Heal Thy Habitat : House Doctor Seeks Sources, Cures for Indoor Pollution

Peter Sierck is a doctor of sorts, whose specialty isn’t people or animals--but houses.

Sick houses. Homes and offices with enough airborne chemicals inside them to make their occupants feel like they’re sucking in Los Angeles-strength smog or strolling through a New Jersey petroleum field.

Armed with the tools of his trade--agar dishes, air samplers and particle counters--the 39-year-old Encinitas man has spent the last three years tracking down the causes of what experts say has become an invisible but pervasive problem in homes across America: indoor pollution.

So far, dozens of homeowners in several Western states have relied upon Sierck’s sleuthing, his keen eyes and nose, to solve the mysteries of their ailing homes.

Take Sylvia Holoyda. The Rancho Penasquitos woman called Sierck last fall in tears, describing her terrible headaches, the skull-splitting throbs of pain that began the moment she awoke each morning and lasted the whole day through.

For months, beginning in March, 1989, the 38-year-old mother of one spent thousands of dollars going from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist--most of whom assured her that she was suffering from a bad case of sinus problems.

All the while, the symptoms worsened. One day, Holoyda made a list of 35 complaints that began with chest pains, muscle spasms, nausea and loss of appetite. What worried her most was her newborn baby. After 15 years of trying to have a child, the couple had given birth to a daughter, who was also beginning to show signs of illness.

Holoyda felt terrible. But when a doctor suggested that she seek psychiatric help, she got mad. “I was in deep pain. But I was not psychotic,” she recalls. So she called Sierck, who had heard the story before. He paid her a visit.

After a few tests, Sierck discovered what he called “a toxic soup of chemicals” floating around inside the split-level house the couple recently had bought, decorated and filled with furniture to prepare for their new child. And the culprit, he explained, was a seemingly unlikely one.

The new furniture and drapes they had installed were emitting chemicals that, along with the formaldehyde from glues used in the recently laid hardwood flooring, had slowly taken their effect. By closing the windows and using the air conditioning by day--and a heater at night--Holoyda had cut off the circulation of fresh air, making her chemical problem worse. Her husband had stayed healthy only because he left the house each morning to go to work.

At Sierck’s suggestion, Holoyda took a monthlong vacation from the house. Immediately, she began to improve.

“I had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on doctors who couldn’t begin to tell me what was wrong with me. Then I pay Peter Sierck $150 to look at my house, and, in a just few days, I was already feeling better,” she said. “He actually saved my life.”

National estimates on the scope of indoor air pollution, or the “sick building syndrome,” indicate that Sierck and a handful of other indoor air specialists across the country have their work cut out for them.

From tobacco smoke and radioactive radon gas to molds, fungi and everyday household products such as air fresheners and pesticides, humans are being exposed in their homes, offices and vehicles to thousands of chemical and biological agents. Indoors, pollution levels can be up to 100 times higher that outdoors.

“When you consider the fact that most people spend between 80% and 90% of the time indoors, this type of pollution becomes a major problem,” Sierck says.

Researchers at the federal Environmental Protection Agency have theorized that, based on available data, indoor air pollution may account for up to 11,400 deaths each year. Estimates by some individual researchers, meanwhile, indicate that indoor pollution could rank among the top 10 causes of death in the United States.

And increasingly, sick buildings appear to be commonplace. The World Health Organization has estimated that up to 30% of new and remodeled buildings may be plagued by indoor air quality problems, ranging from ventilation defects to the chemical vapors that are emitted by new carpets, drapes and synthetic office furniture. In California alone, there are 700 sick building reports a year.

As the public becomes more aware of the problem, experts say people like Peter Sierck provide a crucial link to cleaning up a more polluted indoor America.

“Numerous studies have shown that the air inside our homes and offices is truly toxic,” said Mary Lamielle, president and director of Environmental Health Strategies in Voorhees, N.J. “Eventually, pressure from conservation advocates and lawsuits will bring corporate responsibility into question--and these indoor specialists will be the validating factor to prove that yes, people are sick, and their homes and offices are making them sick.”

Sierck’s story is one of developing an expertise and then steadfastly seeking a market for it--half a world away. A German-born doctor who spent six years in Hamburg studying allergies and asthma in humans, Sierck became interested in baubiologie-- the biology of the house--and how it contributed to people’s health problems.

When he moved to San Diego in 1985, he found no health clinics that were practicing his specialty. Nor were there any research companies that investigated chemical problems in houses or small offices--just large firms. So Sierck formed his own business--Environmental Testing and Technology.

Friends back home said he was crazy. Americans hadn’t yet caught on to indoor pollution, they said. But slowly, with referrals from two San Diego doctors specializing in environmental illnesses, Sierck’s business improved.

