How to get repairs from the management company – Tatiana Butskaya
Upon learning that their entrance would be painted with paint with a high concentration of lead, the woman declared war on the management company and won.
We continue the cycle of stories about supermoms, active members of the “Council of Mothers” who know how to defend their rights and are always ready to help. Tatiana Butskaya, the ideological inspirer and head of the Council of Mothers social movement, talks about them.
This story happened in Orsk (Orenburg region). Scheduled repairs have begun in one of the old Khrushchev buildings.
“Finally!” – the tenants rejoiced when the workers just started painting the first entrance.
“It’s impossible to breathe, my head hurts!” – they complained when it turned out that the paint has a very pungent smell and it is in no hurry to disappear.
Elena S., one of the mothers of the “Council of Mothers”, lived in a nearby entrance and thought with horror that soon the long-awaited repair would reach them and poison several weeks of her family’s life with chemistry. Most of all, she was worried about how the paint fumes would affect her son: little Mishenka was only 4 months old.
Elena made inquiries and found out that the cheapest enamel was used for painting. Its main disadvantage is the high content of lead (depending on the color – up to 13 thousand parts per million). And this is already a real danger.
There are no safe levels for lead exposure.
At first, poisoning with this element may be asymptomatic. Over time, headache, increased fatigue, loss of appetite begin to make themselves felt, and then more serious disorders in the body, which force a person to see a doctor.
In chronic intoxication, lead leads to a decrease in the level of hemoglobin, insulin, an increase in blood viscosity, a violation of fat metabolism, an increased vascular tone.
Lead can cause a whole host of diseases. You can list them for a long time: anemia, hypertension, atherosclerosis, heart attack, stroke, gastritis, ulcers, intestinal colic, infertility …
The younger the child, the more the effect of lead affects him.
Separately, I note that lead is very dangerous for pregnant women and children. It penetrates the placental barrier and accumulates in the fetus, which can cause birth defects. The harmful effects of lead continue during breastfeeding: the baby receives it through breast milk. Lead hits several of the most important systems of the body at once: it poisons the liver and kidneys, slows down growth and kills the immune system, and most importantly, it inhibits the work of the brain.
The smaller the baby, the more noticeable the harmful effects of lead. It is especially undesirable for children of the first year of life. During infancy, the brain develops rapidly: in a year it should triple in size, but lead blocks its growth, and this leads to irreversible changes. The child may develop mental retardation.
In many industrialized countries, the use of lead paints for household purposes is prohibited or strictly controlled. In the United States, the maximum allowable lead in paints is 90 ppm, in Brazil, South Africa and Sri Lanka it is 600 ppm.
Here, in Russia, according to the technical regulations of the Customs Union and the current sanitary-epidemiological and hygienic standards, paints can contain up to 5 thousand parts of lead per million, but they are not recommended for indoor use. And the “manager” of the house where Elena lives was going to do just that.
They didn’t see anything wrong with bullying children in the Criminal Code
But in places where children are, only safe paints should be used. A child’s body absorbs 4-5 times more lead than an adult’s body. Apart from common health problems, this element can be a culprit for poor academic performance and hyperactivity.
When Elena found out what consequences lead paint can lead to, she decided to act. First of all, Elena wrote a letter to the management company. In it, she explained that the selected enamel is dangerous for people, it cannot be used to paint the interior, and a more harmless alternative must be found. Collected the signatures of the residents of the house and sent a letter to the boss. The management company suspended the renovation, and Elena thought that she and her neighbors had been heard. But it was not there! The tenants told her that if they were not satisfied with something, they would not do any repairs at all. And the point.
The young mother was upset, but not for long. Googled the laws and filed a complaint with the Housing Inspectorate. They say that the management company has to do repairs every five years, not only hasn’t it been done for 10 years, and now they flatly refuse to do it. The inspection came with an inspection and obliged the management company to carry out repairs. Utility workers started work again, however, they never bought new paint.
But Elena was not going to give up. She came to the management company and stated that the enamel is fire hazardous and cannot be used on escape routes. And if the utilities ignore this ban, Elena will complain to the fire inspection, and then the management company will not only have to pay a fine, but also repaint the entrances in other houses. And oh, a miracle! The company’s management purchased new paint. It was one and a half times more expensive than the previous one and did not contain lead. Generally.
Elena managed to defend her entrance, but she is still restless.
During the investigation carried out by a young mother, it became clear to her that this enamel, as the cheapest paint, is used everywhere, including in kindergartens and schools. This means that children, when they find themselves within the walls of educational institutions, breathe lead, and this fact is depressing.
After all, this problem can only be dealt with by banning lead paints altogether. Or, at the very least, by tightening the lead content requirements for them.