need advice - walking away from our home and belongings

[Guest guest]

Jill,

I sympathize with your predicament but I would not give up on the

house or belongings. As others have said, at some point you may be

able to tolerate these.

If you remove absolutely everything from the house and put it all in

storage and clean every surface of every atom of dust (walls,

ceilings, floors, electric boxes, fixtures, basement, keyholes,

cracks, tops of trim, (every square inch of all dust), seal every

basement surface (Elmers glue for the framing wood), treat the

foundation with steam vapor, this should make a big difference.

(Concrete can be sealed with AFM concrete sealer, it has no odor at

all.) You should be able to eat off of any basement surface!

If you have hot air heat, seal the thing up completely and buy

oil-filled radiators. If you have radiators or convectors, blast them

with steam vapor to get rid of ALL dust. If there is combustion

spillage or gas or petroleum odor from the heat, don't use it. Cover

any oil spills with aluminum foil or remove the concrete.

If you have to you can cover the walls with Dennyfoil.

If the attic is full of old insulation, you'll have to get rid of it

as well, clean all the surfaces and seal them with Elmers glue

(diluted 50%). Don't bother to reinsulate until you know the house is

OK.

Do the dirtiest places first, contain the dust (basement and attic).

When the house is completely empty, you can get rid of dust that a

HEPA vacuum can't reach with a leaf blower to get into cracks, etc. A

powerful exhuast fan should be in the window to suck out the dust that

is raised. Do one room at a time, then seal it off so dust from other

rooms can't get in.

I know this is an enormous amount of work but it is less of a loss

than selling and moving and wandering. Maybe you can start with one

room and see if it's OK.

If the wall cavities are not insulated you can blow Icynene in( This

is well tolderated by MCSers)to stop air flow into the house. Or you

can just inject expanding foam around electric boxes.(To see if the

outlets are a problem, after everything is cleaned tape up the outlets

to stop air flow; then open.

Good luck.

May

May Indoor Air Investigations LLC

Tyngsborough, MA

www.mayindoorair.com

www.myhouseiskillingme.com

978-649-1055

> need advice - walking away from our home and belongings Posted by:

> " Jsverdlove@... " Jsverdlove@... jbeansved Thu Jan 22, 2009

> 10:08 am (PST) We are giving up on our home, belongings, cars

> because of mycotoxin cross contamination. Now we are wondering:

> - do we hire an auction company to sell everything (they take 35-50%

> commission)

> or

> - do we put everything in storage and go back to it some day, risking

the possibility of cross contamination later

> i'm out of the house now and wondering if it is also worth the risk to

g>o back and test some items then clean/clear all over again? We have

> so many expensive MCS items that it is tragic and financially

> devastating to have to try to replace. We don't have a new safe

> space yet (I'm with my baby at a friend's place for tonight -

> changing places almost daily because of my MCS reactions to most

> homes).

> This is a nightmare on all levels and has gone on for almost three

> months and we just needed to make a decision at this point. If

> anyone has gone through this and had advice re our stuff - we'd like

> to recoup at least some of our loss but just aren't sure how. My

> husband unfortunately is still at the house trying to figure out

> what to do next.

> thank you

> jill