Healthy Home Tips: Lead

Of all the environmental hazards in houses, lead paint is potentially one of the most serious, because it can and does have the largest number of victims. Lead-poisoned children number in the tens of thousands and suffer from reduced learning skills, behavioral and nervous system disorders, and in the worse cases of poisoning, mental retardation. Lead can also affect unborn children.

Up until 1978, nearly all exterior paints and most interior wood trim paint contained lead pigment. In the Boston area where I live, 80% of the homes contain lead paint, because much of the building stock in the city is older. If you live in an older home, contact your local health department to see what you must do about lead paint.

Below are some things to keep in mind to help protect yourself and your children from lead exposure.

1. Be careful when you renovate. One husband and wife wanted to sell their home, and their real estate agent suggested they repaint the interior to freshen up the property. They had two young children and not a lot of money, so they decided to do the work themselves. They diligently sanded and scraped wall and wood surfaces to prepare them for a new coat of paint – all while living in the house. They accepted an offer, and the prospective buyers hired a lead inspector. The inspector drew everyone aside during his site visit and said that the house contained the highest levels of lead dust he’d ever seen. Even the infant’s crib and teddy bear were contaminated. He suggested that the family evacuate the home immediately.

2. If you live in an older home, and have a sandbox outside your house, or a dirt pile for your children to play in, buy new sand or dirt– don’t use dirt from your yard. Don’t grow fruits and vegetables in the soil around your house until you have that soil tested. Make people take off their shoes when they come into your home. The soil around older homes can contain high concentrations of lead compounds – perhaps because the siding contains lead paint that was scraped before surfaces were repainted. Some people also think that lead compounds in our environment came from gasoline, before the additive tetraethyl lead was banned from fuel. When this chemical was in fuel, lead ended up in the exhaust of cars and trucks, and entered the air at a rate of about the weight of a penny for every 5 miles traveled. These microscopic lead particles found their way into the soil around houses after being washed out of the air and off of roofs.

3. If you are thinking of moving into an older home, hire a professional to do a lead inspection. Don’t forget to have carpeting tested, because it may contain soil and dust that people carried into the house on their shoes and that contains lead dust. If the property has already been de-leaded, ask to see the final lead inspection report.

Lead paint chips are not sweet and children rarely eat them. Invisible lead dust is a more worrisome culprit.

(c) Jeffrey May