Mold inspection and testing in Miami-Dade

An inspection is not a test, and most mold problems do not need a test. An inspection is a licensed assessor walking the house with a moisture meter and a flashlight, finding where the water is coming from, and writing down what has to happen. Testing (air samples, surface swabs, sent to a lab) is one tool they may use when it answers a question that looking cannot.

Call or send the form with what you see, what you smell, and what has happened in the house. A licensed mold assessor (MRSA) who serves your area calls you back to set the visit.

When testing is worth paying for

• You smell it but cannot find it: musty air, no visible growth, and the assessor needs to know whether it is in the walls, the ducts, or under the floor.
• Someone disputes it: a landlord, an association, a seller, or an insurer says there is no problem.
• A doctor asks: someone in the house has symptoms and their physician wants to know what is in the air.
• Clearance: after a remediation, to verify the work before the walls are closed. This is the one most people actually need.
• A real-estate transaction, where a buyer wants a documented baseline.

When it is not

If you can see mold, the EPA’s guidance is that sampling is usually unnecessary: it has to be removed and the moisture fixed regardless of what species it is. There is no federal or Florida standard for how many spores in the air is "too many," so a number without an inspector’s interpretation does not tell you much. And testing before anyone has found the water source answers the wrong question first.

A licensed assessor will tell you which case you are in. Be wary of anyone who leads with a test and a lab fee before they have looked.

What a licensed assessment includes

• A walk-through with a moisture meter and, often, a thermal camera: where is it wet, and why.
• A map of the growth: where, how large, on what material.
• Sampling if the case above calls for it, with the lab report explained, not just handed over.
• A written remediation protocol: what comes out, how far, what containment, what the clearance criteria are. The remediator has to follow it.
• The MRSA license number on the report. Check it on MyFloridaLicense.com.

Why the assessor cannot also remediate

Florida bars the same company from assessing and remediating the same job. The assessor has nothing to sell you beyond the assessment, which is what makes the protocol and the clearance credible to an insurer, a board, a landlord, or a buyer. If one company offers to inspect, test, and remove, one of those is not licensed work.