THE GOODS : HOUSE of FUMES : Hair spray. Dust mites. Forget the outdoors, your home may need a smog alert.

By CONNIE KOENENN

Aug. 25, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

This is the season when there is no place to hide if you suffer from even a whiff of an allergy. You can identify the offending smog--that brown haze settled over the skyline--but what you can’t see may be worse. And it’s indoors.

“Most people don’t pay attention to the air in their houses, but it can be full of contaminants,” says Larry Foster, the Atlanta environmental consultant who coined the phrase “sick building syndrome” in the early ‘70s.

At the time, Foster, who developed a biological system for purifying the air in hospitals, was referring to the dust, gases and bacteria that lurk in sealed office buildings. Since then, his Environmental Control Services Co., has identified the same unwelcome mix in homes.

In fact, every room in the house has its own little profile of pollution, from cooking odors in the kitchen to hair spray in the bathroom, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has identified hundreds of home-grown contaminants.

“Think of it as a toxic soup,” says Mary Ellen Fise of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), which has targeted indoor air as a priority issue. Though the noxious mix of household mold, dust, smoke, cooking fumes, dry-cleaner solvents, cleaners and bug sprays may sound like a daunting problem, the federation wants to start suggesting solutions.

“People generally don’t appreciate all the hazards in an indoor environment any time of the year,” says Dr. Norman H. Edelman, professor of pulmonary medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., and a consultant to the American Lung Assn. With increases in both lung disease and asthma, health experts are looking more carefully at the air we breathe at home, he says, citing especially second-hand cigarette smoke and such organisms as viruses and a microscopic insect called a “dust mite,” which is found on fabric, human skin and dust in the air. “It may be the most important allergen associated with asthma,” he says.

But it is certainly not the only one. As the production of synthetic chemicals has grown, building technologies have increasingly relied on plastics and other forms of petrochemicals. And then there’s all the stuff we bring home from the supermarket. “We are talking about thousands of pollutants with health effects that range from an itchy nose to death,” says the Consumer Federation of America’s Fise, who oversees air quality projects.

The federation, whose member groups represent 50 million consumers, thinks indoor air quality is “the air issue” for the next century, she says. “If you look at what has happened, you see that we have made tremendous gains in cleaning up outdoor pollution. There are government regulations and a high level of public awareness.”

But the air indoors, where we spend up to 90% of our time, is just being born as a consumer issue, she says, and it’s an extremely complex one.

Although scientists know the health effects of exposure to individual pollutants, such as lead or radon or dust, she says, they don’t know what happens when we are exposed to all three or more.

“The synergistic effects are much less understood--in every room there is something with potential to affect the air. Furthermore, the air changes, depending on how a home is operated and what products are used, so that every home is different. It’s not like studying product safety when you can isolate one product,” Fise says.

The federation has studied the indoor air issue since 1984 when the Department of Energy first reported that such building materials as carpeting, particle board and paints contribute to pollution. And, says Fise, CFA has just launched a consumer education campaign in coordination with San Francisco-based Consumer Action and the EPA.

The EPA, which has congressional authorization to set standards for outdoor air quality, has no such authorization for indoor air, says Sandra Eberle, who heads the EPA indoor air division. “Basically no one regulates indoor air. I’m not sure anyone thinks that regulation is a particularly useful way to approach it.

“At this point we have a lot of knowledge about indoor air and how to control it, but we have a long way to go to get the public to actually embrace these behaviors.” That’s why they joined with the federation on the current education effort, she says.

The campaign includes three free publications for widespread distribution. Two are from the EPA, a fact sheet overview of available information and “The Inside Story,” the agency’s 36-page guide to indoor air quality. As a supplement to the extensive guide, the federation has compiled a checklist that goes through a house room by room, listing 10 categories of common pollutants and their health effects, along with suggested remedies.

Major concerns such as asbestos, lead or radon, which can be readily detected, can be quite expensive to mitigate. But there are opportunities for cleaning up the air with a little behavior modification. For instance:

* Buying new products. If you know that new kitchen cabinets or carpets release gases, you can air them before installation.

* Using such personal-care products as hair-spray or nail polish. Simply open a window. If you’re stripping paint off an old table, do it outside, or near ventilation.

* Making substitutions for such toxic products as pesticides whenever possible.

* Fixing plumbing leaks to avoid mold and mildew, which release bacteria into the air.

* Vacuuming and dusting regularly, particularly in homes with small children who play near the floor.

* Washing bedding in very hot water to keep dust mites at bay.

“The whole idea is to implement changes over time,” says Fise. “Otherwise you will feel overwhelmed and drive yourself crazy. We have tremendous opportunities to clean up indoor air, but we just haven’t mobilized around them yet.”

* To order “How Healthy Is the Air In Your Home,” send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Consumer Federation of America, P.O. Box 12099, Washington, D.C. 20005-0999.

To order “The Inside Story, a Guide to Indoor Air Quality” or “Indoor Air Quality Information Clearinghouse (a brief overview), write to Indoor Air Quality Info, P.O. Box 37133, Washington, D.C. 20013-7133.

EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Hot Line: (800) 438-4318.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What to Check For

Every room in your house has its own little profile of air pollutants and most can be remedied, says the Consumer Federation of America, whose new brochure offers a room-by-room checklist. Typical problems:

(bedroom)

Dust mites

Animal hair

Moth repellents

Dry-cleaned goods

(bathroom)

Air freshener

Moisture, mold and mildew

Personal-care products

(kitchen)

Unvented gas stove

Household cleaners