This is IMO only - please stop what you're doing immediately and contact your insurance company. If indeed this is 'black mold' it can compromise the health of anyone living in the home - particularly small children.

Remediation may be an issue of insurance or against the seller. Regardless, this seems to be an issue that mold professionals need to review and advise on.

Proceed with utmost caution. Have a professional assess the mold issue immediately. Black mold vs mold that looks black. Black mold - may be required by law to burn your house down to the ground.

Oh my gosh!!!

The problem may be that you need new duct work, I would start with an HVAC contractor.

Our neighbors had an issue with black mold about 12 years ago. The house is still there ;-)

However, they had to move out of the house for a couple months while remediation was done. The house was completely sealed off (much like tenting for termites) and any damaged areas and materials were removed and replaced.

True black mold (Stachybotrys chartarum) is nothing to mess around with.

Thank you for you're comment. I am freightened by this new problem. We certainly will have some look into it ASAP.

@tjokunkel - please do. I would start with a mold expert. That is the only way of knowing conclusively what kind of mold it is.

This may well be a non issue that you will be able to clean up yourselves. Certainly better to know for sure though.

It is obvioulsy from condesation forming on the vent, evident by the rust. I still say call an HVAC contractor, but of course, go ahead, spend the money.

Oh, and please post and let us know what the outcome is!

Absolutely. Thank you all.

Specifically ask the HVAC contractor to look for clues of a coverup. It may be an expensive fix but looks like it may have been a long time coming.

Lisa, wow. The ductwork probably needs to be replaced if its old anyway.

its old and so is the vent cover, probably wasn't cleaned for a long time ,do you have mold in corners as well ? perhaps there was a leak .If you get bleach you can kill the mold . I don't know how the rest of the house looks like call someone to inspect it .
http://www.ehow.com/how_5636329_clean-mildew-air-vents.html
http://inspectapedia.com/interiors/atticcond5.htm

Holes in the ductwork will cause condensation to form in the duct, it is then forced to the vent from the fan where it will reside.

Sorry to be an alarmist, but I'm a realtor and hubby is an HVAC guy. Don't wanna mess around with this, especially if previous owner knew about it. Unfortately some dishonest people cover stuff like this up far too often.....

Lisa, I'm not sure how a seller"s disclosure form would cover this, i think its a reach, and a waste of time to pursue, just my opinion.

In my market (Ontario) The disclosure form is often overturned in courts. Especially when there is proof that the seller has covered something up. No harm in documenting findings just in case.

I really do hope I'm being chicken little here. I hope this turns out to be exactly what Norm believes it is and requires nothing more than a good scrub and duct work. I'll happily apologize to Norm and tjokunkel.

I've seen people be evacuated quickly though because of black mold. In addition to what my neighbors experienced, an office I was working in was shut down for 6 weeks due to black mold (a water issue in the condo above the business offices). Maybe I'm over cautious. I completely agree with Lisa though - don't wanna mess around with this.

As an additional thought, you may want to use a mold tester approved by your HO insurance. There are people out there like bad car mechanics - they'll tell you that you have problems that may not really exist and try to sell you something you don't really need to correct the problem.

Again, wishing you the very best possible outcome.

I've lived, in a rental, where the duct work, had mold and caused me to have severe respiratory and allergy problems. I was ready to move out when thye had the ducts cleaned. My reaction was so severe, that I really didn't think cleaning them would help, but thankfully, and much to my surprise, cleaning alleviated any reactions, that I was having.

When we moved into our house, I noticed black stuff all over all of the vents and chunks of black blowing out. Not only were the vents filthy, but the blower and condenser were pretty gnarly as well. It seems that the HVAC hadn't been cleaned, since it was purchased, a decade before.

We've been here for 1.5 years and I haven't had any issues w/ mold, or any other allergens in the HVAC system. Chances are good that you just need to have your HVAC system cleaned. I have noticed that most people only have their vents cleaned, or blower cleaned, when they suspect a problem.

I'm certain our HVAC system was never cleaned in this 15 year old home. We have found so many things that have been neglected up to this point. Thank you for posting. I'm hoping the problem is not too severe, we still love this home. Although we've only moved into this home in Sept., a lot of $, time, energy & sweat have been spent.

