(Long Island, NY) You can’t escape the bad air, apparently. Temperature inversion traps the smog, leaving a brown haze lingering over the skyscrapers, second hand smoke drifts into your face as you walk down the street behind the husband-and-wide cancer stick team, and now I have learned that once you are at home, with the house buttoned up nice and tight, you can get formaldehyde gas vapors from new pressed-wood cabinets and other furniture.
It wouldn’t have been the first time I learned the hard way. Once I purchased a big ten by ten foot section of carpet. It was a nice deep shag and I was looking forward to getting it home, out into the living room, and digging my toes into it. When I plopped it down onto the floor, the most gawdawful aroma wafted up into my nose. It was some kind of glue or other nasty industrial vapor. I got headaches, the room stank like some kind of factory, and I basically evacuated the house for the weekend in hopes the vapor would dissipate.
It lingered for a month. Yuck.
Fortunately, the formaldehyde vapors would not be mine, but a friend’s. Still, I had been invited to my friend’s place following a remodeling job, and we were going to spend the weekend basking in the glow of good food, decent beer, and a big home theater system. My friend also had some pressed wood cabinets installed in his garage for tool storage.
“Pressed wood?” I asked. Isn’t stainless steel or some other more handyman-esque material required in the garage? My friend told me it was on sale, it fit, and he had the money, so in it went. And now it stank.
We read up on vapors, odors, and other problems potentially caused by the installation of cabinets, shelving, and other improvements. My guess was that the smell was from caulk, or some other kind of handyman nonsense they use when putting in these damn things. Of course, not being a handyman type, I was wrong.
Imagine our surprise when we discovered it was FORMALDAHYDE!
“That’s the stuff they use to preserve dead bodies, Jim!” I was practically shouting. “What the hell is it doing in your CABINETS?”
Jim was the sort of guy who didn’t mind too much, as long as the garage door stayed open and he didn’t have to smell it. I, on the other hand, would have ripped those damn things out of there faster than you can say CSI Miami. Of course, what the hell could I DO with them after tearing them out? You couldn’t burn them that would only pour more pollutants into the air. Tossing them at the dump? Irresponsible. Formaldehyde, after all. Right?
A poor guy would be stuck with them. FOREVER. The Flying Dutchman of cabinets. There should be a law against such nonsense! Stainless steel forever!
Of course, stainless steel NEVER biodegrades, right? Ditto for plastic, I suppose. When it comes right down to it, you are screwed. You can’t even pick paper or plastic at the grocery store. If you choose paper, you just killed a tree. Pick plastic, and you’ve made a landfill.
I give up, I’m going to find a nice CAVE to live in, and call it a day. At least the caves would have decent air.
Unless there’s bat crap everywhere.
