Lee B wrote:

I have a 50 yr old row house. Never had a water problem... except for
during Isabella, the sump pump didn't work and water backed up into the
finished basement. I dried everything out and didn't think much of it.

Fast forward 5 years, and I have the house up for sale. Buyer made an
offer contingent on mold test. (My agent didn't know why as she hadn't
noticed anything, other than it smelled a bit musty from the house
(vacant) being closed up. I have asthma to cats, dogs etc and never had
a problem). Test came back "high" for several types of mold, including
the stachy stuff. They also saw, but didn't test for, mold on attic
rafters. Buyer bailed. ...

In case anyone is interested in the outcome. I went with the third
company. The woman who heads the company put a lot of work into finding
a product to use that wouldn't require disemboweling my clubroom. She
came up with a product from this company - http://www.serumsystem.com/.
It contains a peroxide type of solution that "boils" the mold up to the
surface where it can then dry and be vacuumed off. See the video on the
"products" page. I have NO association with the company. I just thought
it was an interesting approach and wanted to mention it in case anyone
was following. It worked, and while it bleached the paneling just a
little, it was better than the alternatives! The initial post-test came
back below industry guidelines, so it is technically ok, however they
weren't as low as she wanted for one of the species (which tested higher
indoors than out) and she is doing another round of cleaning, and paying
for the retesting.

If anyone else runs into this problem, all I can say is search long and
hard for a decent company. The ones I encountered ran the gamut. From
the one who glibly said the only possible way to eradicate the problem
was to remove all of the paneling, carpeting, ceiling etc (which
probably was the easiest... and most lucrative) approach for him, to the
guy who told me that all remediators had "relationships" with testing
companies and could (wink, wink, nudge) get the post-test results to be
what they needed to be (and even warned me that, of course, a test by
another company the following week might not pass!). I'm just glad I
continued looking until I found someone who actually seems reputable.

One of the biggest problems I found is that the industry doesn't seem to
have much oversight. In my state, they just passed a law (goes into
effect in 2010) that mold remed companies must have home improvement
licenses; they don't now. There seem to be lots and lots of "air
quality" and "water damage" organizations that have their own sets of
certifications, although some of them sound rather like the "close
matchbook before striking" types of schools. And the biggest problem is
there are no "standards" of what any of the readings should be. There
are only "industry guidelines" and even those don't seem to be published
anywhere that the public can find them. So if one of my readings is
1500, and the outside tester says that is "within guidelines", I can't
find out if I'm one spore below the limit or a thousand.