Talking Allergies

Hi Everyone,

I have a very severe allergy to cats (amongst other things) combined with severe brittle asthma. I am currently househunting and like older homes which are close to my office downtown. The problem is, that there are often cats inside. I love one house in particular (only seen online thus far and would wear a mask if I view it), it has a cat in it, carpet in one room only. Question: Has any with a severe allergy successfully removed dander from a home? How would you go about it? I was thinking if the carpet was taken up - floors, baseboards, walls, ceilings and cupboards washed and painted, some high power Hepa filters put in for a couple of weeks this could do it. Has Anyone tried? Been successful? I know dander is pretty darn sticky. Any help or advice is appreciated.

There are services that clean the ducts. That might be something to consider.

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Moderator
Daughter: asthma, allergies to egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, most legumes (not soy) & penicillin. Developing hayfever type allergies.
Husband: no allergies
Me: allergies to some tree that flowers in May
Cat: allergic to beef, pork and lamb

DS2 has a severe cat allergy (however, we haven't linked it to any severe negative effects yet - he's not quite 2). We had 2 cats and we were told that it would take at least 6 months to a year for most of the cat dander to be gone, no matter what we did, because it is in the ducts and very sticky. We installed an industrial style air cleaner as part of our furnace and it has helped a lot, we shampooed our carpet several times and have painted. We spent many hours cleaning. It's been 6 months and I still find cat hair, usually in the deep dark corners of the basement.

I hope this gives you some useful information and helps you determine if you can do enough to feel as if it would be safe!

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Hiebs
Me - Allergic to Dogs, Cats, Dairy, Nickle.
DH - Celiac Disease
DS1 - Allergic to Horses, Cats, Dogs - Asthma, Eczema
DS2 - Allergic to Cats - Eczema, Asthma

Thanks for the tips. I may have to try them. I was talking to cleaning companies today that clean up after fires and floods and thought they must have done something like this before, they said no, and frankly I think some of them thought I was nuts. I have anaphylactic reactions to cats. It effects so many areas of my life, that I don't want it to prohibit me from living where I want to live. However the risk, both financial and heath-wise is huge.

Allergygal,

check out this article from our Asthma Section:

A couple of expert quotes from it: http://allergicliving.com/index.php/201 ... er/?page=1

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Allergic to soy, peanut, shellfish, penicillin