Posted on 02/18/2019 1:41:02 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT
Dead Horse Point State Park is beautiful.
Been there a few times before they banned climbing.
Some scam artists have caught on. They will come into your home, show you a Geiger counter and then sell expensive "repairs."
You probably got a much lower dose than from those old shoe fitting machines. ;)
...One of the highlights was you could give them something metallic
Silver Dime
https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/medalsmementoes/dimes.htm
Thanks for reminding me of the old RADON scam from thirty years ago.We bought an old house back then, and my worthless brother-in-law (If you know him he probably owes you money) came to me with his eyes WILD EYED look and asked..”Are you going to have it checked for radon?”
“Shoot no!” I said.
This was also about the time the scam of finding “stray electrical reactive voltage” from your electric wiring in your home also became popular.
...Do you still have it?
...Is it still emitting above background?
Radioactive silver, with a half-life of 22 seconds
Nope, not much radioactivity left
Great time to be there. Much of the area was largely unexplored into the 1950s. Uranium mining changed all that. Many a trail was opened with not a little dynamite. Slick rock country around Moab, Monticello, Blanding, west over to Hanksville, down into 4 corners and Monument Valley is great exploration. Too many yuppies there now I’m sure. Oh well.
Realtors are in on the scam too, foisted by "Buyer's Realtors" whose job it is to make themselves look good to the Buyer by knocking a few thousand here and a few ten thousand there off of the selling price.
The Buyer's realtor pays for a home inspector to look for any flaws in the property. These guys will either do the radon level test themselves, or else contract it out to a "Radon Mitigation" outfit, most of which are sole proprietorships in my experience.
Here in Colorado, the average home Radon level is 6.8 pCi/L. But the EPA long ago put a finger in the wind and declared that anything over 4.0 is unsafe ("we have no idea what is safe and what isn't, but it never hurts to go overboard in the sacred job of Protecting The American Public from Hazards Known and Unknown, Foreign and Domestic, so we'll just pick this ridiculously low figure to make absolutely 500% certain"). So this means most Colorado homes are over the allegedly "safe" threshold figure.
Then the Buyer's Realtor comes back to the Seller & Seller's Realtor and goes, "Tsk tsk! We never suspected your home is a dangerous health hazard. My client is VERY concerned!" And they ask that you knock a few thousand off the selling price so they can pay for Radon Mitigation.
Unless the Buyer is a frightened snowflake, they have no intention of spending that extra little windfall on a useless, unneeded mitigation project (ie, covering the crawl spaces and/or basement with plastic "vapor shields" and installing ducts and big fans to suck the air out and vent it outside). They're going to keep the money since they know it's a crock too. But they'll pretend it's a real threat because, hey, money is money.
According to the lawyers, if the talcum powder don’t get the “entitled”, going to the Grand Canyon museum will.
What do you mean “30 years ago”? See what I just posted. I faced this scam twice here in Colorado, once in 2016 and again in 2018, selling my Folks’ and sister’s homes, respectively.
Thirty years ago. An old scam modernized for the new people buying today.
Nothing better than setting back and watching today’s young people fall for modern versions of old scams our grandparents warned us of when we were kids.
It was those later years when we really appreciated DHPSP. Because in early-to-mid March, when it can still be quite cold in SE Utah in the evenings & early mornings, when our family of 4 shared a popup-camper trailer with my folks, it was a pleasure to use a State Park campground.
Unlike the NPS and USFS and BLM campgrounds, they had heated restrooms with hot running water that were like oases to us. And each camp spot had a low-wattage lightbulb mounted in a stone structure over the picnic table / grill, that you could turn on when you needed, and didn't detract from others' enjoyment of the campground. Not to mention that the electric outlet came in real handy.
The rim walks there were gorgeous. And I never tired of the thrill of that scary road down to Mineral Bottom a few miles NW of there.
But the realtor-propagated version of the scam isn't something you can just walk away from in every instance. Depends on the ratio of buyers to sellers at any moment.
True, very true.
And that all warmed (indoor, basement and treated) air? Sent right back outside into the cold outdoors! To be repalced by cold air that must be heated and filtered.
Airline pilots, stewardess and attendants, even frequent fliers get more gamma radiation by being above the shielding atmosphere layers for thousands of hours a year than do nuclear workers behind concrete and steel shields.
This “bucket of rocks” is nonsense. Yes, the rocks are radioactive. So is the Grand Canyon.
I had an Uncle that worked at Oak Ridge National Labs from WWII until he retired. Even though we saw them at reunions every year and visited them, I never even went on a tour. We did get a few souvenirs like ashtrays and medallions.
Yeah it was change and probably much of it was silver at the time - 1968-1969 time frame. I found a box of change in the attic when I helped my brother clean out Mom & Dad’s house. It was probably in there! So it irradiated moths for a lot of years - maybe!
Now I have the explanation for WV’s Mothman !
:)
Yep. With uranium, it’s a lot more of an industrial hygiene concern than the radioactivity coming off it. I’d store depleted uranium in my basement for money if the government would let me do it.
Also some betas which travel a little farther than alpha but not much. Exactly, you’re fine as long as you’re not eating it.
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