Ask Slashdot: Radiation Detection For Tokyo Resident?

An anonymous reader writes "I'm an American who is living in Tokyo. Stories have started popping up about 'radiation hot spots' in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures so I have begun to worry. I live on the first floor of my apartment building and right by our washing machine there is a gutter out there that is clogged with rain water and mud, which has me especially worried because my wife and I are planning to have kids soon. Obviously no one from the government is going to come by to check our gutter so I feel the need to take matters into my own hands. I have absolutely no idea so I'm asking you guys. What kind of radiation detector should I get? A Geiger Counter? If it measures Gamma rays is that enough? Are alpha and beta dangerous too? I know no one has all the answers regarding radiation but any advice you guys could give me would be great."

Comments

Re:I can't figure out Slashdot . . .

[Idou]

Nice, so you consider yourself an "enthusiast" in this area, but you were unaware of the first community of radiation monitoring enthusiasts? Care explaining why you considered yourself qualified to respond to his post then?

No, the poster was asking how best to go about it. The correct geek answer was to tell him to get involved with Safecast. Your non-geek answer of "forget about it" indicates you are not up to date on state of the radiation measuring community. That, in itself, is to be expected of Slashdot posts, but then moderators blinded by politics mod your post up and, for a while, your post represents the only modded-up response to the question. That is why Slashdot in broken when it comes to anything nuclear related . . .