September 2019 was a happy month for our new homeowner client and their elderly parents for purchasing their new home in San Diego, CA, United States, until the unexpected happened. Two weeks into them moving into their newly purchased home, they started noticing this weird smell in their kitchen along with the homeowner’s parent health condition worsening.
The homeowners rushed to call a local mold abatement company to inspect their kitchen. During the mold inspection, the kitchen toe kicks were removed to determine the source of the musty smell. Unfortunately, they discovered that the whole kitchen was affected by mold growth and that mold remediation is required. That’s when the homeowner and their parents were faced with the harsh reality of a $15,000 mold remediation bill and $25,000 kitchen remodel bill when they had no money saved up for this.
With frustration over the initial home inspection failing to detect this, anxiety over the homeowner’s parent health condition, and stress caused by being unable to pay this bill, the homeowner tried to find another solution. They ended up calling two other restoration companies to get different opinions, as well as opening a claim with their home insurance company. To their disappointment, both restoration companies gave them a similar report based on their findings along with similar estimates, and their insurance company denied their claim due to the mold in their kitchen being labeled as “old mold” from prior owners.
With hopelessness slowly creeping in, the homeowners thought of doing their kitchen mold remediation project with installment payments, which would mean ending up without a kitchen for six months to a year until they can save up some money for the remodel. They started calling different restoration companies, telling them their story and asking if they offer installment payments. They had no luck until they came across Risk Free Serv.
We, at Risk Free Serv, performed our initial inspection and noticed that many of the mold-affected cabinets were still wet and reading high moisture levels. This indicated that there was a possibility of an active leak in the kitchen that caused the water damage and mold growth. With this conclusion, our team recommended the homeowners to hire a local plumber to perform a leak detection and locate the source of the active leak. After reviewing the leak detection findings, our team helped the homeowners in opening a new claim and getting covered through their home insurance. After the new Insurance claim was opened, Risk Free Serv met with the insurance field adjuster and walked him through the loss while answering any questions that will affect the coverage of the claim. At last, Risk Free Serv was able to get the claim approved which resulted in saving the family around $40,000.
The homeowner and their parents couldn’t be happier. They also learned a big lesson about hiring the right company. Risk Free Serv does not only have its clients’ best interest at heart, but we will also stand by their side with the mission to take out any risk factor in the tragedies that home and business owners go through.