All language subtitles for Hazardous.History.with.Henry.Winkler.S02E05.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[cheerful bright music]

- Do you remember back when
lawn care was warfare?

[lawnmower rumbling]

- 8 to 10 seconds for those
whirring blades to stop

is a huge opportunity
for disaster to strike.

- Do you know that there was
a time when household DIY

could make you D-I-E?

- By the time you figure
out there's a problem,

the fire is already
raging within your walls.

- Or when your house
fan said, "I dare you."

- They move a lot more air,

but they also take
a lot more fingers.

People just accept
this devil's bargain.

- These are the
things we used to do,

for fun, for money,

or maybe out of boredom,

that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous? Certainly.

Deadly? Occasionally.

But boy, wasn't it exciting?

[dramatic music]

[pensive music]

A big part of the American
dream is owning your own home.

And for millions of
families after World War II,

that meant a place
in the suburbs

filled with the latest
in home furnishings.

By the 1960s, nothing
said modern comfort

quite like a brand new
invention that was a little wild

and a lot of wet.

- When you look at the
United States in the 1960s

versus the 1950s, there are
some real changes in pop culture

that are obvious.

One place this shows up

is in how people
decorate their homes.

- '50s furniture has
structured edges, clean lines.

It's sophisticated,
but very conservative.

- So by the '60s,
informality is the thing.

Chairs get replaced by cushions

and then by the
end of the decade,

everything is replaced
with like a beanbag

that has no structure.

- [Natalia] In around 1967,

a student designer named
Charlie Hall has an idea.

What if he can make something

with even less structure
than a floor cushion?

- Charlie figures
water would work best

for a big, flat surface.

Then it comes to him, how
about a big, flat mattress?

- [Jason] It's an eight
by eight vinyl mattress

and he dubs it the waterbed.

- [Hakeem] By 1971, Hall has
a patent and his waterbeds

are in department stores
around the country.

- [Negin] There is like
a nationwide craze.

They have a really fun
marketing campaign.

They have a poster that says ,

"Two things are better in a
waterbed- one of them is sleep."

- [Henry] America's love
affair with the waterbed

continues well into the '80s.

Eventually, one in every
five beds sold is a waterbed.

- [Natalia] The
market is crowded.

All these sellers are
desperate to stand out,

so they release these
over-the-top ad campaigns

where they're crowing about
their low, low, low prices.

- Come and get your free
money at Country Boy Waterbed!

- [Henry] At its height,
there are over 1,200 companies

pumping up a $2
billion industry,

but competition drowns the
market with cheap knockoffs.

- A bed filled with water
is one place you definitely

don't wanna cut corners.

- [Jason] You could puncture
it with a piece of jewelry.

Your dog or cat could
jump on the bed

and if one of those claws
goes through that thing,

all of a sudden, now
you've got a flood.

It's all the dangers of water
delivered in your mattress.

- A waterbed weighs
nearly one ton.

That's like having a
small car in your bedroom.

- [Henry] Rumors spread
about heavy waterbeds

crashing through ceilings.

Now some of that might
be urban legend,

but waterbeds do
hide real dangers.

- There is a freak accident
in 1976 in Ventura, California

where a woman is
sleeping on her waterbed.

So this rogue wave gets created
inside her waterbed which,

as you can imagine, sort
of pops her out of the bed

and then the mattress
sort of follows her

and it plops right
out on top of her.

- By 1983, damage from
waterbeds becomes such a problem

that 60% of California
landlords ban them.

- [Henry] And surprisingly,
the biggest risk from waterbeds

has nothing to do with water.

- So you had to
heat the waterbed

if you didn't want the
bed to be very, very cold.

So it used a pretty traditional
heating coil of that era.

- Like many heating
devices of this era,

these heaters lack
safety devices

and are prone to causing
electrical fires.

And you'd think that
200 gallons of water

would douse the danger,

but because water
conducts electricity,

it can actually make an
electrical fire worse.

- [Negin] So you see these
stories throughout the '70s

and early '80s of mattresses
bursting into flames

and then setting the
entire bedroom on fire.

- [Austin] By the late 1980s,

the old heating
coils are replaced

with newer, safer insulated
pads that automatically shut off

when they hit a
certain temperature.

- [Henry] What ultimately
turns the tide on waterbeds

isn't fires or crushing
the occasional owner.

