Lead Paint and de-leading laws: good or bad?

in MA we have a statewide "de-leading law" which requires households with children under 6yo to be certified de-leaded.

if you buy a house that contains lead paint and have small children, you must agree to a state-mandated lead inspection. if the inspection turns up positive areas of your house for lead, you are obligated to have it removed or encapsulated (repainted with sealing paint, basically), regarldess of cost.

if you rent and have small children, the landlord is required to get the inspection and have the apartment de-leaded, at his/her cost.

the law is noble in intent, since it addresses a serious health issue in young children, but it fails to account for the ripple effects in terms of landlord discrimination against families and in price gouging for de-leaded units, which only account for about 10-15% of total rental units built prior to 1970 in greater boston.

we discovered that renting with kids in massachusetts is very difficult because of this law-- landlords will essentially not consider renting to a family because the unit is not de-leaded and the landlord doesn't want to have to spend upwards of $30,000 to de-lead it-- despite it being illegal (yet totally unenforceable) to "not consider" the rental application of a family with kids. the only time landlords bother to de-lead is if the current tenant informs the landlord that they are pregnant... once the child is born, if the family is still renting, the landlord is legally required to get the inspection...he/she can't choose not to. he/she also can't raise the rent until the next lease renewal. eventually, months or years later when that family moves out, the landlord charges a premium for the unit since it has been de-leaded, and they are rather rare (do a search on boston.craigslist.com for a 2br apartment in cambridge. then do a search with the word "deleaded". it's very depressing.)

so i'm curious to know, do any other states have similar laws? has anyone here researched leaded paints and the risks to young children? has anyone voluntarily de-leaded their homes if not required to by law?

AFAIK, Oregon has no such laws.

We live in an older home, built before 1950, I believe, and we visit lots of older homes. Because of this, Hayley gets tested for lead every year.

I think its a bad idea. It's one thing to regulate the knowledge that people have, i.e. I have to give out lead based pamplets to everyone anytime I show a house. But I think its a completely different thing to tell people what they have to do with their private property. Of course I am completely against government involvement and I think they are completely overstepping their bounds in alot of different areas.

To me, this is like the government making it illegal for adults with children to drive older, unsafe car models. Sure, maybe it's not very safe for a child to ride in those old vehicles, but how can the government FORCE someone into a huge expense like a new car purchase?

My example is probably flawed, I'm in a hurry right now, but it doesn't seem fair to me to require de-leading. Require education on it, like Amy said, SURE.

mominabigtruck said:

I think its a bad idea. It's one thing to regulate the knowledge that people have, i.e. I have to give out lead based pamplets to everyone anytime I show a house. But I think its a completely different thing to tell people what they have to do with their private property. Of course I am completely against government involvement and I think they are completely overstepping their bounds in alot of different areas.

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i tend to agree with this. the law was intended to address 1) slumlords whose apartments have tons of peeling paint, and 2) children who are either neglected or not properly monitored by regular wellchecks and lead tests. those two populations are often interlinked. but to target those two populations with a law would be discriminatory, so instead they made the law universal in its coverage.

ETA: i just found this link

it pretty much sums up my description and my dilemma.

Our house was built in 1907 and has lead paint. We had it tested extensively before moving in so we know exactly where it is. We chose to replace the windows so as not to create lead dust when opening and closing them (which we found we rarely do - we replaced several non-opening windows with crank windows which we open all the time, but not the other ones). We did not encapsulate or paint over any lead trim except in Nolan's room (not that he's in there much since we still co-sleep ).

Not sure how I feel about the law that you have. We don't have one like that here in Virginia. And it costs bookoodles of money to de-lead a whole house, or even to encapsulate, especially when it's in all the trim. Our window replacement was partially paid for by the seller b/c we negotiated that point with them since Nolan was just turning one year when we bought this house.

FYI, one thing we did learn was that if you want to clean up lead dust, use conventional automatic dishwashing detergent. You know how you're not supposed to wash leaded crystal in the dishwater b/c it will turn the crystal glass cloudy? It's reacting to the lead. The ecofriendly ones like Seventh Generation don't do that. There's something in Cascase, Electrosol, etc, that picks up the lead. That's what some lead removal folks we talked to advised to use when cleaning up after doing any kind of sanding (which we do not do on the lead paint), etc, or after our window replacement. The lead molecules are so heavy that nothing else really binds to them and picks them up like those particular detergents...

