What Happened
EPA’s recent enforcement action against Lowe’s Home Centers for repeated violations of the Lead-Safe Renovation, Repair, and Painting (RRP) rule put the spotlight on the challenges of managing renovation contractors. The agency’s positive assessment in October 2024 of Home Depot’s three-year RRP compliance program required by EPA after a similar enforcement action in 2021 indicates that it can be done with funding, training, oversight, and vigilance.
What about the flipside of the challenge: do-it-yourselfers (DIY) who depend on retailers, YouTube videos, cable home remodeling shows, and others for guidance. If contractors with extensive experience doing the work fail to use lead-safe work practice, the situation can be worse for the family unaware of the risks posed by a renovation gone wrong.
Last month, Unleaded Kids’ Tom Neltner gave our take on the issue in a presentation at the North Carolina Lead & Healthy Homes Stakeholder meeting. We also have heard from those conducting environmental investigations in response to a child’s elevated blood lead level who have seen many cases of DIY projects that harmed kids. You likely have your own stories.
Why It Matters
The DIY market in the United States is worth $290 billion with the average American spending between $5,000 and $15,000 on their DIY projects. Almost half of those DIYers reported watching a YouTube video or checking social media channel before starting a project. Home Depot and Lowe’s are major players with 27% and 18% shares of the DIY market respectively
It is essential that DIYers get the right information in a timely and effective manner.
EPA’s Enforcement Against Cable Shows Violating the RRP
Unleaded Kids has complimented enforcement actions taken by this and prior administrations to help ensure home renovation shows on cable TV stop demonstrating dangerous work practices. This focus started under the first Trump Administration with “Fixer Upper” in 2018 and “Rehab Addict” and “Bargain Mansions” in 2020. Under the Biden Administration, EPA continued the efforts with enforcement involving “Good Bones” and “Maine Cabin Masters” in 2022 and “Fixer to Fabulous” in 2024. In June, EPA fined the “Restoring Galveston” cable show.
With each of these actions, EPA focused on the RRP violations in the remodeling projects that were shown by the show. To be clear, they were not taking enforcement for showing the violations. Rather it was for actually performing the work for compensation in violation of the RRP. The show itself was essentially the documentation of the violation. The nuance is important since EPA was not censoring the show.
As part of the remedy, the shows typically agreed to pull the segments showing the violations, provide links to accurate information, and cover lead-safe work practices in a segment. They also cleaned up the homes impacted by violations.
Indiana’s Retailer Requirements
In 2008, Indiana took on the issue of DIY after a series of studies by Improving Kids’ Environment (IKE) showed how retailers selling paint were giving dangerous advice to customers.1 More on that below.
The law, which is still in effect, requires retailers to:
- Offer for sale a lead test kit that is capable of determining the presence of a lead-based paint hazard.
- Provide customers the EPA pamphlet “Protect Your Family from Lead in Your Home” or a similar source of information approved by the state department.
- Ensure that at least one employee who provides advice to customers concerning paint and paint products attends a training program concerning lead hazards and provides training to other employees who provide advice to customers concerning paint and paint products.
Label Warnings on Paint Cans
In 2003, 45 state attorneys general took on the issue of DIY by signing an agreement with paint manufacturers represented by National Paint and Coating Association (NPCA, now American Coatings Association). The goal was to “promote timely and meaningful notice to consumers of the potential risks of lead exposure that could arise out of surface preparation during remodeling, renovation or repainting where old lead-based paint is present.”
The agreement expired in 2007 but has had an impact today on the label of paint containers. In fine print in the directions, look for the statement that says:
Warning! If you scrape, sand or remove old paint, you may release lead dust. LEAD IS TOXIC. EXPOSURE TO LEAD DUST CAN CAUSE SERIOUS ILLNESS, SUCH AS BRAIN DAMAGE, ESPECIALLY IN CHILDREN. PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD ALSO AVOID EXPOSURE. Wear a NIOSH approved respirator to control lead exposure. Clean up carefully with a HEPA vacuum and a wet mop. Before you start, find out how to protect yourself and your family by contacting the National Lead Information Hotline at 1-800-424-LEAD or log on to www.epa.gov/lead.
