00:00:00
Music plays.
00:00:04 Alina Michelewicz, Michelle Moran
Bonus Banter by BuildingWell!
Laughter
00:00:10 Alina Michelewicz
I’m picturing your dog like having this, like secret nemesis at night that you don’t know about. Like if it were like a movie and the dog was talking, you know what I mean.
00:00:20 Michelle Moran
Welcome to the latest and greatest episode of Bonus Banter by BuildingWell, this is following episode 6 with Kristin Glossner.
00:00:29 Michelle Moran
Alina and I thought it would be nice to take a few minutes after each podcast episode and just reflect and talk about what we learned and what surprised us and what was interesting. We hope you enjoy this additional bonus episode!
00:00:42 Alina Michelewicz
We gotta a banter fast because of lunch.
00:00:44 Michelle Moran
I am quite hungry.
00:00:48 Michelle Moran
So I’m terrified.
00:00:50 Alina Michelewicz
I feel afraid. I was just telling our colleague Barbara, that I am thoroughly afraid of my house. Not that that’s what I want, listeners.
00:00:57 Michelle Moran
Yeah.
00:00:57 Alina Michelewicz
To come across.
00:00:59 Alina Michelewicz
We’ll have to do a follow on episode about actions you can take.
00:01:02 Michelle Moran
Reasons to be less afraid.
00:01:04 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah. How to be less afraid in your own house.
00:01:07 Michelle Moran
It’s just, I mean, I think I mentioned it in the podcast, but the sheer volume of things that go into building and decorating and furnishing a home that have something that’s bad for you, right? Like a VOC or some sort of chemical or I don’t know, something that’s bad for you. It’s a full-time job to have to research.
00:01:27 Michelle Moran
Stuff which to be fair, is Kristin’s full time job.
00:01:30 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah.
00:01:32 Alina Michelewicz
It just makes me wish that I could trust that what I’m buying for my house is safe.
00:01:36 Michelle Moran
Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:38 Alina Michelewicz
And I don’t know how that would ever become the case, but.
00:01:41 Michelle Moran
Right. I mean we talked about like spray foam and things like that where they may have to list the ingredients, but what about a carpet? What about a couch or a pillow like they don’t have to do that?
00:01:52 Alina Michelewicz
And you still… the average person doesn’t know what those ingredients even mean.
00:01:55 Michelle Moran
Right.
00:01:56 Alina Michelewicz
And who has time to research?
00:01:56 Michelle Moran
Right, and they couldn’t change it to look nicer too. Like they can change the the name so it sounds less scary.
00:02:04 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, it feels a little daunting.
00:02:05 Michelle Moran
It feels a lot daunting. Huh.
00:02:10 Alina Michelewicz
We’re a little speechless, I think.
00:02:13 Michelle Moran
I think so. Unlike the other conversations we’ve had, I feel like there’s not.
00:02:17 Michelle Moran
One thing that you can do to help yourself with this, right? It’s more like if you’re planning on making a purchase or doing a renovation, or even just like new paint or something. Just research it.
00:02:29 Alina Michelewicz
Mhm.
00:02:30 Michelle Moran
And unfortunately, that’s a lot of work, but that seems like the one call for action that we can all do.
00:02:35 Michelle Moran
For everything.
00:02:37 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah. Or, if you’re a multifamily property owner or property manager, it’s making.
00:02:43 Alina Michelewicz
Choices that are good for your residents, or if it’s new construction, getting the WELL certification or one of the green building certifications that includes some of these items as part of the criteria.
00:02:56 Michelle Moran
Right. Yeah, exactly. Or if you’re going for a non-specifically health related certification like LEED, maybe look at the points you can get for the healths
00:03:04 Michelle Moran
Portion of it, maybe that’s the the path. You can go down with that building to get those LEED points.
00:03:10 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah.
00:03:10 Michelle Moran
If people that live in the building are sick, then there’s no building. We need the people, they’re the the number one concern.
00:03:15 Alina Michelewicz
Mm-hmm. One other thing we didn’t really get into is the equity impacts of.
00:03:21 Alina Michelewicz
Substandard housing is often lived in by people who also have a harder time affording good health insurance, and there’s like a bigger implication there, too, of health impacts for people who are also vulnerable to medical cost issues. So it’s this is another piece there that we could explore at some point.
00:03:42 Michelle Moran
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we’ve talked.
00:03:44 Michelle Moran
On at least the last two episodes, with Marty and Pat about Decarb and with Charlie and Neil about hot water that.
00:03:50 Michelle Moran
Public housing in general are usually older buildings that haven’t had a lot of money poured into them over the years. They’re in maybe in disrepair, or maybe they’re just old and aging like you said, that’s the most vulnerable populations.
00:04:02 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, especially elderly, infants. You know, new moms like we talked about a lot of that. That’s pretty vulnerable populations as well.
00:04:12 Michelle Moran
Absolutely, just to paraphrase something that Ed said on our.
00:04:16 Michelle Moran
First episode it’s like.
00:04:18 Michelle Moran
Using that Old Colony case study as an example, if we can make these improvements, there’s a huge difference. We talked about the 47% less instances of sick building syndrome symptoms less instances of asthma related symptoms, stuff like that. And if that’s, you know, if your child’s asthma symptoms are being reduced, that’s helping families. You know, it helps parents and it helps the kids. It helps.
00:04:40 Michelle Moran
The teachers, everybody.
00:04:41 Alina Michelewicz
Mhm, yeah, for sure. It’s a big impact.
00:04:45 Michelle Moran
Well, that was light and breezy conversation.
00:04:48 Alina Michelewicz
Nice and light.
00:04:49 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, well, maybe the next one. We can- actually never mind the next one.
00:04:54 Alina Michelewicz
We’re going to.
00:04:54
Talk about climate change.
00:04:57 Michelle Moran
We’re not in this to be sugar coating, folks.
00:05:03 Alina Michelewicz
Nope.
00:05:04 Michelle Moran
All right, well, it was really interesting. And even though I am now scared, I learned so much from Kristin.
00:05:10 Alina Michelewicz
I did too. Alright. See you on the next.
00:05:12 Michelle Moran
Alright, see ya.