How To Protect Your Family from Lead in Your Home

What to do about lead contaminants in the home:

This document describes the immediate steps that can be taken to protect people from lead poisoning in the home. This article series provides advice for reducing the risk of lead poisoning for families living in homes where lead exposure is suspected, likely, or where lead contamination is actually confirmed by testing.

What Can You Do Now to Protect Your Family From Lead Poisoning?

The original U.S. CPSC document is public domain. We have made additions to the technical depth of this article and we have added additional important detail about lead hazards - these are indicated by a [bracketed note in italics]. The additional text or commentary, website design, links, and references are

If you suspect that your house has lead hazards, you can take some immediate steps to reduce your family's risk:

• If you rent, notify your landlord of peeling or chipping paint.
• Clean up paint chips immediately.
• Clean floors, window frames, window sills, and other surfaces weekly. Use a mop or sponge with warm water and a general all-purpose cleaner or a cleaner made specifically for lead.
  
  Watch out: REMEMBER: NEVER MIX AMMONIA AND BLEACH PRODUCTS TOGETHER SINCE THEY CAN FORM A DANGEROUS GAS.
• Thoroughly rinse sponges and mop heads after cleaning dirty or dusty areas.
• Wash children's hands often, especially before they eat and before nap time and bed time.
• Keep play areas clean. Wash bottles, pacifiers, toys, and stuffed animals regularly.
• Keep children from chewing window sills or other painted surfaces.
• Clean or remove shoes before entering your home to avoid tracking in lead from soil.
• Make sure children eat nutritious, low-fat meals high in iron and calcium, such as spinach and low-fat dairy products. Children with good diets absorb less lead.

How Can You Significantly Reduce Indoor Lead Poisoning Hazards

Removing lead improperly can increase the hazard to your family by spreading even more lead dust around the house.

Always use a professional who is trained to remove lead hazards safely.

In addition to day-to-day cleaning and good nutrition:

• You can temporarily reduce lead hazards by taking actions like repairing damaged painted surfaces and planting grass to cover soil with high lead levels.
  
  These actions (called "interim controls") are not permanent solutions and will not eliminate all risks of exposure.
• To permanently remove lead hazards, you must hire a lead "abatement" contractor. Abatement (or permanent hazard elimination) methods include removing, sealing, or enclosing lead-based paint with special materials.
  
  Just painting over the hazard with regular paint is not enough.

Always hire a person with special training for correcting lead problems--someone who knows how to do this work safely and has the proper equipment to clean up thoroughly. If possible, hire a certified lead abatement contractor. Certified contractors will employ qualified workers and follow strict safety rules as set by their state or by the federal government.

Call your state agency (see below) for help with locating qualified contractors in your area and to see if financial assistance is available.

Lead Paint Hazard Reduction Advice

Readers of this article should see our review of a Home Test Kit for Lead in on building surfaces located

at LEAD TEST KIT for HOME USE. The same company offers a lead-in-water test, as do local health departments and private water testing labs in most cities. Also

see LEAD CONTAMINATION in DRINKING WATER: Testing & Correction - Advice

• Park, Sharon C., & Douglas C. Hicks, APPROPRIATE METHODS for REDUCING LEAD PAINT HAZARDS in HISTORIC HOUSING [PDF] (2006) National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior, retrieved 2022/10/08, original source: https://www.nps.gov/tps/how-to-preserve/briefs/37-lead-paint-hazards.htm
  
  Excerpt:
  Lead-based paint, a toxic material, was widely used in North America on both the exteriors and interiors of buildings until well into the second half of the twentieth century.
  
  If a "historic" place is broadly defined in terms of time as having attained an age of fifty years, this means that almost every historic house contains some lead-based paint.
  
  In its deteriorated form, it produces paint chips and lead-laden dust particles that are a known health hazard to both children and adults. Children are particularly at risk when they ingest lead paint dust through direct hand-to-mouth contact and from toys or pacifiers.
  
  They are also at risk when they chew lead-painted surfaces in accessible locations.
  
  In addition to its presence in houses, leaded paint chips, lead dust, or lead-contaminated soil in play areas can elevate a child's blood lead level to a degree that measures to reduce and control the hazard should be undertake.

...

Continue reading  at LEAD PAINT USES in BUILDINGS or select a topic from the closely-related articles below, or see the complete ARTICLE INDEX.

Or see these

Recommended Articles

• LEAD POISONING HAZARDS GUIDE - home
• LEAD in AIR, EMISSIONS STANDARDS
• LEAD BASED PAINT-USES in BUILDINGS
• LEAD in the BODY
• LEAD CONTAMINATION HAZARDS in the HOME
• WHAT TO DO ABOUT LEAD in the HOME
• LEAD CONTAMINATION in WATER, HOW to TEST
• LEAD IN DRINKING WATER, HOW to REDUCE
• LEAD EXPOSURE HAZARDS INDOORS
• LEAD in FLOORING PRODUCTS & POLISHES
• LEAD HAZARDS & FEAR: ENVIRO-SCARE
• LEAD HAZARDS in REMODELING
• LEAD INFORMATION, US GOVERNMENT
• LEAD PIPES in BUILDINGS
• LEAD POISONING EMERGENCY HELP NUMBERS
• LEAD POISONING SYMPTOMS
• LEAD ROOFING & FLASHING
• LEAD TESTS for the FAMILY
• LEAD TESTS for the HOME
• LEAD TEST KIT for HOME USE

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