She Feels Safe At Home

Marin's Debra Lynn Dadd sees victory in her crusade against household toxics

The floor in Debra Lynn Dadd's living room is covered in wood parquet squares that were glued down with carpenter's glue--no glue with solvents in it. A non-toxic finish was used to seal the flooring.

The kitchen floor is marble mosaic that she laid herself. "We didn't mix the cement with plastic additives as they usually advise you to do," she says.

The kitchen cabinets are solid wood--not particle board--and they were handmade by a local carpenter.

Paint used in the house is a brand that is low in volatile organic chemical solvents of VOC's, chemicals that some contend contribute to air pollution.

The living room sofa is one that she bought at a storage auction for $50 because it had springs in the cushions instead of foam. She then had it recovered with linen fabric.

Dadd, a Forest Knolls resident, has been a crusader for the past 20 years in the cause of eliminating toxic chemicals from the home. A third revision has just been printed of her reference guide "Home Safe Home: Protecting Yourself and Your Family from Everyday Toxics and Harmful Household Products" (Tarcher/Putnam; 430 pages; $18.95). She is also the author of "Nontoxic and Natural" and "The Nontoxic Home and Office," parts of which appear in the new book.

Since she believes herself to have been a previous victim of chemical poisoning, she's tried to make her home a haven from modern-day compounds that she thinks may put her at risk.

Dadd and her husband, Larry Redalia, who is in construction, have lived for the last seven years in a rustic cottage in Forest Knolls where they are replacing furnishing and structures that they consider toxic.

There's a fair amount of serious maintenance needed in the 50-year old house, including repairs that must be made because a tree fell on part of the roof during the winter.

Dadd and her husband feel somewhat cramped in the tiny hous and need space for books and papers overflow in the living room and Dadd's office. So they're planning to add another bedroom when they repair the roof.

Dadd's own problems began in the 1970's when she lived in an East Bay neighborhood that she believes was affected by industrial air pollution. "I believe those outside exposures made me more sensitive to indoor pollution," she says.

She also thinks chemicals in the air may have been a factor in her mother's death from cancer.

After that death, Dadd and her father moved to Oakland in 1980 to a more urban area and lived in a condominium which she was remodeling--putting in new carpets, paint and vinyl materials. Dadd, who was then a classical pianist, used glues and other chemical and synthetic products in the process of doing the renovation. She blames those chemicals for what happened next.

"I was doing a lot of the work myself and I became totally disabled by insomnia and depression," she says.

"Toxics in consumer products were poisoning my immune system. Different people have more or less tolerance for these toxics. I have a low tolerance; my husband has a high one."

Dadd eventually recovered to a large degree, after she spent seven years in what she says was a "non-toxic environment."

"I'm in the process of healing," she says. "I'm getting better and better."

But she thinks that she suffered permanent endocrine system damage which has made her extremely hypothyroid.

While removing chemicals and toxic materials from her environment after her illness, she accumulated reams of information on what was safe for her to live with and what was not. Out of that grew her current occupation as a consultant and writer about creating safe and healthy homes.

Her reference guide talks about the health effects of and safe alternatives to tap water and processed food, home and garden pesticides, over-the-counter medications, synthetic fibers and fabrics, carpeting and furniture and cleaning and beauty products.

She also offers readers hundreds of inexpensive do-it-yourself formulas and mail-order sources for "green" or environmentally safe products.

For example, she explains how to make a window cleaner from vinegar and water, how to keep mosquitoes away by planting basil and how to change your style of sheets and pillow and pillow cases in order to cure insomnia.

"People don't realize it," she says, "but when you buy no-iron sheets, you are buying sheets that have been made using a resin derived from formaldehyde and formaldehyde can cause insomnia.

But Dadd's mission has changed somewhat, in part because in the last 10 years, more and more companies and people have accepted some of the ideas she promotes.

Lots of entrepreneurs are catching on to the proposition that thinking "green" can produce green stuff to put into your wallet. Lots of ordinary people think twice before spraying their roses with chemicals.

"There is a lot of new stuff on the market now," she says. "Many more alternatives are available. You can buy organic cotton for your household furnishings; people are doing organic gardening. It's all more popular and accepted in the mainstream."

Even department stores now sell untreated cotton bed sheets in lots of colors and patterns at reasonable prices, she says. Supermarkets sell inexpensive organic produce.

"Back in 1984, no one knew that anything was toxic. It was very hard even to buy cotton clothes. There was no hazardous waste collection. No one had heard of indoor air pollution."

There are so many products on the market now, she says, that the real problem is "how does the consumer choose among them?" Her book aims to help with that issue.

"I used to consider myself to be the non-toxic advocate. My little niche was household toxics. But I got my message across so well, I put myself out of business."

Her book lists hundreds of publications, books, and organizations that deal with the indoor toxic issue.

Her new view is that it isn't just important for people to choose wisely when they buy. Now they need to change their lifestyles in a more and learn to live more simply. The real key to living in a more environmental way is buying less, she says.

"We have to move away from the consumer culture," she says. "We need to think of ourselves as part of nature and get more in tune with it."

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