Hello, I'm worried over something I did about 9 years ago and maybe you can help me determine if I should be...

About 9 years ago I bought my first home. I was a stupid kid that knew nothing of home repair. It was a smaller bungalow built in 1955. The guy that owned it before me was not very good at home repairs either and I decided to fix his mistakes, or so I thought.

In a 12x15 sq foot section of the basement was an area of 12x12 inch modern vinyl tiles that were not secured to the floor very well, and in some cases loose from water from a leaky shower in the basement. Being young and stupid I decided to remove them but then discovered much older 9x9 tiles underneath them. Thinking I'll just remove both layers and bring that section of the floor right down to the concrete... so I did just that.

I had a really nice pry bar (made for prying up tiles) that worked its way under the tiles and basically pried up both the layers at once - mostly all intact. There was some breakage of the older tiles but for the most part they just snapped loose in one whole piece. It was actually an easy job.

Once I removed all the tiles I was left with a black floor, which I painted with basement floor paint - which worked quite well because even after 9 years it still looks ok.

Ok, fast forward 9 years....

Well, we heard about asbestos and how it may be in floor tiles. That got me thinking of the work I did in my basement. So I went to the part of the basement where I didn't do any work, which is covered with an indoor/outdoor carpet. I lifted up the carpet and, sure enough, those old 9x9 tiles were under it as well. I pried up one (which easily snapped up whole) and made sure it had a good sample of the black mastic on it and I sent it away to an asbestos testing lab.

The lab came back that the tile is 15% asbestos (chrysotile) and the mastic contains no asbestos (basically tar)...I also heard chrysotile was the better of the bad types of asbestos?

Now, my worries ---

I'm worried that I contaminated the entire house 9 years ago by releasing asbestos into the air in the basement, and then the HVAC system pulling it in and carrying it all over the house.

Is my family's health impacted by this?

Is this stuff still floating around my house 9 years later?

IN recent years a family member also sleeps in that basement - are they being harmed??

Should I be worried???

Any help from a knowledgeable person with experience in this matter would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you so much,

Mike

This post was edited by Mike2014 on Sun, Jul 6, 14 at 13:23