How to share a household between healthy people and someone with environmental illness

Living with someone who has an environmental illness (chemical or electrical sensitivities) puts a lot of restrictions on the healthy people, which frequently strains the relationship. Here is how people deal with that situation.

Keywords:    environmental illness, multiple chemical sensitivity, electrical sensitivity, housing, family, relationship, shared housing.

People with environmental illnesses must avoid what triggers their symptoms, whether it is chemicals, electronics, mold, pollen, light or noise. Sometimes it is all of these things. This avoidance involves everyone living in the same household.

Nobody likes restrictions on how they live their lives, especially if the restrictions are imposed on them by others. When it is hard to understand why, that makes it even more difficult.

Make sure the healthy person is not forgotten

It is easy to set aside and forget the needs of the healthy people in the household. In the early years of the illness, there will be many crises that need immediate attention, and there will be ongoing daily needs.

The most important message of this article is to make sure the other people’s needs are not forgotten. Otherwise there will be resentment. Too many families have broken up when the going got tough, or there seemed to be no end to an unpleasant situation.

The sick person must actively look for ways to improve the other people’s lives, and not just rely on them to take the initiative. Some will not, and quietly resent how things are, and perhaps one day reach a breaking point.

Teenagers

Living with teenagers who are not sick can be really difficult. They are naturally rebellious and will rebel against environmental restrictions. It is also difficult for them to comprehend what disability means, as they have likely not experienced anything like it themselves.

In one case, a teenage son refused to accept his dad was electrically sensitive. He was allowed to use his wireless gadgets in the daytime, but they had to be off for dad to sleep well.

Every night, dad had to sweep the house with an RF meter to make sure everything was off, as the son refused to cooperate (the son bragged about it on social media).

Another family had two teenage daughters. They accepted their mother’s illness and really tried to be good, but many times they fell through. Teenage girls like to experiment with how they look, and peer pressure can be tremendous. They go visit classmates who talk them into trying various cosmetics. It is so enticing, they want to fit in, and it is so easy to think “it’s only a little bit” and so on, even though much cosmetics cannot readily be washed off again.

Finding a good compromise with a teenager is really difficult. You want them to develop like other teenagers, but you also need to stay safe.

Two people with environmental illness living together

It can be surprisingly difficult for two people with the same illness to live together. The level of sensitivity can be different, and what the big triggers are can be different too. Just because people get sick doesn’t mean they turn into a saint.

The environmentally ill already live with so many restrictions on how they live. They too can resent getting additional restrictions they don’t need themselves.

Time off

The healthy people should have “time off” sometimes. That could mean go to a football game, or watch a game at a local sports bar. Or even go visit relatives in another state.

They will be toxic when they return, it may take several baths to get them clean again, you may not be able to sleep in the same room for a night or two, but sometimes you just have to do these things.

If the sick person cannot be left alone, see if you can find someone to be there instead. This can be very tough, but some local person with the same illness may be willing to do it for a few days.

Separate spaces

Several households have set up separate spaces where the restrictions are much fewer. They still can’t use fragrances or pesticides in there, or set up a radio amateur station, but it can still allow much more freedom than inside the regular house.

It can be as simple as a specific room that is more or less sealed off from the rest of the house. Perhaps a garage, or a room in the other end of the house from the bedroom. Or it could be a room that has shielding on the walls into the house, and not the outer walls, so wireless gadgets can be used there.

Even better is a separate structure of some sort. Some people bought an old mobile home or travel trailer, or built an insulated and heated shed.

A common way is to have a separate kitchen that also serves as the healthy spouse’s “own space.” Moving the kitchen away also gets cooking fumes and the refrigerator (noise, EMF) out of the house.

Separate houses

A few people, who had the money, actually bought an extra house near their healthy house. The healthy person typically went to visit the sick one daily, such as for dinner every night.

The extra house doesn’t need to be as stringently non-toxic, but it must be free of pesticides, fragrance, and mold free so it doesn’t contaminate the clothes.

Mother-in-law apartment

A sort of separate apartment in the house can work very well. It will have its own shower so when people arrive from the toxic world they can go there to clean up before entering the main house.

In case of serious contamination that can’t be washed off, the person can stay there overnight.

One house in Arizona was built with a glass patio door between a mini-apartment and the main living room. This was for a family with two teenage daughters, who could get really toxic. The glass door made the person in “detention” less isolated, and the family could still eat dinner together, sitting on each side of the glass.

Direct access bathroom

Installing an outside door into the bathroom can allow people to shower and put on clean clothes before they enter the house. That way they do not stink up the house itself.

The outdoor shower

This is a bad idea that keeps showing up. This writer has seen three custom-built MCS houses with an outdoor shower. None of them were really used.

The idea is that the healthy people can shower outside once they return from grocery stores, workplaces, and other toxic places. That way they don’t stink up the house.

Except for the middle of the summer, it is really cold to shower outside. Even a slight breeze will evaporate the moisture on the skin faster than in an enclosed room. Making people do this is abusive. Don’t do it!

Portable electronics

Smartphones, tablets, etc. are a fact of life. The healthy people should be allowed to have these to use outside the home. They may even be okay to use at home too in certain rooms.

The house could have a room that has shielding on the interior walls only. That way the electronics can communicate with outside towers, while the radiation entering the rest of the house is reduced.

Or it may be the rule that only a wired computer can be used at home.

People will forget to turn off their phones when coming home, it will happen again and again. A way to cope is to store all phones in a shielded box. The box must be of metal, and should have wire-mesh so it is easy to see whether the phones are in there or not. It is fine if the top of the box is open, as long as the box is taller than the phones (this sends the radiation up through the roof, unless it is a metal roof).

A simple failsafe way to test if a phone is fully off or not is to hold an AM radio close to the phone. The static is caused by the electronics. (This even detects phones that have spy-ware on them that makes them appear to be off.)

More information

More articles on how to cope with chemical or electrical sensitivities on www.eiwellspring.org.

2025