specialized treatments. We make the case for routine home maintenance inspections, recommending a biennial schedule to catch potential issues before they escalate. Whether it's the peace of mind from gifting an inspection or the proactive approach to maintaining a safe home, our conversation provides essential insights and practical tips for a sound living environment.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Two-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, Welcome to the Standing Out Wild podcast. This is Jim and, of course, with me is Laura. Hello everybody, Welcome to the Standing Out Loud podcast. This is Jim, Of course with me is Laura.
Speaker 3:Hello everybody.
Speaker 2:The Office. Goddess, you have a title. You've had this title for a long time.
Speaker 3:How long has it been? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Tell everybody how you found out your title.
Speaker 3:We were going to some kind of an event somewhere and you had stopped to meet somebody who had done name tags up for us.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I already did things online.
Speaker 3:Oh wait really. Okay so anyways, you get the name tags, we get to this event and you just put it on my shirt Like I don't. You know, I was trusting, I love you, I trusted you and all of a sudden, as we're walking around, people are looking at the name tag and laughing and I was just like God, what did he do? Yep, that's what he did so.
Speaker 2:It said Laura Tromp. Underneath it it said office, goddess. So that's been years, that's been a long time. That's been a long time. So anyway, today let's talk about we All right homeless question. We're not just when somebody's buying a house.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Listed through MLS, through real estate. Don't need any of that stuff in order to do a home inspection. You can call a home inspection company. Just do a maintenance inspection for you, which I think is an awesome Christmas gift or just an anniversary gift for your parents.
Speaker 3:Well, like that one that we just did, where the parents had just recently died and they were looking to buy the house from their estate.
Speaker 2:Yes, so let's talk. We're going to talk about that inspection, that whole situation. Of course, no names, of course, but just as well as to know that you do not have to have a license to listen to a real estate agent or agency to do inspections.
Speaker 4:But first let's listen to this Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs. From radon to mold to warranties For a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit homeinspectionsinohiocom All right, laura.
Speaker 2:So a family, parents passed away Of really weird shit. Yes, yes, not you think normally old age or something like that and they pass away because of that weird odd, like odd diseases odd diseases, to the point that the doctors told them it was environmental, not genetic, correct?
Speaker 2:so people, siblings, which there's a bunch of, them that the doctors told them it was environmental, not genetic Correct. So people, it's the siblings which there's a bunch of them own the house now through the estate Right. One of them wants to buy it from the others and then one of them wants to sell it all out.
Speaker 3:They wanted to buy it from the estate. Yeah.
Speaker 2:However. So we and these are health conscious people, which makes sense, I think, people living there for a long time died of unusual circumstances which the doctor says environmental. So we went there and we did well, I did the whole house inspection because that had not been done.
Speaker 3:You did that in two weeks.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did that termite, you did all the environmental testing.
Speaker 3:I have done more chain of custodies in that one inspection than I have ever done before.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people think they think environmental, they're thinking mold testing, that's probably all they think, or radon, that's all most agents think about.
Speaker 3:But there was so much.
Speaker 2:What all did you test for? We did radon right.
Speaker 3:So I set up radon test. We set up so there's also a way to do an air test where it tests for heavy metals in the air, and that was an eight hour test. That was the first one. I got started because it was an eight-hour test it has to suck air for eight hours.
Speaker 2:Now, that was an unusual one to do, because you think heavy metals. Why would I ever need to do tests for metals in the air?
Speaker 3:So there was a reason for that. There was a reason for this, this house.
Speaker 2:it was built with a wooden foundation, which is not commonly done. It was more of a popular thing to do in the past. They still can be done, but you got to really control your moisture if you have a wooden foundation. But back in the 80s they used copper arsenic to pressure treat the wood. Okay, so it may have been. They had a concern about their copper arsenic being in the air, which that is legit, because that stuff will out gas or or you know, come out first couple years. Don't know if it's still there or not right, we're gonna find out, we're gonna find out so there was that.
