Marcia Clausen

As of April 22, 2010, new EPA safety regulations, the Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) regulations take effect, which will require owners of market-rate properties built before 1978 to comply with new rules when doing any renovation or repair work.

Under the regulations, if renovation or repair work is undertaken that disturbs more than 6 square feet of interior surface, or 20 square feet of exterior surface, the work must be done by a trained EPA certified contractor. In addition, residents must be notified and given a copy of the EPA pamphlet, Renovate Right, which is a different pamphlet than the EPA Protect Your Family pamphlet. There are also record keeping requirements for the owner and the contractor who provides the work.

The RRP rules also expand the Lead Safe Housing (LSH) rules for compliance obligations on pre-1978 properties that receive Federal assistance, including Section 8. Under the new RRP rules, these properties must comply with more stringent regulations.

My husband, a general contractor in Columbus, Ohio, was among the first (and few) in this area to become a Certified Renovator. When he came back from the training, I was amazed at what these new regulations entail.

The details are too much to include in this blog post. Here is a link: http://www.epa.gov/lead/pubs/renovation.htm

The NAR has information specific to REALTORS. They have a short video presentation which you can link to: http://www.realtor.org/government_affairs/lead_paint_main

This is going to have a HUGE impact on everyone who owns a property built before 1978, those who work on those homes, and those who sell those homes.

The next few months are going to be interesting as we see how these new regulations affect all of us. It's going to take some lawsuits to iron out the particulars, I'm afraid. Right now Sierra Club is pushing for eliminating the exemption for homeowners who have no children or pregnant women living in the home.

The good news is that fewer children will be poisoned by lead paint once these regulations become common practice. The bad news is it's going to cost more money and take longer to complete a renovation project...that's providing, of course, you can even find contractors who are certified.

As I was contemplating the universe today, I started thinking about how much negativity there is in the world, especially in the news. It seems like the media feels compelled to cover the bad news and predict negative outcomes to the current economic situation. The History Channel even had "Armageddon Week" to make certain that we all knew all the catastrophic events which"will" happen when the earth lines up with the center of the galaxy in 2012 and to reinforce it, tell us all that the Mayan calendar and Nostradamus"predict" the end of the world in December 2012, when this astrological event takes place.

And then I had to ask, "Are all these predictions of a dark future going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Then that made me wonder if my own fears and frustrations over the current real estate market could be creating my own self-fulfilling prophecy. The answer I came up with was, "possibly yes." How can any of us not be affected?

It was then I thought of the movie, Castaway, with Tom Hanks. There was a scene towards the end of the film when Chuck Noland is speaking to his friend. In this scene, is one of my favorite movie quotes of all time:

" I had power over *nothing*. And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I'm back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass... And I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad that I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"

None of us are stranded on an island, with no real hope of rescue, even though at times it may feel that way. And in a crazy economy, it can feel like we have "power over nothing," but in fact, we do. We have power over the way we choose to face the challenges. Even after losing the woman he loved, Chuck Noland still chose to have faith in the future.

Another one of my favorite quotes is from Elton Trueblood. In "The Life We Prize," he says:

No man knows what the future holds in any particular set of events, but every thoughtful person recognizes the probability that we shall live the remainder of our lives in turmoil...Instead of pining for easier days, the way of wisdom lies in learning to live realistically in times of strain.

"All experience the storm, but not all experience it in the same way. Though the storm may be beyond our powers, the response is not."

So, this year, with all the catastrophic predictions in the news and all the "talking heads" opining that the economy and the real estate market are doomed to be just as anemic as they've been(at least for a while), I'm going to work at keeping them from being self-fulfilling prophesies. I'm going to remember that "turmoil" is a "probability" for my entire life. Then I'm going to seek the opinions of those who believe in a bright future and a way to weather "the storm." I'm going to say to myself, "...tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"