u/Mysterious_Deer_935

Our house was built in the late 1940s. Our water heater cracked and there is water all over the floor of our basement. We called Servpro and they came in with fans and dehumidifiers.

I’m now reading up that they shouldn’t have used fans due to the age of our house. I’m sure there is lead dust in the basement, especially the unfinished part (it is partially finished).

I’m now beside myself thinking about the lead dust being blown all through the house. We have 4 young kids, the youngest is 8 weeks old.

I’m venting, asking for thoughts on how bad this is, and asking for suggestions on next steps. From the sounds of things fans are typical in basements for flooding? We live in the northeast where most homes are older. The kicker is we also now need a new hot water heater so we can’t even shower to reduce risk of lead contamination. I’m nursing my daughter so I tried to clean off my chest with a washcloth in the sink 🥴

Our chimney sweep recommends adding fiberglass insulation around our damper to stop a drown draft but I’m reading up on it and apparently tiny pieces of it can break off and come into the air (after soaking up creosote etc)?

This sounds like exactly what we are trying to avoid. Any other options?

We are getting downdraft as the temperature heats up, and we are trying to get rid of the smoky smell.
We are looking for a more natural alternative to typical home insulation to stiff up around the damper. We have a bunch of little kids (littlest is a newborn), so we are hoping to avoid any additional VOCs if we can help it.

Suggestions? We were thinking the wool Flueblocker, but our chimney sweep said he’d prefer to use loose wool. I’m trying to find loose wool for him to use but I’m not sure how to guarantee it’s the same course wool the flueblocker uses. I don’t want to attract critters. How much will this help? Is there a more comprehensive way to close the damper up?

Lastly, suggestions on where to find these materials? I’m looking into Home Depot and Lowe’s but struggling.

I just got a levoit purifier for my baby’s room, but I’m now noticing a prop 65 warning for bpa (in the filter) and lead.

Im wondering if this is typical for purifiers? Or if there’s one that you’d recommend?

I’m in the US and looking for:

1. a purifier for the living room in front of the fireplace (we’ve noticed a smoky smell) - want to get rid of particulates and benzene
2. baby’s nursery

Ideally would want to spend around $200 per unit

I was having a hard day and took the kids to Dairy Queen. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Dairy Queen dessert since my kids have been born, but today I thought why not. I got the Mint Oreo blizzard and it was delicious. Only afterwards did I consider the artificial dyes. I’m nursing a 6 week old. Ugh I think I selected 1 of the few items on the menu with articulate dyes 😭

My OCD has spiraled from severe health/environmental anxiety around my kids. I have a 6 week old baby and 3 older children.
Obsessions include keeping kids away from:
-any type of chipping lead paint/ lead paint dust
-pesticides
-touching BPA
-we recently have our dog Bravecto and I found out the pesticide comes out unfiltered in her poop so l worry about that (along with her pee) be she's an older dog and has accidents
-any type of exhaust from cars, leat blowers etc

I have been so honed in on these things I missed the biggest one. Every day since birth I've been putting my baby in a bouncer in front of our fireplace as our family room smells of dog pee from our incontinent older dog and I didn't want her around that. I am now realizing we didn't properly clean it out (wood burning fireplace) and she has been breathing all that soot and ash every day for 5 weeks. It smells of smoke in the area she's been sitting. I didn't realize until recently when I spent a longer period of time in that area (normally I pop her in and walk away). I'm devastated.
On top of that, we were stopped at a red light, a gas leaf blower was near, and the recirculation option in our AC wasn't working so the entire car cabin filled up with gas.
I'm absolutely spiraling as my goal is to keep her away from any more air pollutions after our huge mistake with the fireplace. I don't know how I will ever be able to put her in the car again. I will never feel like it’s clean/ my safe space again and will always worry about microscopic particles that remain after the car filled with a gas smell. I don’t know how to move forward.

I have contamination OCD that has spiraled from severe health/environmental anxiety around my kids. I have a 6 week old baby and 3 older children.

Obsessions include keeping kids away from:
-any type of chipping lead paint/ lead paint dust
-pesticides
-touching BPA
-we recently have our dog Bravecto and I found out the pesticide comes out unfiltered in her poop so I worry about that (along with her pee) bc she’s an older dog and has accidents
-any type of exhaust from cars, leaf blowers etc

I have been so honed in on these things I missed the biggest one. Every day since birth I’ve been putting my baby in a bouncer in front of our fireplace as our family room smells of dog pee from our incontinent older dog and I didn’t want her around that. I am now realizing we didn’t properly clean it out (wood burning fireplace) and she has been breathing all that soot and ash every day for 5 weeks. It smells of smoke in the area she’s been sitting. I didn’t realize until recently when I spent a longer period of time in that area (normally I pop her in and walk away). I’m devastated.

On top of that, we were stopped at a red light, a gas leaf blower was near, and the recirculation option in our AC wasn’t working so the entire car cabin filled up with gas.

I’m absolutely spiraling as my goal is to keep her away from any more air pollutions after our huge mistake with the fireplace. I don’t know how I will ever face putting her in the car again. I will never feel like it’s properly cleaned of the air pollution, and she’ll continue to be exposed to these pollutants in the car every day. I don’t know how to move on from it.

