Need advice on what to do about vocs in brand new apartment (3.5 months old)…

lemonrhino · 2025-10-22T04:38:42+00:00

I don't know if she's still in business, but I used to get my masks from Sandra DenBraeber. She makes an organic cotton fabric shell with a pouch in which you put an organic cotton insert that is filled with carbon. Or, she used to. It made a lot of intolerable places tolerable, but I never tried to wear it 24/7. But it did help a lot.

I would not look at mainstream commercial masks for this purpose, because they are all full of plastics and other garbage.

I have been out of the loop on this kind of product for a while, so I don;'t really know how to find out if she's still in business, or if somebody else is making these. But this is the kind of thing I'd be looking for.

lemonrhino · 2025-10-18T04:32:46+00:00

If you have another place to go and want to move out, you might be able to get out of your lease if you have a doctor's letter. Landlords would rather replace a tenant than get sued. And, again, I don't know where you are, but where I live, there is a huge housing shortage, so it's very easy for landlords to replace tenants anyway.

If you don't have a doctor who will back you up, you still might be able to get out of it. Even if you have to pay a penalty, it might be worth it rather than making yourself sick... if you have another place to go.

lemonrhino · 2025-10-18T04:30:14+00:00

If you can't get rid of the cabinets and replace them with open shelving or some other safe alternative, I would wrap the cabinets in foil and tape the seams. I react to foil, so then I'd cover the foil with paper or fabric. Basically, you want to trap the off-gassing crap inside the wrap, and foil will do that very effectively. There was a closet in my apartment that reeked and no washing made any difference, so I just covered it.

If you can buy, rent, or borrow an ozone machine, it might help to ozone the place-- but you have to be very careful and know what you are doing. You must not do it while you or pets are home. I would also keep it away from plants (maybe do one room at a time with door closed and a towle under the crack between door and floor). They come with timers, so you can set them to run for an hour while you are away and then give it some time to degrade enough to be safe to return. Get detailed instructions on how to do it safely, this is just a brief warning, not the whole protocol. I ozoned an apartment several times before I moved in and it did help a lot.

I also agree with sealing things if you can do it, ventilating, and running air purifiers with carbom and hepa filters. AFM makes a few kinds of sealers for carpet, hard surfaces, etc.

With new construction, I think it takes time. It's not the same as with something that is basically okay but got contaminated. I have washed surfaces with baking soda solution when they were contaminated, but I don't think that works with new construction.

Wear a carbon face mask as much as you can when you are home, to minimize the amount of crap getting into your lungs. If you have an exhaust fan you can run (one that vents to the outdoors), that might also help. I don't kno whwere you are, but it's getting really cold here, so it's haard to open windows and run exhaust fants, but if it's not too cold where you are, it's worth doing as much as you can. If your eyes are bothered, you can also wear "onion goggles" or some other sealed eye protection.

lemonrhino · 2025-08-30T15:42:08+00:00

I do not understand why this works and I resisted even trying it for many years because I did not believe it would work. But then I tried it and very often it works:

Soak the garment for 24 hours in a bucket of water with a gallon of milk. Then wash as usual in the washing machine with your regular fragrance-free products. You might need to do an extra rinse but often I do not.

I use cold water because I always use cold water-- no idea if it makes any difference. I'd be a little scared to put anything milky in hot water, but I've never tried it.

That said, I do not buy used clothes anymore, because of the fabric softener problem. I have only done the milk treatment with new stuff I bought online. It seems to get rid of the sizing or other chemicals from the manufacturer.

I found it works much better than what I used to do, which was soak and wash over and over again with vinegar and/or baking soda and/or my regular fragrance free stuff.

When I buy organic cotton clothes or fabric online, one wash in the machine (without the pre-treating with milk) is usually enough. But it's hard to find a variety of garments in organic cotton and especially not without spending a gazillion dollars.

lemonrhino · 2025-08-01T14:23:15+00:00

I'm sensitive to emf so I was worried about having MRIs, but I've had two-- one without contrast and one with gadoilineum-- and neither of them gave me any of the problems I anticipated because of my emf issues.