It's just a shift in taste.

- Though you can
find waterbeds today,

even though they're safer,

many apartment buildings
don't allow them.

So in essence, the
waterbed party is over.

- For your average homeowner,

what could be more fearsome
than the dreaded termite?

Well, back in the
'50s and the '60s,

the solution was even
more frightening.

- [Natalia] When World War II
ends, America is rejoicing.

There are welcome home parades.

There are people making
out in Times Square.

Most of all, you have all
these ships filled with sailors

and soldiers who no one was
sure were gonna make it home.

- The military is
also bringing back

millions and millions of
tons of surplus equipment,

all of which has been crated
up and shipped from overseas.

- [Henry] But stowing
away on the wooden crates

is something even more
destructive than the weapons

and the hardware inside.

- We've gotten a hitchhiker ,

and that is the Formosan
subterranean termite,

and they're dug into this wood.

They can come in
groups of 10 million

coming straight into our
ports and into our country.

- [Natalia] Very quickly before
anyone knows what's going on,

these termites are
getting everywhere.

- [Henry] As termites dig in,

American home builders are
ringing the dinner bell.

- The 1950s is the high
point of suburbanization.

Architects come up with the
idea for concrete slab housing.

You just put down
a concrete slab

and build the house right there.

- The problem is, that concrete
is inevitably going to crack

and the termites can go
through very teeny cracks

and they go straight into
the wood of the house.

- [Henry] Quickly, the country

is in the thick of a
termite infestation.

It eventually reaches a billion
dollars a year in damage.

- [Lance] This is a
super-powered termite.

It is very aggressive

and much more
difficult to control

than any termites that
we've ever had before.

So you start even
seeing them in cartoons,

literally eating the wood
in the walls very quickly.

[suspenseful music]
[harp thuds dissonantly]

- [Henry] The cure
everyone is screaming for

reveals itself by accident.

- [Announcer]
Chlordane is available

in liquid or powder form.

- Chlordane is a
surprise discovery

from a byproduct of
synthetic rubber production

and it turns out,
just by accident,

that this stuff is very
deadly to termites.

- [Natalia] The promise
is you can spray it.

You can dust it.

You can even paint
it on surfaces

and termites will
leave your house alone.

It's a miracle in a bottle
and people run to it.

- [Austin] One ad
shows a housewife

gleefully spraying it
across her kitchen,

painting her furniture with it.

A pamphlet even recommends
utilizing it on your clothing.

- [Henry] From the
1950s through the 1980s,

more than 30 million
homes in America

are treated with chlordane.

The result, a dramatic drop
in the termite population.

- [Natalia] It
works, America wins.

The stuff is deadly on termites.

Problem is, it's really
bad for humans too.

- [Lance] By the 1980s,
people start to realize

there are symptoms: memory
lapses, tremors, even seizures,

and they realize that
something around their home

is making them sick.

- [Austin] After decades
of telling people

that this stuff can
be used everywhere,

painted on your house,
worn on your clothes,

the government
comes out and says,

"Oh, by the way,
it's poisonous."

It just takes a little longer

for it to kill a person
than it does a termite.

- [Henry] Chlordane, the
miracle termite killer

is banned for good in 1988.

- Today, manufacturers are
prohibited from producing

new chlordane for anti-termite
use around a house.

If someone knowingly uses
chlordane around a home,

there are criminal penalties
in place that range from

a fine of $25,000 to a
year of imprisonment.

- [Natalia] Decades later,
the descendants of those

stowaway termites are
still eating our homes.

Let's just hope that
the next miracle cure

doesn't take us out too.

- Termites: temporary.
Bad decisions: forever.

- Starting in the '50s,

disposable plates,
cups, and utensils

made cleaning up after a
party easier than ever.

But what do you do
with all that trash?

For many families, the
answer was simple:

Set it on fire.

- [Hakeem] These days, trash
pickup is a complicated process.

First, you have to
separate your recyclables

from your non-recyclable.

And then your recyclables,

they get broken
down by category.

And don't even talk to
me about yard waste.

- [Henry] It wasn't
always like this.

Imagine a magical
time in America

when we were all free
to send our own trash

to oblivion right
in our own backyard.

- Back when I was a
kid, we burnt our trash.

There was two ways
you went about it.

Well, you just put in a pile
and you burned it there.

After we set the woods on fire,

we moved to the trash barrel.

