So when we last talked about the basement, we had just started ripping the walls down.

Gemil informed us that the best way to know if we had mold was to do an air test.  It would say what type of contaminants were in the air and how much.

We continued to take down the walls; focusing on the area behind the plastic.  The drywall had been wet and needed to be replaced anyway.

We found where the crack was from the inside.  How long had that be developing??  It had to have been a long time coming.

Another issue that Gemil found was that the insulation had been packed in too tightly and the foundation was not able to breath.  The insulation was wet and parts were moldy.

It only took a day to get the results from the air test.

37,000 ppm.

That is the number of mold spores that we had in our basement.  37,000 parts per million.

I cried.  How could we have lived down there?  How long was the mold growing?  Where was it coming from?

We hadn’t found enough mold in the plastic area to get a result that high.  Gemil said the carpet had to go.

We moved into power purge mode.  Everything that was in the basement was moved upstairs.  But we had to wipe everything down before it went up because we didn’t want to carry the mold upstairs.

In the matter of a day, we had the full contents of the finished side of our basement, which included a full set of couches and tables, added to the existing contents of our living room and dining room.  It looked like a flea market up there.  We could barely sit down to watch TV.

So now that the furniture was gone, we could remove the carpet.  With knives in our gloved hands, masks on our faces, we started at the opposite side of the room from where the plastic area was.

Instead of using wooden baseboards, the previous owners had just used a strip of carpet around the room like a baseboard.  That was the first part to be removed.

And there it was.  Black mold. It was on the carpet, it was on the wall.

We moved fast.  Cut and rolled the carpet, packed it in industrial size garbage bags, tuck taped it up and hauled it up to the garage.  Many bags later, we were finished.

It’s now 11pm at night.  We’re physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.

So where was the mold coming from??  We had to find out!

Gemil cut a hole in the dry wall where the black mold was.  The studs were damp.  He cut the hold wider and taller.

Then my emotions just took over.  I cried so hard.  Physically shaking, Craig held me.

We found a second crack.