The Sick House Survival Guide: Simple Steps to Healthier Homes

Virginia Gillham is university librarian and archivist at Wilfrid
Laurier University library. She is also a judge of national and
international figure skating competions.

The author moved to a newly renovated house and almost immediately
became devastatingly ill to the point of both physical and mental
incapacity. Despite her suspicions that her environment was the source
of her problem, those around her believed almost universally that her
symptoms were psychosomatic. Doctors initially dismissed her problem as
anxiety and later tentatively diagnosed any one of a number of major but
unrelated, life-threatening conditions. Even Hobbs’s family and close
friends concluded that psychiatric treatment was the answer. It is a
testament to the author’s intelligence, research skills, and dogged
determination that her problem was ultimately shown to be an extreme
sensitivity to the combination of chemicals in the modern living
environment and the impact of electromagnetic fields.

The Sick House Survival Guide contains three parts. Part 1 (which reads
like a riveting novel) relates Hobbs’s story of how she discovered and
overcame her new home’s toxic environment. Part 2 provides a
step-by-step plan to help readers diagnose indoor pollution problems and
quickly find solutions. Part 3 presents case studies and looks at what
other countries are doing to reduce the dangers of chemicals and
electromagnetic fields.

This invaluable guide should be required reading both for people moving
into new homes and for medical professionals who are unwilling or unable
to think outside the box.