When Steve Curbelo’s wife, Sara, got a job teaching in Abu Dhabi, he become a full-time Dad. “I basically spent my first year here calling my Mom everyday and saying ‘Thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry.’” Then Curbelo’s toddler son, Zam, started getting sick. “We took him to doctor after doctor and tried every medication out there. Finally one doctor said, ‘It’s the mold in the air conditioning.’” When Curbelo returned home that day, he immediately called his apartment’s management and asked them to come clean out his A/C. “I watch them take out the filter, rinse it off, then put it back. That’s it.” With experience remodeling apartments in New York, Curbelo decided to take apart the A/C himself. Turns out, it was filled with contaminated water. After a good cleaning and some help from Dettol, Zam started making a recovery, and Curbelo decided to start investigating how construction sites work around town. What he discovered changed his life.
As it turns out, there is a critical flaw in the way buildings are being built in the UAE. A/C ducting and units are put into buildings before they are completed, meaning they are exposed to the elements, most importantly humidity, during the construction process. What does this all mean? Before we are even moving into our homes, offices, etc., our air conditioning units are already a cesspool for mold and bacteria. In short, the air we’re breathing is nowhere close to clean.
“Word started getting around that clean out A/Cs. Friends started giving my name to friends,” says Curbelo. “One day, a friend who was about to have a baby had me over to give his vents and A/C unit a cleaning. He had his apartment management there at the same time, and they said to me ‘Hey, you should start a business.’ That got the wheels turning.” At the beginning of 2014, Curbelo had the opportunity to meet with a potential sponsor. “He walked in and said, ‘I can give you a half hour.’” Almost two hours later and Curbelo had himself a local sponsor, and Brooklyn General Maintenance came to be.
A central focus for Curbelo and his company is the research side of the mold problem. “We are taking water samples to labs and finding an alarming amount of mold in samples the size of spit. This in the air we are all breathing. In our homes. In our offices. At hospitals. This is no joke. Black mold in the US has actually killed people.”
Beyond the health of his own family, why has cleaning the air of Abu Dhabi become such a passion for Curbelo? “This country has given our family so much, and they have done so much in 43 years. I want to give back and help the country keep improving. The lifestyle we live here is a gift.” He adds with a laugh, “And, also, put my son through college.”
To learn more call Brooklyn General Maintenance on 055-289-8582 or visit them on Facebook, fb.com/brooklyngeneralmaintenance
Written by: Leslie Pavlovich
