On this coast, the mold call that starts at a wall usually ends at the air handler. Start with the drain: an AC here pulls gallons of water from the air daily, and the condensate line that carries it clogs with growth. A backed up pan drips into the handler closet and the wall behind it, quietly, all summer, exactly the long wet timeline mold wants.
This city's version of the AC problem is duration: nine months a year of run time means nine months of condensate, coil moisture, and pan water, any of which feeds growth when maintenance slips a season. The inspection reads the system's water path, where condensate goes when the line clogs, because in Sarasota that answer predicts the next mold job better than the unit's age does.
Second, the oversized unit. AC sized by tonnage bravado cools the house in short bursts and never runs long enough to dehumidify. The house reads 74 and feels wet, because it is: indoor humidity stays above the roughly 60 percent where surfaces grow things. In a climate where the AC is also the dehumidifier, short cycling is a mold program.
Third, duct sweat: cold ducts in a hot humid attic condense on their outer surface and drip onto ceiling drywall. The stain looks like a roof leak and gets fixed as one, sometimes twice, before anyone looks in the attic with the AC running.
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