What Mold Remediation Companies Don't Want You to Know

First, a bit about me. I founded Home Guarantee, alongside my business partner, Quentin Piliero. We saw a gaping hole in the mold remediation industry for affordable and accessible services. Not only that, we also saw a need for a transparent company without any shady business tricks.

No one likes being lied to, deceived, or especially, being taken advantage of. Unfortunately, there are companies out there that predicate on folks in this industry. They will outright scam you. First, they start off by introducing themselves, making you feel good about them/their company, and then once they earn your trust, they use every trick in the salesman's book to make you pay thousands more than you need to. How do I know this? Because, 1) I'm in the industry...and 2) I've been in sales my entire adult life.

The salesman's book

Building Rapport- Every salesperson's favorite part of the process (minus the sale.) This is where salesmen walk into your home, see a trophy on your shelf for "Mock Trial Champion," from your son or daughters Law & Justice class, and pretend like that's the coolest thing they've ever seen. Asking questions, with eyes wide open, a head nodding yes as they intently listen to you. This helps you trust them, get a 'good,' feeling, and helps them become someone you can 'trust.'

Earning Credibility/Trust- This step in the sales process turns an apprehensive homeowner into one that will hear the salesperson out, helps establish credibility in the industry, and garner trust. They'll usually do this by throwing large words at you that sound scientific, or use words that are industry specific. All of this 'knowledge' will make you feel like you've truly got an expert in the field in front of you, and less like you've got a salesperson in front of you.

Exaggerating the Issue/Misleading you - My favorite line I've heard from a homeowner was a salesperson that came into their home to inspect for mold. The first thing the salesperson said after seeing the issue was "WOW! I can see why I'm here." I don't know, that seems a bit disingenuous to me. A salesperson might come on your property and see your issue and start scaring you. "I don't know if you've heard of aspergillus mold, that's the most dangerous form of black mold. I can really smell some heavy mold in here. I'm not sure if it's that toxic black mold or not, but you don't want to play around with this. This can cause a host of health issues in people, leading to potential blindness, cancer, and more." -- Here's the thing, they're not wrong. If it is aspergillus, then you really do want to take care of it. But you aren't able to ever know what type of mold it is until it's tested. It's simply not possible without a test. If they walk into your home shouting about how dangerous it could be, they're trying to fear-monger you into spending thousands more than you need to for quick resolution, often marking up the price for "toxic black mold removal." All because they think it might be toxic black mold.

Emotional Manipulation- If you say to the homeowner "okay, I need to think about the price, shop around a bit before I sign anything." Their response should be one of understanding. Some unethical business practices include manipulating the customer. "Mr/Mrs. Homeowner, I understand that you want to shop around... but let me ask you this... knowing the potential health hazards, I know your elderly in-law lives in the home... are you comfortable with the potential exposure they may be getting? We can be out here as soon as next week to have this promptly addressed...maybe I can find another discount?" Sure, it is important to have it removed. But any company that is willing to emotionally manipulate you is maybe someone you don't want to invite back into the home.

Aggressive Upselling- Companies are known to upsell. Almost every company does it. Go to Texas Roadhouse and they'll ask if you want onions (an extra $2.99) on your steak. Or if they can get you started with x, y, or z appetizer. There's ethical upselling, where it's a benefit to the client, and then there's downright deceptive upselling. Here's a link to a reddit post that I found with a company doing exactly this in the mold remediation world. A hefty sum, and a sales technique of offering good, better, and best options for removal. How about  removing the mold exactly as the industry specifies it should be done? There isn't a "good", "better", and "best" option when it comes to mold removal. There's simply just MOLD REMEDIATION. It's either going to work or it isn't! And if their good quote takes shortcuts? Well... the mold remediation industry only has around a 65% success rate when it comes to removal as is. So what happens when shortcuts are taken? Does that 65% go down? There's so many factors.

"Discounting," if you sign now - Thankfully, I think most homeowners are wise to this scam. If they offer you a discount for signing right now and you decline the offer... if you call them a week later, I personally guarantee they'll give you the same deal a week later. This is another method that could even fall under emotional manipulation. Choose a company that honors their price, not one that arbitrarily sets them depending on what mood they're in on that day.

