I HAVE "Asbestosis of the lungs", and it can take as long as 30 years to present symptoms. The stuff is nothing to fool around with.........it will eventually kill me. Be smart, have somebody QUALIFIED clean it up, or get the hell away from it!!!!
Many WWII construction workers died from asbestos-related illnesses between 1970 and 1985--25 to 40 years after exposure. There were three in the small neighborhood where I grew up, including my beloved stepfather. The link between exposure to asbestos and illness, if not death, is well proven. From what I've read here, it may cost more to fight this than to tear it down and start over. Is there a way to cut it apart and store at least parts of it? I had to take down my fully scenicked empire and transport it from New Mexico to Ohio. It was mostly modular in the sense that I built it in sections, but made no provisions to take apart the modules, and "cheated" the modularity by attaching some track sections directly to the wall instead of to the module below, because that was faster and cheaper. I still managed to cut apart (with a razor saw, not a sawz-all!) about 85 percent of it. I'm pretty sure the contractors are bidding on an "empty space" renovation. As I used to do some renovation work, the difference in cost between "empty space" and "working around a major impediment" can be as much as 3X, or even more. Tile removal machines are big and heavy and hard to maneuver--basically they are a long, heavy reciprocating blade that can do a 12 x 12 room in a few minutes or less, where hand-chipping them out can take hours. Same thing with smoothing the floor. And lifting legs for the tilesetter is a non-starter--putting the leg back down on a freshly set tile will just compress the mortar and leave a lower or even tilted tile(s), plus squeezed up mortar. I'm not saying it can't be done--just that doing it will cost a lot of money and time. An empty space renovation might take three days; a working around renovation might take three weeks, in my experience. The landlord is probably willing to pay to empty the space, pay for alternate accommodations for a week more or less, then move things back in. I doubt he'd be willing to pay for partially emptying the space, paying for a few weeks for accommodations, then moving things back in. And I think the ruling administrative departments and the courts would most likely agree with him. So, if it were my problem, I'd plan on cutting the layout apart into manageable sections, and getting the landlord to pay for moving those sections out, storing them along with the rest of your possessions, and then moving it back in. That won't add much to his costs. The two-man crew that emptied my house took 30 minutes or less to remove my 350 sq. ft. of layout surfaces (it is a big layout), once I had cut it apart and split some sections off the wall. Just some thoughts, for what they are worth.
