It seemed seemed like a cost-saving idea, and maybe even good exercise. I'd clean out the room myself, old rugs included. Why hire someone to do something that I am perfectly capable of doing myself. Even if my DIY projects are not spectacular, clean out should not be an overly complicated process. And eventually I would get the hang of home repair, something that has not been high on my radar over the years as an attractive skill, but nonetheless crucial in an inflationary economy where services are very expensive. However, there's nothing quite so sniffle-producing as the dust accumulation beneath a very old rug placed over an old carpet placed over an equally old carpet pad in a room scarcely used for decades. And its not just dust, or dust mites, its whatever random debris has filtered down through the site of thick Persian carpet, of varying degrees of grossness and particularized filth.

It's doubtful that the rug or carpet underneath has been cleaned in 50 years, though the top rug, a Persian rug, has been occasionally vacuumed. The pad underneath, a third layer, is of course, is uncleanable, and desintegrated into a powdery layer. And worse,  all three sit atop an asbestos floor, green and black tiles from the nineteen fifties. Asbestos, once commonly used, is carcinogenic when fibers enter the air, though a single exposure is not likely to be danger. Yet, at a psychological level, the addition of this chemical toxion makes whatever biological toxins, some of them alive as with dust mites, all the more unpalateable.  The carpet pad is circa 1949 and made of jute, indecipherable fibers, and maybe even more asbestos. It is not brown, but it was probably once orange.  When touched or cut with a knife, it seems to smoke dust. 

The final addition of this very dirty concoction is that the asbestos floor  was the floor of my fathers medical waiting room, and  likely contaminated with ancient bodily fluids and flakings of the Greatest Generation and who-knows-what-else. This dust and nasty gunk from this carpet could probably be sold to the military as some new form of biological or chemical weapon, dropped by planes to confer allergic reactions to our enemies below.

The rug atop was heavy--and cumbersome to move. The carpet and carpet pad had actually to be cut out. So, using a wickedly sharp carpet knife to cut through this hazardous carpet, I made careful strokes, to segment one area for removal. A moment of carelessness or a sudden drop in blood pressure causing diminished concentration could lead to a deep, amputating cut. Meanwhile, the air filter is going crazy with its multicolored alarm. Merely stepping on the top, dirty rug triggers some alarm in the air

Despite the hazards, progress is made day by day. Furniture is shifted, carpets are peeled back, and dust and asbestos-laden padding layers are removed and bagged. Underneath lies those green and black tiles, akin to uncovering an architectural relic.  This task is thankless, and if it were not for a misplaced sense of duty, I'd delegate it to someone else, and maybe will at some sensible point in the future.