House Cleaning and Health Safety

I have made several posts on house cleaning and health safety. This is an area I am passionate about.

Are you Giving Your Child Toxins?
Safer, Toxin Free Home Environment
Did You Know?
How Household Cleaners Affect Children
Your Home Is a Toxic Waste Dump
Questioning the Chemicals in Your Cleaners

Yes, the cleaning products you use can affect your health. But how can you tell if what you are using is causing some of your health problems?

Here's a little test to find out. The test was taken from the book, Green Goes with Everything by Sloan Barnett. (The book is listed in my favorites on the right)

Check any of the following that apply in these two lists.
1. Do you:

• suffer from asthma?
• cough frequently?
• suffer from chronic congestion?
• have bouts of sneezing?
• have irritated eyes?
• often have a runny or stuffy nose?
• have persistent itching?
• suffer frequent headaches?
• often feel fatigued?

As Sloan points out, there may be other causes for the above symptoms, but answer the questions in this second list.

2. Do you:

• frequently use conventional household cleaning products?
• often wear makeup?
• microwave food in plastic containers?
• drink a lot of water bottled in plastic containers?
• have a lot of your clothes dry-cleaned?
• experience more intense symptoms the more you're at home?
• find the symptoms go away when you're on vacation?
• find your children's symptoms disappear in school and then return at home?
• have wall-to-wall carpeting?
• use air conditioners or humidifiers?
• have a pest control company contract?
• find your house to be damp or humid?
• find excessive moisture on your windows, walls or ceiling?

You may want to consider whether some of the items on the second list are causing the symptoms on the first list!