Speaker 3:Then I did soil testing. So we did two samples out where he was going to do the garden. So one of those was for heavy metals and another one is for something called SVOCs. So it's similar to a VOC that we do in terms of like air quality testing, but this chemical is a little bit different because it stays in the soil and it's not released into the air. So I did that out by the garden. Then I did the heavy metal one near the house to see if anything was leaching from the house, you know, like where they were walking in, where that might've impacted. Okay, um, I did a formaldehyde, I did a voc test, I did a very, very, very huge water sample test. That's like an advanced environmental water scan or something like that, it will look for a scrap ton of stuff, like there were two huge liter bottles.
Speaker 2:So the new test for you and I was the soil and the metal, and the metal in the air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, metal in the air. I could see that you had a welding company. That could be. I would doubt there's a metal foot in the air there, because you don't want to breathe that in, which is the issue of welding company. That could be. I would doubt there's a metal split in the air there because you don't want to breathe that in, which is the issue of welding zinc. You don't want to breathe that stuff in. But those are different tests. But there's so many things that can be looked at, because they're going to do some gardening so they want to make sure the soil is not contaminated, which makes me wonder was anything else going on in the past on that land that they're aware of? But they would have told us if that was the issue, if that was a concern. The guy they got a nice guy, I mean they're all the very concerned.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they were super sweet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and they were smoking meat all day. Oh, I know it smelled amazing.
Speaker 3:They had a party as we were leaving and I'm like you know, yeah well, we went to.
Speaker 2:Well, we didn't stay there the whole time while the test was going. So we I did inspection, the termite did all that stuff you got your stuff done except for the, the eight hour one. Well, that was still going. We left and went, grabbed food. We got some food, we did a little shopping and came back after the test was done and picked it up, so it was good. But copper arsenic, which is what they used to use for pressure wood. They stopped that in 2003.
Speaker 3:That long, yes Wow.
Speaker 2:Which is why you should never burn pressure wood to cook over, because it could have the arsenic in that smoke that could get on your hot dogs or your marshmallows that you're cooking over the fire. That's why you never use pressure tree wood for campfires while we're cooking fires. I don't know what they use now. I think another copper of some type. Was it soda light? What's that? Blue stuff, blue mineral I think they use. Now I can't remember what it is Lapis.
Speaker 2:I can't think of what it is, I don't know. But anyway that was an interesting place, nice house, nice location, very unique, very unique house.
Speaker 3:It was cool.
Speaker 2:And they had a roof metal roof that was like 15 years old. They were guessing. I couldn't see it. It was completely snow covered.
Speaker 3:Because this was, you know, the day of the snow.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it was not possible. I did find leaks, though, going on in the attic space, so they need to have a roof, so they need to have that roof.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that, yeah. Come back and redo things on that.
Speaker 2:Well, I gave him the the list, our preferred professionals list. So he's got that. All yeah. What's? What's another environmental test you have done? Before you did one for smoking I've also done it for thc the one for the smoking I was.
Speaker 3:I didn't need the test.
Speaker 2:Wait, wait it was an apartment building. It was an apartment building.
Speaker 3:There were four different units in it. When they signed the lease for the apartment, they signed that there would not be any smoking in the apartment.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay so apparently one of the people in the apartment had been complaining that he was smelling cigarette smoke, so they needed this air quality test done. So I was able with my nose, I knew who did what, but it was corroborated by the test, and so I told him who it was that was doing the smoking and who it was that had complained, and I nailed it perfectly. And I'm sure that one woman got kicked out because she was smoking.
Speaker 2:She was a smoker. Now that some some people say as a joke that women are very sensitive to smells and they're just picky, picky creatures.
Speaker 3:But it is legit that women have more 30% more nerve endings and stuff in our noses than men do. Factory receptors.
Speaker 2:Maybe is the proper name, but yeah 30% more than men do.
Speaker 3:30% more than men do. So when you've got somebody going, I don't smell that. That may very well be true because women tend to have better noses than guys do so, guys.
Speaker 2:if a woman says you stink, you probably stink, you probably stink, you just don't realize it.
Speaker 3:You probably burned out your old back.
Speaker 2:You burned out your nose, that's why you can't smell anything you burn out over nice campfires in which you're not burning pressure wood. But yeah, so you've done THC. What was that? I don't remember that one Was that for a teenager? Yeah, somebody's another apartment.
