Paint Fumes

[lucreziasmama]

My family has just found a new apartment, and we are in a tough situation so we must take it, and it smells very strongly of paint fumes as it was painted around 2 weeks ago. I know this is very harmful, espeacially to a baby (17 month old) but I really must live there so I wonder your opinions on the extent of the damage this could cause, and also an ways to eliminate the smell and the chemicals in the air that you can think of will be of help. Thanks


Chelsea

[sophiesgrandma]

We just had some rooms painted. I think by 2 weeks the toxicity is mostly gone. We stayed out of the painted rooms for a few days and opened the windows. Now it is mostly gone, just a little smell left.
Also the painter put a large fan in the window of the painted rooms to draw out the fumes.

[tanyalynn]

In addition to using fans as much as possible, I'd focus on nutrients that we use to excrete chemicals.

Here's a fairly thorough page on how our livers detoxify chemicals...

http://tuberose.com/Liver_Detoxification.html

So minerals like magnesium, zinc and selenium, and vitamins like folate, B6, and B12 would be involved. If you don't have a really good multi, I'd start. Vitamins tend to transfer well in breastmilk if you're nursing, but minerals usually don't. I like Thorne Basic Nutrients multivits for adults, but I don't know what would be appropriate for a toddler, unless you wanted to just open a capsule and put some in a bite of applesauce or something like that.

[tanyalynn]

And plants, houseplants absorb weird chemicals. Wonder if I can find the article on that? ...

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/houseplants.html