Washington Post
Woman's life is looking up now that her abode isn't making her sick
By JEFF TURRENTINE
 The ordeal, she claimed, had left her with debilitating symptoms known collectively as multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, or MCS. Currently, the medical community classifies MCS as a "syndrome of unknown origin," like Gulf War syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome. By now, Lively-Diebold is used to cynicism about her condition. It's one of the reasons she wanted to find "the type of architect who would listen to your input, not just tell you what you need to have."

Woman's life is looking up now that her abode isn't making her sick

Washington Post
 Jan. 30, 2005
If the well-meaning souls at Carter+Burton Architecture weren't sure what Bobbie Lively-Diebold meant when she told them she was "extremely sensitive" to chemicals, vapors and smells, they learned one day when she and her husband came to look over some blueprints.

Architect Jim Burton thought he and his associates had prepared. "We aired out the blueprints three hours before she got there, and we had all the windows open," he recalls. "We couldn't detect any smell."
All the same, within minutes of arriving, Lively-Diebold began to respond violently to fumes left over from the blueprinting process. Her speech began to slur. She grew confused. She tried to walk but could only wobble.

Fresh air revived her. "But the whole episode showed us just how serious her condition was," says Burton. "We took a lot of precautions, and they still weren't enough."

Lively-Diebold and her husband, Bob Diebold, had commissioned Carter+Burton to build a three-level contemporary residence just outside of Front Royal, Va., on a cliff overlooking the Shenandoah River. It would be a place where the couple — he a former physicist, she a former employee of the Environmental Protection Agency — could enjoy retirement in a peaceful, natural setting. They imagined huge windows; decks off upstairs bedrooms, where they could listen to the rush of the water in early morning; extra rooms for visitors.

But Lively-Diebold knew she couldn't enjoy such amenities if she were constantly battling sickness. So she and her husband asked Carter+Burton to build their dream home according to "healthy house" standards. The result, they hoped, would be a house in which innovative design, careful selection of materials and state-of-the-art technology safeguard against the presence of the substances that Lively-Diebold says her system cannot tolerate.

Many of the standards to which this house and others have been built can be found in The Healthy House by John Bower. With his wife, Lynn, Bower founded the Healthy House Institute in 1992; between the books and the resource center in Bloomington, Ind., (www.hhinst.com), he has devoted himself to helping individuals find ways to rid their households of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

Healthy houses, Bower says, are not just for people like Lively-Diebold. Many of us, he believes, suffer from indoor air pollution without realizing it.

"Sniffles, sore throats, neck aches, all kinds of symptoms — there are people who think that a lot of them are related to indoor air quality," he says. "The air we breathe is one of the primary ways we take the environment into our systems. The thinking with regard to sensitive people is that they're the canaries in the coal mines. It's time to do something about the problem once the canaries get sick."

Lively-Diebold, 68, traces the history of her disorder to one day in 1988, when she arrived at work. New carpet had just been installed and was still in the early stages of "off-gassing," the term used to describe the release of chemical vapors from a material — in this case, the glue binding the carpet's fibers to its backing.

Immediately, she says, she began to experience the problems that plague her to this day: disorientation, slurred speech, difficulty breathing and impaired mobility. Lively-Diebold believes that exposure to the off-gassing carpet and to other VOCs given off during the building's renovation irreparably affected her respiratory and neurological systems. She was among a group of 19 employees who filed suit against the building's owners and managers, citing permanent damage to their health. Of the original plaintiffs, five, including Lively-Diebold, were eventually awarded restitution totaling nearly $1 million.

The ordeal, she claimed, had left her with debilitating symptoms known collectively as multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, or MCS. Currently, the medical community classifies MCS as a "syndrome of unknown origin," like Gulf War syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome.

By now, Lively-Diebold is used to cynicism about her condition. It's one of the reasons she wanted to find "the type of architect who would listen to your input, not just tell you what you need to have."

Most important, she says, Burton and Page Carter didn't blanch upon hearing her list of requirements. "They seemed excited and open to the idea."

Even so, Burton recalls the "steep learning curve" faced by the architects, builder, interior designer and the contractors who had to abandon tried-and-true methods and routines.

For starters, the entire site had to be designated a no-smoking area — a tough sell among construction workers

Of paramount importance was that off-gassing be kept to a minimum. Chemically inert or natural materials such as stone, concrete, stucco and wood were used whenever possible. For people with MCS, high-VOC varnishes, oils, glues and sealants are among a newly built house's most incorrigible offenders. Lively-Diebold's purview extended even to the oil-based release agents used to coat the concrete foundation. "I went with my husband to a job site to check my tolerance," she recalls. "I just walked around and smelled them."

When they prompted a flare-up, she and the building team settled on an unorthodox alternative: Wesson oil.

The innovations that help make the infrastructure of this house "healthy" are in no way visible. VOC-free paint, once rare but now widely available, looks as rich as regular paint. The minimally treated, low-gassing, marine-grade plywood from which the kitchen cabinets are made is indistinguishable from its standard-issue counterpart.

Behind a plain-looking door, filters, ventilators, vacuums and humidifiers vigilantly defend against airborne pathogens. This system so thoroughly controls the flow and exchange of air that the house receives a complete air transfusion every few hours.

"Separation, ventilation and filtration," says Burton. "It's not a healthy house if you don't have all three."
For Lively-Diebold, living in a healthy house has changed everything. The world outside her door can still make her sick. "But my body is in a better position to tolerate things," she says. "This is like a detox center. A safe place." By JEFF TURRENTINE