Talking to vet about radon exposure risks.

[mfoehrer]

Hello,

I moved into a house with an average radon level of 3.5 in March. At the time of purchasing the house I had never heard of radon before, but being told that I was under the mitigation threshold I promptly forgot about it. Buying the house and moving was stressful enough so it very quickly left my mind. About 4 months later In July I got a 7 week old kitten. Taken a bit early as the original owner could not keep her with the mom any longer. In short after looking at radon again and learning what it is all about I am very worried that I have put my now 1 year old cat at significant risk of lung cancer after living in this house since she was just a small kitten. In total she has been here for 10 months. Here recently I have also dug a sump pit in the basement. That took a while and the radon was much higher for a month. At least I am assuming since there was an open hole in the ground.

I have tried talking to my vet, but I do not think they even know what radon gas is as I was told to call poison control. Here in the midwest I don't think many people know what it is. Anyone I have spoken to about it has asked me "what is that?". Does anyone here have any info from speaking to their vets about radon exposure and pets? I am working on mitigation now obviously, but again it takes forever to get someone out here as only 3 people in my immediate area do radon mitigation.

Also I do know that radon can fluctuate and be higher in the winter vs summer. My hope at least is that since I got here in July the radon should have been at its lowest with the AC running constantly.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi, welcome!

This may help;
canada-map. It's an article about air purifiers and radon.

 

[fionasmom]

How Dangerous Is Radon For Your Pets? - Inspection Support Network | Best Home Inspection Software 2020 - Inspection Support Network.
Refers to symptoms in pets. Symptoms vs cancer risk are two different things, but does your cat show any symptoms? I do not mean symptoms of cancer, but of any lung irritations?

Bark Side — Radon Environmental
This article, referred to in the previous one, sells a product I believe.

You are being very proactive about this and have to keep this in mind. Cats who live in a house with a heavy smoker are at risk for lung cancer as are cats who live in heavily urban environments, possibly more than from radon.

I have owned cats rescued from completely big city settings, such as having lived in a parking lot all their lives, and have never had an animal with primary lung cancer.

 

[mfoehrer]

How Dangerous Is Radon For Your Pets? - Inspection Support Network | Best Home Inspection Software 2020 - Inspection Support Network.
Refers to symptoms in pets. Symptoms vs cancer risk are two different things, but does your cat show any symptoms? I do not mean symptoms of cancer, but of any lung irritations?

Bark Side — Radon Environmental
This article, referred to in the previous one, sells a product I believe.

You are being very proactive about this and have to keep this in mind. Cats who live in a house with a heavy smoker are at risk for lung cancer as are cats who live in heavily urban environments, possibly more than from radon.

I have owned cats rescued from completely big city settings, such as having lived in a parking lot all their lives, and have never had an animal with primary lung cancer.

Luckily no signs. She always has a clean bill of health from the vet as well. She was sick one time, but so were the other two cats in the house (my friends two cats). Very likely they got into something they shouldn't have as they were all throwing up and then stopped at roughly the same time. She had an x-ray done and the vet didn't see anything abnormal. Also thankfully neither of us smoke.

 

[Antonio65]

You should take a radon measurement in your house to make sure what the level of that gas is.
There are inexpensive tests out there, and the device takes at least three months to be give a valid response, that is that you leave this tiny device in your environment for three months, then you can send it for evaluation at the lab.
The reason, as you mentioned, is that there can be fluctuations in the concentration, and a long span for sampling it will give you a good overview of the issue.

 

[Mac and Cats]

I work in real estate and deal with buyers doing tests all the time. The EPA recommends that 0.4 pCi/L (pronunciation is Pika-lieters). For real estate purposes, the standard is a 48 hour test in real estate transactions. However, the 48 hour tests do not always yield accurate results. Many things can effect the results on such a short amount of time, a storm, if it hasn't rained in a while and then suddenly you get a big storm, barometric pressure, someone leaving a window or door open for a long period of time (normal entering and exiting of a building is fine), etc. The most accurate results are going to be a year long test. I've done this on my own house. It looks like a little hockey puck that you stick in a central location (not near a door or window) and just leave it there for a year. Then send it in to the lab and they can give you the results. Where I live and depending on the type of house you have, it can usually cost around $1,500-2k to have mitigation done. This is done by a company sealing off your crawlspace if you don't have a basement and putting a pipe and a fan in the lowest part of your house having it evict the air above the roofline. So, essentially, the pipe and fan are sucking all the radon gas out of the lowest level of your house and evicting it above your roof line and therefore lowering the gas inside your home. I don't think you're going to find many vets that have any knowledge of how it effects your pets. However, radon gas is the leading cause of lung cancer. I live in an area that has very high radon levels in certain pockets due to the long ago Missoula flood and the types of rock it left behind.

I think your best bet is to have the year long test done and proceed to get bids on mitigation. I don't think running the AC is going to lower anything because when buyers here do a radon test, the radon test company often sends out paperwork for the seller to sign and they say you can still run your AC because it does not signficatntly effect the radon levels. With that said, I don't think 10 months is enough time for a kitten to develop cancer from radon. If it were me, I would start the year long test (you can turn it in sooner than a year, even a month long test would be better than a 48 hour test) and proceed to get bids on radon mitigation while you wait. You can usually order the year long radon tests either directly from a radon mitigation company or you can also get them at Home Depot or Lowes, etc. Does this help you at all or is it totally useless information?