A domestic detox

When Matthew Waletzke appeared at the door of my East Village apartment to evaluate my home for what he calls “toxic exposure” – the alternative world’s catch-all phrase for potential health hazards like mold, indoor air pollution, household chemicals and electromagnetic radiation (beware your Wi-Fi!) – I half-expected to see a guy in an “Andromeda Strain”-era hazmat suit.

Waletzke, however, was dressed casually enough, in a T-shirt and blue jeans. But the aluminum suitcase he carried was all business, filled with an impressive array of meters, probes and other devices that he proceeded to unpack onto my dining room table.
Waletzke is a “building biology” consultant, which means he has trained for a year with the Institute for Bau-Biologie & Ecology, a Florida-based, mostly online school that teaches its students to test water, air and building materials for a checklist of toxins and then prescribe a cure. (They will also vet the cleaning products under your sink and the lotions and cosmetics in your medicine chest.)

Books like ‘Clean,’ a “detox” lifestyle guide out last year, blurbed by Gwyneth Paltrow and Donna Karan and written by Alejandro Junger, a telegenic Uruguayan cardiologist, prescribe a course of juice fasting and something more: a whole home detox, with filtered air, filtered water, organic cotton sheets and bleach-free cleaning products.
Junger, whose own tale of chemically induced irritable bowel syndrome and depression will curl your hair, is certainly not the only home detox evangelist.

Control what’s at home

Which brings us back to Waletzke, a 35-year-old triathlete-in-training with a degree in psychology, who turned to building biology as a way to “detox” Simply Vibrant, his Rockville Centre, N Y., wellness centre. “My goal is to identify the physical stressors in your home,” he told me.

“The idea is that the new technologies, all the crazy foods, the chemicals in the products we use – BPA plastics and other things – are stressors on the body. You can’t control what’s outside your home. But inside, you can control what’s called the total body burden of these stressors, identify the ones you come in contact with on a daily basis, and then reduce, eliminate or avoid them.”

“Here’s something people don’t think about,” Waletzke said, flattening himself in front of my fridge and unscrewing the grill.

“Typically there’s a drip or drain pan in there, filled with water and all sorts of gunk, which the refrigerator fan blows right out into the room.” Sadly, he couldn’t reach my drip pan. “I can see it, though,” he said.

He checked under my sink for leaks, and behind the washing machine. “Your dryer hose is broken,” he noted.

In the shower, his moisture meter squeaked where the tiles need regrouting. An inspection of my air-conditioners revealed grimy filters. (I’d forgotten to clean them for, hmm, maybe four years?)

He didn’t approve of my candles, which aren’t soy-based (a cleaner burn than wax), though he allowed as how the smell “was really nice.”

But, he added sternly, “my general rule is, on a regular basis, candles aren’t good for air quality. Most fragrances have a chemical component.” Finally, he took up his bright red gas meter, which ticks like a Geiger counter. “It’s not just combustible gases that set it off,” he said, “it’s products with high VOCs.”

Reaching under my sink, he extracted a bottle of floor cleaner and stuck its silver probe inside. It keened again, and I nearly applauded, until I realised the thing was indicting my cleaning solution.

Municipal water supplies are typically treated with chlorine and fluoride, which are possible carcinogens and show trace amounts of arsenic and other metals.

Waletzke couldn’t instantly test my water for these ingredients – that has to be done in a lab and takes two to four weeks, he said, but he offered to do a dissolved solids test. “Basically, that’s particulates in the water, like rust or dirt.” Mine wasn’t terribly high, he said, at 52 parts per million.

“One of the concerns in old buildings like yours is lead-based solder in the pipes.” Could he test for that? No, that needs an expert, he said, as does a test for radon or asbestos.
Waletzke urged a water filter on the shower, “at the very least,” he said. “Your liver is going to detox what’s in the drinking water, but there is a school of thought that says since your skin is the largest organ in your body, you need to protect it. It doesn’t have its own filter.”

Electromagnetic radiation is a toxic star to building biologists like Waletzke, “but it’s the one thing that people can’t see, feel or touch, and so it’s often overlooked,” he said. He ticked off some sources.

Did I have a cordless phone? Wireless Internet? Dimmer switches? Cellphones and cell phone antennas nearby? Yes, yes and yes.

Back in my bedroom, Waletzke was testing my body current with a multimeter. The meter whizzed up when the lights were plugged in and slackened when they weren’t.

Good for me, I was conducting, I thought to myself. We tried to test the cat, but he stalked away. We had already measured the electromagnetic radiation from the fridge – which was high, but petered out a foot away from the door – as well as the microwave, which, when turned on, sent the meter into the red zone even when Waletzke was eight feet away.“You see, those doors don’t do anything,” he said.

Perils of the laptop

We discussed the perils of laptops – just don’t put them on your lap, Waletzke said. And then, good news: My bed isn’t magnetised, as some can be when the metal coils wear out. Why are magnets bad? “They can put your cells in a stress response,” Waletzke said.

Waletzke brandished his R.F. Analyzer and shook his head. “It’s bad,” he said finally. “It just went up to 2,000 microwatts per meter squared. We like to see readings under 100.”

Can you get readings under 100 in New York City?“Usually I see about 300,” he said. “I tested an apartment in Brooklyn with two floors of glass windows right in front of antennas on a roof across the street.

The meter went wild there, too.”What did he tell them to do?“Move,” he said.
Waletzke’s prescriptions, contained in the eight-page report he e-mailed me a few days after his visit, ranged from the simple and relatively inexpensive – replacing bleach with vinegar, for example – to pricier and more complex solutions, like water filters and electromagnetic radiation shielding devices.

Prescription

Moisture: Fix the dryer vent and regrout the tiles in the shower. Air: Waletzke wrote that “outdoor air is surprisingly half as toxic as indoor air.”

He recommended cleaning the air-conditioner’s filters, keeping the windows open and buying an air filter to use in the bedroom when the windows are closed

Water: Waletzke recommended getting a kitchen sink water filter and a shower filter, but suggested that if I had to prioritise, I should pick the shower. He also advised cleaning the shower head with vinegar and water, since mold can grow there.

Electromagnetic radiation: The most effective shield, Waletzke said, is carbon-based paint.  It is black, and extremely expensive. Shielding fabric is somewhat cheaper

Cleaning supplies: Jettison the bleach and the conventional cleaning solutions, Waletzke said, and replace them with vinegar.