Among those products are automobile brake pads and linings, cement water distribution pipes, roofing shingles, floor and pipe wrapping and other construction products.

Things like thermostat controls, pipe wrapping, and window glazing would not be difficult for such crews, but if they advise the homeowner to have it done the recommendation might sit on a shelf collecting dust.

Asbestos is no longer used, but was once so widely used as an insulator and fireproofing agent, as an ingredient of floor tiles, ceiling tiles, plaster and pipe wrapping, that it is certain to be around for decades.

Meanwhile, children are romping in basement playrooms on cracked vinyl asbestos floors beneath delaminating spray-on asbestos ceilings; mothers are spending hours in laundry rooms under flaking asbestos pipe wrapping, and families buy groceries stored in contaminated stockrooms.