Special Clean-up for Asbestos

Special Clean-up for Asbestos

The biggest source of asbestos is not building materials! It is
the clothes dryer belt and hair dryer! To be safe, remove the belt
from your dryer and check to see if it says “Made in USA” on

the belt itself. If so, it is OK. If not, it is imported, and probably
contains asbestos. Exchange it for a USA belt (see Sources).
Hair dryers, too, may be imported and shed asbestos. It is
especially hazardous to be aiming a stream of hot asbestos right
at your face! If you can't find a safe model (see Sources), or are
unsure, don't use any. If you have cancer or are ill, no one in the
house should use an unsafe hair dryer.
Turn off radiators and electric heaters and cover them with
big plastic garbage bags, or paint them, or remove them. They
give off asbestos if their paint is old.
Your House
To clean the house, start with the bedroom. Remove everything
that has any smell to it whatever: candles, potpourri, soaps,
mending glue, cleaners, repair chemicals, felt markers, colognes,
perfumes, and especially plug-in air “fresheners”. Store them in
the garage, not the basement. Since all vapor rises, they would
come back up if you put them in a downstairs garage or
basement.
Do not sleep in a bedroom that is paneled or has wallpaper.
They give off arsenic and formaldehyde. Either remove them or
move your bed to a different room. Leave the house while this is
being done. If other rooms have paneling or wallpaper, close
their doors and spend no time in them.
Next clean the kitchen. Take all cans and bottles of chemicals
out from under the sink or in a closet. Remove them to the garage.
Keep only the borax, washing soda, white distilled vinegar and
homemade soap. Use these for all purposes. For exact amounts to
use for dishwasher, dishes, windows, dusting, see Recipes.
Remove all cans, bottles, roach and ant killer, moth balls, and
chemicals that kill insects or mice. These should not be stored
anywhere. They should be thrown out. Remember to check the
crawl space, attic and closets for hidden poisons also.

To keep out mice, walk all around your house, stuffing holes and
cracks with steel wool. Use old-fashioned mouse traps. For
cockroaches and other insects (except ants) sprinkle handfuls of
boric acid34 (not borax) under your shelf paper, behind sink,
stove, refrigerator, under carpets, etc. Use vinegar on your
kitchen wipe-up cloth to leave a residue that keeps out ants. Do
this regularly. To wax the floor, get the wax from the garage and
put it back there. A sick person should not be in the house while
house cleaning or floor waxing is being done.
Remove all cans and bottles of “stuff” from the bathroom.
The chlorine bleach is stored in the garage. Someone else can
bring it in to clean the toilet (only). Leave only the borax soap,
homemade soap, and grain alcohol antiseptic. Toilet paper and
tissues should be unfragranced, uncolored. All colognes, after
shave, anything you can smell must be removed. Family members
should buy unfragranced products. They should smoke outdoors,
blow-dry their hair outdoors or in the garage, use nail polish and
polish remover outdoors or in the garage.
Do not keep new foam furniture in the house. If it is less than
one year old, move it into the garage until you are well. It gives
off formaldehyde. So does new clothing; it is in the sizing. Wash
all new clothes before wearing. If you have a respiratory illness,
move all the clothes in the clothes closet out of your bedroom to
a different closet.
Do not use the hot water from an electric hot water heater for
cooking or drinking. It has tungsten. Do not drink water that sits
in glazed crock ware (the glaze seeps toxic elements like
cadmium) like some water dispensers have. Do not buy water
from your health food store that runs through a long plastic hose
from their bulk tank (I always see cesium picked up from flexi-

ble clear plastic). Also ask them how and when they clean their
tank. Best is to observe that it is done with non-toxic methods.
If your house is more than 10 years old, change all the galvanized
pipe to PVC plastic. Although PVC is a toxic substance,
amazingly, the water is free of PVC in three weeks! If your house
has copper pipes don't wait for cancer or schizophrenia to claim
a family member. Change all the copper pipe to PVC plastic
immediately. If the pipes are not accessible, ask a plumber to lay
an extra line, outside the walls. This is less expensive, too.
If you have a water softener, by-pass it immediately and replace
the metal pipe on the user side of the softener tank. Softener
salts are polluted with strontium and chromate; they are
also full of aluminum. The salts corrode the pipes so the pipes
begin to seep cadmium into the water. After changing your pipes
to plastic, there will be so little iron and hardness left, you may
not need a softener. If the water comes from a well, consider
changing the well-pipe to PVC to get rid of iron. While the well
is open, have the pump checked for PCBs. Call the Health
Department to arrange the testing. If you must have softening after
all this, check into the new magnetic varieties of water softener
(although they only work well when used with plastic plumbing).
The cleanest heat is electric. Go total electric if possible. If
you must stay with gas, have a furnace repair person check your
furnace and look for gas leaks before the heating season starts.
Don't call the gas company even though it is free. The gas company
misses 4 out of 5 leaks! The Health Department does not
miss any; call them! House builders and contractors are also reliable
in their gas leak detection.