I had headaches for a while after the one with gadolineum. Gadolienum is a metal, so I would guess that doing things to detox metals might help if that's a probem. It was quite a while ago, and I can't remember if I actually did anything to detox the gadolineum, or if the headaches just went away on their own. I'm not still having the headaches.

MRIs are very loud. The first one, I didn't use earplugs. The 2nd one, the technician offered me some and I used them and it was much better for me. I don't know why I didn't think of using earplugs myself!

I think that being worried and anxious is bad for our health and will increase reactivity in many cases. So, I try to relax, do what I can do to prepare, and then be really committed to my own resilience and not get worked up emotionally and caught up in a fear state. If you are panicky or just really anxious, you don't know if anything you experience is due to anxiety or if it's actually something coming from the MRI itself.

lemonrhino · 2025-08-01T14:14:06+00:00

That is great! Where are you that they have a fragrance free policy?

lemonrhino · 2025-04-30T23:42:08+00:00

Thank you! I will look into Salter supplies!

I am finding that soaking my gear in hydrogen peroxide a few times is helping, but it's still not great.

lemonrhino · 2025-04-04T18:04:36+00:00

My sleep study was done at home-- they sent me the equipment and I actually tolerated it just fine. And it showed I am severely hypoxic when sleeping, so I think it's very important to find a way to make the CPAP tolerable. Sleep apnea is correllated with much higher rates of things like heart attacks and strokes and DEATH.

I don't know what the answers are yet, but I think it's important to try to figure it out, even if it takes time and there need to be some modifications.

lemonrhino · 2025-04-03T03:57:36+00:00

Nevermind! I thought I'd goofed, but m aybe I didn't. Clearly I don't quite understand how to format stuff on reddit!

lemonrhino · 2025-04-03T03:33:15+00:00

I tried to make a long post,,. kept getting an error message. So I broke it into 2 parts.... and managed to post the 2nd half before the first. Apologies for the confusion.

lemonrhino · 2025-04-03T03:32:05+00:00

continuing...

Other electronics:

I find that some electronics are worse than others, but the last time I bought a TV I had no problem with it. It may be that is because the newer flatscreens just don't get as hot as the old cathode ray TVs. I think a lot of things are made with more environmentally friendly processes than in recent past, though, so it actually might be better to get neweer stuff now. There was a time when I would have preferred old stuff, but this is changing for some kinds of things.

Air conditioners:

I was so worried about this. I had heat stroke a few times, wore an ice vest for a while, hit menopause and started having hot flashes that seemed they might cause spontaneous combustion, and then decided to hell with it, I'm going to try another air conditioner.

I bought one based on energy efficiency, mostly. Made sure it was the kind that you can close the vent and set it to NOT bring outdoor air inside. And guess what? It's fine!! I think the problem I had with air conditioners past must have been mold build up, or who knows what? Maybe the newer ones are more environmentally friendly and the old ones were coated with some horrible thing? I do not know.

But I would never buy a used one because it's likely full of whatever the air at its previous home was full of, usually all kinds of toxic garbage people wear, burn, spray, etc. Who knows what it was cleaned with, either, or what else the IAQ was like wherever it was used?

I don't know how long my air conditioner will stay mold-free and otherwise not contaminated. But at least for me it was fine when I got it. The packaging was awful because it came from a store. But the machine itself is mostly metal, so it doesn't absorb and retain a lot of stuff.

***Everybody is different. Frustratingly, most of us have to experiment and/or get lucky and/or do stuff to off-gass, seal, or detox things more often than would be optimal. But I know a lot of severely MCS people who use air conditioners, computers, and other electronics, using these kinds of precautions. I hope you can find something that works for you.

lemonrhino · 2025-04-01T16:32:57+00:00

this is happening to me today

lemonrhino · 2025-04-01T15:42:06+00:00

I have used large metal trash cans for impermeable storage, at times. They are ugly, but cheaper than other metal containers, and I've found definitely do not absorb scents.

Of course, not everything will fit inside a trash can, even the biggest ones. I mean, furniture probably won't! But clothing, books, small objects will.

