Bob Kallotte has been one busy man since August, logging countless miles on Southwest Florida roads and neighborhood streets, inspecting homes as the owners hang onto his every word.

The homeowners want relief from respiratory ailments and allergy symptoms that invaded their lives after last year's unprecedented hurricane season. When medical treatment doesn't do the trick, perplexed physicians may contact their county health departments.

In turn, a call may get placed to Kallotte, who works for the Sarasota County Health Department to ferret out environmental hazards in homes and buildings in Southwest Florida. His seven-county territory stretches from Sarasota to Marco Island.

In short, he's a mold buster.

"I have 16,000 new customers since a year ago because of a guy named Charley," he said, referring to the first of the hurricanes that battered Florida and the southeastern United States. "Can you say busy?"

Mold came marching into damaged residences and commercial buildings after water, its genesis, was allowed to linger in hidden spots, commonly behind walls and cupboards after soaking drywall.

"Mold is water, but mold doesn't form instantly, it takes two or three days to start growing," Kallotte said. "The problem starts from water you cannot see."

One silver lining from last year may be that homeowners are abandoning lackadaisical attitudes about hurricane preparations and proper repairs afterward.

"(Last year) has taken mold out of a nebulous black pall they didn't understand and now they see mold is real and people are getting sick," he said.

Hurricane season starts today and runs through Nov. 30.

From a political front, the state Legislature passed a home inspector and mold remediation bill this year that, in part, will set forth for the first time certification guidelines in Florida for people to work as contracted mold remediators.

The bill, which needs Gov. Jeb Bush's signature, will require the Construction Industry Licensing Board to identify courses and hours that must be completed for certification in the mold remediation business, according to Meg Shannon, spokeswoman for the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The effective date for the bill's provisions is Jan. 1, 2006.

The state does not now have an estimate of how many businesses or individuals say they do mold remediation since that has not been an occupation that required a state license, she said.

The intent is to take a shot at unscrupulous practices where business or individuals hold themselves out to be professional mold remediators and take advantage of homeowners with the problem.

"The basic premise of the bill is a good thing because so many people out there are doing mold remediation who are less than fully qualified," Kallotte said. "Any attention to qualifications is a good thing."

He has gone to many homes in Southwest Florida where the owners had hired someone they believed were legitimate mold remediators. Instead their mold was simply covered up by paint or the damaged area was "spiffed up" in some way.

"It looks good but six months later people are coughing and sneezing and the place is full of mold, but it looks pretty," he said.

Mold growth from lingering moisture can start affecting people's health quickly, for some in just one or two weeks, doctors say. Last year's hurricanes caused other pollutants and allergens to circulate and cause illnesses that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

"We did see a spike (in patient visits)," said Dr. Seth Schurman, an allergy and asthma specialist with practice locations in Collier and Lee counties. "The winds stirred up everything."

People came to his practice with all sorts of symptoms, from constant sneezing to drippy noses or asthma that worsened, he said. Those who stayed in damaged residences with mold or exposed to other pollutants risked developing infections, symptomatic by excessive mucus.

"We saw a lot of infections subsequent to the hurricanes," Schurman said.

The bottom line is homeowners can take immediate action to offset the likelihood of developing a mold problem when drywall got soaked and water likely got behind walls, Kallotte, the mold buster, said.

He recommends cutting holes in the drywall, near the floor base every 16 inches between studs, and placing fans at the holes to get the air circulated and to dry out the moisture behind the wall.

"If you get some air movement in the wall during the first precious 72 hours, your chances are very high you won't have a mold problem," he said.

The catch with Charley is that electricity was out for up to 11 days or so in Charlotte and Hendry counties, making it impossible to run fans unless homeowners had generators.

But if mold is allowed to grow, the only answer is to remove it, and that means replacing infested drywall, not just painting over it or spraying chemicals.

The insurance industry, overall, has strict limits on mold remediation, and it must be connected to covered damage event, said Bob Lotane, spokesman for the Florida Department of Insurance Regulation. Or, insurers have gone to excluding mold remediation altogether but are allowing homeowners to buy separate riders for mold remediation in different amounts, he said.

Last year's hurricanes resulted in 4,753 complaints with reference to mold against insurance companies, he said.

Some carriers are requiring residences to be inspected for mold before issuing mold policies. That's to protect the insurers from paying out for existing mold due to owner negligence.

"They can require inspections," Lotane said, adding that if a carrier refuses to issue a mold policy, it has to provide the homeowner with an explanation.