I wonder how this kind of thing plays out for people that don't have anywhere near $50k available. I'm assuming since the company worked first and then invoiced, that the options would be either (1) sell the house and use the proceeds (assuming equity exists) to pay off the cleaning, or (2) declare bankruptcy.
If the company were to require pre-payment for cleaning, then it's really just down to either (1) abandon and have the bank seize the house, or (2) sell the house for pennies on the dollar to an investor.
Things like this (well, not this exotic, but like a busted sewer line which could cost $20k to replace) used to keep me up at night after we "bought" a house. I've found I can rest by mentally reframing the mortgage as rent and knowing that an "out" (strategic default) is always there if something goes very expensively wrong.
Seriously, NO!! If anyone ever reads this do NOT use a shopvac. You will make the problem 10000x worse. Mercury is only an acute health hazard if vaporized. A shopvac will instantly vaporize it. You will turn an expensive and irritating headache into a medical and possibly life-threatening emergency.
Unfortunately in this case they ended up having to demolish a floor and ceiling to find all the mercury that had soaked through the floor; a shopvac won't do that.
I agree with you both, but that doesn't change that I suspect this would be the default approach for a lot of people that have neither the money nor the ideology to justify a professional cleanup.
Yeha, I'm a bit dumbfounded about the calling of the fire dept, the reaction and so on. I would have just figured out where it was coming from and cleaned it up myself with some gloves and a dustpan.
> Yeha, I'm a bit dumbfounded about the calling of the fire dept, the reaction and so on. I would have just figured out where it was coming from and cleaned it up myself with some gloves and a dustpan.
This is probably why you don't clean up mercury for a living. You don't know the complications until you're taught them.
This happened to me when I was about 9, when I didn't know what mercury was. There was a few droplets on the floor and I ended up poking it with my index finger for a few minutes. To this day I don't know what the medical effects were.
This is all I'd do. Shit inside walls is likely never going to be disturbed, so a face mask + gloves + dustpan and brush would get me through cleaning up the spill.
But then again, I have a generally lax regard for life and limb. The way I figure it, my drinking, obesity and other vices probably erode my life expectancy more than a single controlled exposure to mercury.
I would imagine it's the verification and figuring out where it is that's a hard problem. How would you reassure yourself you got it all, especially if it seeped through the floor?
If the company were to require pre-payment for cleaning, then it's really just down to either (1) abandon and have the bank seize the house, or (2) sell the house for pennies on the dollar to an investor.
Things like this (well, not this exotic, but like a busted sewer line which could cost $20k to replace) used to keep me up at night after we "bought" a house. I've found I can rest by mentally reframing the mortgage as rent and knowing that an "out" (strategic default) is always there if something goes very expensively wrong.