We live in the parlor floor of an area brownstone built in 1899. Because of its age, it's nearly guaranteed to have lead paint in it. The paint is pealing in our bedroom. A home kit showed barely positive levels of lead.
And since we're planning on having a baby, it seems to me the most precautionary action to take would be to move, and move to some new condo-type place built from the ground up after 1978 (no lead).
But what's your advice/experience on this lead issue?
While we are geniuses on many issues, you may also want to pose this question to the folks on Brownstoner.
They have a searchable forum that will yield prior discussions.
We have a baby and a brownstone. We just try to avoid allowing him to feed on paint chips.
The peeling paint should be stripped and painted back over with regular household paint. Unless you plan to equip your baby with a chisel, it ought to be enough.
thanks folks; appreciate this advice. we'd rather not move but want to do optimal prevention obviously.
also, not sure ingestion of paint chips is required to get lead poisoning from what I've read about lead dust: babies crawl on the floor and lead dust gets on their toys, fingers and hence their mouths. what's your knowledge/opinion on this eastbloc? many thanks for advising.
I'm going to have the apartment tested and assessed to determine whether there are significant levels. and then decide. meanwhile: any certified lead tester recommendations you've experienced and trusted, affordable too? (no shills of course, please).
read most everything on this but nothing's quite definitive. remains a mystery and a risk. and THAT makes me anxious. trying to reason this out.
btw still large amounts of lead in nyc. by even living in nyc they'll get it.
Like you said -- test your apartment. If the paint is under new paint, the diffusion should be minimal. According to Health Canada, babies would need to ingest 1mg regularly every day to have issues. That's quite a lot of pure lead.
Unless you're living in an active construction site, there's not going to be a lot of dusting from paint, particularly if the paint has been coated with layers of non-lead paint (the place HAS been painted since 1978, hasn't it?)
You can get people to remove it and clean the apartment. Moving to a new place might lead to new potential hazards so if you like where you are other than the lead, just remediate that.
You might drop a few $$ on testing and remediation, but moving also costs money with brokers fees, moving costs, etc.
(I have no kids but spent a lot of time in graduate classes on this stuff with a pediatrician who specializes in this kind of stuff. He would say, don't panic."
good advice east bloc and opossumqueen, appreciate your savvy input very much.
For what it's worth, I spent my gestational months and early years in what amounted to a construction site of an apartment. It was in a NYC building that was getting a full renovation and the building was of the same vintage of a brownstone. Granted, I rarely got to crawl on much because there wasn't much in the way of floors, but I was exposed to all manner of dust. I can't remember (obviously) what my parents did about the lead that had to be there, but I wasn't effected. From what I understand, lead doesn't really leave the system, and a couple of years ago I got tested a couple times and there was no noticeable amount.
If you really like your place, don't move. There are risks everywhere, you're just going to be trading in for different ones. Don't sand the wall, paint it, heck have professionals come in if you want, but don't panic. I have a brand new baby myself, and I wouldn't move for that. Oh, and don't let your baby sit there chewing paint chips, something I suspect you're unlikely to do anyway.
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