Appointments in home that last over an hour - Ok, this one has a small exception. If we're talking about several rooms in the home, or an entire basement, attic, garage & 3rd floor...the appointment likely will last over an hour. The only other exception is if you have tons of questions, as that will cause appointments to run long. But no reputable contractor has time to sit in your home for 3 hours discussing a small area of mold in your bathroom. It's a smaller project. That should last 45 minutes tops, including contract signing.

These are tactics that I never followed in my years of sales experience. The truth is, you don't have to do ANY of that (well, minus rapport building/earning credibility & trust) if you're truly a good 'salesperson.' A good 'salesperson' is much less in the field of sales as they are in the field of consulting. A good salesperson understands their job is to guide a customer into making an informed, rightful decision and will never pressure you to sign anything that they can sense you're uncomfortable with.

For Connecticut Residents

Did you know that Connecticut requires contractors to have a client not only sign a "notice of cancellation," document, but also requires contractors to verbally explain your consumer rights to you? It's a misdemeanor if this step is skipped.  If they're willing to do that, what else are they willing to skip out on?

How do I know if the company evaluating my property is 'good'?

It's simpler than you think! 5 minutes of chit-chat, 10 minutes evaluating the issue (depending on size of issue), using tools beyond visual inspection (i.e., moisture meter, humidity detector, and thermal camera), and giving pricing up front. If they sit you down and show you a presentation, well, that might be a sign of a bad faith contractor. *** depending on the content shown. Any slander of any competitors (with specific names given) should be an immediate red flag.

You'll really know you have a legitimate company in front of you if they don't start by discounting right off of the bat. For example:

"Your price is $5,000.00, but after discounts we're offering this month, we can bring it down to $4,000.00." YOU DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR A DISCOUNT! If you encounter this, don't walk, run away. I was working at a company that had deceptive pricing such as this. Our line we would say was:

"And Mr. Homeowner, at the end of the day, if this fits in your budget, doesn't pull food off of the table, would there be any reason you wouldn't move forward? (No.) Okay, great. So if it fits in your budget, I'll ask you to get started right away. And to help you as much as I can, I'll load in all the discounts you qualify for." Those discounts? - The SAME 10% off we offered EVERYONE regardless what time of year it was. Got a coupon that says a free item? Or free labor? They all had the same exclusion "Up to $2500 off or 10% of the total." So regardless of what marketing trick was used, we were always offering 10% off. The even dirtier secret was we could offer up to 25% off. It was a game of negotiation to attempt to pull every penny out of your hands that we could possibly get. I'm sure you could surmise why I no longer work for this company.

Legitimate companies that know what their service is worth, and are fairly priced won't just discount because you asked. There are formulas dictating what the true cost of a job is, and any contractor with reputable standings already priced out what the job will healthily cost and add on their profits after. Simply granting a discount is not feasible. But that's because these companies aren't profiting tens of thousands per job that should have cost a third as much. If a contractor sees $20,000 in profit, they'll be willing to throw a few thousand off the invoice to 'help the customer' when in all reality, the only thing that they're doing is padding their pockets as much as possible.

THIS IS NOT THE EXPERIENCE YOU WILL HAVE WITH EVERY MOLD REMEDIATION CONTRACTOR.

We're not trying to fear-monger... a few bad apples spoil the bunch. So, use your best judgement, be cautious, and most importantly, if they pressure you to sign that day, walk away. There is no reason to require same-day contract signing. If you think it's a good company, sure sign the contract. The second they try for ink on the paper same day, it's time to pull in a few more contractors and compare price. Why? Because, the same company I used to work for had in the training "if you don't get a signature the same day, there is a 98% chance you will never hear back from them." I always wondered why it was 98% unlikely we would ever see the client again...and then it hit me. These customers were smart! They could smell the crap right under my work shoes! And they decided to, wisely, shop around and find a better price (which they always could find.) 

At Home Guarantee, we believe in an honest, transparent experience at the benefit of our clients. We believe in doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. We've saved our customers thousands of dollars. All for the same exact service they would have found elsewhere. Get in contact with us if you're a Connecticut resident looking for a reputable contractor to handle your mold concerns.