To be honest, you should have inspected elements like this BEFORE you bought. Did you do inspections? I spent over $1500 dollars inspecting the house we bought, including a camera system through the duct work. I had a list of over 25 pages of mostly small items, Quite simply, once an owner walks by something like a rusty beat up duct cover five or six times, they no longer even register that it is a problem....so as with most things, buyer beware. Real estate laws work differently everywhere and this isn't meant to be legal advice, but in my area you would have to prove they knew about it AND hid it from you to have recourse. And as is so often true, money spent in a courtroom might have just as well been spent on remediation. I will say on the roof issue, if there was hail damage when you were purchasing, anyone inspecting the roof should have found it. And if there wasn't "enough" venting, that isn't at all unusual to hear as most roofing companies are wanting folks to add venting to older homes for not only energy efficiency but to extend the life of the shingles they put on. I hope things work out and you get the house in the shape you desire, but sometimes you have to chalk it up to the joys of homeownership.

I have an HVAC company coming out tomorrow to access the problem. They claim if mold is severe duct work will need to be replaced. If not severe they can use a UV light system to remove the mold. I'm hoping for the lesser of the two. I'll keep you informed.

First of all I want to say I'm sorry for the problems your coming into with your home. If an hvac company comes to your home to tell you you have a mold problem tell them "thank you" and ask them to leave. The only real person who can assess mold is a certified environmental hygienist, I know, I spent thousands two years ago removing black mold from both our basement and Hvac system. Having your home tested will determine the exact spore type severity and extend of the damage. Once that is determined your duct work will need to be replaced if its the soft type. If steel box throughout it can be taken out and cleaned. Do not let anyone tell you bleach is ok to clean mold it is not!!!! It is not a long effective treatment and really only removes the color from mold. Make sure the cleaning solution is EPA certified. It will have number on the bottle of cleaning solution that allows it to be used for black mold. If the people you have hired do not set up a containment are to keep the mold from going air born ask them to leave as they are not trained in the area of mold remediation. Good luck it's not the end of the world and we had no problems selling our home after it was professionally remediated.

Just remember there are other black molds such as Aspergillus, cladnosporium, Penicillin Niger... Stachi is just the worst of the worst. The other 3 can have severe health effects.

Proceed with caution, onthefence is right...I also do not want to alarm you, but I have cared for patients in the Surg. ICU on ventilators and in dire circumstances related to mold spore exposure from tearing out walls in a cabin. Best of luck.

I had black mold in my last house and brought in a guy who fixed it for a few hundred dollars. It was a small area, but still, it wasn't the end of the world. Don't panic. They'll be able to fix it. If anything, I'd pick on the people who did the inspection for you because detecting mold is part of the inspection process.

Congratulations on the new home!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/katshoa

Hopefully this will take care of the problem. Today they (HVAC Co.) are remove portion of duct work (not a lot), & installing UV lights in a 3 attic units. We'll see. They seem to think that will take of the mold issue + allergies that we may have within the home.

No It's not the end of the world and actually we were able to sell our home quickly at above asking price due to bidding war. However, we had all the appropriate paper work in order that certifies that it was fixed by a professional mold specialist. If you sell your home in the future, most states require you divulge that it had mold. Remediating black mold using professionals outside their capability is only setting you up for liability. It's not something we could afford.

Here's what they installed. These UV Lights come with a life time warranty. However, the bulbs must be replaced every two years. I plan on keeping up with the heating & air maintenance so, I will have the bulbs switched in two years during a maintenance check : )

I had a feeling the sky wasn't falling 8-)

25% of people have genes that make it so their bodies can't detox mycotoxins that are produced by mold. What ends up happening if you are one of these people is your body will produce massive inflammation and will result in Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, a suppressed immune system, and a myriad of other symptoms.

The best test for the house is an ERMi test through EMSL laboratories. You take a dust sample, send it in to them and they will do a spore count. You will find out what kind of mold and how much there is.
The test to find out if you have the genes is called an HLA DR and it is though Labcorp.

If you want to learn more about how mold can effect your health go to survivingmold.com. Just wanted to raise awareness about this subject, knowledge is power.

Thx Norm' They checked all the duct work for any signs of mold & replaced two ducts (where he found very little), replaced all the drip pans, replaced all the vents, & added three UV Lights (one for each unit). Signed up for a heating & cooling maintenance plan too. He seems to think it was just because the home was locked up for so long & air was not on. Hopefully, we've rectified that problem so we can move into the next. Thank You 'everyone' for all the advice.