Any help or advice on this situation would really be appreciated. I'm losing sleep over this

Yes - we would not be here talking about this situation if the tenant had brought this issue prior to the start of painting

Or if the painter had brought this up

Or if anyone brought this up

I have renovated about 5 properties over the years and thinking back ~ all of them would have had lead paint in them - now that I know what to look for

Not once did any of the painters I hired mention the concern of lead paint and none of them took precautions which would have indicated a issue

The vast majority of the houses in this area were built before the 80's

People get there houses painted all the time - do painters routinely actively manage this lead paint issue or do they by in large just ignore it and dry scrape and paint over it ?

 

Arti - keep a few of these in the unit for any future emergencies :

 

I don't want to plagiarise Nancy Reagan, but maybe consider just saying "No".

 

She/they go to school don't they ? visit relatives and grandparents ? go to shopping malls.....etc etc

What were they supposedly doing, eating the lead paint flakes ?

We all have lead in our systems, if the doctor says they have highly elevated lead levels, then I would suspect they need to look elsewhere. is she afraid the kids will go in the backyard and eat the flakes off the soil ? if you were sanding the paint and smoking and eating during the job, you would be at risk.

You are not a doctor, I am not sure why you even got someone else in to check the paint, I think you should say it is best that they leave, for your mind and them, if you want to be real nice, offer them some minimal help like say a week free, or whatever, but I would get rid of someone asking for this sort of ransom, that is what it reads like to me.

 

Mentioned this post to SWMBO . She just laughed and said " who are they trying to pull one over ? ...."

Cliff

 

I agree with Xenia that they are failing to even assist in mitigating the situation and it wasn't that you knew that the paint contained lead. Obviously, if you can still buy paint with lead, it points to the assumption that it is not illegal to use it. It appears that people want everyone else to insure them against any bad happening and are trending towards legal action in these cases. I would certainly get legal advice and legal direction before doing anything else.

 

Can you tell me where to get paint tested and how much it costs?

 

You can buy a test stick from paint shops, including Bunnos

Tools

 

That's pretty cool.
Thanks for the tip!