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RE: asbestos tile/worried sick
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Posted by glennsfc (My Page) on Sun, Feb 7, 10 at 15:12
RE: asbestos tile/worried sick
* Posted by
mandypark
(amanda.vierling@cox.net) on
Fri, Feb 5, 10 at 11:50
Hello,
I am freaking out here and am looking for some advice/reassurance that I haven't doomed my children to sure death in 40 years. We live in a condo that was built in 1973. My husband took it upon himself to scrape the popcorn ceilings without having them tested before. He didn't not properly cover anything up and we ended up with popcorn ceiling all over the floor. He then used my brand new Dyson to vacuum it all up. After all this was said and done, I had it tested for asbestos. It tested positive for 2%. I have 3 small children in the the house. What do I do? This was an ongoing project of over 6 months, where he did small bits at a time. Do I need to replace the couches and carpet?? What about the bits of dried ceilings still on the floor behind furniture? I'm so worried, any advice will greatly appreciated. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: RE: asbestos tile/worried sick
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| As this thread refused to die and reached its 150 post limit, I have resurrected it so that Mandypark can get responses to her post about her popcorn ceiling removal concerns. You have not doomed your children to sure death in 40 years. Not everyone exposed to the fiber develops an asbestos induced disease. Casual exposure should not be of great concern to anyone. Repeated exposures accompanied by smoking or repeated exposures to second hand smoke greatly increases the chances of developing disease attributable to asbestos exposure. However, you need to thoroughly clean ALL horizontal surfaces and any duct work. And, perhaps replacing the carpet might be a wise thing to do, but who knows? Discreetly employing the services of an environmental testing company to monitor the air quality in your home before and then after thorough cleaning should be able to tell you if any residual fibers are present and in what quantities over and above the background levels typical for your region. You may find that the levels in your home air match the levels normally found in your region. Then you would be able to rest easy that your families' health has not been compromised. The information you can find about asbestos in the home provided by the EPA is informative. However, the information provided by the Consumer Products Safety Commission can be particularly anxiety producing for some folks. So, if you go searching for information, take what you read with a grain of salt and employ common sense. It is certainly best to have no exposure, but as I've said casual exposure shouldn't be of great concern. But, I'm not a doctor or an environmental scientist/epidemiologist, so take what I've said with a grain of salt. |
RE: RE: asbestos tile/worried sick
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| Yikes, i'd be a little scared as well. I'm an OSHA Certified Asbestos Consultant. At this point, you might want to call in some professional help to make sure whatever residual asbestos that is left is abated corrected. Did the dust get into the air handling system and other areas of the house? The abatement company will help evuate things like that. An abatement company will come in and scrub everything really well with right HEPA vacs, negative air machines, etc. You could run air sample now before cleanup, but it might just cause you more anxiety if they fail. Get multiple bids for the job as abatement companies can be all over the place price wise. Don't go with the cheap guy, go with the guy in the middle. Cheers, Mike |
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