housepainting and cats' health

I need to paint my living room. I'll keep my cats, Shiloh and Tiger, in
another part of the house until the job's done.

My concern is that the paint job involves patching up holes with
spackle/plaster and sanding them down before painting. As you may know,
this creates a huge amount of fine dust. I have a HEPA filter and a
halfway-decent vacuum to clean up the dust. But I'm worried that some
of the dust will settle into the room's "nooks/crannies" and carpet,
beyond my grasp.

The thought of my cats breathing in even a slight portion of the dust
worries me, so much that I'm tempted to not even paint the room. Do you
think I'm being overly paranoid? How dangerous is dust from spackling
compound and similar products?

wrote in message
oups.com...

The thought of my cats breathing in even a slight portion of the dust
worries me, so much that I'm tempted to not even paint the room. Do you
think I'm being overly paranoid? How dangerous is dust from spackling
compound and similar products?



I think you're being paranoid g.
Remove them from the room while you're working until after a good cleanup.
Then live your life.


--
Toni
http://www.irish-wolfhounds.com

wrote in message
oups.com...
I need to paint my living room. I'll keep my cats, Shiloh and Tiger, in
another part of the house until the job's done.

My concern is that the paint job involves patching up holes with
spackle/plaster and sanding them down before painting. As you may know,
this creates a huge amount of fine dust. I have a HEPA filter and a
halfway-decent vacuum to clean up the dust. But I'm worried that some
of the dust will settle into the room's "nooks/crannies" and carpet,
beyond my grasp.

The thought of my cats breathing in even a slight portion of the dust
worries me, so much that I'm tempted to not even paint the room. Do you
think I'm being overly paranoid? How dangerous is dust from spackling
compound and similar products?


I can't give you a "scientific" answer. However, I recently had a sunroom
added to my house. That involved everything you mentioned and a *lot more.*
I kept the cats isolated in a separate area of the house (just as you
mentioned), and everything was fine. Incidentally, this took about 6 weeks,
and I eventually noticed that they were beginning to act a little nervous.
So, I plugged in a couple of Feliway diffusers and had no further problems.

MaryL

Photos of Duffy and Holly: 'o'
Duffy: http://tinyurl.com/cslwf
Holly: http://tinyurl.com/9t68o
Duffy and Holly together: http://tinyurl.com/8b47e
Recent pics: http://tinyurl.com/clal7