New house regret

[Ak627]

We just moved from a new build we had outgrown, to a 60s property and I hate it.

The house itself is nice with so much potential. Our survey highlighted due to the age of the property we are likely to have asbestos, however as the house has been modernised I assumed it would be in places we wouldn’t disturb.

All walls and ceilings had been replastered or skimmed, however I noticed artex on the walls of 2 cupboards in the house after we moved in and ended up having an asbestos survey.

The results confirmed asbestos is present in the artex, we now need to decide whether to paint, skim over or remove. However, now I know this I hate hate hate the house and regret ever purchasing. I am so worried this artex is in all the walls and ceilings and previous owners have just skimmed over it - there is no way of knowing if this is the case or not without more invasive testing where they drill into all walls. This would be expensive and potentially release dangerous asbestos fibres.

I now don’t want to put any pictures up, I can’t be bothered to unpack (we are living out of boxes) and just generally feel like this was a huge mistake and want to leave, which isn’t an option. I’m crying constantly and just feel miserable. This was supposed to be a forever home and now I don’t want to be here.

If we do have more invasive testing And it came back that there was asbestos artex in all the walls it will cost thousands and thousands to remove.

I’m at a loss with what to do as I don’t want to disturb the walls, we had so many plans and now I don’t want to do any of them. Lots of our families live in 60s/70s housing and are not bothered about this. And I find there are so many Instagram accounts of home reno’s for houses from this time period which show people ripping out walls and ceilings. No one seems to be worried.

I feel really foolish and naive and very remorseful! Has anyone experienced anything similar? How did you get past it?

I think you are massively overacting.
It's very common to skim over artex now because of the expense of having it removed and it is always done in a safe way with layers of bonding to make sure it's safe to live with. Sticking a nail in to hang a picture is not going to release clouds of toxic cyanide.
Get specialist in to take a piece of plaster off the ceiling to ensure the correct bonding materials have been used. That won't cost much.
The walls won't have asbestos in but you can get them checked also. You are not going to put pictures on the ceiling.
Don't have hysterics, get it checked first so you know what you are dealing with.
I lived in a house riddled with untreated asbestos from the 60's onwards, even the kitchen had asbestos tiles in it, flaking asbestos tiles, most people did. I've lives in old houses ever since all of which had asbestos in there somewhere.
If it turns out it has been skimmed with the correct bonding you are more likely to die of traffic pollution or woodburner smoke.

Thanks I will look into the bonding testing. In the cupboards it is the walls that are artexed, as well as the ceiling, which is why I’m worried about the other walls.

We only have one artex type ceiling left In the house and thankfully that came back as no asbestos present...although again I don’t know if it lurks underneath all the other ceilings and what happens when we want to change a light fitting.

Marie Curie kept radioactive materials by her bed and lived till her 60s. You'll be fine, get an electrician to fit new lights.

We moved from a larger 4000 sq ft house to a new build. I love the new build and the ease of keeping it maintained but sometimes do miss the room sizes of our old house.

You can always stick pictures up rather than nail them up using the different Command Strips system... but honestly this really sounds like you are just very unsettled and are focusing on the asbestos. It always takes time to make a new house a home. Lots of people feel like this on moving (I know I do!).

If I’ve read correctly and all your artex walls have already been skimmed and you just have artex inside two cupboards, I do think you are massively overreacting and worrying far too much.

Asbestos is only dangerous if you disturb it and inhale the particles. For drilling pictures in the wall, changing light fittings etc just wear a mask and hoover up the dust.

Obviously try not to inhale it, but people who have become ill from asbestos were inhaling it every day for years and years. It’s extremely unlikely that you will come to any harm, please try not to worry.

You shouldn’t Hoover up dust which potentially contains asbestos. This actually spreads it around the house via the hoover filter. Sweep it up, and then wipe up residue with disposable wet cloth, and wear a ffp3 dust mask (you can get in B&Q etc).
We live in a 1950s house with asbestos all over the place. We’ve taken down a couple of ceilings but sealed the rooms off and wore PPE and used polythene dust sheets to contain everything. It’s not a big deal as long as you follow guidance about how to do it safely.

A very large percentage of the population live in houses with asbestos present, it's fine unless you disturb it. It can be in walls as well as the ceilings, but if you are wanting to be ultra careful it is possible to get just the area's you wish to work on scrapped.

Firstly read up about the different types of asbestos and different levels of danger. It will be a first step to easing concerns.

Also it’s fine in tact so leave it alone and forget about it.

Get it tested m! We had 4 walks and 4 ceilings covered in asbestos artex
The guys came in and we had to move out for 2 days They removed everything and when we came back it was completely dust free! No ceilings left but not one speck of dust
Cost 2k

Obviously we had to pay to for a plasterer

Asbestos in artex is white asbestos which is a lot less harmful that blue asbestos and wasn't even banned until 1999. Loads of people will have it in their houses and skimming over it is absolutely fine. I wouldn't worry at at about putting a picture up just don't go sanding it.

You probably feel a bit displaced. You’ve moved from a home to a house. The asbestos issue has probably worsened this feeling.

Serious over reaction. In the 80s my DH and bought a doer-upper and artexed everything. Walls, ceilings because that was what you did. We bought enormous sacks of powdered artex and mixed it ourselves. I'm not worrying about it! Oh and all school kids used asbestos sheets in the science lab that were always breaking. I know it wasn't known about then but if it were THAT dangerous every child of the 50/60/70 generation would have it. Get a grip!

We have recently bought a house from the 80s with artex ceilings throughout that we know may contain asbestos. We are due to complete soon and plan to get it tested and then if possible skim the ceilings. Whilst the asbestos situation is obviously not ideal, as others say it was relatively common for that period of house. From what we've read it can be relatively easy to rectify and isn't deemed actively dangerous or anything (as long as you don't go knocking walls or ceilings down yourself or anything extreme like that!!)