- If you were a
little bit more fancy,

you could spring for
an actual incinerator.

It's a store-bought,
steel trash oven

with a chimney to vent
the smoke safely away.

- [Natalia] Because the
chimney cuts down on embers,

it's meant to be safer,

and because it brings air in,
the fire burns really hot,

making sure that whatever you
put in there burns to dust.

- [Henry] By the early
'50s in Los Angeles alone,

there are 1.5 million homes
with backyard chimneys

where mom, dad, or junior

can start their
very own trash fire.

- Picture the scene, you're
walking down this tidy,

suburban, white picket-fence
neighborhood in post-war America

and everyone smiles and waves.

And behind every house,

a billowing black cloud
of plastic fire smoke.

- [Hakeem] Because the
incinerator builds up

such incredible heat,

you gotta be really
careful when you open it

because the extra oxygen

can make that thing spit
out fire like a dragon.

[fire crackling]

- [Austin] In 1957 alone,

there are over
2,000 property fires

in the greater Los Angeles area.

- There is a science to fire
that most people don't realize.

Plastic burns hotter
than wood and more toxic.

And that's where you
start getting like,

"I just burned down a block."

- [Henry] With fears around
backyard fire spreading,

the home appliance
industry introduces

what they promise
to be a cleaner,

safer alternative to
the backyard chimney.

- What is it?

- Well, it's a
simple gas disposer

that takes care
of all the waste.

- Why go outside and risk
burning down your neighborhood

when you can just
burn your trash

right inside your own house?

- [Austin] The
kitchen incinerator

does not eliminate any
of the old dangers.

It brings them into your house

where they create a whole
new breed of dangers.

- When you burn things indoors,
you're gonna create fumes

and some of them are colorless

and odorless, like
carbon monoxide,

and you could kill your
entire family with this.

- [Lance] And of course, we're
burning a lot of new things

that are coming out
in the consumer market

that might be causing cancer,

that might be causing asthma.

All sorts of stuff that
today would be regulated,

wasn't regulated then.

- [Henry] By 1965, enough
people have been burned

or sickened by
rampant trash fires

that the government steps in.

- There's the Solid
Waste Disposal Act

that prohibits the burning
of household garbage

and it also funds household
local trash pickup.

- [Hakeem] Taking out the
trash used to be fun.

It was almost a science project,

and now it's just a chore
with a bunch of rules.

- Now back in the '70s,

foam insulation was
a miracle product.

You sprayed it in,
you sealed it up,

and you never had to
think about it again,

or so you thought.

- In the 1970s, the
winters are really cold

and there are several massive
blizzards on the East Coast

that lock people
inside for days on end.

- At the same time that these
brutal winters are hitting,

there's an energy crisis

that is skyrocketing
the price of oil.

- [Bryant] People are desperate
to keep their homes warm

and to keep their bills lower.

- [Kavitha] For decades, people
would insulate their homes

using straw or
crumpled newspaper.

You're basically making
your house into a tinder box.

So fires rage throughout.

- In the '50s, you have Rockwool

and fiberglass, this
pink fiberglass,

and they're really helpful,

but they're kind of like
materials that still leave gaps.

- [Henry] Just in time

for the heating crisis
of the late 1970s,

a new option arrives, one that
seems to check all the boxes:

Spray foam insulation.

- Spray foam insulation
is kind of like

shaving cream for your walls.

You spray it in,
it's got these resins

and it's got these hardeners.

So it goes in, it expands,

so it fills all the
nooks and crannies,

plugs all the little holes,

and then it hardens, and
it doesn't cost very much.

[foam hissing]

- [Negin] And this stuff keeps
your house cool in the summer,

warm in the winter, and
people save a lot of money.

- [Henry] From the mid
'70s to the early '80s,

the number of American
houses using spray foam

increases 20 fold.

- Most of the applications
for spray foam insulation,

these are all retrofits.

They spray it and people go to
bed in that house that night.

- [Henry] As families
drift to sleep,

they discover their
new insulation

doesn't quite pass
the sniff test.

- There's this odor that's
wafting through the whole house

and it seems to be coming
from inside the walls.

- [Kavitha] What the people are
smelling is formaldehyde gas,

and you might
remember formaldehyde

as the fluid that they use

to preserve frogs
in science class.

- Formaldehyde makes really good

embalming fluid for corpses,

not so great for living people.

