Business Spotlight: The Nose Knows

Mold is good for the environment – but not so much if it’s in your house.

“Sheetrock and drywall are just food for mold,” says James Stevens. “Houses these days are built so tight for energy, moisture has no way to escape.”

That’s where Stevens and his sidekick Mason come in.

Owner of Dog Gone Mold Springfield Inc., Stevens has a unique weapon in the fight against indoor mold – the olfactory system of a beagle.

Trained at IronHeart High Performance Working Dogs LLC in Shawnee, Kan. – the same facility that trains police dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs – Mason the beagle can detect up to 20 of the most common household molds. Sometimes he gives Stevens a reason to investigate further.

“There might be mold behind a baseboard or the interior of a wall,” he says, noting indoor mold spores can cause respiratory problems. “We don’t want to just start making holes in walls to check, but a positive ID from Mason gives us proof for the homeowner.”

Mason’s work is much like that of a drug dog. He alerts his handler when he detects something.

“We don’t want him to scratch the walls or bark,” Stevens says. “They trained him to sit when he finds mold.”

Included in Mason’s repertoire is the so-called black mold, known to experts as stachybotrys.

“You can’t tell black mold just by looking at it,” Stevens says, adding it must be tested. “Black mold could appear yellow, and mold that looks black might not be stachybotrys.”

Right at home
The majority of Dog Gone Mold Springfield’s work is residential. Stevens explored commercial jobs a couple of times – mostly convenience stores – but the structures were too large for his three-man team.

Declining to disclose first-year revenue, Stevens says the company charges $150 for a full inspection and $200 on houses more than 2,500 square feet. If hired for remediation work, which typically runs into the thousands of dollars, the inspection cost comes off the total.

Lately, the free inspection business is up as homeowners seek multiple bids on a project before a full inspection is complete.

“In the last two days, I’ve driven to Rogersville, Marshfield, Pleasant Hope, Ozark, Nixa, Republic and Brighton,” he says, noting he typically works within a 45-minute drive of Springfield. “As you’re building a name, you have to take whoever calls you.”

Stevens estimates his crew has remediated more than 70 homes so far, and six of them were in Nixa’s Autumn Corners senior living community.

“There was a berm erected behind some houses, and it left the water nowhere to go but in,” says Woody Knight, an Autumn Corners resident who coordinated the work. “There was no monkeying around. He wasn’t trying to sell me other stuff. It was no hassle, which I liked.”

While Mason is a handy tool in his toolbox, Stevens says the majority of calls use traditional methods of detection, such as machine scans and air tests. The Autumn Corners project is one of them.

Dog Gone Mold also offers a one-year warranty on its work.

“He contacted me several times after to make sure we were still good,” Knight says. “I’m a Score counselor and this young man was so professional, I wish I could call him one of my students.”

Dog Gone Mold Springfield uses only nontoxic and organic cleaning solutions during remediation.

“We don’t want to remove one toxin by bringing another into your house,” Stevens says.

Kansas City connection
Stevens outfit isn’t the only dog detecting mold operation in the Show-Me State. In fact, Stevens trained under the other.

Brian Dillon owns Dog Gone Mold in Kansas City and he’s also Stevens’ uncle.

“He trained with me, learned the business,” Dillon says of his 4-year old company. “He rode with me and worked with the crews. He had to learn from the ground up.”

Dillon wasn’t interested in franchising, so Stevens created his own business under his uncle’s model. While the two entities are not related on paper, they do share one very important resource – the beagles. Mason, Mason Jr. and Mason III – aka the Springfield Mason – go where they’re needed.

“We already had the marketing materials printed with the name Mason, so we kept it,” Stevens says with a chuckle.

With more basement work available in Kansas City, the dogs spend a majority of their time in the City of Fountains.

“Southwest Missouri has a lot of crawl spaces; you can’t fit a dog and a person in there,” Dillon says.

Training fees of $6,000-$10,000 also factor in bringing on new beagles.

“These dogs come at a premium,” Stevens says. “And the training never stops. Every day, we are working on things, reinforcing their purpose.

“But sometimes they find something we wouldn’t and that’s worth it.”