“Dry Basement” company cashing in on swine flu panic, charging up to $2,000 to “disinfect” houses with unproven “all natural” thyme oil spray. God bless them – people dumb enough to pay for this don’t deserve to keep their money.
Since the outbreak of the H1N1 virus, Brookfield-based American Dry Basement Systems never has been busier disinfecting homes and businesses with a botanical agent.
“We’re buying it by the pallet load, which is hundreds of gallons at a time,” said Peter O’Shay, founder of American Dry Basement Systems and MoldPro. “It kills all bacteria, germs and influenza.”
American Dry Basement, which has been using a proprietary thyme oil-based liquid made to remove mold, has been getting more calls to use it to sanitize buildings, O’Shea said.
“If we’re out for waterproofing, people also ask about the disinfectant,” said O’Shea, who employs about 100 workers to cover southern New England. “We’re getting about 40 calls a day and are doing about 20 homes a week.”
His business is also getting requests to disinfect commercial buildings, such as a large hotel in southern Connecticut, and is in the process of cleaning several buildings at the University of Bridgeport, O’Shea said.
“We’re getting calls from schools all over the place,” he said.
A major advantage of the liquid is that it has no harmful chemicals and does not have to be wiped off of surfaces, as required of more toxic treatments by the Environmental Protection Agency, O’Shea said.
“This is completely green,” he said. “You can drink it.”
Costs range from $200 to $2,000 to disinfect a house, O’Shea said.
So, what can we find out about this company? Customer reviews range from awful to okay. As for “thyme oil”, there are lots of whole earthy sites touting its benefits as an aromatherapy aid, and even a disinfectant but I could not find a single scientific study on the latter use – and, just asking here, if “you can drink it” (safely, one assumes) exactly how powerful can it be as a germ killer? The website for this company does say its stuff is “EPA Registered”, but is that like one of those “name your star” scams where the sellers promise to register your star’s name with the Library of Congress? Sending in a registration form is not the same, it seems to me, as receiving a certification from the EPA that they’ve tested and approved your product as a disinfectant.
I have nothing against this company – it’s doing its part in the natural selection process that separates fools from their money (see, eg, anonymous’ comment below about losers taking the train and “winners’ driving $150,000 Mercedes. He was probably the first customer of Dry Basement). But for heaven’s sake, if you’re really going to spend $2,000 on this quackery, give me a call first; I’ll send over a genuine shaman with dream catchers and love beads and he’ll chase that evil swine flu from your house for, say, fifteen hundred bucks. Such a deal.
These guys are scum sucking leeches. Almost stopped me selling my house because they claimed to have found several thousand in needed repairs, which, strangely, Servepro hadn’t found when they dried out our basement after a pipe had burst.
Seems the dry basement guys didn’t care that the water had not seeped in from the exterior – there’s always a buck to be made.