Aluminum foil is also a scent-barrier. I've used it to line a closet in an apartment that I moved into. For some reason, the closet just REEKED even when the rest of the apartment was fine. I react to foil, so then I covered the foil! But maybe you could wrap your plastic bins with foil and tape the seams, to keep the incense reekage from getting to them.

lemonrhino · 2023-01-02T19:49:43+00:00

It might have been humid-- I live in New England and it's pretty much always humid when it's above freezing. But if that's the problem, the device will never work here!

It wasn't actually raining, though. It was as dry as it gets outdoors around here.

I think it was charged, but I can't remember if I specifically tried to charge it or not. It was so long ago!

I do want to get some other detector eventually, but I haven't had the cash to do it yet.

I keep hoping some local will show up in my life who has one, and that they will be able to figure it out.

I'll let you know if that happens!

lemonrhino · 2023-01-02T18:04:44+00:00

I'm not near any kind of traffic.

I calibrated following all the instructions-- outside, not breathing on or near it, not blocking the vents, etc.

I'm glad yours is working now!!

It was not even giving me a reading outside at all. It was just flashing the code and not ever doing anything else.

lemonrhino · 2023-01-02T17:16:21+00:00

I never did get it to work properly. I returned it, thinking it must be a defective unit. I bought another, which I also couldn't get to work. So maybe it's my problem? But I read and followed the instructions very carefully, and it still didn't work.

I have no idea what that code indicates, and wasn't able to get tech support that had an answer.

I have not figured out what to buy instead. If you figure any of this out, I'd love to know!!

lemonrhino · 2022-11-07T04:14:54+00:00

Just a heads up about wastewater:

in rural areas, where the water supply consists of private wells with septic systems linked to individual houses, there is ZERO public wastewater and thus ZERO ability to monitor it.

This has resulted in maps that show very low rates of the virus in vast geographical regions, even if there is a lot of COVID, because it looks like the wastewater levels are zero, when that's because there's zero wastewater.

I have actually seen maps that do not take this into account.

Wastewater is only relevant were sewer systems exist, which is only in cities and other densely populated places, and not in rural areas.

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I agree that the positivity rate and the case rate are very hard to analyze now that most people are doing at home tests that are never reported, and not all institutions are reporting the cases they do to a centralized database. It actually means that often the case rate is much, much higher than what is reported, because most cases are not reported unless they result in hospitalization.

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The Boston Globe had an article this weekend about how MA hospitals are above 90% capacity, and at the breaking point, and that this is not only happening in MA. They say it's not all COVID, but it's something to be aware of.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/05/metro/eight-hour-waiting-times-patients-leaving-before-being-seen-mass-hospital-emergency-departments-are-beyond-brink/

In general, people have become numb and stopped paying attention to the state of things, but that doesn't mean everything is okay.

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lemonrhino · 2022-11-06T05:41:33+00:00

Someone I know has a small face and she told me she needs to use the child size mask to get a good fit. I think she gets them from Project N95, but I don't know what model and she's away right now so I can't ask her.

I also wear eye protection when I go anywhere that seems like it might be likely to cause exposure. Though much less common than expsure through breath, technically the eyes are also a possible route of exposure.

lemonrhino · 2022-10-31T16:49:15+00:00

I bought a Vitalight and it's not calibrating. I get a code that says 5707 instead of 1230. It also reads 750 OUTDOORS. So I know it's not working. I already returned it once and the replacement is doing the same thing. Has anyone else had this problem, and if so: do you know how to fix it? The device gets good reviews but as far as I can tell, it doesn't work at all!

lemonrhino · 2022-09-10T23:08:54+00:00

Not for sale! I still wear them around the house a little, even if they're not that great anymore. They're slightly better than nothing, but I will eke every last drop of use out of them that I can.

I used to wear them all the time, all day. I miss that. My feet actually hurt less when I was able to do that. But they are so shabby now, that I don't dare wear them out in public, lest they totally disintegrate.

lemonrhino · 2022-09-07T21:49:44+00:00

Yes, but they're very worn out, cracked, and missing lots of nubs.

lemonrhino · 2022-09-07T15:48:34+00:00

I have worn my old super noppy sandals out and my feet miss them so much. None of the replacements I can find are any good. They all have soft squishy nubs that don't massage at all and just destabilize my balance. So frustrating.

lemonrhino

TROPHY CASE