Require Lead-Based Paint Inspections
Most owners and managers of apartments and rental houses will continue to ignore lead-based paint until inspections are mandatory. EPA's Renovation Repair and Painting (RRP) regulation puts good contractors between the rock of charging far more and the hard place of losing business to numerous competitors who are ignoring lead, while putting nor responsibilty when it belongs, on the owner. It is time to require that ...more »
Most owners and managers of apartments and rental houses will continue to ignore lead-based paint until inspections are mandatory. EPA's Renovation Repair and Painting (RRP) regulation puts good contractors between the rock of charging far more and the hard place of losing business to numerous competitors who are ignoring lead, while putting nor responsibilty when it belongs, on the owner.
It is time to require that all apartments built before 1978 be inspected by the end of 2015, and that houses built before 1978 be inspected when sold, or before major renovation work. The inspections should have to be performed by an experienced consultant using an XRF machine. They are inexpensive, and provide the information needed to focus on lead-based paint only where it exists, rather than pretending it is everywhere. We've found that about half the rsidential buildings built 1960 to 1978 have no lead-basd paint, and the other half just a little. Some in the 1950s have little or none, some have a fair amount. The 1940s and older buildings have more, and the most in what were originally the fanciest neighborhoods.
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