Is Your Bathroom Making You Sick?

Is your family plagued by colds that just won't go away or allergies that linger long after allergy season? Or does some member of your family have a problem with acne that resists ordinary skin care products or maybe athlete's foot, frequent headaches, or chronic fatigue?

Sick people often live in sick houses, and it is impossible to make your house a healthy place if you don't have a healthy bathroom. Here are ten essential tips to keep your bathroom from making you sick, especially if you live in an older home.

Clean the faucet every time you rinse the wash basin.

Most of us do a pretty good job of rinsing the wash basin after shaving, washing, or brushing teeth. Most of us don't do a very good job of cleaning the faucet in the wash basin so it does not become a reservoir for germs that spread from person to person. Keeping your faucet clean is especially important for preventing the spread of stomach flu. Kill the noroviruses that can cause stomach upset with aerosol spray or throw-away antiviral wipes. It doesn't have to take long, and you'll be rewarded with fewer bouts of random annoying illnesses. 

Avoid bathing in chlorine.

In the United States, nearly everyone's water is purified with chlorine. Water treatment was a tremendous public health innovation in the early twentieth century, but with chlorine it is possible to get too much of a good thing. Chlorine gas is released from hot water as it passes out of the shower head, sometimes in concentrations high enough to cause irritation of the eyes and nose, shortness of breath, redness of the face and scalp, and general feelings of queasiness.

How do you keep excess chlorine out of the water in which you bathe? Attach a filter to your shower head, such as an Aquasana Shower Head Filter system. Your showering and bath experience will instantly become a whole lot healthier, as well as more pleasant.

Use kinder, gentler cleansers to keep bathroom tiles clean.

Many spray-on tile cleaners emit fumes (called volatile organic compounds) that can cause irritation of the eyes, ears, nose, and throat and that linger for ages. You don't have to use these toxins to keep your bathroom clean. Get the grunge off your grout with a paste of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, left on the grout for 30 minutes before wiping them clean. Sometimes, natural is better.

Swap out vinyl shower curtains for washable nylon or polyester.

Vinyl plastics are made with phthalates, which leach out of the plastic when the material is exposed to hot water and strong soaps. Phthalates are linked to a variety of chronic health problems ranging from premature puberty in children to breast cancer in women who have passed menopause. Nylon and polyester shower curtains are made without phthalates and are safer for daily use. What's more, they can be washed to prolong their lifespan, which means they will be cleaner too.

Six More Ways To Make Your Bathroom A Healthier Place

Sometimes making your bathroom a healthier place begins at the ground level.

Replace bathroom floors that over 40 years old.

Vinyl flooring was in vogue in the 1960's and 1970's. Any flooring under wet feet and sometimes leaky plumbing, however, will begin to accumulate mold. Even if mold is not visible, it can cause a variety of toxic effects in the entire family. Replacing old floors with modern materials will put an end to the growth of mold — but you may not want to do this yourself. Before 1972, most vinyl floors were laid over asbestos, now recognized as a major source of chronic respiratory problems. Asbestos always has to be replaced by professionals trained to handle the material, because it's most dangerous when it is disturbed, causing small particles to be released.

Strip off any paint that is over 35 years old.

Lead is well known to cause learning disabilities in children exposed to it, and the largest single source of lead exposure is flaking paint. Lead was added to paint to give it a white color until 1978. Any bathroom paint job that hasn't been retouched since 1978 is likely to contain lead, and likely to be flaking and peeling badly by now. Strip off old paint, wearing a face mask or N95 respirator, and replace with any new paint of your choice, all of which will be lead-free. If you are scared to handle the lead paint yourself, allow a team of professionals to do it for you.

Make sure your bathroom fan ventilates to the outside.

Some bathroom fans only vent to the attic, where the moist air they carry out of the bathroom is trapped and heated to encourage the growth of mold. Your bathroom ventilation fan needs to be vented to the outdoors, and you need to run it every time you take a shower to keep dampness from accumulating in the bathroom. A lack of ventilation is a sure-fire recipe for mold growth, and some molds are toxic while others cause allergies.

Make sure your toilet is vented above your roof.

Have you ever noticed that the water in the toilet bowl seems to sink on a windy day? That is because wind blowing over your roof lowers air pressure, and your toilet, if it is properly connected, vents above the roof. Occasionally, however, builders vent toilets in the attic, giving sewer rats an opportunity to crawl up through the pipes into your house. Don't let this happen in your home. Make sure toilets are vented above the roof, not in the attic.

Keep up with caulk.

Icky cracks in caulk around bathroom tiles isn't just unsightly. These cracks admit moisture and create a hothouse for growing mildew, mold, and bacteria. Not only can the spores released by mold and mildew cause headaches, coughs, congestion, itchy eyes, runny nose, hives, and asthma, water damage to walls and floor boards can cost a lot of money to repair. Keeping up with caulking can prevent mold, mildew, and water damage.

Never mix household cleaners.

Mixing cleaners that contain chlorine, such as Comet or Clorox, with cleaners that contain ammonia, such as Mr. Clean, can trigger the release of the toxic gases chloramine and, if you use a great deal of ammonia, hydrazine. These gases literally burn the lungs, and they can also ignite and cause explosions. Only use one brand of cleaner at a time, especially when cleaning the toilet bowl.