Imagine having an allergic reaction to just about everything: pollens, paint fumes, tobacco smoke, BBQ smoke, and off-gassing from products the rest of us take for granted, including building materials in your home. Perfumes, cooking odors, pollutants in the air, chemicals in the water, cleaning agents, and laundry detergent. For some with MCS, or Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, life is threatened by even the smallest exposure to any one of hundreds of various chemicals or substances. This is why MCS housing is both difficult and imperative to find.
As with other chronic conditions, the severity of MCS is unique to each individual, so symptoms can range between mild to life-threatening. Someone suffering from MCS can consistently react to pollutants and chemicals in such small doses that it would be hard to even detect their presence. It’s very difficult for someone who does not have to deal with this problem to understand just how debilitating and hard it can be.
So how does someone live who is allergic to practically everything? How can a home be made safe for a person who sometimes can’t have any human or animal contact and who may not even be able to go outside? Even materials used to build and maintain a home can cause such a strong reaction that an MCS sufferer can look forward to months of illness and recovery.
MCS housing must be built to accomplish the following:
· The materials and building process must exceed even strict LEED standards. There can be no fumes, VOCs, or off-gassing of any type that is not controlled in closed-off units.
· Housing must be built to avoid any electro-magnetic fields such as are given off by power, wi-fi, or cell towers. People with MCS are often also very sensitive to even very low electro-magnetic fields.
· Inside the home, special care must be taken to include separate ventilation for rooms so that polluted air does not mix with the home’s air. Materials must be non-porous, and a special closet is included that allows items brought into the home (groceries, necessities) to off-gas for a while. Even offices containing computer equipment must be separately ventilated.
· Apartments with shared hallways or other public spaces must also include specific ventilation precautions, and other tenants must be willing to follow strict guidelines on what they can bring into the building.
As you can see, it isn’t easy to build or retrofit a home for someone suffering from MCS. Most landlords, home builders, remodelers, etc., have no idea what it would take, and even if they do, they frequently lack sufficient funds to upgrade or maintain such a space. And, yet, for those who can literally be killed by a whiff of paint fumes, suitable MCS housing is crucial to leading any kind of a “normal” life. This is why group MCS housing is popular, though not nearly as accessible as it could be. Individual homes need to be provided as well.