Kerri Panchuk | 12.05.07

In the REO business, the word "mold" usually conjures up images of a company having to pay beaucoup bucks to renovate a home infested with the not-so-likeable material.

But Dick Mason, chief executive officer of Tinley Park, Illinois-based Guardian Preservation Services, LLC says the process doesn’t have to be a difficult one.

Mason's company is one of approximately three in the nation that are certified to remove mold from homes using the organic TM-100 enzyme. The powerful enzyme is neither lethal nor damaging, and it can easily eat up mold, leaving behind the scent of citrus. The treatment requires that technicians spray the enzymes as a fog-like material. The enzymes then go where the mold is—even behind dry wall—eating it all up until nothing is left.

"More and more people are becoming aware of it", says Mason. "It is now being introduced into the consumer market. It's been used in the past on the industrial side, but now it has been introduced to the general public".

Mason says one of the chief advantages of the TM-100 enzyme is the fact that, in most cases, it eliminates the need to knock down dry wall or tear out carpet. And, if there’s one industry that could definitely benefit from its existence, he believes REO is that business.

"We're just now starting to work with some of the big lenders who have vacant houses that are full of mold and nobody is really going to buy them unless they’re going to tear them down and are buying them for the property", said Mason. "We see that as probably one of the more potential markets of really servicing the mortgage industry is getting into vacant homes and preparing them for resale, removing the mold and making the house just that much more presentable".

This article was originally published by DSNews.com, the leading in the Default Servicing industry, and can be seen here.