| | |  Vallarta Living 
Health, Leases, and Toxicity in Paradise - Part 2
 Terra Mar - PVNN
August 31, 2010
When we returned late Saturday evening the smell was nauseating! That first night we opened every window and the doors to the patio, turned on the fans and put one of them next to the open window and our heads next to that. We still had no idea what we were dealing with. Never having shared our bathing and dining facilities with termites we had no idea of what was coming at us when we decided to bid them adieu.
Sunday morning we, along with our sore throats and upset stomachs, left immediately. We went to our favorite café and the owner, who had once had her place fumigated, said, "Leave. Go away for a few nights. After 3 days it should be fine." That was Sunday morning. We had favored airing out the place over security and so left the Condo with all windows & the patio doors open and the fans on full blast.
We returned Tuesday evening and smelled the Termidel before we even entered the apartment. Sylvia later told us she had stayed on Saturday less than 45 minutes because she felt sick. A milky substance covered the kitchen floor and as she cleaned her hands and feet broke out in a rash, she got a severe headache and her throat began to burn. She said the entire next day she felt 'drunk.' After a second cleaning later in the week she said she had a headache and pain 'here,' pointing to her liver.
We tried staying at the Condo off and on for 8 days - while paying for all meals out and hotels for some of the nights. We were literally only sleeping there with everything open, fans on and air from outside blowing on us. We were not hanging out, not cooking or eating there, and yet despite all the above and a decrease in the odor, our symptoms were getting worse, not better.
Meanwhile we started talking to people and doing some research. We met Suzy Chaffee at Vallarta's delightful farmer's market. Now a resident of PV, Suzy is a U.S. Olympic skier and member of the skiing Hall of Fame. She has been using her champion's determination to spread the word on real health - from the inside out since her own health brush with toxins. She recently published an article on toxins in BanderasNews. It's filled with great information on toxicity, including a link to the Environmental Working Group, an Internet-based watchdog for environmental health.
The pesticide Termidel is made up of active and inert ingredients. Products such as Termidel are likely to contain between 80 - 99% inert ingredients. These include a frightening cast of characters - antifreeze, asbestos, solvents, contaminates such as DDT and so on.
In the 90's the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed over 2,500 of them. But… and here's the rub, because they are inert they get to fly below the toxicology radar. Companies are generally not required to list them on the official label for registration, no less show they have been tested. That means there's a lot of important information to which we may not have access.
So while I can't tell you about the inert ingredients in Termidel, when I read that the toxicity level of the active ingredient Chlorpyrifo was a II, I felt a little relieved. Only later a bell went off and I wondered II... compared to what?
Right. Turns out there are five levels used to measure how much toxic exposure will kill you. Level I requires the least amount; Level V, the most. So Level II was second deadliest, and this in my house? Not good!Not good at all. Apparently, of the 82,000 chemicals on the market in the Americas, only 45 have fallen into what I guess would be the non-existent Level VI category of non-toxic! That's like a 0.05% chance we could find a toxin that wouldn't eventually kill us.
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