“All of us must be alert to that greatest of all limitations to wisdom: the assumption.”

– Bruce Pascoe in Dark Emu

When I first modified a home for poison mitigation, my electrician used the accessible and affordable trifold meter available on Amazon to assess non-ionizing radiation levels in the home. At first, he couldn’t get a stable reading. Then, he tried holding a grabber like those used by grocers reaching for items on high shelves. That worked. He deduced that he was carrying a charge. We guessed that his work was altering his physiology, and wondered at the consequences.

In talking with a neighbor who is a contractor and who used to do electrical work, it came out that he had been “electrocuted.” That is, while working on a kitchen, he had an accident with exposure to an intense surge of electricity. For a long time afterward, years perhaps, he couldn’t work on electrical panels without their going haywire. He was, he said, the last person in town to get a cellphone.

Last week, I met a young man who was in full flight from working as an electrician and then as an installer of wi-fi systems. While doing electrical work, he sustained a massive shock, enough so that he had to be caught by a fellow worker who was standing behind him. While installing wi-fi systems, he realized that he had lost his tolerance for radiation. His rental unit was toxic to him; he ended up sleeping outside on the ground for safety. When his girlfriend posted the story, a seller of G5 towers flamed her.

Electricians tell me that they never know what they’re going to find when they go into a home to work on the electrical system. Consultant Oram Miller says that two-thirds of radiation sickness results from electrical errors. Because electricians are taught to minimize the use of wire, the network inside the walls—as well as outside—may create chaotic fields that harm them as well as their unwitting clients. If you have had such problems, see if your union can help you.