Is asbestos really dangerous?

 

Is Asbestos Really Dangerous?

… It’s Absolutely One Of The Most Spooky Threats Out There

How can asbestos, which was so popular in the United States a hundred years ago that there was an actual comic book hero created to honor its fire-resistant super power, be dangerous?

Everything from bedding to baseboards used to be made of asbestos, right here in the good ol’ USA.  Manufacturers ran ads touting – touting, mind you – the asbestos content of their products.  “Now with more fire-fighting asbestos, but still at our amazing low, low price!”

In those days, people were more afraid of succumbing to a fire than they are today.  And while there was probably evidence even a hundred years ago that asbestos could cause lung cancer, people were less afraid of that than they were of fires.  After all, many more people smoked cigarettes those days.

People famously smoked in bed, sometimes.  Which caused fires.  For which they figured asbestos bedding might be a good idea.  So if you could wind back the clock and ask your great-great grandpa what he thought of asbestos, he’d probably say “Kid, get a job, and stop asking me questions!”

Or he might say he thought asbestos was “the bee’s knees.”  (This was code for “boss,” which was code for “groovy,” which was code for “cool,” which everyone knows is code for “good.”)

And when it’s in its solid state, such as in your baseboards or ceiling tiles or plumbing insulation, asbestos is NOT dangerous.  It’s basically a rock, and it’s cheap to manufacture and incorporate into solid products.

That’s probably why tons of asbestos-containing products are imported into our country every year.  Although it’s illegal to manufacture asbestos products in the United States, it’s perfectly boss, groovy, and legally cool to import it, and boy, do they ever!

As a result, asbestos products are likely all around you, right now.

But that’s only spooky if the stuff gets disturbed.  When you break apart an asbestos product, it crumbles into microscopic shards which you can’t see, smell, feel, hear, or taste, but which can definitely impale themselves in your lungs and cause the kinds of lung cancer for which there are no cures.

Spooky!

And that’s why asbestos is so dangerous.  It’s pretty easy to “disturb” asbestos in products, which puts those microscopic shards into the air and, with enough exposure, into your lungs.

A house fire – even a small one – is likely to release asbestos particles in your home or place of business.

A flood – even a small one, from something like a broken pipe in the basement – will similarly disturb the asbestos in the materials used to build your home, and that ain’t cool, groovy, or even slightly boss.

It’s potentially deadly.

And did you pay your nephew to do a little light remodeling, only to find that he’d taken a sledge hammer to some dry wall and left the place in a dusty mess?  It’s not uncommon for asbestos to become a problem when a Do It Yourself (DIY) project – even a small one – goes wrong.

So, to review, here’s the short answer to why asbestos is so dangerous:

• It’s cheap, so it’s all around you.

 

• It’s a deadly carcinogen when disturbed and released into the air.

 

• Even a small mishap can break asbestos into microscopic shards o’death.

So if you suspect you might have asbestos in the air at your place, get the air professionally tested, pronto, before it’s too late.  And if your air ain’t groovy, give us a call.  We’ll bring state of the art equipment and get the asbestos out of your air, and keep at it until everything is 100% boss.

Don’t wait: Get your air tested if there’s a chance you have an asbestos problem.  We can refer you to a top-notch testing company (we don’t do the initial testing ourselves).  And if there’s an asbestos issue, we’ll fix it for less than you might imagine.  Certainly less than the cost of NOT addressing the problem.  And then you’ll have one less spooky thing to worry about this fall!