IKE’s Secret Shoppers Reports
In 2001, in response to IKE’s advocacy, Indiana adopted rules requiring pesticide retailers to ensure every store posted notices to employees and to customers that only a state-registered pesticide consultant can provide advice on selection and use of any pesticides. The Indiana Office of State Chemist conducted inspections in 2002–04 and issued fines for violations. The fines doubled with each violation. Compliance improved and so did the advice the retailers gave customers.
Based on the success of the pesticide requirements, IKE sent teams to retailers in 2004 and 2005 to assess how “kid friendly” the stores were based on the advice provided about lead safety and pesticides as well as the products sold.
In the 2004 report titled “Inept But At Your Service: Can You Trust Your Hardware Store?,” IKE’s secret shopper visited 39 retail hardware stores asking for help killing cockroaches and fixing flaking, brittle paint on a door to a child’s bedroom in a home built in 1929. The report concluded:
The results are disturbing. They reflect a broad lack of basic knowledge on the part of store clerks and a careless disregard for the health and safety of the store’s customers — whether a contractor or a do-it-yourselfer. 80% of the paint department clerks recommended dry sanding to remove paint on a door to a kids’ room in a house built in the 1920s. Anyone following the advice would likely create lead dust that could poison a child. Even when asked explicitly whether lead-based paint might be a problem, 53% of the clerks continued to give dangerous advice.
In the 2005 report, titled “Your Kid’s Health: Can You Trust the Advice from Retail Stores Selling Paint & Pesticides?” IKE expanded the effort to 85 stores including Walmart. It found that stores with problems in 2004 improved somewhat, though:
IKE encountered many of the same clerks in 2005 that it surveyed in 2004. For many, they continued to deliver bad advice despite the negative publicity their store received. Despite the gains, 31% of the clerks recommended the use of dangerous surface preparation practices even though they were shown the statement on the paint can warning of the danger from those practices.
In 2005 Governor Mitch Daniels gave an Environmental Excellence Award to IKE for its work saying:
Improving Kids’ Environment (IKE) through innovative secret shopper survey, the non-profit organization helped government and citizens understand that a high percentage of retailers weren’t adequately informed to help consumers with home projects involving lead-based paint and pesticides. The secret shopper survey revealed that stores gave customers accurate advice less than 30 percent of the time. The benefits of IKE’s outreach have extended beyond Indiana’s borders. IKE produced a toolkit for communities to duplicate the survey. The study has received attention from management of national retailers and a national paint manufacturer association and helped state government officials improve the rate of compliance with pesticides regulations.
Some of the advice provided by retail store clerks in the 2005 report highlight the challenge.
“Some environmentally friendly folks say that lead ‘might’ cause some problems, but the chances are astronomically low. We are talking like 4 in 10 million. You could eat a bowl of chips and it ‘might’ be a problem.” “But I don’t want to down play it, because it has happened and that’s why they have the warning.” “Call your realtor and strong arm them, telling them you are going to call the attorney general.”
“Not very likely, but if you do have it, you’re going to want to sand it all down.”
“It’s something they found in plaster. After it sits for a while it gets lead in it.”
“That nonsense, I mean look at me — and I do it all the time.”
“Bomb it, bomb the heck out of it.” “You can get a mask or something like that if you want, but they’re scented these days, so it won’t be so bad on you.”
Our Take
We are unaware of secret shopper efforts similar to those conducted by IKE twenty years ago. If you know of any, please contact Unleaded Kids at tneltner@unleadedkids.org. And if you want to adapt it to your community, Unleaded Kids would be more than willing to provide technical support.
- In the spirit of transparency, Unleaded Kids’ Tom Neltner was founder and executive director of Improving Kids’ Environment (IKE) from 1999 to 2005. And Janet McCabe, Deputy Administrator of EPA from 2021 to January 2025 was IKE’s executive director from 2005 to 2008. ↩︎