It’s often the only place I can go to get any quiet time. That was until we moved to our new house, it’s smaller with only 1 bathroom instead of 3. Now my quiet time is more often than not interrupted by someone needing the toilet or worse, wanting to join me in the shower! If only we could sell our other house we would have the luxury of affording a small but adequate 2nd bathroom facility, but that for now, will have to wait.
Anyway today the guy came to measure for our new windows. This house was built in 1940 and while there are some cute features, the single pane wooden windows are not part of that. As we suspected the windows are sporting the yellowed lead-infused paint from 71 years ago and the EPA wants to know that we are replacing them to code, so new windows it is! While the gentleman was here I asked for one of his test kits (ever the opportunist) and ran it over the paint in the bathroom! Yes, you guessed it, bright pink in about 3 seconds! I was so dismayed. Luckily it’s only the peeling paint (I never thought I would start and finish a sentence like that). Anyway, some of the paint is peeling off above the shower and the backside of it tested positive for lead. I must now figure out just how to remove the paint without making it a worse contaminant because the flakes are worse than the painted surface! Of course lead poisoning would just about be the icing on the cake at this point wouldn’t it? Does it ever end?
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry suggests that “… lead exposure is one of the most preventable poisonings of childhood. Data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) shows that 6% of all children ages 1-2 years and 11% of black (non-Hispanic) children ages 1-5 years have blood lead levels in the toxic range. Lead is a potent poison that can affect individuals at any age. Children with developing bodies are especially vulnerable because their rapidly developing nervous systems are particularly sensitive to the effects of lead.”
Worse they also state:”…Exposure to lead can have a wide range of effects on a child’s development and behavior. Even when exposed to small amounts of lead levels, children may appear inattentive, hyperactive and irritable. Children with greater lead levels may also have problems with learning and reading, delayed growth and hearing loss. At high levels, lead can cause permanent brain damage and even death. …”
Looks like there will be two bathroom renovations going on in this house sooner than we thought! CPSC has good suggestions on how to remove or cover the lead paint by yourself, but luckily for us our contractor is an EPA certified builder. I will get right on that but in the meantime, I will be making sure no one is eating anything I can’t identify or licking anything that isn’t made of frozen fruit and water!