Turns out when
you breathe it in,

it attacks your pulmonary
and nervous system.

- [Adam] And people start
having health problems,

and it's all linked
back to the foam.

- [Henry] By 1982,

over 2,000 people
lodge complaints

about formaldehyde poisoning.

Meanwhile, a study reveals

that long-term exposure
can cause cancer.

- By the early 1980s,

the government bans this
formaldehyde insulation.

But what about the homes
with this product in it?

- [Kavitha] This insulation
is everywhere in these homes

and it's stuck to
whatever it touches.

So removing it basically means

ripping your entire house
apart and scrubbing every beam.

Some families actually
just abandoned

their formaldehyde-filled
homes and those homes sit empty

and sell for way
under market value.

- [Negin] Oh my God, there's
so many horrible reasons

that you would have
to flee your home,

but like, trying to
reduce your heating bill

shouldn't be one of them.

- Warm, cozy, and
just a little deadly.

- Remember back
when staying cool

meant one of those
old-fashioned metal fans

aimed right at your face?

No plastic safety
cage. No safety switch.

Just a steady breeze coming
from those rotating blades.

What could possibly go wrong?

- Some version of a fan is
probably as old as heat.

We know at least in
ancient civilizations,

the Romans are using them,
the Greeks are using them,

the Egyptians are using them.

We're using them all the
way through the Middle Ages.

When the Industrial
Revolution comes along,

it allows you to make a lot
of things move mechanically.

- [Jason] In 1882,
Schuyler Skaats Wheeler

attaches a motor to a
two-bladed propeller

and creates the world's
first electric fan.

- [Henry] It's not
only functional,

it's a sharp design in
every sense of the word.

- These early fans
are really pretty.

They're very simple.

But they are, essentially,
a base and a motor

and then these brass blades

that have sort of a loose
covering on the outside

that's trying to kind of show
you, this is the blade space,

don't put anything in here.

But you could definitely put
stuff in there, for sure.

- They're just
like danger blades

whirling around at high speeds.

So as you can imagine,
some problems arise.

- [Jason] The priority is in
getting fans to move more air

to increase sales, so
the blades get bigger

and the motors
get more powerful.

- [Natalia] New airplane
propeller technology

teaches fan engineers that
if they want more airflow,

they need lighter
and sharper blades.

So they start making them
out of aircraft aluminum

and really sharpening
that leading edge.

- [Negin] So the blades now
spin at like 55 miles an hour.

They cut like a knife.

It's like sitting in a room
full of naked blenders.

- [Jason] They move
a lot more air,

but they also take
a lot more fingers,

and yet, people don't seem
to care because they work.

People just accept
this devil's bargain.

- [Henry] The baby boom brings
a new generation of injuries

and problems, because for a kid,

an electric fan isn't just
an appliance; it's a toy.

- Fans, they sing a
siren song to toddlers.

They just draw them in.

- The gaps in the cover
of the fan were so big,

a kid could put their
whole hand through it.

- [Henry] In the '50s and '60s,

emergency rooms treat
a steady stream of kids

who get too friendly
with an electric fan.

- It's not until 1978,

like 100 years after
the fan is invented,

that OSHA mandates that
floor and desk fans,

their fan guards cannot have
more than a half inch opening,

so little fingers
can't get inside.

- Every time I would
get near those old fans

at my grandparents'
houses, I was always like,

"Yes, what are we gonna
slice in this insane thing?"

Just looking at them, you're
like, those look sharp.

And it sort of had a cage
around it, but it didn't really.

- Remember when you were a kid,

did you ever come
home all sweaty

and stick your
head in the freezer,

and it felt so good you wished
you could climb right inside?

Bad idea.

- [Kavitha] In post-war
America, GIs and their families

are moving out to the
suburbs and away from cities.

So instead of going to the
local grocer every day,

they need to stockpile their
groceries and freeze them.

- [Austin] People
are freezing so much

that they're gonna
need an extra freezer

and the refrigeration
industry has your solution.

It's called the chest freezer.

- [Adam] The chest freezer
was essentially this big,

well, arctic coffin,

and because the capacity
was so massive,

moms could do one big
shop, load up the freezer

with loads of meat
and loads of dinners.

- [Henry] Between 1949 and 1960,

the number of homes
with a separate freezer

soars from 1 in 20, to 1 in 5.