In recent months, Sierck’s schedule shows how--like bacteria floating across a living room breeze--word of the indoor pollution problem is spreading. A slender man who dresses in a white gas station-style jumpsuit on his “house calls,” Sierck has crisscrossed the West, from San Diego to Santa Fe, showing dozens of people how home sweet home can be hazardous to their health.

In the affluent Los Angeles suburb of Bel Air, he showed how a leak from a neighbor’s pool had dampened the ground beneath one man’s home, causing an indoor outbreak of mold and bacteria that made his wife severely ill.

In Reno, Nev., he proved that a dentist’s wife had become sick from a high-level magnetic field caused by a faulty motor in a thermal heating system.

At the prestigious Santa Fe Opera House, Sierck helped diagnose poor ventilation in the facility’s stuffy costume room that had caused the growth of mold and bacteria, sending one worker to the hospital in serious condition.

And, in San Diego, he detected how a leaky gas stove had caused an otherwise healthy woman in her early 30s to become sickly and bedridden. The woman, who had once run several miles a day, spent thousands of dollars on medical care, including several brain scans, before Sierck diagnosed her problem.

Ironically, Sierck says, America has the energy crisis of the 1970s to thank for much of its home and office pollution problems.

“Back then, building owners and managers began to look at rising energy costs,” he said.

“They sealed off windows to make buildings air-tight. They used highly efficient insulation materials. They recirculated the air so that in many buildings there was no fresh air. That’s when the health problems started to evolve.”

Many times, the symptoms are ear, nose and throat irritation, often followed by dizziness, fatigue and a general feeling of ill health. Those who stay at home regularly--shut-ins, housewives and small children--are usually more susceptible to indoor pollution illnesses, he said.

“With most cases, you know you have a problem if the symptoms alleviate only after you leave the house or office for any period of time,” Sierck said.

After a quick inspection of a home or office--costing from $80 to $400--Sierck can usually pinpoint a problem, whether lack of ventilation in combination with some chemical presence or a host of other, simply resolved causes.

Solutions include acquiring proper lighting, heating and ventilation and the use of nontoxic building materials. Opening windows and removing or cleaning carpets is also advisable, Sierck said.

Remedies also can be as simple as regularly cleaning the air filter in a home furnace. Plants such as the philodendron and common spider plant have also been found to reduce formaldehyde and benzine in the air, he said.

“The scientific research into this problem has been around for years,” Sierck said. “But it takes a while for the public awareness to catch up with the scientists. Even many doctors don’t know what to look for in these cases.

“But people are coming around. Because the number of people being affected is skyrocketing these days.”

In recent years, the government has done its best to alert the public to the hazards of indoor pollution--with disappointing results.

“We’ve done lots of studies of the serious potential risks of indoor pollutants,” said Bob Axelrad, director of the EPA’s indoor air division in Washington, which recently published a brochure entitled “The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality.”

“The problem is, most people call us saying they can’t find an expert to do the testing. But that’s changing. More people are popping up to fill the void.”

John Bower, an Indiana writer who recently published “The Healthy House,” a guide to protecting against airborne indoor illnesses, predicted that indoor pollution will become a major environmental issue in the coming decade.

Allergists and other doctors have even created a new specialty called clinical ecology for identifying and treating environmentally induced illnesses. Some builders, architects and attorneys have also acknowledged the problem in their fields.

And Congress is now reviewing an indoor clean-air bill that would put government funding and research into the problem, Bower said.

But sometimes, he feels, the message is moving too slowly. “On Earth Day, I gave a talk in a university community of 60,000 in Indiana,” he said. “And nobody showed up.”

Charles Moss, a La Jolla physician specializing in environmental medicine, acknowledged that there are fewer than 500 doctors nationwide with specific credentials to treat the problem. “Most physicians aren’t trained at all in this area,” he said.

He said he sees 10 to 12 patients a week with symptoms from indoor pollution at home or the office. “Most people who become ill have susceptibility to it, and it could be that they’re getting sick from dust or mold or some natural reason, not just exposure to chemicals.

“But these sick people are out there. And they’re being overlooked.”

Sylvia Holoyda now knows that spending too much time inside a polluted home made her severely ill. Her sickness came on, she now believes, after she began closing off the spring breezes, using an air conditioner full time. The worse she felt, the more she stayed home, Holoyda said.

“I didn’t realize that I was contributing to the problem,” she said. “And, because of that, I put myself and my child in danger.”

Not any more. Thanks to the house doctor, both Holoyda and her home are better these days.

“Now I walk around in an airy home with open windows,” she said. “I also think about the things I bring into it. And I feel a lot better as a result.”

LAWSUITS: Buildings can make people sick. But proving it has become a new legal challenge. B4