I think my house is contaminated with Mercury?

Question

I think I have a CFL light bulb. Anyways, a piece of it broke. It looks like this:

http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/YahooAnswer/lightbulb.jpg

(The area inside the red dots broke off.)

I know it broke a LONG time ago. Probably more than 6 months. It was never replaced because I guess nobody in my family cared or knew anything about CFL light bulbs. Just two days ago, I started to realize that my light bulb could have mercury. So my question is, IF my light bulb does have mercury and it was broken for more than 6 months and never got replaced, then could my house be contaminated with mercury during that 6 months period? I'm really worried and I will replace it today. And what is the danger of having mercury poisoning?

Also, that light doesn't work anymore.

Thanks :(

Answer 1

Always be careful with mercury. But did you know that small amounts are in silver fillings? I doubt that you have damaged yourself in any way or after 6 months anything has happened. It has to splash onto skin or into an eye or be vapourised to get into the lungs. You can detoxify heavy metals by taking the supplement Chlorella for 6 months also

Answer 2

Mercury is of little problem ,especially if it is not hot enough to vaporize the Mercury. What was so bad was down by the Amazon they used Mercury to purify Gold. It is mix with gold and then the Mercury is vaporized with a torch. The fumes are bad ...

Answer 3

I wouldn't worry too much about it, CFLs don't have that much mercury in them, the dose you'd get from it isn't likely to be enough to actually do much of anything.

You'd probably get more mercury from eating flake.

Though if a CFL breaks it should still be cleaned up and the room well ventilated although any mercury vapour is probably pretty much gone by now.

Answer 4

This is why I refuse to use those light bulbs they are bad for us. and they cost far to much and are a waste of money. I will stick with regular light bulbs that I can buy cheap.  

Answer 5

CFL light bulbs have 1% of the mercury in them that the old glass thermometers have.

The biggest danger is for 15 minutes after the breakage, to remove a broken CFL bulb use a damp cloth and dispose of both bulb and cloth it the trash.

mercury vapors will dissipates in the first 15 minutes.