Speaker 3:Somebody was smoking in it okay and I. Then that was that one in the nicotine, one they had to reset because they only do those every so often.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I, I can tell the lab has to reset their equipment. They have to reset the equipment for those specific ones. So so yeah. So if you're, you don't even need to be buying a house. If you want some testing done in your house, you can call Habitation Investigation. We could do the testing, or your.
Speaker 3:Environmental Consultants of Ohio has been doing more too.
Speaker 2:Which is another company Laura started. Who wants to maybe relax someday? But she started another company. You've had this for a couple of years.
Speaker 3:It's six years old now.
Speaker 2:Environmental Consultants of Ohio, which is specifically for environmental testing phase ones, if they're doing a commercial purchase.
Speaker 3:We had a call over the weekend. Last week she and I have been texting. She's been sick for about nine months, no clue what's going on. Her doctor's telling her she's crazy. She's done all the tests, so she goes to a functional med doc now. And no, this is the one coming up where we're going to be doing stuff next week for her. And so at this point she popped positive for two types of mycotoxins.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:So at this point we're trying to figure out the potential for food environmental, because one of the things that we've seen is like, let's say, you have a mold issue in your house and you have somebody come in and remediate it. Well, if they don't kill all of that mold first before they try cleaning it up, that mold will release mycotoxins in the air. So you might be done with the mold. If they come in and do a clearance test, the mold is gone, but there could be mycotoxins left behind and if you're moving or selling the house, somebody coming in could be sensitive to those eventually, because this woman's been here for three years and so for the last nine months she's not been doing well.
Speaker 3:So that could have yeah, it could have built up in her system. There could be, you know, maybe there's stuff on the countertop that is getting into food she's eating. I, I don't know.
Speaker 2:At this point we can do another thing on the mycotoxins which you can have. Mycotoxins come from molds but when you clean the mold up and filter out, the spores get rid of those. Mycotoxins are so small they're not going to get caught in your HEPA filter. They need special treatment and most companies don't know how to handle it.
Speaker 2:They don't know how to do it, don't want to do it and they want to ignore it because they can do mold cleanup. People are still getting sick because of the mold and that it produced mold that was there I produced.
Speaker 3:Some mycotoxins are still lingering in the house, so so yeah, we should do one on mycotoxins and explain a little bit more because I'm still going through classes and working on that normie designation designation for it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so so yeah, lauren's very, very knowledgeable on indoor air quality and mold working my way there yes, you know. You know more, a lot more than a lot of mold companies do so. So anyway, so inspections don't have to be done just because you're somebody's buying a house the other one that we did.
Speaker 3:So there was a married couple and she was the one that was complaining she wasn't feeling well just the mycotoxin one no, this was a mold one oh, okay, so jim and I go out and we're gonna just do mold testing. So as I'm down with the gentleman, he's showing me some things, all of a sudden I hear something weird and we go back into the back maintenance room and his sump pump discharge pipe came loose and was gushing water all over that little utility room.
Speaker 2:It had been loose for a couple months.
Speaker 3:We were figuring it had been loose for at least eight months, because that's how long that woman's been sick, and shutting off the furnace downstairs, they are lucky, it was a dry summer.
Speaker 2:They are lucky, it's been a dry. It was a dry summer.
Speaker 3:They're very lucky. So we talked with them about maintenance inspections and contacting us. Once, you know, all the craziness of the holidays went through because they've never been up in their attic, they've not been down in, you know, like any of the crawl space areas. They haven't looked at their stuff. They're both medical professionals, so they're both crazy busy. They don't know what they're looking at, even if they had the time. So they're very interested in doing a maintenance inspection every couple of years, just so they don't have to.
Speaker 2:And they don't have to worry. Well, radon is supposed to be done every two years.
Speaker 3:Every two years. So I figured just do the maintenance inspection every two years. That's enough to catch you know, like if the roof is starting to go without it being too bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense to me. So, yeah, all right. Well, that's it for this one. Thank you everybody.
Speaker 1:Have a great day. Bye. You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at that's j-i-m-t-r-o-t-h, and click on podcast. Until next time, learn and go do stuff.