By Gabriella Payne
A young Pakenham couple’s excitement at buying their dream first home quickly came crashing down when they discovered a toxic black mould infestation throughout their new family home.
Megan and Jake Holah and their two young children couldn’t wait to move into their new home in Pakenham, but were devastated to find a huge mould problem upon starting renovation works recently.
“Our plumber came in and started work near the washing machine, so he pulled the washing machine out and immediately he just found a huge infestation of that wall, basically riddled with black mould,” Ms Holah said.
“It’s basically been deemed unlivable, and my husband is in remission from lymphoma and our little boy was born with compromised lungs, so they’re not allowed to walk through the house even with a mask on, so it’s pretty bad.”
Ms Holah said that experts had told them that it seemed the black mould had been caused by the leaking washing machine, which the previous home owners left behind, and had quickly “grown and spread” throughout the house.
“We’ve had a disaster recovery company come in and do a full mould inspection report, and it’s basically spread and wrapped itself around about a third of the kitchen, so all of that needs to come out,” she said.
“And it’s also spread to the wall and a little bit of the flooring of the bedroom behind it, which would be our daughter’s room.”
Ms Holah said that her and her husband had bought the home in January this year, and had employed a conveyancer to carry out thorough checks on the home beforehand – and there had been no mention of mould at all.
According to Ms Holah, a defects report had also been done by the previous owner and everything was “ticked off” and seemed fine.
“We haven’t done this before, and as first home buyers, we pay a service, but we also put our faith in them that they’re going to do the right thing,” she said.
“So I feel a bit betrayed by them, like what was the point of paying a couple of thousand dollars in getting a conveyancer and thinking we were doing all the right things, when we probably could have done just as good a job ourselves as what they did?”
Palinda Perera, an applied microbial remediation technician from Kleen-Tech who specialises in mould removal said that mould infestations were “incredibly common” and once discovered, it was important to identify the cause of the issue.
“The thing about mould is it needs extended periods of moisture to grow – so any kind of slow leak, any faulty connection, failure in piping, failure in sealing and bathrooms, lack of water proofing… it could be many things,” Mr Perera said.
“Once that’s been fixed and dried, and after you’ve tested the area again, you can go about fixing it.”
Ms Holah said that her and her husband “couldn’t prove” that the previous owners knew about the mould infestation, but they had felt “rushed” to sign the paperwork and it had all been a bit “bizarre”.
“All the professionals have said that black mould that severe definitely doesn’t grow overnight,” she said.
“The mould experts said that they thought the mould would have started to be visible by at least end of December/ start of January, but they said that someone’s ticked off on moisture and dampness tests throughout the kitchen and opened all the cupboards and checked all of that – so I have no idea how it passed.”
Mr Perera said that he couldn’t comment on this particular case, but that there could be a number of reasons why it hadn’t been detected earlier.
“It might have been an ongoing issue from an ongoing leak,” Mr Perera said.
“Some people may mask it, or a second possibility is that the building inspector was no good.”
A go-fund-me page has been started to help raise money for the Holahs so that they can pay for the mould removal, which has been quoted at costing about $15,000 – and that’s not including the reinstallation of the kitchen, which will have to be removed to access the problem.
“So many people have been so generous in helping us already, and it truly means a lot,” Ms Holah said.
“But our main priority from the start has been to share this for awareness for people.
If we can stop this from happening to one other person just by doing those extra checks that we didn’t know about, at least one positive comes out of this situation,” she said.
Unable to live in their new home until all the mould has been removed, the Holahs are currently living in a hotel as they figure out the next steps.
If you’d like to help the Holahs in saving their dream home, you can donate at https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-the-holahs
