Today there was an article in the London Free Press which says that pitchers which filter water (ie. Brita) do not actually remove as much lead from water as previously believed.  Read:  We have been drinking poisonous water for the past almost three months.  I spent some time freaking out. Then I fire-bombed my landlord’s house because I hold him responsible for this situation.  Then I calmed down and checked with the city about getting our water retested. 

It turns out they let the water run for five minutes before sampling it so it wouldn’t have mattered what time of day they tested the water or if we’d just filled a pool or not turned on the water for a week. We’d still have basically the same reading.  The gentleman from the city who phoned me was exceedingly nice which was great because I was liable to start weeping hysterically into the phone if he had been at all impatient.  But it turns out he used to live just a few houses away from us and knew a lot about our area.  Apparently the city replaced the lead pipes which were on public property in 1989.  So my landlord’s claim that the pipes on our property are copper is wrong because there is no possible reason for our lead content to be so high except big, nasty, lead pipes seeping poisony poison into my drinking water.  Ugh. 

So after that conversation I sent an email to the landlord, which may have come off ever so slightly as a totally-paranoid-mother, saying that this high lead level is scaring the shit out of me and the fact that it could have been causing irreversible damage to my children in the past three months while I was relying on the effing Brita filter is making me want to do more than joke about bombs and such.  There is an old filter on our sink. The kind that has an extra small faucet off to the side which is attached to a filter under the sink.  The filter hadn’t been replaced in five years and the system is seven years old. Our landlords had never used it.  I looked into buying a new one and, of course, it turns out it is an American system and stores here no longer carry the filter refills.  We were given a different brand of filter which may or may not fit into the system.  If it doesn’t fit we’ll be buying a filter system that screws onto the tap which is supposed to filter out all lead.  Either way I’ll be sending the bill to my landlord.

The city-man also told me that the Brita wasn’t completely useless. It does filter out about half the lead.  So hopefully my kids will only have half the total possible kidney damage. Sob.  No, really, the situation isn’t as bad as that. Because with the Brita our lead content would be down significantly.  However, I will still be switching to a different filtration system.  I feel better about the whole thing now but this morning I really was very upset.  I was afraid that choosing this home to live in was not only going to result in a year of not liking my house and dealing with the small annoyances of the property, but that my family’s health had been jeopardized.  I know it probably seems a bit over the top.  But lead poisoning is scary stuff!  We’ll see if my landlord continues to claim that it’s not his problem.  As long as he pays for the filtration system I’m not going to make too big a deal of it. But I’m definitely going to suggest that he consider letting future tenants know about this little deficit if he doesn’t want to end up in court.