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From globeandmail.com,
Toronto, Canada Tuesday,
January 21, 2003.
The Globe
and Mail is
Canada's
largest daily newspaper
Mould worries real
estate sector
Industry facing more claims over damage related to sometimes-deadly spores
ALBERT WARSON, Special to The Globe and Mail.
Invisible mould spores drifting freely in and out of commercial
buildings, public institutions and homes are the latest problem to strike
the real estate industry.
They
have been responsible for billions of dollars in property damage and
lawsuits in the United States and cases in Canada are becoming more
common. The spores can make people sick and even kill vulnerable patients
in hospitals. And they can lurk anywhere, unlike that other costly menace,
asbestos, which is visible and contained within specific building
materials.
In
the United States, the number of mould claims has exploded in recent
years. One major insurer in Texas reported 12 claims involving mould
issues in 1999, 499 the following year and 10,000 in 2001.
In
Canada, hospitals, school boards, provincial governments, contractors,
developers and building managers are gearing up to combat mould.
Mould, as primordial as its fungi family, thrives in either wet, humid
places or dusty environments. Toxic mould, as the most dangerous strains
are called, can establish "colonies" within 24 hours. Mould grows rapidly,
like its mushroom cousins, but unlike mushrooms, the spores or seeds that
perpetuate the species can be dispersed throughout almost any building --
including hospitals.
In
July, 2001, Health Canada issued procedural standards intended to prevent
the spread of construction-related infections in health care facilities.
It also identified 242 cases of infections -- which claimed dozens of
patients' lives -- related to construction or renovations inside or
adjacent to Canadian and U.S. hospitals between 1978 and 1998.
Hospitals are the worst place for mould to grow, says Bruce Stewart,
senior vice-president of Pinchin Environmental Ltd., a consulting firm
based in Mississauga. That's because patients with immune systems
compromised by medication and treatment might inhale mould spores
disturbed by construction and develop life-threatening or fatal fungal
infections.
"Buildings accumulate ambient dust on ceiling tiles, inside air ducts and
wall cavities," he says. "Dust particles blown in and out of buildings
always include mould spores."
Mr.
Stewart can verify that mould awareness is growing. Pinchin now takes on
about 500 mould-related testing and cleanup jobs a year involving all
types of buildings in Ontario and Manitoba. Three years ago it handled
only 100 cases. The figures don't include similar work by affiliated
companies in the other provinces.
Glenn
Gibson, chief executive officer of Crawford Adjusters Canada, the
Mississauga-based subsidiary of a U.S. insurance services company, says he
was "shocked" last year to learn the extent of mould litigation in Canada.
While speaking to 120 commercial and residential claims and property
managers in Toronto about toxic mould claims, he asked how many audience
members had a claim in progress. About three-quarters of them raised their
hands.
Last
May, a committee of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, a national insurance
industry trade association, recommended that insurers tighten up wording
in their policies concerning mould-related damage or injury. It noted that
skyrocketing claims in the United States, mainly involving water and flood
damages to residences could spill into Canada.
"The insurance industry does not want to provide coverage for maintenance
type issues, like continuous leakage," says Dave Way, co-ordinator of the
IBC's standards and practices committee. "Damage has to be sudden and
accidental, like a sewer backup."
Meanwhile, the Ottawa-based Canadian Construction Association is
expecting a report this spring from a task force it set up to study the
liability implications of mould for contractors. Jeff Morrison, the CCA's
director of communications, says the task force will also create
guidelines on how to minimize mould in new construction and clean away old
mould during renovations.
All
this attention has been stirred up by media coverage over the past few
years of throat and eye irritations, stomach disorders, headaches,
occupational asthma and other respiratory ailments allegedly caused by
poor indoor air quality or "sick building syndrome."
Since
1995, the Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia governments
have developed guidelines for the detection and elimination of potentially
hazardous mould. Elimination could mean anything from drying out and
cleaning contaminated areas to replacing walls, ceilings and leaking
roofs, to gutting an interior to demolition.
School portables are especially troublesome, Mr. Stewart says, because
they aren't efficiently ventilated or drained, are usually situated on
damp soil and have structural divisions with openings that support mould
"colonies." Those colonies can feed on just about any material except hard
surfaces, such as steel and glass.
In
1999, a couple launched a $20-million lawsuit against the Dufferin-Peel
Catholic District School Board in Ontario on behalf of their daughter,
alleging health problems resulting from mould in a relocatable classroom
module. It fizzled in court, but the high-profile uproar persuaded the
provincial government to cover the cost of building environmentally safe
schools to replace the portables, school board spokesperson Bruce Campbell
said.
Getting rid of mould is costly -- the Ontario government spent
$40-million to clean up school buildings in 2000 and $19-million during
2001-02 to rip apart most of a Newmarket courthouse.
Ontario Realty Corp., which manages the province's real estate assets,
increased spending from $71- million on mould-related repairs and
maintenance at government buildings to an estimated $91.8-million over a
three-year period ending March 31, 2003, said Karen Raz, an ORC
spokeswoman. ORC has tackled mould problems in police stations,
courthouses, jails and government office buildings across the province
since 2000.
Mould
lurking in office towers is most likely to be found in class B and C
buildings, rather than in class A buildings, where maintenance programs
--monitoring air quality and routine inspections for hidden mould growth
-- tend to be more thorough, says Francois Depelteau, president and CEO of
Montreal-based Alize Building Technologies. Alize manages technical
operations and maintenance for 230 commercial properties in
Quebec
encompassing 25 million square feet. "Preventive maintenance and interior
air quality monitoring in line with industry standards and inspections of
areas where moisture can accumulate are necessary to stop mould
proliferation and other types of contamination," he says.
Ian
Stewart, Toronto chapter president of the Building Owners and Managers
Association, recalls only five cases in that city where mould was removed
from high-rise office towers. Association members, who own and manage
buildings, recognize that buildings should be designed to provide adequate
dehumidification, cooling, heating and ventilation, and they make sure
those are constantly maintained, he says.
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