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Shelter: A Quest for Non-Toxic Housing
Crocuta writes "Many of the geeks on /. voluntarily confine themselves to their homes for vast
stretches of time, but what happens when your home becomes your prison? Eric Hunting
suffers from Environmental Illness which perpetually confines him to his home, which even
as carefully furnished as it is, is still slowly killing him. His website, Shelter, is both a plea for help and a guide
documenting one man's quest for non-toxic housing."
Erm, wood anyone? Bricks and mortar? Glass?
Having looked at the site, I can't help thinking that there might be a psychological element to "Environmental illness".
The article poses the question: What Is Environmental Illness? It then goes off about Northern Exposure, which was a very funny television show, but is not a well established authority on immunological disorders.
It's a psychosomatic condition. Get a subscription for paxil and go the fuck outside.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
...too lazy to dig deep enough, here's a description of the illness from the site:
What Is Environmental Illness?
In 1990 the CBS television series Northern Exposure introduced America to a little known community of disabled people through the character of Mike Monroe, a lawyer afflicted by an illness known as MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) who sought refuge in a peculiar geodesic dome home on the outskirts of the eclectic Alaskan community featured in the series. Mike was 'allergic to the 20th Century' and suffered a variety of symptoms in response to the most minor exposures to chemicals. Though writers of this series took much liberty with the facts of this ailment, the essential social condition of people with this illness was well portrayed, in particular the alienation and social anxiety associated with having an illness that no one really comprehended, least of all those in the medical community who would normally be relied on for understanding and compassion.
It is unclear precisely when MCS first emerged because misdiagnosis and politically motivated denial have consistently accompanied it to the present day. But over the 1980s physicians throughout the industrialized nations of the world began reporting a steadily growing number of cases of people developing a host of chronic symptoms, sometimes vague, sometimes plain, and sometimes dramatically life-threatening, which seemed to have no obvious pathology other than an association with the presence of common household industrial products or pollution. Symptoms ranged from things one might normally associate with conventional flu or allergy -such as asthmatic, skin, and gastrointestinal reactions- to neurological effects both subtle and dramatic -such as cognitive difficulty, numbness, trembling, twitching and spasms, and partial to total paralysis. Some patients claimed sensitivity to things well beyond the conventional clinical sphere, such as electromagnetic fields produced by appliances and electrical wiring. And there were few symptoms any patients had consistently in common other than a general progressive malaise dubbed 'chronic fatigue' and a vague chronic muscle or joint pain labeled Fibromyalgia. Many could trace the onset of their illness to a trigger exposure to some specific chemical product which resulted in a sudden flu-like illness and rapid break-down, though therafter their reactions would come in response to exposures to a vast assortment of things, including foods and sometimes natural contaminants like pollen, fungal spores, dusts, and natural fragrances.
Most MCS suffers tended to succumb to the condition in mid adult-hood and are often female with middle-class backgrounds. In the US there is a preponderance of them from northern and eastern urban/suburban regions, suggesting an association with general environmental pollution levels. Male cases were rarer and more often associated with specific industrial chemical contamination or industy-related pre-cursor illnesses such as the Systemic Candidiasis which is common among brewery workers. (GWS suffers, as noted below, are veterans and mostly male, their trigger exposure related to whatever they were subjected to in the Gulf War) Children were the rarest group but also a rapidly growing one, due perhaps to an increasingly sedentary and sequestered lifestyle that keeps children exposed to more indoor air pollution coupled to a steadily decreasing quality of diet for children in industrialized countries.
These cases proved immediately politically controversial because of the implication that they could be related to ubiquitous consumer products. These 'human canaries', as some physicians had dubbed them, were a potential threat to corporate interests and the government agencies charged with establishing safety and health standards. Thus there was a tendency by the medical establishment to at first dismiss the growing number of reports and then to promote a psychosomatic explanation that effectively blamed the patient -or the
Steps to finding a non-toxic home:
1. MOVE OUT OF NEW JERSEY
The rest will be much easier once step 1 is complete.
