The Healthy House Quest: Finding and Building Housing for Someone with Chemical and Electrical Hypersensitivities

First off, I want to salute Mr. Evans and thank him for providing this record of his difficult housing journey.  By reading both of his memoirs I now feel I have insight into the last 20+ years of his challenge from MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) and EHS (Electrical HyperSensitivity).   This volume is a bit less heart-wrenching than the first, as he starts the account having developed a "nearby" social network and stabilized health.So who would particularly benefit from reading this book? First of all, any folks with Electrical, Chemical or other Environmental Sensitivity would gain perspective and may even find hope.  Also, the friends, family and caretakers of environmentally sensitive folks would be well-served to hear Mr. Evans' successes and failures, both to devise housing that allows him an independent life as well as how to deal with a society that does not know and does not care about folks as ill as Mr. Evans.  Building Biologists, and others whose mission is to accommodate the healthful housing needs of folks with environmental illness will find many gems inside the pages.  DIY homebuilders and homesteaders will likely take away a few important lessons.More broadly, there are many others who *should* read this account -- physicians, psychiatrists, social workers, store owners, real estate agents, cashiers, and any human who is likely to encounter a person in public who is so poisoned by the environment that they desperately need both understanding and accommodation.   So often, people like Mr. Evans are ridiculed (or even feared, after 9/11) for publicly wearing his mask (because of the fumes of 'modern civilization' that make him immediately ill).  Understanding the nature of a 'day in the life' of Jerry Evans should prompt every moderately healthy person to get down on their knees in prayerful thanks that they should not have to suffer as much as he does.Our society in the US does not currently recognize MCS, EHS and similar environmental illnesses as true health conditions.  This is a terrible circumstance, but he is part of a silent minority, the folks are the far end of the bell-curve who do not affect elections, have no consumer power, and have to maintain isolated lives just to survive day to day.  The medical folks that do attempt to address these environmental poisonings tend to be in the gray area of 'alternative health care' that is rarely covered by insurance.  One day Jerry is a normal computer developer approaching his 40th birthday and within a short period his life has morphed permanently into one where he has no job, cannot think, cannot drive, cannot get well, cannot be near nearly any chemical, cannot be near nearly any electrical device or wireless signal, rapidly uses up all his savings and must sort it all out by himself.  He is a bleeping hero.Is it gripping prose?  No, it is not.  Could it use more editing?  Certainly.  But that is not the point.  Mr. Evans wrote this book in long hand because he cannot go near a computer, the inks in pens are a problem and I believe there were issues with pencil lead at some point, he cannot be near recycled printer paper, using the land telephone is an arduous task, he cannot read incoming paper mail until it is first opened and each page hung to air outside.  In short, this was probably quite a difficult task to do, while periodically having brain fog from the day's chemical or electrical exposure.Would it make a good movie?  DEFINITELY!  However, I would worry that some might think that it is too far-fetched to be believed. His community of 'EIs' -- Environmentally Intolerant folks -- would make interesting characters.  The spartan Arizona countryside would make a spectacular canvas with which to show one man's struggle to hold onto a small slice of the American Dream while maintaining his dignity and meanwhile employing American Ingenuity to "macgyver" solutions to problems such as driving a car containing electronics (solution: buy pre-1986 diesel, remove alternator and put a solar panel on the car roof instead).  Bringing awareness to this (growing) portion of the population would be a public service, especially in light of the likely increased population sensitivity due to the 'electrosmog' we surround ourselves with.There is so much more that could be said about the indomitable spirit of people, social justice issues, the importance of 'community' for folks who occupy a tiny minority of the population, the unfairness of the medical system and the list goes on.  I have an inkling about this because we deal with much lighter forms of MCS and EHS here at home and I have designed and constructed our home to accommodate them.So, with admiration and appreciation, I thank Jerry Evans for this recent update and look forward to a volume in the future, perhaps one on finding love or planning for one's elder years, under the circumstances.

People disabled by chemical, EMF, and other environmental hypersensitivities are, in effect, repeatedly evicted from their housing if someone nearby sprays the lawn, if fabric softener wafts through the neighborhood, if a cell tower or 4-G, 5-G or a smart meter are installed by their communications and utility companies, or numerous other common exposures..A environmentally hypersensitive homeowner or tenant won't get notice that they have to get out, and may have only an hour or two to evacuate with whatever belongings they can carry.Many have to break their leases, some lose their jobs and families, and they may be incapacitated by a resurgence of their symptoms.Imposing any such exposures on a hypersensitive person is normally completely legal. No insurance company will compensate for losses incurred, and HUD's Fair Housing Equal Opportunity staff or whatever law firm might review your complaint within a few years - or not.The kicker is that there is probably no place to relocate where the same thing won't happen.It's just a matter of time.(You're right, I can be a real downer. Sorry.)The message of Healthy House Quest, though, is be motivated, people!If you are wondering about environmental sensitivities, those you already have as well as those you want to avoid, Healthy House Quest might well become your go-to book.Having to develop a home that will protect you, affordably, for the long term is daunting but at some point it may become your best option.The author had been through years and years of dodging exposures and bad housing before realizing he just had to come to grips with creating his own house even though he's not a builder, or a construction guy, or rich.He shares with the reader what his process was to evaluate his options, and to finally conclude that he was going to have to build himself a house.That meant identifying a neighborhood that would remain clean enough to live in, identifying a workable site, studying materials and methods other people had used successfully, figuring out how to pay for everything, and a real hard part: maintaining good enough morale to stick with it through the inevitable complications of construction.I've been in his house - it's sturdy, safe, comfortable, unique, and altogether quite wonderful.He shares with us the building materials he chose and why, but especially I value that he cares about those readers (like me) who are better at doing practically anything in the world than building something - but our options have become so limited that we have to learn about it.He doesn't write like a techie guy who communicates only with veteran designers and construction specialists, although they'd benefit by buying these books in bulk for their hands-on construction crews and anyone else they intend to work with.I'd like to make it Assigned Reading for any bank, zoning, or housing agency employees who get to make decisions about our lives.This book is written by a person who evaluated his limited options, and realized he had to build a house.