Another Lead Update

I got a call from the city again today about our lead issues.  They've looked at our application, decided that we qualify for their home improvement loans, and needed to know if we would be using the loan program (or just the lead grant) and what we wanted worked on with the loan.  The sooner they get this information from us, the sooner he can get his paperwork stuff done, the sooner they can contact contractors and get bids, and the sooner they can get the work done.  If all goes well, they might be able to do the work in September, though we are shooting for Labor Day weekend plus a few days on either side.

So, here's where we are at:

The state is granting $11,000 for lead work which will cover:

Replacing all of our windows on the first floor (the second floor is newer and has vinyl windows).  Our windows are very old, single-pane, wood-wrapped windows with lead paint on them.  Not only will this remove the lead on the windows, it will increase the energy efficiency on our house and lower our heating bill.

Replace our front door.  It has a very high level of lead on the outside.  There's also lead paint on the threshold.  When the two slide together, it releases lead dust.  Plus, the door is rather crooked, has large gaps alone the frame where cold air leaks in, and is very difficult to lock.

Repaint the entire exterior of the house and garage.  They are completely covered in lead paint and peeling badly.

Repaint the interior rooms that have lead paint, which are the school room, the living room, the kitchen, and my daughter's bedroom.  The dining room (which is completely open to the living room and only separated by tiny 6 inch long walls) does not have lead.  They would apply two layers of mud, two layers of primer, texture, and paint.

In addition to the grant, we qualify for home improvement loans through the city.  They can loan up to $25,000 at 0% interest (interest is by income, I think) and deferred for 10-20 years.  I asked what happens if you can't afford to pay in 20 years, and I was told no one can pay in 20 years so we just defer in 5 year increments after that.  They would be in a 2nd lien position so if we were to sell, they'd get paid after the mortgage was paid off.  I've been told that we would not be held to any unrecovered funds in the event the sale price was too low to cover both loans.  I'll be checking those documents before signing.

While we don't really want to add to our debt, we're planning on taking advantage of this program.  Ideally, we want to move but finances and the economy being what they are, we can't.  So, since we are stuck here, we might as well live in a safer and nicer home.  Plus, many of the repairs will increase the home's saleability and value.  We have to give the city's guy a priority list of what we want done so he can crunch some numbers and see how far it can be stretched.   He offered his suggestions, which we prioritized a little differently.

First, we want the dining room to be redone to match the rest of the work they are doing in essentially the same room.  That shouldn't cost too much.

Second: Rewiring the house.  We have some very old electrical wiring, some if it is definitely not up to code.  Plus, being an old house we have a severe shortage of outlets.  We have extension cords and power strips throughout the house because we have so far outlets.  For example, we have exactly three in the kitchen making it necessary to put our microwave on an extension cord and our espresso machine, toaster, bread machine, and coffee grinder on a power strip.  Both issues are fire hazards; having that worry taken care of and having enough outlets will be nice.  Plus, updating will help with any future sale.

Third: Repairing the front porch.  The porch deck is old and starting to dry rot.  The rails are wobbly due to settling (they aren't attached to one of the columns.  Not only are these a safety hazard but we know that repairing it would be a condition of any future sale.

Fourth: Replacing the kitchen flooring.  It is old, ugly laminate with a seam down the middle that is starting to pull up.  It is also starting to pull up at the back door.  There is a possibility that the adhesive under the laminate has asbestos so we can't do it ourselves.  Having it done now means that safety hazard is taken care of for us and will make our kitchen look nicer.

Fifth:  Replacing the kitchen counters and back splash.  The back splash is laminate adhered to the wall and is wearing away.  The wood trim is kind of rotting too.  I'm sure it isn't pretty behind it.  The counters are laminate with metal corners holding it on.  It's ugly and has a broken piece near the sink.

Sixth:  New cabinets.  Ours are old, painted wood ones.  They are just old, worn, chipping, etc.  I would have never thought of putting this on the list but it was on the city guy's suggestions list.

Seventh:  New plumbing.  This was actual number 2 on the city guy's list.  Our pipes are old galvanized pipes.  He talked about how they erode from the inside out, reducing flow over time.  We've never had problems with our pipes and our water flow seems fine. So, it's a lower priority for us.  There are a few copper pipes which have the risk of lead in the soldering.  If testing shows we have lead, we'd probably change our priority list, bumping this up to the top.

Finally: Correcting a code issue with our bathtub faucet.  It's on the city guy's list but it's a really minor issue.  I think if there's money, fine, do it.  If not, it seems like something Scott can do on a weekend some time...sooner if necessary.

I have no idea how far the money will stretch so I don't know if even half of this can be done, but they were all suggestions made by the city guy (with the exception of the back splash).  There are other things I could add...like upstairs carpeting and fixing the broken stair under that carpeting...but that's on the radar for the future.

Home Lead Inspection Results

The city brought their preferred lead inspector out to the house today.  Our house is pretty "hot"...as in positive for lead paint.

Every outside surface of our house was positive for lead, with at least some of it being very high in lead.  When I say "every", I mean EVERY...the door, the threshold, the porch floor, the walls, the trim, the window trim, the window sills, the porch columns, the bottom half of the porch columns which is painted brick, etc.