Well, without building a treehouse and moving there.
Anything chemically processed is a potential source of 'toxins', not to mention possible natural toxins that may get trapped in your house instead of floating around in nature.
This quest, like the quest for a bacteria free home (lead by those lysol nuts), are not realistic.
What you can do is get outside and exercise/experience the real world more often, and this exposure to a wide variety of things should help one's body recover from being sheltered inside a closed system that contains toxins.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Studies of such "syndromes" as sensitivity to EMF have revealed that the people in question are utterly able to distinguish the presense of radio waves or whatnot. It's bogus -- they're scaring themselves to death.
I quote from The American Academy of Family Physicians website:Sorry to be insensitive, but until I see some better evidence for this being a real disorder, I'm going to assume that he's just another crackpot hypochondriac.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
What is "Environmental Illness"? I've never heard it before in my life.
Basically, from what I have read, it is one step below bubble-boy on the allergen list. Instead of being suceptible to germs, these people are susceptible to gasses and chomicals that most of us tolerate fine.
What does "toxic home" mean in this context? I've never thought of lampshades as dangerous. I'm left guessing here.
It means that every piece of anything chemically processed that you have in your home slowly breaks down over time, and gives off noxious chemicals. Everything from formaldehyde to radon.
Most of us dont notice, but it apparently makes some people _very_ sick. Couple this with todays "need" to make homes virtually air tight, and you have a place that makes reactive people really, really sick.
Obviously I can look these all up (and I will). But any other reporting source would've explained these concepts in some detail.
He kinda does on a another page.. but you have to dig a bit to find it. It apparently involves moose, alaska, and nOrthern Exposure.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Gypsum, plaster, brick, wood, steel are inert. If you can't handle these natural substances then too bad. Fate is not always kind. Life is not fair. Perhaps you have a psychological problem. Maybe a psychiatrist would be your best bet.
BZZT:! Wrong answer. Gypsum is bad for anyone who has respiratory issues, because it is such a fine dust, and anyone with any kind of silica allergy has serioius problems with it.
There are several woods that are downright toxic.
Line a room with Cedar and make the house airtight and see how long you survive. The gas given off by it is not only toxic to Moths, it is toxic to people also. But the little blocks you keep in your closet dont release enough to sicken you, unless you are highly reactive to it.
Bricks are also not inert all the time. The JIRR
had an article on a brick in Boston that was carrying syphillus. (yes, that was meant to be humorous, but its true).
Yeah.. I know i'm feeding a troll.. but your misinformation is staggering.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Your mother is a crackpot. and she is bringing you over to that side.
Yes, MANY things can release som nasty gasses. but your wild ass remark about tyvek sealing it in is proof of a crackpot logic. Does your house have doors and windows? how about a properly installed heating system with the correct fresh air intake and heat exchanger? if the house was correctly designed you change over the air in the home at least 2-3 times and hour.
The new home can have trace amounts of nasties in it's atmosphere, but by the time you move into it, a gas chromatagraph cannot even detect it. and it is alot more sensitive than anything you can gain access to "measure" how dangerous a home is.
My father was a contractor, In college chemistry classes I wrote a thesis on such crackpot theories, and using standard science proved that it's all a bunch of hooey in a properly built home.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is scary stuff! I have to personally wonder how much of the "cancer rise rates" are directly related to things like this.. especially the huge jump in Lung Cancer in the last 20 years. It certainly is not only due to smoking, as smoking levels have been decreasing steadily.
Your assumption that there is a "huge jump in lung cancer in the last 20 years" is wrong, or at best misleading.
Age-adjusted lung cancer rates have declined significantly from 1990-1999--age-adjusted rates are the only ones that are really worth looking at, they're what for instance the CDC and other bodies use since they account for increases in lifespan. Preliminary data for 2000-2002 seems to indicate this trend is continuing. If there is an increase over the last 20 years it's because an earlier increase (1983-1989) hasn't been wiped out yet.
