What’s it like to get lead poisoning in your own home

What’s It Like To Be is a regular listener.co.nz column where New Zealanders from all walks of life share first-hand experiences of living with and overcoming health challenges. Here, Andie McCombs tells Paulette Crowley about being diagnosed with lead poisoning.

My partner and I were in the bush on our second day of the Abel Tasman Great Walk in February when we received an email from our property manager. The owners of our flat, who’d put the rent up just a couple of months before, wanted to come and view the property.

About a week later, we returned home to the entire house scaffolded and the paint being stripped. We had no warning that any work would be done, let alone the whole house being repainted. When we opened the door to go inside, all of our belongings were covered in dust.

For about three weeks, we were just living in the mess, cleaning it up and feeling annoyed. But what can you do when you’re a tenant in a rental property? It’s a power imbalance. Then, I started to feel not so great. I had headaches and no appetite whatsoever. I couldn’t sleep, felt nauseous and had kidney pain and vision issues. At times, it felt like my head was in a washing machine. I couldn’t remember things.

The sanding of old paint happened every day from about 7am until 8pm. As a bit of joke, my dad asked, “Have you tested the paint for lead?” We bought a lead testing kit and were warned they don’t pick up small traces of lead. But when we sampled one small area of a windowsill, it went bright red straight away, indicating a high level of lead.

Of course, we immediately told the property manager who said if we were unable to clean up the paint dust ourselves, they would send someone around to do it. First, they sent the painters to do the cleaning. They weren’t wearing any PPE (personal protective equipment) and didn’t speak any English. We had to use Google Translate for them to tell us they were told to wipe down our windows. That’s when we told the property manager we wanted a proper cleaner to do the job. Two weeks later, they sent another cleaner around. When we told that cleaner there was lead involved in the clean-up, they turned around and left.

A third lot of cleaners came in and vacuumed some of the floors. There was still visible dust on the carpet when they left, and they didn’t wipe anything down. So, we took it upon ourselves to decontaminate everything, following advice about cleaning up lead that we found online. For hard surfaces, we wiped everything three separate times with three different rags to avoid cross contamination. We lived with the bare minimum of our possessions, things like basic cooking pots and pans, and a set uniform of clothes.

Unfortunately, we had to stay in the house because we were still having to pay full rent. Unlike my partner, I worked from home most of the time, so I was doing the bulk of the cleaning and had the most exposure to the lead in the paint dust. I was still really sick, and we were advised by the National Poisons Centre to get WorkSafe involved, as our house was technically a work site. The health and safety co-ordinator was on leave for two weeks but when he did arrive at our place, he shut the site down straight away. But the painters kept working, letting themselves into the house through our windows, breaching the WorkSafe prohibition notice for a further 12 days.

I had my blood tested for lead three times during that time and it showed my levels were rising rapidly. There was one day when I basically lost my vision, like a sort of migraine. Another day, I felt like I’d been shot in the kidney. I was lying on the floor for hours before it passed. I’d start to think I was coming right and the next day, the sickness came on and again, and I’d be vomiting at work. I lost about 10kg.