Lead-Safe Resources

Everything is wrong with this cartoon, and it’s the old-school way of cleaning. You can easily pick out a bunch of NO-NO’s!

Built before 1978? You may have invisible lead dust.

The modern way of cleaning Lead-Safe is to wear disposable gloves and to use disposable, WET supplies.

If you're living in a home or property built before 1978… 1978 being the year when lead paint was banned for use in homes and residential daycares… Updating to Lead-Safe cleaning methods and techniques will help minimize your exposure to invisible lead dust and help prevent lead poisoning.

These days, the old lead paint is deteriorating, and over time, lead paint dries out and chalks. The lead dust falls down onto horizontal surfaces due to gravity, leaving behind invisible lead dust. Lead dust is still being created by friction areas like windows moving up and down, leaving behind lead dust on window sills and then spreading onto the floors.

Just 1 gram of lead dust, which is just this restaurant sugar packet, can contaminate not only a whole home but up to 25,000 square feet… that is six basketball courts or 40 to 50 average-sized homes!

This is serious! Lead is a neurotoxin, and dust is invisible. You’re not playing with lead dust… You’re cleaning it up! Wear gloves.

I have seen the industrial bucket, 1 bucket method to try and clean Lead-Safe; however, we have found with lab tests that this method simply doesn’t clean Lead-Safe and will not pass a lead dust test. 

Now these are two popular systems of a wringer and a 1-bucket method with reusable supplies. I’ll tell you what, whether it’s a client, a tenant, or anybody else I’ve talked to, people love these things, cause they’re great at cleaning up big messes. However, they are reusable and not disposable, so these do not clean Lead-Safe properly.

Now there’s no reason to experiment with the real lead dust. That would be silly and dangerous. Instead, I’m going to be using red food coloring on the floor, and we’re going to try and clean it up Lead-Safe using a reusable system. But, there is no doubt that 1 gram of food coloring does not equal how much 1 gram of lead dust contaminates. It is not the same. This is simply for a demonstration, so we’ll be using a lot of food coloring, powder style, just to show in this demonstration how a 1 bucket method, 2 bucket method does not clean Lead-Safe. 

First things first… when you’re messing with lead, it’s not a game… this is a neurotoxin… You could do brain damage. Get your gloves on.

So the first thing we're going to do is get our lead dust, red powder food coloring, and spread it on the linoleum floor. 

Holy moly!

Come on, lead!

Now that I've spread the food coloring, I’m going to try to clean it up with the 2-bucket method. 

Okay, this gets ridiculous very quickly. 

Who does this anymore? Nobody. Nobody.

Ok, it’s kind of, kind of wrung out. Let’s clean this stuff up.

Um… As you can see, we’re doing a great job of spreading lead dust around to begin with. Let’s go to the rinse bucket.

Oh, is that the rinse bucket? 

Oh, I did it in the clean water, so I’m going to just move it around. Even I make a mistake.

Oh, this is bad. Oh, now I’ve got to wring this out again?

No, no, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to bring a wringer in on this one. 

Now we're bringing in the reusable mop bucket with the spinner. We’re going to try it again. Ahhh, this isn’t even wet enough yet.

Okay.

Spin away!!!

That’s fantastic!

Anyhoo, so you see how this is lead dust. Do you see no matter how much… okay… 

I have a clean water bucket I haven’t used yet. Why not?

That lead dust (food coloring) isn’t coming off at all.

Ohhh, now I have to transfer over here.

Spinner!!!

Ahhh… Wow!

So you can see how this is not working at all. It’s not cleaning up the red dye. This is a reusable system. What you need to do is use disposable supplies like Swiffer’s and any kind of generic.

That’s going to be what’s going to help get the lead dust up.

Yes these things are great for big messes, but for cleaning Lead-Safe, a reusable mop system simply doesn’t work.

So to clean up lead dust, use disposable supplies… whether is Swiffer’s or dollar store wet mop heads… this is what helps you get it cleaned up. Now this is food coloring, so I don’t know how well this will be coming up anytime soon. This is not lead dust. These do a great job of cleaning up the lead dust, throwing it away when you’re done, it’s disposable, and that’s the point. 

The key thing to remember if your home or property was built before 1978, there may be lead paint and invisible lead dust present, which is why you choose disposable cleaning products.

A reusable mop and the 1-, 2-, or 3-bucket cleaning method only works for big messes and does NOT clean Lead-Safe; lab tests have proven it. 

Lead-Safe clean with disposable gloves on and disposable wet supplies. 

Wet cleaning, wet cleaning, wet cleaning.

Remember…. You can live Lead-Safe in a home or property built before 1978. Updating your cleaning techniques to Lead-Safe cleaning techniques and methods will protect you, your family, and anyone you invite into your home. 



Want to know how to Lead-Safe clean a window? 

Want to know how to Lead-Safe clean a floor? 

Want to know what products to use? 

LeadPaintDetectives.com has videos.

For more Lead-Safe resources, visit LeadPaintDetectives.com or visit our socials.