BuildingWell Episode 6 Bonus Episode Transcript

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.

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