Arsenic and Old Books

We covered Arsenic and wallpaper already, but another source of Arsenic you may come across is in old books. 

Potentially, the green colouration of some of those early books could well be Arsenic based.  Though, more than likely, it is present as "Paris Green", have being applied to prevent insect damage to said books.

The article here will give you some more details.

Containers of Paris Green itself tend to pop up in many places. I have seen more containers of it than I can count, from little tins to gallon pails of the stuff.  Many people whose sheds, basements, barns, etc I have gone through realized this poison was present at all.  "Paris Green" does sound innocuous enough....but the skull and crossbones printed on some of the cans should be warning enough, you'd think.

Anyway, just another little tip to help you stay safe while picking!

Poison Post

In light of my previous blog on arsenic in wallpaper pigments, I thought I'd do a bit of a post on a few things I come across semi-regularly on picks.  

Tins and boxes of Paris Green - Arsenic

Tins and bottles of Embalming Fluid - Formaldehyde  (Most often found in buildings formerly occupied or still occupied by funeral parlours, but watch out for the stuff in homes of former funeral parlour owners. The stuff can turn up in what seem to be the oddest of places. I picked a general store once whose second floor was the local funeral parlour.)

Tins of Smut Poison - Formaldehyde (farm sheds, barns, farmhouse basements)

DDT and insect poisons containing DDT 

Rat Poison - Thallium, Warfarin

Fire Extinguishers (especially the brass pump ones and glass teardrop shaped ones) - Carbon Tetrachloride

Jugs and bottles of Carbon Tetrachloride (most commonly found in old drug stores, occasionally hardware stores and general stores)

Concentrated acids (sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, etc) - Drug Stores commonly had these in their inventory. This is not the watered down stuff you'd use in chemistry class, either.  But, you could well find this sort of thing in old schools/educational institutions that had chemistry courses.

Asbestos - Watch for this pretty much everywhere. Cardboard impregnated with asbestos was used to wrap hot pipes, boilers, furnaces, and all sorts of other things that heated up. Was commonly used in those thin floor tiles you see in many old kitchens.  You will find it in old toasters, waffle makers, irons and other appliances.  My personal experience has taught me that there was literally tons of asbestos used on military bases, for everything from the floor tiles to entire wall panels to exterior cladding.

Paint - potential for lead 

These make up only a small and very basic list of the things I encounter often. There is a ton of other thinners, paints, chemicals, and other hazardous materials I have come across while picking. 

Use your head, and be careful when rummaging around shelves & cabinets of containers. You never know what is in those two bottles you keep banging together, or that tin that just you put your finger through. 

Pick Safe!

Arsenic and Old Wallpaper - Walls of Death

I know, the title sounds like it would be appropriate for a Halloween blog, doesn't it? 

I realize I do mention and even harp on keeping safe when picking far more than most picking related blogs. 

I do it because, frankly, it can be dangerous profession, and the better armed you are with the facts the better you can protect yourself from harm, and live to go picking another day.  I have been lucky, and have learned the hard way to take certain precautions.

One of those precautions is wearing a respirator, not just one of those flimsy white dust masks.  I will admit, I don't wear one of my respirators all the time when picking, but, frankly, I should.

I already have a type of asthma that is triggered by fine dusts, and fibreglass insulation in particular. That is a direct result of my chosen profession, not an inherited malady.

Dusts, seen and unseen can be a problem. You already likely know to be careful of lead paint, but the source of what I am about to reveal may surprise you.

Arsenic dust borne from wallpaper.

If you take a read of this article, you will see this is not just a paranoid thought. 

The fact is that "near the end of the 19th century the American Medical Association estimated that as much as 65% of all wallpaper in the United States contained arsenic."

That leaves pretty high odds for that peeling wallpaper in that old Victorian farmhouse you are picking to be a very dangerous material....and the airborne particles you are breathing in won't be just from mouse/rat droppings, bird droppings, black mould spores and fine topsoil...you can add a lethal poison to the mix. 

Go buy a respirator.

Pick safe!