Your house may contain arsenic !

By Roland Thomas
Real Estate Broker / Consultant / Instructor

As a real estate instructor I teach the agents about the environmental hazardous that could be prevalent in houses.
Some of these hazardous have received lot of publicity and the public is very aware of them.
Nearly everyone would be familiar with asbestos and the problems it has caused but when most people think of arsenic they are reminded of murder mysteries and
"who-dun-it" movies.
Generally people would not realize that arsenic could also be present in their home, where it may be located and how to deal with it.
Even the test books I use do not mention arsenic.
They basically mention 11 hazards including the asbestos, mold, radon and 8 other hazards.
I have been telling my students to add arsenic to the list for several years and I recently found the Web site for the Maine Association of Realtors featured an article on the subject.
I do not know why it has been overlooked but it was the "treatment of choice" for woods that were used to build decks on the back of thousands and thousands of homes in the 70's.
I personally saw logs floating in vats of liquid containing arsenic. The ideas was for the liquid to be absorbed into the wood and kill any parasites that chose to attack the wood.
The logistics of the matter is that the chemicals that were absorbed thirty years ago are now seeping back out of the wood and if you put your hand on the railing of the deck, it gets on your skin.
Even a worse problem is if a child is crawling on the deck and they puts their hands in their mouth.
I was telling this scenario to a group of real estate students at a community college in a small town near where I live and several of them recalled an incident in town where an infant was poisoned in just such a manner.

But there are continued problems with the decking if you try to dispose of it.
NEVER burn the wood from one of these old decks!
Inhaling the smoke and spreading the smoke through the neighborhood can be just as dangerous to you, the birds and your neighbors.
You literally breathe the arsenic into your lungs which can cause immediate --or-- delayed breathing problems --or death.

Actually disposition of hazardous materials can cause it's own problems and we will address some of the solutions in future articles.

Hopefully this article and future articles in this feature-"Avoiding House Hunting Horrors" will help draw attention to these hazards and help you make your home safer.

"Avoiding House Hunting Horrors" is a regular feature of "The Roland Report"

Check our site :"The Roland Report dot com" for monthly for up-dated articles.
One upcoming article will discuss the preservatives currently being used in wood.


Now click on the Sept 2 below --for a complete Table of Content of
"Avoiding House Hunting Horrors".