In NYS buyers can choose to have their homes tested for lead paint at their own expense in the home inspection process. From what I understand, similar to removing asbestos, stirring up all that lead dust during sanding/repainting is worse than letting it be. I may be wrong on that, we didn't do the testing since our home was built in 1975. Our pediatrician (and it is required here in NY) tests children at 1 yr and 2 yrs for lead. We have had no problems, so I assume no lead in the paint. Drinking water is another issue to consider with brass plumbing fittings leaching out into the water. It is something to take seriously, though because it is linked to lower IQ and learning problems. Maybe narrow down your apartment hunting to "newer" apartments??? Anything built after 1973 should be ok- I think that is around the time of legislation with paint products.

All kids here have to be tested for Lead at 1 & 2. Homebuyers have to test the premises for Lead as well. It's not really an issue so far as I know -- I mean, not a controversy ... just the way it is for safety & no one really questions it.

AFAIK Wisconsin doesn't have a law like that either.

I live in a house that is the oldest in my town at 165 years old. I'm sure it has lead in some place or another. Everything has been repainted a million times though so even if it wasn't sealed 4 coats of paint probably did a good job. The pipes have been replaced along the way though and that's the only part that would worry me.

We also don't have lead testing for our kids ever though.

yoshiandluke said:

In NYS buyers can choose to have their homes tested for lead paint at their own expense in the home inspection process. From what I understand, similar to removing asbestos, stirring up all that lead dust during sanding/repainting is worse than letting it be. I may be wrong on that, we didn't do the testing since our home was built in 1975. Our pediatrician (and it is required here in NY) tests children at 1 yr and 2 yrs for lead. We have had no problems, so I assume no lead in the paint. Drinking water is another issue to consider with brass plumbing fittings leaching out into the water. It is something to take seriously, though because it is linked to lower IQ and learning problems. Maybe narrow down your apartment hunting to "newer" apartments??? Anything built after 1973 should be ok- I think that is around the time of legislation with paint products.

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see, that's another thing that this law doesn't take into consideration: that the removal process causes lead dust to be released. the law doesn't require deleading before the child is born, only after... when the child would be exposed to all the dust from the aftermath of the deleading process! we were lucky in that regard because we told our landlord when DW was only 4 months pregnant, and he agreed to do it long before DD1 was born. we also went away on vacation while it was being done, and came back to a freshly scrubbed place (the inspector has to make a return visit and take air samples for testing after the work has been completed and the premises scrubbed clean).

we're actually not going to do anymore hunting... we've been where we are now for 5 years and will be sticking it out for another one or two before we buy (when you consider that a single-fam house starts at $650,000 in our town you can see why we're still renting! ). but we recently got the "bug" to find a bigger apartment now that we have two small kiddos... well that urge quickly faded once we realized what we were up against.

FWIW, we also have routine lead testing for children. i think it's at 1 and 2 years, and possibly older.

We renovated out 45 yr old house 2 yrs ago and only tested for lead AFTER the contractor had removed all the aluminum and original wood siding (without tarping) and there was TONS of paint chips surrounding our house. The inspector said that we had one of the highest levels he had ever seen. Seems they used really high quality paint...GREAT. We did not spend the fortune to have a professional lead remover dig out the top 6" of soil from around our foundation but shovelled up as much as we could, mulched and decided not to let the kids dig around the foundation.

In my research, I found two excellent articles that discuss new findings concerning GREATER drops in IQ at LOW (<10ug/dl) lead levels. This is scary because currently the CDC only says that blood concentrations higher than 10 are a "level of concern". Essentially, it means there is NO safety margin for blood lead concentrations, and eliminating elevated blood lead concentrations is now a federal objective...hence your laws.
Here are the references or I can mail you a copy if you pm me your address.

Canfield, Richard L, et al, "Intellectual Impairment in Children with Blood Lead Concentrations below 10ug per dl", The New England Journal of Medicine, 348;16,p1517

Rogan, Walter J, "Exposure to Lead in Children-How Low is Enough", The New England Journal of Medicine, 348;16, p1515

mominabigtruck said:

I think its a bad idea. It's one thing to regulate the knowledge that people have, i.e. I have to give out lead based pamplets to everyone anytime I show a house. But I think its a completely different thing to tell people what they have to do with their private property. Of course I am completely against government involvement and I think they are completely overstepping their bounds in alot of different areas.

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As a person who has seen the damage that lead poisoning does to babies and children I could not agree less.

We elected not to have our house tested for lead when we bought. Apparently most people don't test. But now I wish we had since we have a kid. But I don't want to test now since we might move, and if we know we have lead paint, we have to disclose. I think we probably do, but I don't know.

If we do move, I intend to have any new (to us) house tested before we buy.

Sanna was tested for lead at 9 months and it came back at 2ug/dl which is pretty common background. But it's not 0 and she was just becoming mobile. So we'll be testing again in a few weeks.

