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click my name for an article on the subject. If it is truly from the 70's, chances are there is no asbestos, but this article covers safe removal if it is present

another article with list of brand names. Both suggest sending a sample for testing (about $20)

Asbestos is nasty stuff. No one knows how much is a safe level - even one fibre getting into your lungs could give you meso which means that, 30 years down the track, your lungs fill up with liquid and you basically drown in your own bodily fluids. Death is certain and certainly painful.

If it were me, get it tested professionally. Then remove it professionally. Just to be safe.

Pulling out asbestos-laden vinyl is mucho expensivo, which is why it's standard practice to lay a new plywood subfloor over the top, then put your more attractive flooring over that. Containment is considered safe for asbestos that's in a solid surface.

This is why the vinyl kitchen floor in our rental is 3/4-inch higher than the adjoining hardwood, so there are some practical and aesthetic downsides to this method, alas.

If it's from the 70s, it probably has asbestos. My floor was from 1981, and had it. I'll see if I can find the name of the place I sent it for testing. They were pleasant and quick.

I am just going to cover over my floor. It's really expensive to take the asbestos out, I'm told, and a contractor told me it's better just not to mess with it at all, even if safety measures are taken.

Geez, Jessica, now I am terrified that I tore up one part of my floor that had gotten soaking wet(about two square feet under my sink). I'm far from a hypochrondriac and now I'm envisioning my slow, painful death.

I do know that we don't have any idea how much it takes to hurt someone, but I'm sure tons of these floors are torn out unwittingly. All my contractors seemed fine to march in and tear it out, til I said that I had it tested. Who knows?

You didn't like that old tile?

I'm certainly not going to advocate being flip about asbestos tile, but mesothelioma is relatively rare and if it were that easy to catch (one fiber) then don't you think that many contractors and diy-ers who redid their houses in the 60s, 70s and 80s would have it from ripping out old vinyl tiles? I rarely hear of anyone who didn't work in an asbestos manufacturing industry having it.

ummmm....it looks as if you've already started removing it.

Jessica's "one fibre" comment may be a bit alarmist. I agree that it's nasty stuff, but keep in mind that at one time, quite a few construction materials and consumer products in the US had an asbestos ingredient. (I'd like to say everything in the US, but I'm pretty sure they didn't put it in food). It's pretty hard to avoid during day to day living.

Personally, I'm all for removing it. But don't trust the "professionals" in entirety. Keep the area sealed off until AFTER they are done AND you've had a chance to go in (with an approved respirator on) and do a secondary clean up.

-Bobby

I agree with Matilda. Before going into the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty, I had to go through extensive asbestos training, and it so happened that the guy they had on site who trained me was a bona-fide expert who had assisted with writing the legislation banning the stuff. He confirmed what I had long suspected: that the nasty airborne particulate all over the DB building (and lower Manhattan, thank you EPA) was extremely friable and extremely dangerous, but that the levels found in stabler materials, such as caulk and tile and even brittle flooring is far less friable and far less dangerous.

So if you lived here through September 11, you breathed more of the stuff in than if you tear out your whole floor with your teeth.

Go in with a comfortable mask or respirator even, that scraper thing i see in the pic, and a good spray bottle to keep the dust down, and go for it.

As for disposal, I have a hiccup of worry about dumping it, but I do have a strong ability to justify. I look at it in the large sense. If you recycle, turn off the water when you brush your teeth, and take the subway to work, a bag of trash in the landfill you can get away with. WR Grace you are not.

Fiona, if you pulled out wet vinyl, you probably didn't release any asbestos into the air.

There are different kinds of asbestos fibers. Many of the sorts used in home improvement products were not the kind that cause disease (Georgia Pacific had a product that was a major exception) but were banned anyway. I'd provide more detail, but I'm too lazy to go find my old notes from when I did more work on environmental issues.

Thanks, Wende! You made me less terrified. Not that I could do anything now. After doing that, I read something about asbestos in flooring, and decided to test.

I used Western Analytical Labs, which I linked to. They were very quick, and were cheaper than a lot of other places, too.

Thank you all for your helpful input!!!!! I appreciate it!!!!Sharil

We're in the middle of buying a cute little box of a house in Moscow, Idaho so my husband can go to law school(from Brooklyn Heights to Moscow, Idaho - whoopee) and our real estate agent basically told us we could do whatever we wanted to redo the house as long as nothing was sanded and the popcorn ceiling stayed intact. Our home was built in the 60's and the real estate agent said EVERYTHING in Idaho built in the 60s is all just lead paint and asbestos run amok. Soo. Painting OVER everything is the plan. And not letting the dog lick the walls anymore too, I guess.

Jessica wrote:
> even one fibre getting into your lungs... Death is certain.

Um, I'm sure that is well intended, and we should all use an abundance of caution in all circumstances of uncertainty, and to our own level of comfort, but I understand asbestos fears to be quite overblown.

Asbestos was/is used in insulation, roof shingles, floor tiles, etc. and if one fiber kills you, then the entire population of the U.S. and in fact most of the world is as good as dead.

The people in the past who succumbed to asbestos related deaths that raised alarm about the product's perils were people who worked in mid-century ship yards. These are people who, with no inhaler masks or protection of any kind, worked on docks building ships, handling asbestos in huge volume, where their work space was filled with a literal cloud of asbestos dust in 16 to 18 hour shifts for years and years (probably while at the same time smoking a cigarette!). These are the people that died horrible asbestos related deaths.