- [Austin] Unlike
today, when you firmly

have to push your
freezer to close it,

these heavy metal
doors would just

slam down if you let them shut.

There's even a spring-loaded,
self-latching mechanism

that makes sure that
no cold air escapes.

- [Henry] The problem
is sometimes leftovers

aren't the only thing that
ends up inside these freezers.

- Most of kids' playtime
is imagination based.

So the chest freezer looks
like the coolest thing ever.

It's got a latch and you
could hide for hide and seek.

- [Austin] These super heavy
steel doors do their job

a little too well.

Once they're shut,
nothing can get out.

- [Kavitha] People start finding
that they'll go to their garage

to get something out of this
freezer and they'll open it

and to their horror,
their child is inside.

- [Austin] Maybe an adult
here is giggling or yelling

and makes it there in
time to open the freezer.

But sometimes, they're too late
and the unthinkable happens.

- [Henry] Trapping incidents
routinely make headlines

in local papers, and
in 1956, the government

cracks down with the
Refrigerator Safety Act.

- [Bryant] The focus of
the law is the door.

And the door now will
have a seal with a magnet,

which means it can't
lock from the inside.

So if you play hide and
seek and climb inside,

you can get out now.

- [Austin] The law changes how
the new freezers are built,

but it doesn't compel people
to give up the old ones.

They work just fine.

- [Negin] And eventually, these
freezers start breaking down.

Families get rid of them.

The only problem is,
now they're outside

in an alley or something

and kids are still playing
in these empty freezers.

- [Henry] Into the
1960s, '70s and '80s,

hundreds of trapping incidents
continue to make headlines

and they involve all types of
freezers and refrigerators.

- In 1986, awareness
of freezer entrapment

finally peaks with
a very special

and dramatic episode
of "Punky Brewster".

In the landmark episode,

Punky's friend Cherie
climbs inside of a freezer

and gets trapped.

Punky finds her, she performs
CPR, and saves her life.

[Cherie coughing]
- Ah, she's breathing.

- [Kavitha] It seems
a little corny,

but this messaging
actually does work

and kids do start
to get the point.

- [Austin] New laws come out

that require you
to remove the door

from your fridge and freezer
before you dispose of it.

Obviously, no door?

It's gonna take the fun
out of hiding in it.

- [Negin] Growing
up in the '80s,

you're just fed this message
that abandoned freezers

are really deadly.

You'd see them on the side
of the road and you'd, ugh,

you know, they scared.

Nowadays, they get to
just look at a freezer

and think, "Oh, ice cream."

- Great for frozen pizza

and that 10-pound
roast you got on sale,

not great for hide and seek.

- Back in the '50s,

behind those beautiful
white picket fences,

suburban lawns were
the picture of order.

But the tools we used to
achieve that perfection

were utter chaos.

- [Jason] In the
early 20th century,

most people mowed their lawns
with a non-powered push mower.

Mowing the lawn was
grueling. It took forever.

So these push mowers
are just slow.

- [Henry] As American
backyards get bigger,

demand grows for
better lawn care tools.

- [Kavitha] Leonard Goodall
is a mechanic in Kansas.

He's actually been
on a lifelong mission

to create outdoor tools that
are better mechanically.

- [Jason] In the 1930s,
Goodall invents a new design:

a lawnmower with a gas-powered
engine, and it's a revelation.

After the Depression
and World War II

and suburbia exploding,

this gets adopted into the
mainstream in a big, big way.

- When you start this thing up,
it sounds like a muscle car.

You pull the cord, this
mower roars to life.

- [Henry] Goodall's invention
kicks off a lawn care arms race.

By 1960, over 4 million
power mowers are sold.

- This thing's got
a 20 inch blade

that's driven by
a 3,600 RPM engine

that spins the blade
at 215 miles per hour.

- For comparison, that
blade is spinning faster

than the prop on a P-51
Mustang fighter plane.

It's a beast.

- [Henry] But grass
is not the only thing

that these power
mowers are chewing up.

- [Jason] Unlike modern mowers,

these mowers didn't have
any safety features.

But they were new and people
didn't really appreciate

their destructive power.

They were giving them to
kids to do their chores with.

- These newfangled
lawnmowers with these engines

are shooting out rocks at
incredibly high speeds.

I mean, that blade hits that
rock at 700 pounds of force

and fires it off at a velocity

similar to that like a bullet.

