The First Big Bad News: Backstory, Part 4

If you missed the first parts:

Matt had just ripped up some carpet, prepping to move the bathroom, when he called me with bad news:

“This is asbestos tile,” he said. “It was hiding under the carpet.”

“Are you sure it’s asbestos?” I asked.

This closet and odd planter thing were built on top of the tile. So in order to take out the tile, they had to be removed.

“Well, there’s a very slight chance it isn’t. But I’m pretty sure. And the really bad news…”

“…is that it’s in every room in the house. Except the kitchen.”

“I feel so stupid,” he said. “I even checked for asbestos tile when we walked through the house before buying–but I looked in the closets, where the carpet wasn’t fastened down. And they didn’t bother to tile in the closets.”

“We just bought a house full of asbestos.”

The master bedroom had an odd floor-paper (a sheet vinyl predecessor?) on top of its tile.

We debated what to do. Tile is an inert form of asbestos and is considered safe as long as it isn’t crumbling, exposing fibers to the air. So a technically acceptable option was to cover it back up, like it was when we bought the house.

Underneath the above pictured floor-paper.

But the floors were obviously in bad shape, with soft spots and slopes. And we had bought the house intending to renovate it, one room at a time. Which meant that each time we renovated we would have to deal with asbestos–sealing off the room from the rest of the house, setting up individual ventilation for that room, bunny-suiting up, and the whole wet-mop-scraping rigmarole.

This closet was also built on top of the tile.

“I don’t want you and the kids anywhere near it when I’m taking it out, so that would also mean you’d have to vacate during each asbestos demo,” Matt said. “I’d rather just do it all at once, while the house is empty, and while you guys aren’t here.”