{"id":8715,"date":"2022-06-13T03:52:43","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T03:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/pl\/?post_type=product&p=8715"},"modified":"2022-06-13T03:53:02","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T03:53:02","slug":"sick-building-syndrome-is-it-the-buildings-or-the-people-who-need-treatment","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/pl\/sick-building-syndrome-is-it-the-buildings-or-the-people-who-need-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Sick building syndrome: is it the buildings or the people who need treatment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Finland, people whose sickness is linked to certain buildings fear being labelled as mentally ill, while scientists search for evidence that their condition is \u2018real\u2019.<\/h4>\n
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n early September 2011, when the weather in Finland had begun to turn its back on summer and trudge towards winter, a woman prepared to leave her home in the suburbs of Helsinki. Linda* emptied her refrigerator, packed some clothes, her toothbrush, toothpaste and an iron, and left the house she had lived in for 34 years \u2013 for good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI closed the door, turned my back, started my car and left,\u201d she says. \u201cI had lived there since February 1977. A lot of things, carrying a lot of memories, remained behind that closed door.\u201d The hardest room to leave was her personal library. \u201cIt is funny that one can miss the books as much as I do, it\u2019s as if they were part of my blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October 2017, I meet Linda, a regal-looking woman with glasses and silver hair. We sit in the lobby of a hotel in downtown Helsinki, a few blocks from the apartment she lives in today. When she first moved, she bought a bed, a TV and a broken sofa from the previous tenant. She didn\u2019t bother to get any chairs \u2013 she didn\u2019t think she\u2019d be there long. It\u2019s been more than six\u00a0years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The problems with her old house started in 2008, when she began to get fevers and developed issues with her voice. A building company found high levels of mould in her basement. She says that, although she tried to get her house cleaned, the mould seeped its way into all her belongings. She began to feel so ill that she had no choice but to abandon her home.<\/p>\n

After leaving, her symptoms persisted and her health continued to deteriorate. She tells me she became highly sensitive to other buildings, minuscule levels of mould, and chemicals or smells. When she went to the doctor, she was told these multiple chemical sensitivities couldn\u2019t be related to her mould exposure \u2013 she had moved, there was no way she could still be sick. She gave up. \u201cI was so tired I really hoped the next fever would kill me. I didn\u2019t try to find any help any more. In a way, life was over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reference:<\/h4>\n