Asbestos anxiety

[NK346f2849X127d8bca260]

Sorry to put this here, but I have got myself in a terrible anxious state, husband has been renovating our dusty utility room and a few vinyl tiles were broken and he removed them. I have since found out that they can contain asbestos, although as they are 300mm size and house was built in 1983 they are less likely to have it in it but still possible. My husband knew I was anxious and wet mopped everything down after he swept up, he said when he removed the broken ones they weren’t dusty, he left the intact ones down and the dust was just concrete/diy related.
To say I am freaked out is an understatement, I also washed the clothes he was wearing separately, two washes and extra rinse as he didn’t want them thrown out, I am now anxious about contamination of washing machine and tumble dryer as the kids clothes have gone in there.
I have always feared asbestos for some reason and had a really worrying time last year as my teenage son has been ill, he was also diagnosed with aspergillus mold allergy so really worried about him in the house with it.

It's horrible when you get so worried about things like this, I do it all the time. My sister had a similar worry in her house recently getting old artex off the wall and started worrying about asbestos. I think she phoned the local council and managed to speak to someone who deals with identifying asbestos which reassured her. It might be worth doing this for your piece of mind.

Thank you for answering, sorry to hear your sister had similar worries.
I want to try and get a doctors appointment but nothing available and I don’t want to take an urgent one... I think five years of stress has caught up with me and this worry is tipping me over.

Could you get the area tested for the presence of the dangerous form of asbestos?

A property that wasn't built until the 1980s (so a decade after the ban) is vanishingly unlikely to contain any asbestos at all. And testing can tell you for sure.

The scale of anxiety this has provoked in you is, from the way I read it, wholly disproportionate to the likely risk. So seeing your GP might be worthwhile.

I have to chuckle..... I'm sorry. I actually went through this last year. We broke up an entire kitchen of vinyl tiles which we found out were asbestos half way through. I worked myself into a massive panic .... I've literally refused to go into the house for days. I spoke to asbestos advisors and everything. It turns out that brown asbestos is the worst..... These tiles only contain a small amount of much lighter asbestos. Honestly don't get freaked out. Just mop down. Thoroughly clean the area and ventilate the house. If you have already used the Hoover on it I would throw away the filter or get a new Hoover. Apart from anything, your tiles probably are to new to be the asbestos kind! You honestly will be fine.

Thank you, haven’t used the hoover on it
It was mopped and the head thrown away.
I am terrified to hoover else where now in case fibres are over the house....I can’t understand why I am in such a state.

I've been through similar too. DH put his foot through our bedroom ceiling and I panicked (several months later when it occurred to me!) that the ceiling may be artex with asbestos in it (another early 80s property here). I refused to sleep there and moved out with the baby for a night while DH taped and sealed it up. Bless my in-laws for not even flinching at my absolute despair when I arrived on their doorstep.

DH found some textured paint to cover up the join which, once on, looked exactly like the rest of the ceiling so we're pretty sure it wasn't artex in the first place . Like others have said, the risk is minuscule, but I do understand the sense of panic.

People that die of asbestos related cancer are never just keen DIYers!! That's what I was told.