OT: Cobwebs

[psophia17]

I have always lived in homes with flat ceilings, and now I have those bumpy ones (popcorn ceilings? I can't remember what they're called). And AIL (gotta love her) has pointed out that they have cobwebs all over them. So today I got out the broom and attempted to sweep the ceilings...but all I did was spread cobwebs around and make it look horrible.

How do I get the cobwebs off of my ceiling? Except for AIL's comments, and the fact we are hosting Christmas morning and DS's b-day party here, I would let gravity take care of them....or I would've, before I touched them with the broom and made them worse.

Help!

[juliasmom05]

We don't have those type of ceilings, but we use the vacuum cleaner to get rid off our cobwebs. Would that work or would that suck up the popcorn off the ceiling as well?

Marci

Mom to Julia 4/05

[jodi_b]

My next house will NOT have popcorn ceilings! They're such a hassle to clean. I haven't found anything that works all that well, so I'll be glad to read the other suggestions.

What works best for me so far is to use the narrow vacuum attachment designed to clean around baseboards. That has enough suction to pull off the cobwebs without having to touch the ceiling. (Personally, I like to hum the Ghostbusters theme song when I do this, but that's entirely optional.) If you do touch the ceiling, little bits of the popcorn stuff will fall off, but not enough to be a big deal. For vaulted areas I can't reach with the vacuum attachment, I try to catch the cobwebs with one of those extendable duster things. I don't think it works any better than a broom would.

Good luck!
Jodi

[jesseandgrace]

The main thing to be concerned about is that many popcorn ceilings contain asbestos (according to our contractor, and also my FIL also a contractor). You don't want to have chunks falling off because if yours does contain asbestos it could be really dangerous. We had ours removed, scraped down when we were out of town, and then resealed and painted, or something like that, either way they look like a normal ceiling now.

[HannaAddict]

I was just about to post the same thing. Some newer popcorn ceilings are okay, but older houses often have asbestos in their popcorn ceilings and anything that disturbs it is really dangerous. Really. I wouldn't have believed how dangerous it could be until my husband represented an installer (as a defense lawyer) and now has also represented clients who've died because of household exposure to asbestos. One woman helped her dad install a popcorn ceiling when she was a child, another helped her father drywall while a kid (it was in the joint compound that she helped sand). Neither of these women worked around asbestos in any industrial setting or for any long period of time. The cancer you get, mesothylioma, is very rare but if you get it, it is over. It is a horrible way to go too. It can also cause lung cancer, especially in smokers. My husband, who used to sleep well at night while defending drug and pesticide manufacturers :), said that he would never touch a popcorn ceiling once he'd worked on an asbestos case. I hope yours is newer and doesn't containt asbestos, you might see about having it tested before you try and really clean it. It is fine if it is stable and not flaking, falling off or something, but even a little bit in the air is bad news.

Kimberly

[brittone2]

I believe I once read it is only like $15 or so to get a sample tested to see if it is asbestos, so if there's any chance, it would be well worth it to get it tested before disturbing it at all.

We have popcorn/textured ceilings (quite common here in NC I found compared to where we used to live in PA) but our house was built in the late 90s so I wouldn't be all that concerned.

KImberly has some good advice there ;) It is nasty stuff it is asbestos.

[juliasmom05]

Totally forgot about asbestos :( . It's everywhere in homes built before 1977. We just found out almost all the floors in the home we are moving into, have either vinyl asbestos tiles (VAT) or congoleum glued down with asbestos in the glue. What a PITA. It's good advice to get it looked at.

Marci

Mom to Julia 4/05