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Responsible Staging - Safe Indoor Air Quality

As home stagers -- who often oversee new paint, replacing flooring and carpeting, refinishing in older homes where lead paint exists, and ensuring that moldy bathrooms and leaky ceilings are all fixed in time for open house -- we need to ensure that the means to the end are safe for the home's current and future occupants.

Two things every home stager should check out:

US Environmental Protection Agency's website on Indoor Air Quality at www.epa.gov/iaq - a wealth of information regarding safe practices when dealing with potential hazards to indoor air quality, even during the simplest of home fixes.

An invaluable book entitled My House Is Killing Me by Jeffrey May. www.myhouseiskillingme.com/index or available on Amazon. This book educates all of us about the unbelievably simple and common mistakes homeowners make that can significantly compromise the health of a home's residents, and how to correct them.

Lisa

Posted by Lisa Kauffman Tharp - BostonHomeStaging.com on 01/14/2007 07:49 AM

Comments (5)

indoor air quality, lead paint, vocs, refinishing floors, replacing carpet, moldy bathrooms, leaky ceilings

5 Comments on Responsible Staging - Safe Indoor Air Quality

JAN

2007

Please, PLEASE, don't use those plug-in air fresheners!! Many people are allergic to fumes and fragrances, and will be turned off the moment they open the door. You don't want to repel ANY buyers. If your home doesn't smell fresh naturally, check out the websites mentioned above. This is a good time for making a pot of coffee (coffee=welcome), or baking cookies, or having some fragrant dish in the oven or crock pot. NATURAL smells (not loaded with GARLIC) will attract buyers. UNNATURAL odors of all kinds will repel them. I'm an Exclusive Buyer's Agent, I know.

Thank you, Judith!

You are absolutely right. And you just gave me a chance to jump up on my soapbox:

Television is loaded with commercials telling us to plug in fragrances (with and without built-in light shows!), telling us that we won't go to bed angry if we just wash our sheets in Tide Lavender scent, and that we should spray everything with Febreze and then immediately take a BIG WHIFF! This is NOT GOOD, people.

Fresh air is the best medicine of all for a better smelling home, even in winter. Here is a trick I learned from an Indoor Air Quality pro. On the bottom floor of your home, open up a window in an open area about 1/4". Then open another one upstairs on the opposite side of the house about the same amount. It will create an air flow that will exchange the air in the home with fresh air from the outside. Don't believe it? Hold a tissue in front of the cracked-open windows. The downstairs tissue will blow in, and the upstairs tissue will be looking like it is sucked out. If not, experiment with raising and lowering the windows just a tad.

Lisa

JAN

2007

Lisa, thank you for your post and comments. There are many ordinary household cleaning solutions that you can make from vinegar and peroxide that eliminate odors.

Stage it forward!

JAN

2007

Sheron - I visited your site and read many great tips. Thank you for sharing. May I include some of them on the Green Staging Checklist we are beginning to assemble? Do you have favorites that you would most like to include?

Thanks for sharing!

Lisa

FEB

2007

Hi Lisa...I think I wrote a piece on indoor air quality and plants that your clients might be interested in. I used to give Peace Lily plants to folks. Peace Lily plants are supposed to be great for air quality. The only problem is that they are TOXIC to pets! I'll try to find that post and put the link here.

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