What You Can Do
Find out who is doing the work. A company certified to handle lead paint will be listed in leadlisting.com. Whether or not the company is certified, discuss preferred practices with the workers. Painters should avoid power sanding or water blasting lead paint, scrape as small an area as possible, remove or cover belongings with plastic, cover the work area with plastic, wet the area before scraping and wet the debris before sweeping. (See hud.gov.)

Find out what the workers will do to clean up the job. They should wet-clean and use a HEPA vacuum. Keep children and pregnant women out of the area until the job is finished and the area is clean. When a large area is being scraped (according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than 2 square feet inside the home and more than 20 square feet on an exterior surface), use professional dust sampling to confirm proper cleaning.