Winter hats, scarves & seeing your breath...

It's official, it was a record cold temperature here in Highlands County last night.  Our blood has certainly thinned... It was 42, and my sweater is not keeping me warm enough in this 70 sun today.

This is what we wore to school today!  We both have “morning duties” that make us be outside at 7 AM and it’s COOOOLD!!!  (Cold for us!!)

One year ago today, and volunteering...

Rewind to 2007... Laura was sitting doing her hair on the bedroom floor.  Hardly sounds like her, right?  HAHA  I walked in with flowers, and popped the big question.  Well, one year ago today, Laura and I became engaged to be married, and eight months later we were married (here you go mom, I fixed it!).  How time flies.

Today we woke up at 5:51am and volunteered at the "Red Ribbon Run."  It was a run for all the K-12 and adults in our district to support and emphasize a healthy lifestyle.  We both worked registration, and then took pictures of kids that we knew.  This is the second year that we have helped with this worthy cause.

On another note, we have to move out tomorrow for our mold remediation to begin--I guess we'll chalk that up as a free, mini-vaca!

Adventures in the land of mold?

Laura and I got into our new home around the 1st of June, right before the wedding.  The home is beautiful, built in 2006, and we are the first people to ever live in it!  We were pretty lucky to get something that we could afford, and also satisfied our "champagne" taste (thanks, Dad).  Our neighborhood is mostly retirees, but again if you spend even a few minutes in Sebring, you'll notice that retired and elderly people are a common sight.


After moving in, we documented a few problems, one major problem being some of the baseboards looked dirty, or as I put it...moldy.  No one ever took us too serious, so the project of "investigation" never really got underway.  The landlord came out a few times, and told us to splash some bleach on it, and it will go away... After all, she has been a property manager for 20+ years.  :/

Master-bathroom

Guest Closet

Ok... >> Fast forward to about the first of August.  We get some new people move in next door, right after a tropical storm.  Their house leaked really bad before the storm, thus mold spores grew at an exponential rate, at the same time, the owner of that home hired a 2nd-rate contractor to fix the problem...not a water damage specialist.  Mold also was spread through their whole house.  I write about this because the two homes are owned by the same family, just different people.  Also were managed by the same lady.  This major problem and sick residents really lit a fire under some people's feet!

Around the 1st of September, our home owner started moving with our problem because we started hinting that we might cancel the lease (allowed by FL law due to an unhealthy environment).  An air-quality test (which we soon found out is fairly inaccurate) was ordered.  Our air-quality tests were released to us from the insurance company.  Our guest bedroom had at least twice the safe level, and was certainly an active growth site.  Our living room was also quite high.  Thankfully, our bedroom was a lower level than the outdoors!

Finally on Sunday we are being put up in the lake front Marriott hotel here in town.  The remediation will begin on Monday morning for about 5-10 days.  The craziness is that because it was a slow (1-2 drips a minute) leak, in between three walls, the house has to be shut down.  Here are the pics from the contractor as they started the investigation.

Here is where this is all happening:

We will update you as things progress!!

UPDATE:  My Mom wanted to know about how the house is "released" back to us.  Before we can inhabit the home again, it has to pass very strict testing.  The test costs $1,250 dollars.  The remediation company has been removing mold for 20 years, so I am very confident with them.  Currently, the guest bedroom is sealed off so nothing can get into the air ducts, or the rest of the house.  It looks like a construction site.  During the remediation process, they will be wearing TyVac suits, and pretty much everything will be sealed (like a giant zip-loc, so that there is no chance of cross contamination!  :)