The walls of our school room, living room, and dining room have lead but none of the trim.  Our kitchen ceiling and walls have lead, as well as one of the windows.  In fact, that one kitchen window is the only window in the house to have lead on the inside.  My daughter's ceiling and closet have lead but nothing else in her room.  Our bathroom is clean.  Upstairs is clean.  They will be coming out another day to test the water and the soil in our yard.  We already know the soil is positive from tests years ago.

It looks like the exterior of our house and most of the first floor will get painted by the city using grant money from the state lead program.  We may also get a new front door and threshold.

My top priority is to get the application in so the city can process it.  There's some outdoor carpeting that previous owners installed on part of our front porch and all of our back porch.  He told us to remove it.  DH's tools from doing to flooring need to be removed from the house.

I have to clean in a certain way.  He wants me to use disposable wipes, folding into fourths.  I use one side and do one wipe in a single direction. Then flip it over and do the next stripe in a single direction.  Then unfold to exposed unused portions and wipe the next stripe in a single direction, turn it over do the next stripe.  Then unfolded all the way and use the other side in the same manner.  I'm to never wipe back and forth or in circles or reuse a side for more than one stripe.  This is for the window ledges, floors, and dusting.  This is the compromise...he really wants me using something like TSP and a three bucket mop system with the rinse water being changed regularly...but that would destroy our brand new floor.

He also thinks our kids shouldn't really be playing outside in our yard because of the likelihood of lead being in the dirt (we live in an area contaminated by an old smelter).

Finally, we need to keep a watch on Maddie's lead levels.  He wants me checking mine, too, since I'm nursing...which costs $70 each time.  He expressed concern over me nursing...but I'm reading conflicting information about mom's with lead exposure nursing.  I'm not convinced that weaning would help.

It's a nightmare.

Update on the Lead Issues

I posted earlier that we had a home test kit show positive for lead.  Since then, we've had a lot happen and a lot still needs to happen.

I have learned that the EPA considers these home test kits to be unreliable.  It would have been nice to know that years ago when we used the first one and got all negatives.  We might not be in this situation had we not thought our house was safe.  Anyway, the local expert tells me even the positive test isn't reliable; however, we have other confirmation that there's definitely lead in the house...

Our kids have tested positive for lead exposure.  Mika, Sam, and Josh all test at 1.4, 1.4, and 1.5 ug/dL.  Madelynn, however, is at 3.3 ug/DL.  From my research and discussions with various people, I've learned that 10 ug/dL is the current "action point", or the point at which doctors have determined medical action must be taken to remove the lead from the body.  They are talking about lowering that action level to 5 because they are seeing damage done and lower levels.  Maddie is almost at that new level.  On top of that, lead levels don't peak in children until the age of 18-24 months, and Maddie is only 10 months.  That means there is a very real possibility that she will reach that action level.  It's really scary.  Lead can damage all body systems, including the central nervous system.  Once damage is done, it is often permanent.

So, we have two things going on.  First, I spoke with someone at the state level who contacted the city level people who do the lead stuff.  The city people have already used up all of their funding for lead remediation; however, the state is rewriting the contract to give them more for our house.  However, that is only worth $11,000 in repairs, and because it is through HUD, the inspector has to look at the whole house, not just the lead issue.  His program can go up to $25,000 in repairs but the difference between the $25,000 and $11,000 is in low interest loans secured by home equity, of which we have none thanks to the economy dropping our value $80,000.   With no equity, we would be denied that loan so any repairs made must fit in that $11,000 limit.  Further, this is a slow process.  They have to get me an application.  I have to fill it out and return it.  Then they will approve it and send the guy I spoke with out to inspect our house.  At that point, a plan will to created to decide what will be done based on the needs, HUD requirements, money available, etc.  Then they have to put it to bid, wait for bids, and accept bids.  Meanwhile, we still live in a lead contaminated home.

Not good!  The inspector suggested getting the kids and I out of the house and Scott finishing our flooring because it will be easier to clean.  However, we don't know what Scott's exposure is and the fact that he isn't a lead expert, there's a good chance he'll be exposed even more (and we think he probably got tons of exposure while ripping out the first three rooms of carpeting without knowing he should be taking special precautions.)  It will also likely kick up lead dust in the house, and unless he does a perfect job with containment and clean up (it all has to be done in a special way), it could lead to more exposure for the kids and I when we return to the house to await the inspection and plan to be carried out.

Definitely not good!  So, we are seriously considering mailing our keys to the mortgage company and walking away from the house.  This house is not worth the risking our kids' health, permanently.  Still, it is hard to walk away from your home and your commitment and responsibility to repay that mortgage.

So, while the decision hasn't been made yet for sure, we are starting to look for a rental to move into.  Since we expect it to be long term (as in years), we're looking for a place big enough for our family and in a nice enough neighborhood for our kids to grow up in.  We need 3-4 bedrooms because of our family size, and we are hoping to stay in the area...or south King County, Pierce County, north Thurston county.  Ideally, we'd take our pets but we will rehome some of them if we have to. 

