OK, one more crawl space, then I'll try to quit. This 60-year old house was recently remodeled, and now has "humps" in the floor. The previous inspector said the floor humps were from a wet subfloor and crawl space.
The homeowner said that as part of the remodel, a poly ground cover, foundation vents and a power exhaust fan, along with some mold remediation treatment, had been done to the crawl space. Then the hardwood floor were installed. I noticed some cupping and buckling to the flooring.
So I went crawling. Another tight crawl space, with a big dug out area for the water heater and furnace. There was a slight nasty odor that I attributed to remnants from the cat being trapped down there for a few days recently. The subfloor and joists measured about 13% moisture content-not bad for this area this time of year. Then I looked toward the front of the house and saw a real moldy area. But the pattern was unusual. The photo shows a heavily stained, and what appears to be decayed area of subfloor and joists along the brick foundation wall, but only minor staining this side of the blocking.
I poked it with my moisture meter, fully expecting the pins to bury easily in the rotten wood, but things were rock solid… and only 13.5% moisture content. Hmmm.... Then I remembered that the homeowner said some kind of spray-on mold treatment had been applied to the crawl space. So what I was looking at was some of the treatment, not decay. Everything was dry and solid.
I kept crawling to see the back half of the crawl space and near the exhaust fan. And the odor got real bad. A little further exploring, and I found an opossum that had gotten in the crawl space, but not gotten out. I don't typically recommend an exhaust fan in a crawl space, but in this case, the exhaust fan kept the dead opossum smell from getting into the house. So my question this week is, when you are in a very tight crawl space and you encounter an opossum, how do you know whether it's playing possum or is really dead?
