IAQ IQ, Fall 2021
©2021 Jeffrey C. May
When I was a home inspector, I really enjoyed sitting around a table with fellow home inspectors and sharing stories of conditions we had seen in houses. Some of the stories were funny, and some were more in the “horror” category. In this newsletter I’m going to share some of the stories I’ve gathered in my indoor air quality work. Hopefully, some of stories will make you chuckle (or grimace!).
Shiny Black Bugs
A woman called our office to report that she kept finding black bugs on her granite counter top. “Believe the client,” I kept saying to myself. “Believe the client.” I had a colleague working with me at the time, and knowing he was far more patient than I, I asked him to take a look.
He went to the property, where he and the woman sat on two stools, staring at the counter top. After a few minutes, she said, “See? There’s a black bug moving.” My colleague took a tape sample and brought it back to the lab. I looked at it under the microscope and could see that black chunk had iridescent flecks so was obviously eye mascara. The woman probably sat very still, waiting for bugs to appear, blinking her eyes to peer more closely at the surface!
Not for Long
I got a call from a woman who had been suffering shortness of breath for several months in her home. When she was away from the house, she felt much better. She was a pleasant woman but chatty, and when she called, she relayed all her symptoms: when they had occurred, where she had been in the house at the time, etc. etc. “My husband doesn’t believe me,” she said, “but sometimes I feel really sick when I’m at home.” It was a lengthy conversation, at the end of which she made an appointment for a site inspection. It ended up that their basement was full of mold and she had mold allergy. But when I drove up to the house and went to the front door, her husband was standing on the front porch, his arms crossed and his gaze fixed on the barn across the street.
He ignored my arrival, so I asked him, “Are you Sally’s husband?”
“Not for long,” he replied.
The Deadly Air Intake
One woman experienced headaches whenever she did the laundry. Her husband thought that she was just trying to get out of doing the laundry, but as time went on, he decided that she was probably being a hypochondriac.
As soon as I drove up, I knew what the problem was.
The washer and drier were in the basement near the boiler. The boiler’s exhaust pipe and the fresh-air intake to the boiler room were less than three feet apart in an interior corner and close to grade. When the boiler was running and wind was blowing against that interior corner, whoever stood under the ceiling diffuser for the fresh air was exposed to elevated levels of CO from the boiler’s combustion products. The woman was so relieved to find out that her symptoms had a cause that she burst into tears.
“Taming of the Shrew”
An owner asked me to investigate a musty smell in her newly renovated finished basement. I found a hole at the exterior that was big enough (it doesn’t take much) to be a rodent pathway. I also found shrew droppings on the basement floor. Using an exhaust fan, I set up negative pressure to increase airflow out of basement wall and ceiling cavities. An outlet in one wall was particularly smelly. She hired a contractor to open up the wall and found piles of “shrew doo.” Yuck!
Shrews are animals that look like mice and are the same color as mice, but that have longer snouts. They only eat meat, including mice. They have few if any natural predators, because they emit a musk the way skunks do. Their musk has a musty smell with a chemical overlay. They also defecate and urinate in piles that become moldy.
I also found a shrew infestation on top of a drop ceiling in several kindergarten classrooms that had been abandoned due to the odor. The drop ceilings and any insulation present had to be removed, and the exposed framing cleaned and sealed.
Snow Heaps
On a clear, cold winter morning after a major snowstorm, I drove out to an appointment about 45 minutes from the office. It was a beautiful drive: the world was clean and white, and the trees were covered with snow that sparkled in the sunlight. I arrived at the property and could see that the house was set way back from the road. His car was buried in snow, and the driveway was invisible due to snow cover. I called him to tell him I had arrived.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Sorry, I just woke up. I’ll come out and shovel the driveway.” He paused. “Maybe you could help me.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “Just call the office to reschedule when you’ve dug yourself out.” I never heard from him again.
The Vibrating Lung
One man told me he hadn’t slept during the preceding week because his right lung vibrated. (Believe the client! Believe the client!) He met me at the door and led me frantically around the house. He looked exhausted and was mumbling his words. I asked him what had changed in his home in the last week. He said that he’d had a wood floor installed in his attic.
The attic was very well ventilated. It ended up that the floor acted like the head of a drum. When wind caused the attic air to be depressurized, the floor would rise up a little bit and then fall and continue to vibrate. The man’s bedroom was underneath the oscillating attic floor, which caused the air pressure in the room to fluctuate. For some reason, the man could feel the air pressure changes in his right lung.
The solution? He piled some heavy boxes of books in the middle of the attic floor, and after that, slept like a baby.
Ride Along?
If any of you would like to “ride along” on one of my indoor air quality inspections, just give our office a call.
Have a pleasant fall and Thanksgiving. Jeff
Check out our new book, published last December and available on line: My House is Killing Me! A Complete Guide to a Healthier Indoor Environment.