So, if you just happen to know of a good lead free (ie. built after 1978), 3+ bedroom home in a decent neighborhood that needs reliable renters, let me know.  We've never missed a payment in the 11  years we've lived here.

I hate this house

Warning: Long, Complaining Whine Ahead

This was going to be the summer when we fixed the house and got it looking decent inside. Scott was replacing our old, stained, threadbare carpet with wood laminate floor. I was going to scrape paint off of trim and sand it in hopes that we can get the trim looking decent after a coat of good primer and paint. I was also going to repaint every room I could manage to get done.

So, as I was dry scraping the paint (a process that was working better than I expected), I had a gut feeling and decided to stop and walk to the local hardware store with the kids for a lead paint test kit. We had used one of these kits years before and didn't get positive results in any of the several places we tried. For some reason, I felt I needed to double check.


This picture shows the area I was scraping and tested. The directions say it will turn pink or red in the presence of lead. I definitely got pink on the 4th layer down.


Great. Sam was helping me scrape (he wants to help) and Madelynn was playing on the ground just feet away. Everyone, inhale deeply and enjoy those lead particles.

So, I've been doing some more reading. Children at greatest risk of lead poisoning are those living in old homes with deteriorating paint that is cracking, chalking, peeling, chipping, etc.

Let's tour my home:



Our coat closet door has chipping paint.


Here's the trim around the opening between the living room and school room. The other side looks the same. What's worse, is this trim was the most recently painted. It starts to chip within a couple months of being painted, which is why I was going for the scraping, sanding, primering, painting method rather than just repainting.



This is the door jamb between the dining room and the "hall", otherwise known as the 3 by 5 foot space that leads to the stairs, bathroom, and Mika's room. There are always paint chips along the walls here.



This is the trim at the bottom of the stairs.


The doors aren't doing too hot either. This is our front door, which I painted a couple of years ago.


Our bathroom door is in horrible shape. It's cracking, peeling, and chipping.


Mika's door has large sections peeled off in addition to the normal chipping.


I don't know if there's lead in our kitchen but our drawers are chipping too. There's always dust in the drawers.

So, in talking to the National Lead Information Center, I'm suppose to remove the kids from the premise for the duration of the project and have certified professionals do a proper abatement. They said painting over it isn't sufficient. They also told me to call my local state department dealing with all this. (It happens to be the Department of Commerce.) They don't work on Fridays so I've been told to call back on Monday and I might here back from the guy on Tuesday. So, everything is on hold until then.

I've also been told that Scott shouldn't have ripped up the carpet without proper respirator, hazmat suit, and containment because it was probably full of lead dust. Too late now...except that he's not done. That hall and Mika's room still needs to be ripped up. He's got finishing work in the other rooms too. Even if he finished the work the right way, he doesn't want to in case it all ends up needing to be ripped up for abatement anyway. What's the point. Meanwhile, all our stuff is piled in my bedroom. How am I suppose to run our home and home school when all of our stuff is piled in my bedroom for who knows how long?

So, my reading tells me that the biggest danger is from the dust. They say that dry dusting, sweeping, and vacuuming with a vacuum containing a beater brush kicks the dust back up into the air where we'll breathe it. The information says to one dust with a wet cloth and only dry mop. I've even read that carpets would be cleaned with a cleaner, not a vacuum. But can a wet mop really clean well enough without sweeping first?




This was what I got sweeping ONE small room when it had been swept and mopped the day before. I don't think a wet mop would work without sweeping first. How am I suppose to clean and keep the dust from being breathed?

And how am I suppose to clean the bedrooms when they are piled high with stuff? There's not much more than a walkway up there. We don't really want to bring it all back down when the work is still undone.

I'm not a happy camper.

I have to get my kids lead tested. I'll be insisting on it during their annual check ups, which are already scheduled for this and next month.

I think Scott and I should be lead tested. We have no insurance so I know that will cost us at least $100 for each of us for the office visit. But he had a huge exposure. I've sanded walls in the past, the last time I tried painting.

We hate our house. It's too small for us. One bathroom and six people is chaotic at times. It's in a bad neighborhood. We had a meth lab across the street. We had a drug house around the corner. It's on a busy, major arterial where cars go well over the posted 35mph speed limit. We have a tiny yard that's not really suitable for playing outside. The house foundation is sinking in one corner. My eyeballing it wants to say it's at a 5-10% angle. The crumbling, plaster walls need to be replaced. The exterior paint needs to be redone. The windows on the south side are crumbling. The porch is separating from the house. We've lost every penny of our equity to the economy. I was trying to make the best of it by scraping, sanding, repainting and making the house as nice as possible for us. Now this.

Oh, and in the process of looking for information, I found that old vinyl laminate like we have in our kitchen may contain both lead and asbestos hazards. That was another future project I had in mind.

I hate this house.

There is hope that the home test was wrong. That it was a false positive. I have to wait until I get that call from the Department of Commerce.

I still hate this house.

UPDATE: The irony of all this is that my home test kit gave me a false positive.  We had our home professionally tested today (June 22) and there is no lead in our trim.  It's all over outside and in the walls, but not in the trim or the interior doors anywhere.