Building owners face mould threat

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 01/08/2011

Reporter: Emily Stewart

The disastrous Queensland floods and Brisbane's climate are highlighting the risks of mould in buildings yet Australia has no standards for mould remediation and not enough trained restorers.


TICKY FULLERTON, PRESENTER: Lessons learnt from the disastrous Queensland floods appear to have overlooked a dangerous an even deadly legacy.

Mould is growing undetected in buildings across Brisbane and may soon literally be climbing up the inside of walls.

The hot, steamy Queensland climate provides ideal conditions for the mould to grow, yet there are no standards for mould remediation in Australia and not enough trained restorers.

Emily Stewart reports.

EMILY STEWART, REPORTER: You wouldn't know it now, but the Fairfield Gardens shopping centre in Brisbane was extensively damaged earlier this year after being inundated by floodwater, and it's only recently reopened after four months of rebuilding.

Retail First manages the centre and they engaged restorers to clean out the property within days, but mould had already begun growing within the walls.

DARREN HITCHON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, RETAIL FIRST: What mould there was that was revealed after we pulled the gyprock off the walls, we cut out straightaway.

EMILY STEWART: Darren Hitchon says they caught the mould early and it had only covered five per cent of the shopping centre.

DARREN HITCHON: Little bits and pieces, especially in the NDF, which swelled, and part of the shopfronts. We cut all the shopfronts to about 1,200 mills, obviously to stop any effects of any mould growing and spreading throughout the centre.

EMILY STEWART: Mould has been eliminated from the shopping centre, but mycologist Dr Heike Kemp, warns in many buildings the clean-up operation cleared the obvious damage but left unseen mould behind walls and in crevices.

HEIKE KEMP, MYCOLOGIST: There is a massive increase in mould in buildings. We're very well-aware that there is quite - unfortunately quite a large amount of buildings who are not restored properly.

EMILY STEWART: In Australia the threat posed by mould is not well-known, but after hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped through New Orleans in the United States in 2005 mould grew in almost 50 per cent of homes and officials believe this led to an asthma epidemic, which is now the subject of an extensive study.

Dr Kemp says there are a number of health impacts from living or working near mould.

HEIKE KEMP: There is a potential that you inhale them or through skin contact they get in your body. And then the symptoms of that can be anything from upper respiratory, irritable bowel, but it also can be behavioural changes.

EMILY STEWART: There are no standards for mould remediation in Australia and only a guideline to go on, and experts say the sheer number of buildings in Brisbane affected means it will be difficult to fix them all.

Some Australian insurance companies cover mould remediation work that arises due to the inundation of floodwaters.

HEIKE KEMP: I think there is great effort from insurance companies to actually do that, but there is a lack of awareness and there is a lack in the industry of restorers and specifically mould restorers. It is not government-regulated, so there is at the moment unfortunately not enough quality control.

DAVID MUIR, PARTNER, HWL EBSWORTH LAWYERS: Particularly I think small business operators need to be very much aware of it, because I know that there are some industrial special risks policies which exclude mould as a first party claim under their policies.

EMILY STEWART: David Gerke from the Workers Health Centre says business owners who are rebuilding on their own need to be particularly wary of the potential for mould growth.

DAVID GERKE, WORKERS HEALTH CENTRE: I think most people see a lot of commercials on TV in relation to Exit Mould and a lot of the people that I've spoken to have actually dealt with it in that way. Although Exit Mould would probably do an OK-looking job, but however it does come back and it comes back relatively quickly.

DARREN HITCHON: Get it right from the start. I don't think - it's very difficult to go back. Because once the mould I guess eventually gets into a centre, it's very hard to eliminate.

EMILY STEWART: Of course there have been major floods across Australia before, but David Gerke says this time there's a huge number of CBD buildings affected and many are fitted out differently.

DAVID GERKE: Since the '70s, I guess, our building projects have modified. We've become more like plasterboard and all that sort of things that can hold moisture for quite substantial amounts of time.

EMILY STEWART: There have been a number of legal battles regarding mould in the US, and Brisbane lawyer David Muir says there's the potential for damages awards here too.

DAVID MUIR: In circumstances where, for instance, people in the building industry haven't taken proper precaution to avoid the growth of mould where perhaps a building hasn't been stripped back satisfactorily or the materials haven't been dried out satisfactorily.

EMILY STEWART: Although he says it's unlikely Australia will have the huge numbers of legal actions they've seen in the United States.

DAVID MUIR: They have a different legal system there where the jury give quantum verdicts, and also they have a system where if you litigate, it's rare to get a costs order against you.

So there are a few barriers here in Australia at least to the kind of litigation that we've seen in the United States.

EMILY STEWART: Workplace Health and Safety Queensland declined an interview request, but in a statement it told the ABC it's, "... reluctant to lend weight to the suggestion that mould should be a major concern for the state's business community."

The department says it received around 190 flood and cyclone-related complaints this year; 18 were about mould and none of these involved serious illness.

Dr Heike Kemp says mould restoration needs to be taken more seriously.

HEIKE KEMP: If we actually had government involvement, that we had an Australian standard, not just a guideline, that we had mandatory courses that people who do mould courses, that they actually learn how to do it and that they need to have a minimum education.

If you want to be a carpet cleaner in Australia, you have to have a certificate four in carpet cleaning, or certificate six. If you want to be a mould restorer, you do not need any certification whatsoever.

EMILY STEWART: So at this stage it's up to businesses to be aware of the risks and on the lookout for mould.

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Building owners face mould threat

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