Lead paint isn’t something that’s just for people in the last century to worry about. Old houses still have lead paint, and disrupting it by sanding or demo can cause it to become airborne and be a major health risk, especially to little ones. Here’s a story about how a family thought they had a dream home, but then lead paint made the baby sick.
Here’s the lead paint story.
“When we got married it was our dream to buy old houses and fix them up,” says Karen.
But Karen and her husband didn’t know their 100-year-old dream home would one day send their baby to the emergency room for poisoning from lead paint.
It all started when the couple began remodeling the entire house from top to bottom, including the kitchen, bathrooms, and front porch. They added a deck, updated the electric and plumbing and replaced all the windows. Then after their second son was born, they hired a contractor to paint the outside of the house.
“I had the windows open during some of the painting, thinking that the dust was not a [problem],” says Karen. “There were never any paint chips around and [contractor] just dry-sanded the paint.”
Then one day, Karen’s one-year-old son received a random blood test — and she was advised to rush her baby to the emergency room for lead poisoning.
What are RRP practices?
Find out more about the EPA’s lead-safe renovation, repair, and painting work (RRP) practices, which include containing the work area, minimizing the dust, and cleaning up thoroughly.)
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