Mold

The Stone House has been a problem building for years now. It needs a new roof, the basement is always moist and it's in bad shape. It's about 5 feet off the shore of the lake and when it flooded, the basement filled up with water. I knew that once we pumped the water out that the house would need a lot of work, but I had no idea what to expect.

Yesterday, Property Manager T got almost all of the water out and we started pulling the furniture out of the basement. The walls were covered in black mold. We kicked holes in a few places to see inside the walls and the mold was thick inside the walls as well.

I know mold is really bad, but I was optimistic that if we pulled out all of the sheet rock and insulation and got down just to the beams holding up the walls, we could clean up the basement. The upstairs of the house has 3 bedrooms for lead staff and it is the area that all staff go to hang out on their breaks and on the weekends. It is an important building that we can't use until the basement is fixed.

Last night, I couldn't sleep. I was up from 3-5am, stressing out about camp, all of the work that is still left to do and I couldn't stop thinking about the moldy basement. It occurred to me (as most ah ha moments come at 3am) that putting staff in that building for any period of time is dangerous and that clean up needs to be done by professionals, not 20 year olds. Even Property Manager T shouldn't be down there. I googled photos of people in white suits with masks on- the rooms they were in weren't as bad as the basement we'd been in with nothing on. What was I thinking putting people in a place with that much mold? 


So today I told T to leave it be until we figured out a better plan. We put up caution tape across the doors and we'll get to it when I figure out what to do. 


In the mean time, M and M don't have a place to live and there is no where for staff to go during their breaks. With only 2 hours off per day (the rest of it with kids), break time is very important to staff. They need a quiet place to go to get away from camp, check their email, and refresh themselves. I have no idea where I am going to put them now and I am super stressed out about it.