I'm sure asbestos has caused harm to others, but considering the all pervasive use of asbestos in so many products (inside of TV sets, in automobile parts, inside seating cushions, etc. etc. etc.) without knowing it, you have been exposed to such a volume of asbestos in your lifetime, and still, statistically, you have a much higher likelihood of dying of a heart attack, being killed in a car wreck, or even getting lung cancer from second hand smoke.

As I understand it, in every other state in the US, except New York, it is the law of the land that anyone can remove asbestos from their own homes by following some basic guidelines. My cynical side says, the requirements for professional removal in New York State is likely driven almost primarily by the lobbying of the asbestos removal industry (which is a HUGE multi-million dollar industry).

The guidelines for removal in other states usually comes down to something like this:
+ Wear a mask
+ Wear rubber gloves
+ Get it wet before disturbing it
+ Keep it wet while handling it
+ Dispose of it double bagged in commercial
strength plastic garbage bags

Where I went to high school as a kid, the exposed ceiling inside the gymnasium was insulated with exposed "blow in" asbestos fiber (as was very common practice in many an American school gym of the day). This dry old stuff would, on occasion, fall from the ceiling onto the basketball court floor in large fluffy chunks. If it's really all that easy to die from the stuff, myself and my peers are all good as dead.

I agree with Taylor. If I were you I'd get a spray bottle and a respirator and do it myself that way I'd know it was clean to my level of perfection (or hypochondria in this case? :) ).

Either way, good luck. I just got done pulling up old vinyl in my kitchen and bathroom so it could be redone and what. a. pain!

it looks just like the stuff i just took out of my house. we thought it was asbestos at first as well, but it turned out to be a type of old cork flooring. if its the same stuff its safe but hell to work with.

One more point... removal of asbestos containing linoleum isn't THAT expensive from what I've read on the home improvement forums. Perhaps it varies from city to city and state to state, but I get the impression that you get charged a couple of hundred dollars extra (above the demo charge)for small spaces (like a half bath). Now I know a couple of hundred bucks is a lot of money, but I wouldn't classify it as super expensive.

regards,
trillium

I agree with chris(nyc). No one knows why some people are more susceptible to mesothelioma (or any other cancer) than are other people at the same exposure levels. My work involves people with this type of cancer, as well as asbestosis and lung cancer, and chris is right that they invariably smoked, as did almost everyone during the time period when they were exposed. In a fun twist of fate for me, I lived in the little building on the corner of Greenwich & Albany, which is directly behind the Deutsche Bank building mentioned by Taylor, and which is still standing only b/c of the DB building (which was the only building between the south tower of the WTC and my apt.). I was home on Sept. 11 when everything happened and into the evening. I now have been diagnosed with asthma, which I didn't have on 9/10/01. But apparently having survived that day, I'm hard to kill, so I try to look on the bright side of what a festive shade of purple the Advair inhaler is, and have decided not to think about my lungs until I hear the crackling start.

Please don't pooh-pooh the dangers of asbestos. My father was an electrician, not a smoker and not a person who dealt directly with asbestos. He developed asbestosis, then lung cancer. That good man died after a two-year tortuous battle with lung cancer.

Carol, that's horrible. I'm sorry to hear that and sorry for your loss.

Totally ot - LJ, I heard a rumour that smokers were less affected by the 911 dust than non-smokers - possibly because their lungs were already coated with so much crap that the dust couldn't really penetrate. I was wondering what your thoughts on that were?

Not to dismiss Carol's father AT ALL, but it's my understanding that the Supreme Court won't even hear asbestos cases/toxic torts b/c it's a cottage industry that the lawyers have whipped up to make $.

Much like the "we are all going to die of bird flu" stupidity, the "one fibre of asbestos might give you mesothelioma" is total, unmitigated rubbish. While certainly dangerous, you have to realize that literally tens of millions of people have been exposed to asbestos fibers in this century. Guess how many people die a year of mesothelioma. Less than 2000. As far as the apartment, cover the tiles, lay down nice flooring and don't worry about it. P.S. - my dad was an exec at one of the largest hazardous waste abatement firms in the country. Asbestos wasn't a big worry.

Matilda, I haven't heard that rumor, but other than registering with the WTC Health Registry, I try to avoid all WTC-related things. When I read Taylor's post, I thought I'd comment, esp. in light of people's concerns here and the fact that I deal with other people's asbestos exposure every day at work, ironically. Tippy, (a) toxic tort is a much broader category than just asbestos cases; (b) asbestos cases are handled much differently than other mass torts by the courts b/c there were bad guys at one point, who are all long gone in bankruptcy by now but the effects of asbestos exposure manifest themselves so far in time from the time of exposure that courts want to be able to compensate the victims; and (c) the US Supreme Court only hears cases when there is a split in how cases of that type are treated in different parts of the country or if they feel the issue is of such broad national/constitutional significance that they should rule on it. They hear very few cases; they also are all attorneys themselves, so they probably don't engage in much lawyer-bashing (i.e., deciding that an entire body of case law is trumped up). They also probably wouldn't divulge such opinions if they held them. Just my $0.02.

Would someone just tell me if there is a company that will remove the vinyl fooring in Atlanta.

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