Bearing down on mold

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce Bear, the first mold-detecting dog in the state.

Originally from Florida, the two-year-old Labrador and German shepherd mix was trained at the Florida Canine Academy, where dogs are also trained to find people and detect drugs and bombs and other weapons.

Bear now lives in Muskego with Scott Hepfner, a certified mold inspector.

The duo works as a team inspecting buildings, mainly homes, for mold. Hepfner, who operates Wisconsin Mold Dog Detection LLC, tests the air and surfaces for the prevalence of mold while Bear does her thing.

How it works is Hepfner issues the order "seek," and the 45-pound Bear sniffs out mold and sits down when she finds it. Hepfner then says, "Show me," and Bear points at the mold-infested area.

"The basic premise with the dog is she finds the mold you can't see," he said. "She can smell behind the drywall. With the dog, I can pinpoint mold."

Hepfner's business is one of about 25 nationwide using dogs like Bear to detect mold.

"They're pretty much all around the country," he said.

Bear might be good news for the industry, which has been struggling with the issue since at least 2001. That's when mold was discovered at the then-new Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Madison; builder Westra Construction Co. and the Madison Metropolitan School District resolved what became a yearlong dispute over the cause without liability assigned to either party.

And shortly after, J.H. Findorff & Son Inc., Madison, was embroiled in a similar dispute, when mold was blamed for health problems that surfaced 10 years after the builder completed the Yahara Elementary School in the De Forest Area School District.

Needless to say, mold has been a sticky issue for the industry, and one lawmaker, state Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, is pushing for a state-sponsored task force to determine

legislatively what to do about the problem.

Will Bear be part of the solution?

Hepfner thinks so.

Already, Bear's been making the rounds, meeting with the Metropolitan Builders Association and Wisconsin Builders Association, Hepfner said.

"We'd like to work with contractors, home builders," he said.

That barely seems too much to ask.