I don't really know how I feel about current laws, but I think that the government should have banned lead paint way before it did.

apparently lead paint was known to be be harmful way back in the 1930s... but the paint industry lobbyists managed to convince the powers that be that it wasn't a threat to childrens' health... why is it that our government is so wrapped around every special interest group's finger?

southpawboston said:

apparently lead paint was known to be be harmful way back in the 1930s... but the paint industry lobbyists managed to convince the powers that be that it wasn't a threat to childrens' health... why is it that our government is so wrapped around every special interest group's finger?

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I'm just waiting to find out what is going to kill us next.

My vote is the Magic Eraser

gwenvet said:

Here are the references or I can mail you a copy if you pm me your address.

Canfield, Richard L, et al, "Intellectual Impairment in Children with Blood Lead Concentrations below 10ug per dl", The New England Journal of Medicine, 348;16,p1517

Rogan, Walter J, "Exposure to Lead in Children-How Low is Enough", The New England Journal of Medicine, 348;16, p1515

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thanks!!! i have a subscription through work, so i'll download them from there! not that i'm worried about lead poisoning in my children given my state's overzealous approach to abatement, but it would be interesting reading nonetheless. :thumbsup:

also, just plugging in some keywords into pubmed, i also came upon this paper:

Lamphear et al, "Low-level environmental lead exposure and children's intellectual function: an international pooled analysis." Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Jul;113(7):894-9

it's a free article so anyone can download it.

yoshiandluke said:

In NYS buyers can choose to have their homes tested for lead paint at their own expense in the home inspection process.

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You're right -- it was a requirement for me & I didn't have to pay either, but that must all be part of the program: I was a low income 1st time buyer so I qualified for a program that covered a lot of expenses yet required a bunch of technicalities, too.... Still, I've never heard of somone choosing not to test.

mominabigtruck said:

But I think its a completely different thing to tell people what they have to do with their private property. Of course I am completely against government involvement and I think they are completely overstepping their bounds in alot of different areas.

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Are you opposed to the government mandating child restraint use? :duck:

Lead paint regulations protect the children who are most likely to be exposed and whose parents and caregivers are least likely to have access to the relevant information. For a known neurotoxin like lead, I have no problem with that. I know there are spillover effects, but I applaud Massachusetts for trying.

papooses said:

You're right -- it was a requirement for me & I didn't have to pay either, but that must all be part of the program: I was a low income 1st time buyer so I qualified for a program that covered a lot of expenses yet required a bunch of technicalities, too.... Still, I've never heard of somone choosing not to test.

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We opted not to test because my son was 11 at the time- not really in the at-risk category for eating paint chips or licking the floors,LOL! Although I'm sure there are other means of getting it into your system. We had no plans for having a baby then

southpawboston said:

apparently lead paint was known to be be harmful way back in the 1930s... but the paint industry lobbyists managed to convince the powers that be that it wasn't a threat to childrens' health... why is it that our government is so wrapped around every special interest group's finger?

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Why?
You know why. lol
Now, lets all come up with a few billion dollars so we can lobby the government too...

I can't understand why tobacco is still legal in this country...(If other things aren't. It seems to me it's a drug....sorta). (There's an industry we can ask...about special interest groups and gov't)

As for the OP, I don't know that I have an opinion just yet. I never thought about it. I know that testing (of children) is required..or something for them living in houses that were built prior to 1978.

I'm thinking this is what is wrong with me, now I don't remember eating paint chips as a child..but I know the apartments I grew up in were built prior to 1978 (considering my family moved in 4 years before I was born...and and...well, it wasn't brand new when they moved in). So...argh! LEAD!

I'm originally from Portsmouth, Virginia (It's one of the cities within the Hampton Roads region). There were apparently a few housing developments that were built upon sites of former manufacturing plants. Several have contaminated soil.

Lots of fun stuff when you google "lead contamination portsmouth virginia". I'm sure similar things come up for any city though.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/PHA/chest/che_p1.html
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/PHA/norfolkshipyard/nns_p3.html#F1
http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/npl/VA0002366946.htm
http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/va.htm


I know this is about lead contamination in paint and what I've talked about is regarding the soil...but it's still interesting to me.

Here is a thingy about lead poisoning and children.

Anyway, yes, having the government all up in your life is a ...bad thing...I don't know that rules and regulations regarding lead count toward the "bad thing". Since exposure to too much lead is known to cause all kinds of bad things..and it's something that we CAN prevent. It's not like other parental choices that can go either way, depending on how you do it, kwim?

Gah, I don't know where my point is. Forgive me. I'm tired.

Remember guys. No eating of the paint chips, 'kay?