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Vancouver architectural designer and environmental researcher David Rousseau takes a far more extensive look at contaminants in Your Home, Your Health and Well-Being (Hartley '& Marks $19.95), newly reprinted in an expanded version with Canadian sources of assistance for home environment safeguards and solutions. "Today's man-made environments are a major cause of irritation, stress and disease," says Rousseav. Because most North Americans now spend 90 per cent of their lives indoors, Rousseau's guide to home-related "environmental illnesses" quickly sold out its first printing.
[Autumn / BCBW 1988]
[Autumn / BCBW 1988]
Articles: 1 Article for this author
Your Home, Health and Well Being
Article
Vancouver environmentalist and graduate architect David Rousseau is moving onto new turf. Your home.
Just when you thought it was still safe to go inside, Rousseau, together with Texas ecological allergist Dr. W.J. Rea and Alberta's Jean Enwright, is publishing Your Home, Health and Well Being (Hartley & Marks $19.95 $29.95).
You know that nagging headache? The one pills don't help? It may be caused by particle board or paint fumes. You should also know that all gas stoves leak. And formaldehyde is often used in carpet backing. You should be aware that motors emit poison gases and that no solid is absolutely stable. Synthetics are constantly evaporating particles and contaminating your home environment.
The subtitle of Rousseau's book is a longwinded breath of relief: What You Can Do To Design Or Renovate Your House Or Apartment To Be Free Of Outdoor And Indoor Pollution. For people who are already ill from environmental allergies or for those wishing to take preventative measures to ensure a healthy home, Your Home, Health and Well-Being provides simple and practical advice about often complicated problems.
For instance, most people don't realize that different brands of paints contain different chemicals. The new book has a list of paint materials and assigns safety ratings. Jean Enwright's autobiographical testimony reveals the extent to which environmental allergies can radically and mysteriously upset the lives of private citizens.
Ten Speed Press has pre-bought 20,000 copies for the American market.
[BCBW Spring 1987] "Health"
