The Environmental Health Center operates less toxic housing for patients.
For the more severe clinic patients, there is an independently operated community, Seagoville EI community, outside Dallas, about 45 minutes by freeway.
|
This is a four-bedroom ranch house, that has been converted to be safe for
EI's. The owner sometimes rent out some of the bedrooms to patients.
I was only there briefly, so I do not know much about the features of the house. The floors are covered with tiles, everywhere. In one bedroom (see picture), they have covered the walls with aluminum foil, to seal off molds and gasses coming from the wall structure. Note the steel furniture and the air cleaner in the corner. |
|
This is an apartment that has been converted and is rented out to EI's on
a regular annual lease. The apartment has never been sprayed with pesticides, and has all-electric appliances. The floors are covered with tiles, safe paint was used on the walls. |
This is a brick ranch house built in the fifties, that has been renovated extensively to make it safe. The two previous owners were both pilots, who rarely were home and never sprayed pesticides inside.
The house needed some upkeep, including a new roof. Such houses are actually a good choice, so you get a chance to do it right, and there is less recent updates to be concerned with.
All the floors are covered with beautiful tiles, the furniture is only made from steel, glass, cotton and solid wood. Glass vases are used a lot as decorations. The fireplace is covered by a mirror and an arrangement using glass blocks. Solid oak baseboards are used, and stained with canola oil.
There is a crawlspace under the house, which is vented with a fan to prevent molds. The floor had to be reinforced to hold the weight of the floor tiles. They removed all the old air ducts, and put in new ones, that were completely made of steel. Before installing them, they were washed to remove any residues from the manufacturing. They were joined together with a non-toxic sealer from AFM. The heating system uses an electrical heat pump. There is no air intake from the outside, instead, the air going to the furnace goes through cloth, HEPA and charcoal filters. A water filter takes care of all incoming water. The new roof is a steel roof, as that is more benign than tar shingles.
They had problems with some of the sofas, even though the upholstery is organic cotton. When regular outgassing in the sunshine did not seem to be effective, they tried to put it in a large plastic bag and suck the air out with a shopvac. After doing that ten times, the offending odor was gone.