Looking for some advice/peace of mind. I picked up a pair of new shoes from my local buy nothing group. The box was squeezed under this little shelf on the porch, and I'm sure this is lead paint- house built in the 1890s. I try to be very vigilant, so l put the shoe box in a separate bag before putting into my car. Ten minutes later in the car, I was distracted and forgot it was the top of the box that was closely exposed to the lead paint, and I opened the box to look at the shoes.
I then touched everything else in my car-steering wheel, phone, keys, handles, my infant and her car seat, and my older kids as we stopped at the park on the way home. I'm so upset and struggling to contain where I think the lead dust may have gone. I'm mostly concerned about my 5 week old because I opened the shoe box, checked out the shoes, and then immediately went back and took her out of her car seat and walked her around. I was holding her all this time, snuggling, touching her face, and even removed a little piece of dry skin from her lip.
Does anyone have suggestions on how best to manage this? I'm hoping it's a minimal amount since there wasn't visible dust on the box and I quickly touched it once. But I can't stop thinking about where in the car/house the dust has gone since I didn't realize my mistake until much later in the day. (I realize this sounds incredibly anxious and I definitely am working to manage my PPA, but lead exposure is also something that I don’t want to mess around with)

We have a wood burning fireplace that we haven’t used in months (we are in the US). It has had a slightly smoky smell for months and I didn’t think much of it.

We had a new baby last month, and we’ve been sitting her in a bouncer directly in front of the fireplace since she was born. Today by chance I noticed the smell more and have now gone down the rabbit hole of how bad wood burning fires are and now I am absolutely devastated that we’ve been exposing her to these toxins for 5 weeks. Apparently wood burning smoke is just as bad (if not worse) than cigarette smoke? 😭

We also keep all the baby’s clothes in that room, as we organize laundry on the couch prior to taking up to each kid’s room.

I feel like an absolute idiot. My husband is now cleaning the fireplace with vinegar and will also hepa. Does anyone have a recommendation for an air filter?

I am working through contamination OCD and postpartum anxiety concurrently which is proving to be really damn tough. I have a 4 week old and I’m constantly worried about exposing the baby and my older kids to toxins (and me bc I’m nursing and a lot can pass into breastmilk).

My latest struggle was worry about BPA exposure and my evening went like this:

1. touched a receipt that was in my wallet when pulling out my credit card, then pulled out my card which was also contaminated with BPA by the receipt. BPA on hand now.
2. Left store, used phone. BPA on phone.
3. at home, washed hands, then washed phone. Ran downstairs with phone cover in hand to get a few more paper towels. Phone cover dripped some
   soapy water on floor, I stepped in it and walked several more steps. Now BPA on floor.

I am totally overwhelmed by this, it is midnight and I am too exhausted to mop the entire path of where I walked. So I’m in bed worried about my family walking in the BPA daily and tracking it everywhere until we can clean the entire floor, stairs, etc. apparently it can absorb in the skin and is easily transferred from surface to surface. And unlike germs that eventually die off, this stuff will stick around forever. If I didn’t have OCD, I wouldn’t have felt the need to clean my phone and spread it to the floor😩

So yeah. Contamination OCD sucks and there’s always a small piece of me who is convinced the threat is real. After all, BPA is a toxin that’s banned some countries. I’m just learning about BPA in receipts so am absolutely planning on throwing away the receipts in my wallet!

Looking for recommendations! We live in a house in the US.

We are hoping to install activated carbon filters into our hvac system.

We are also looking for a small activated carbon unit that we can use while cooking on our gas range/oven.

Would love any recommendations or tips as we start looking. Thanks!

I used a nosefrida I bought on Amazon tonight on my congested 3-week-old, but I didn’t wash before first use (the filter was already in when it arrived).

Now I’m feeling pretty gross about not washing it first 😩

Did you all wash the nosefrida parts before first use?

Totally exhausted after birth and still at hospital, I was pulling off one of my huge pads and stupidly blotted some vaginal bleeding with the back of the pad where there was no blood (bc it’s where my butt was touching 🤦🏻‍♀️).

Baby #5 and I made a stupid mistake like that! Now I’m so worried about infection. Fun times 😩

Has anyone found any bassinet sheets that work with the Newton essential bassinet? I’m reading that the muslin ones by Newton are scratchy and not worth the price.

37 weeks pregnant, I see a doctor at a major hospital so I use their parking garage. The attendant parked in the outside lot and proceeded to roll all the car windows down. I was at my appts for around 2 hours. There is construction work happening during my appts at the parking garage itself, as well as a block-long construction project directly across the street. I’ve been going to appts weekly since 30 weeks and I’ve had 3 babies at this hospital, so I have parked in this lot several times over the years and no one has ever rolled my car windows down.

I’m so upset about this, mostly bc I’m not sure the best way to clean. Does anyone have any recommendations? I think we are going to hepa vacuum, and then wipe down with wipes? I just feel overwhelmed and I’m not sure how to clean out the dust 😭