The great asbestos hoax drummed up by reporters and followed by lawyers looking for a quick dollar. ===== http://spiderjohnson.com/asbestos.html#anchor2054742 White asbestos (chrysotile) is very different. Its fibers are long and curly. They don't penetrate the lungs deeply, and they are expelled or dissolved. Epidemiological evidence shows that moderate exposure to white asbestos does not cause lung cancer or asbestosis. The July 1986 American Review of Respiratory Diseases reported a study of women living in Thetford Mines, an asbestos mining town in Quebec that is surrounded by mountains of tailings from the mines. These women, who don't work in the mines, are exposed to 250 to 500 times more ambient asbestos dust than the residents of the typical American city, but they show no higher incidence of respiratory disease. Miners exposed to light to moderate concentrations of fibers (average of 21 fibers per cc of air) showed no statistically significant incidence of disease. Those who were heavily exposed (95 to 194 fibers per cc) showed elevated levels of lung ailments, including cancer. Ninety- five percent of the asbestos used here and all the asbestos used in consumer products is the white variety, which has not been shown to pose any risk to consumers.

You can LEAVE the asbestos tile SO LONG AS (ahem...this is the CAVEAT so listen up) they are INTACT and WELL ADHERED to the concrete. Oh dear. Looks like they will have to come up. A wonky slab/plywood substrate = wonky. Floating a new substrate over top isn't going to fix 'wonky'. It might HIDE the wonky...but it won't fix it. So...what to do. What to do. You can have the ENTIRE thing removed (the expensive part is the SET-UP of the tenting....after that it is pretty routine stuff) by the abatement company and keep going with your renovation. OR you can ignore the WHOLE THING, put down a vapour barrier over the concrete part (6mil polysheeting) pop in 6mm cork underlayment over the WHOLE AREA (loose lay = super easy) and put down a laminate floor. If you go for the SECOND option here is what you KNOWINGLY do to yourself: you void the warranty on your laminate. That's it. That's all. Nothing exciting. Just a 'voided warranty'. This shouldn't be too difficult to bear. So long as you use the proper expansion gaps at the walls and use TRANSITION STRIPS through doorways, you should have a floor that gives you 15 years of service. Not bad for a floor with a voided warranty. If you want to do the abatement then DO IT ALL! No half measures. Again, the EXPENSIVE PART is the SET UP. Once the area is set up, the cost per square foot GOES DOWN as you add more areas. It's an 'all or nothing' situation. Either you do it and get rid of all the asbestos tiles or you don't do any of it. It doesn't make sense to do a half-@ss job to save $200. Traditionally I do NOT recommend voiding warranties...but there is a cost-to-risk benefit at play here. A laminate floor that bounces a little isn't the end of the world. In fact it happens everyday. So you might as well do it ON PURPOSE to save thousands of dollars of abatement costs. Did you test the adhesive for the asbestos tiles?

Asbestos is not a problem if it is not breathed in, so you are OK so far. If the tiles are in good shape (solid, stuck to the floor), you can actually cover them up and put a new floor over it (if you know what you are doing). However, this is the landlord's responsibility. You don't need to be tearing up his floors (what if something goes wrong?) under any circumstances other than he is paying you to do it. And since you are pregnant, I would say not even then. Just not worth the risk. Your new baby is not going to know that their room wasn't decorated perfectly before you went to the delivery room!

Level of danger to your family? Somewhere around zero. I'm not kidding. Do you remember the bell curve? The left side of the bell = negative infinity (or as close to zero as possible without reaching 0%). The right side of the bell = positive infinity (or as close to 100% as you can without reaching 100%). A single incident with a minute amount of asbestos dust thrown into the air = extremely small amount of risk of future illness. Infinitesimal. Your chances of anyone in your home having health issues DIRECTLY related to asbestos exposure is somewhere around 0.00000000001%. If you are SUPER concerned you are welcome to put in an 'air scrubber' with hepa filter. Then allow the filter to run non-stop until you are sure the air in the room has been filter 3-5 times (close the door and forbid anyone to enter for a few days). That's about all that can be done. It really is a 'wait and see' approach. But with 0.00000000001% chance of illness, I would be more concerned about getting hit by a meteor...or shark attack. Those are the odds you are facing.