June 2nd, 2006 - Lead
We were heartened again yesterday that we did not buy the house. On the 22nd, Maggie’s lead levels were tested (a typical test, especially for a youngster living in a 106 year old house). They were high enough to prescribe her iron drops and a required visit from the city health nurse. The heartening thing is that if we had bought the house, we probably would have been required to IMMEDIATELY repaint every single room in the house as well as the outside. We NEVER could have afforded that.
See, if your child has slightly elevated levels–which in Oshkosh is over 10 (I forget the label)–you get a visit and must abate the lead. And the level at which a child gets medication is 25. I just wish we’d known what would happen after 10, because we would have a) saved towards abatement and b) probably have done some already. We didn’t know we’d be getting a visit that required a written plan and a limited time period.
And it turns our far more than we’d figured has lead: the inside front porch, the outside front porch, the garage, the hall woodwork, the hallway doors, all but one windowwell, and the outsides of the basement windows. This also means none of these areas have been painted in like 30 years!
We have to wait to get the official letter from the nurse which will include info on local companies that can do the abatement. Then we get to find out just how expensive this will be. ::sigh:: I’m hoping it’s not unbearable. At least we’ll get the woodwork stripped or painted now. We’ll have to decide whether to replace or strip the doors up there. They are nice doors, but if it’s too expensive…. If we do repaint them, we’ll probably go with bright colors. We’ve oft dreamed of something like one each blue, red, green, and yellow. Sure wish the hall was a color now (we’d planned yellow but went with basic cream when planning to sell).
We also need to try to get Maggie to eat more vitamin C in her diet. Unfortunately, she’s not a big fan of oranges and it’s not season yet for green peppers. But, I have dried oranges and I will try to add them in small amounts to other foods. And the iron drops may be all that’s necessary. She’s probably iron-deficient since she’s a vegetarian so her only iron comes from her nutritional yeast. (I’m kind of wishing we’d gotten the iron drops a year ago. We might have avoided this scenario. But I really didn’t know that iron helped get rid of lead. Nor did I know the requirements we would be forced to comply with suddenly. We get info when buying a house about lead based paints and such. But I don’t recall any city-specific info nor “If your child has a level over X, you absolutely MUST comply with requirements Z or you will be in dee trouble.” Like I said before, we probably would have started in on fixing the suspected areas long ago had we known.)
We’re also now wondering if Jedi has lead poisoning. If the baby does, why not the pets as well?
June 4th, 2006 at 5:44 am EDT
Lead poisoning has always been on of my biggest fears. Your state must have an excellent screening and safety program. Our doctor’s office always makes me feel silly for requesting yet another yearly test for Andrew!
I’ll be praying that you find the resources and solutions to correct the problems easily.
June 5th, 2006 at 9:11 pm EDT
Hate to say this, but have you had your garden soil checked for lead? I’ve heard in the area I live in you should test for lead before growing food in a home garden, because the food can be contaminated if the soil contains lead from lead paint, old gasoline fumes, etc. Don’t know if it’s the same where you live but it might be worth checking with your local agricultural extension.
Jen
July 16th, 2008 at 3:35 pm EDT
[…] Two years ago…2006 Monkey and AnnMee were visiting us before they’d started dating. I was already hoping they’d get married. I was buying a lot of stuff, like a compost bucket (that we still love and is still in great shape), worms for vermicomposting (which did not work out), and a hand cranked cell phone charger (which didn’t work out as I got it shortly before I sliced my thumb open with the blender and couldn’t use it). We were sighing in relief that we hadn’t bought the Elmwood house and dealing with lead paint in our current house. (By Dec 07, she was safe. […]