Remember that cancer rates lag smoking rates, too, so if smoking was halved today that would show up more and more over the next decade(s) rather than showing up immediately.
http://seer.cancer.gov is one good resource for this data.
Sumner
rage, rage against the dying of the light
I have built a few "Healthy Houses" for clients that were both environmentally sensitive and for non sensitive people.
The simple fact of the matter is that buildings are made of stuff, and some of this stuff gets on our skin and into our lungs. If the stuff is bad for you, why use it. This problem is worse in energy efficient houses.
Just the same as we know now that smoking is bad for you so:
It makes sense to avoid building materials that produce toxic dust (silicone, asbestos, fiberglass)
It makes sense to avoid materials that offgas formadehyde gas or other noxious organic compounds. Materials such as particle board, cheap carpet, urea formaldehyde foam insulation offgas significant amounts of formaldehyde, formaldehyde is good for some things, but not increasing your lifespan.
It makes sense to minimize the potential growth of toxic or allergic natural pests such as mold, dust mites, spiders, ants and wasps.
nothing is real
I grew up with this sort of mindset presented as the normal way of life. My mother self-diagnosed herself with EI, MCS, Lupus, and other assorted disorders which never seemed to be confirmed by traditional medicine. This was always presented by her as proof of the shortcomings of the allopathic community.
:-) Strangely enough, the longer this went on, the less and less sensitive I became to my environment, to the food I ate, to the air I breathed. Now, as I sit here at my glue-ridden wooden desk in my carpeted office, breathing the air of one of the worst polluted cities in the country, the transformation is complete. I understand perfectly that people in my mother's mindset will say that I have "deadened my senses" to the surrounding toxins. My opinion is that, like any exercise in biodiversity, increased exposure to a variety of envioronmental substances makes one's system more able to cope with foreign invasions. The attempt to sterilize our living environment while growing up simply made us react more strongly to any small variation in that environment.
We lived out in the middle of the country, in a house made with a purposeful absence of traditional building materials. Non-treated wood, cedar shakes, etc. In spite of this, my mother seemed to grow constantly more sensitive to her environment, and put more and more safeguards in place to attempt to purify it. Ionic air filters were everywhere, including one in the car to attempt to reduce the effects of hydrocarbon emissions. She pursued a macrobiotic diet in order to attempt to balance her body and eliminate toxins taken in through food. Nothing seemed to improve the situation. Strangely(?) enough, as the years went by, both my sister and I both started exhibiting similar sets of symptoms.
12 years later, I have a very strong feeling about what actually happened during that time of our lives. After I moved out, I started presenting a plethora of external insults to my body in the form of poor environmental conditions, a [comparably speaking] junk food diet, and ingestion of various chemical substances. I called it "college."
As an addendum, my mother is still attempting to isolate herself from the known universe. In spite of this, she is still having the same difficulties. Given my experience over the past decade, I really have to wonder if the cure is a substantial portion of the disease.
Well, wish any of them luck in building a house without a well-engineered wall system - vapor barrier and permable wrap - Tyvek is not airtight - it is a liquid barrier bus allows moisture to migrate back out of the insualted wall, while a sealed barrier makes sure the moisture stays out of the house interior. Leave these two out and good luck fighting off the mold that will be inside the walls in short time. Short of straw-bale adobe, it's pretty necessary. Also - don't seal the ground with a well-engineered basement or barrier or vent system, and you're blind to radon infiltration, which is not a syndrome - it is a proven and measurable health risk.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Also, BTW, "toxic" here is a relative term. Toxicity is the level at which a certain potentially harmful thing begins to have negative effects. Every person has a different tolerance to a given substance based on a host of factors (genetics, prior exposure to that and related substances, current/prior disease states, current/prior injuries, etc); what is toxic to you may have no effect on me.
This guy (and people like him) have a decreased tolerance to a large number of substances for some unknown reason. So, although you may have lived in your house for decades with no ill effects, the case will likely be different for him.
This condition really intrigues me...it makes me wonder what could happen to make someone sensitive like this. There has to be a phsyiological/biochemical reason for it.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.