- [Nicole] So on
these early mowers,

there's no protections
on these things.

If you hit a rock,
where's it gonna go?

Oh, it's coming out fast and
it's probably gonna hit you.

- [Austin] These early mower
blades are made of rigid steel

that if they hit
something, will break

and fly in any direction.

- [Jason] The word for
that big hunk of hot metal

that's flying out
there is shrapnel.

It can break a car window,
it can land in your house

or it can embed
itself in your leg.

- Projectiles are
only one problem.

Because the shroud around
the blades has these gaps,

these early mowers are notorious

for ripping through
sneakers and eating toes.

- [Henry] A bigger danger arises

when people try to
stop using them.

- [Kavitha] Today's mowers
have an automatic kill switch

that shut the blades
down when you let go,

but Goodall's mower
will just keep going

until you actively shut it down.

And even then, the blades keep
spinning for like 10 seconds.

- [Hakeem] 8 to 10 seconds?

Waiting 8 to 10 seconds

for those whirring
blades to stop

is a huge opportunity
for disaster to strike.

People hit a stick or a rock,
so they turn off the engine

and flip it over to
see what's wrong,

forgetting that the
blades are still spinning

and they can take off a finger.

- [Kavitha] By the late '70s,

the power mower is sending
65,000 people a year

to the ER with accidents.

- In 1979, the Consumer Product
Safety Commission steps in.

It institutes a
number of reforms.

One of these is
the dead-man switch

and that means as soon as you
let go, the motor cuts off.

In addition, they add
shields on the side

to block rocks from
flying all over the place,

and they make the blades
stronger so they don't shatter.

- [Hakeem] The feeling
of pulling that cord

and hearing it turn
over and start up,

ah, pure magic nostalgia.

Yeah, they were dangerous,

but they taught us
a valuable lesson.

Sometimes the machines
we love can kill us,

so act accordingly.

[lawnmower rumbling]

- Remember when kids
were allowed to run free

and would drink straight
from the garden hose?

Back then, what we didn't
know couldn't hurt us,

or could it?

- [Austin] In the days before
video games and cell phones,

do you know what kids did
to entertain themselves?

They went outside.

- [Jason] You're
outside playing.

It's a hot summer day.

You would just refresh
yourself with the garden hose.

- [Brian] Drinking from
the hose is a core memory.

For people of my
generation, it was it, man.

You were punished for
going inside your house,

and that would be chores
or some other nonsense.

- [Dan] If you went inside,

there was always the chance
your parents would tell you,

you weren't allowed to play
with your friends anymore.

So drinking out of a hose
was a way to get a drink

without having to
risk going inside

and having mom tell you to stop.

- [Jason] You can
still taste it.

You crank the spigot, you
lift it up to your lips,

and you got that first
sip and it was off.

It didn't taste right,
but you know what?

You drank it anyway and you
went right back to playing.

- [Henry] Turns out that
strange taste isn't the water,

it's your hose.

- [Martin] In late 1941,

the Japanese military pushes
toward the Dutch East Indies

and the United
States is cut off,

almost entirely, from rubber.

- [Dan] They had to come up
with a synthetic version.

This was called the
Emergency Rubber Project.

- [Martin] What this
project produces

is a synthetic
alternative to rubber.

The only problem is that

what makes this material
malleable is lead.

- [Dan] After the war,
this rubber substitute,

which is called PVC, becomes
this universal material

that's used in all kinds of
things, including garden hoses.

And when one of
these synthetic hoses

sits out in the sun
for days or weeks

or whole summers on
end, they break down,

and those chemicals
that are in the PVC

leach into the water
that's inside the hose.

- It's more than just
a disgusting flavor.

This hose water contains up to

100 times the safe
level of lead.

You're actually
ingesting the stuff

that goes into literal bullets.

- [Rebecca] Lead
is a neurotoxin.

In other words, it
destroys neurons

and you actually can have
not just cognitive defect,

you can lose your
mind, effectively,

because of chronic exposure
to lead in small amounts.

- I thought it was the
copper end of the hose,

the taste of the copper
coming in my mouth.

As it turns out, it was
the taste of poison.

- [Henry] After a series of
damning Consumer Reports,

hose manufacturers finally
upgrade their formula.

- [Austin] It's kind of
too little, too late.

By the early 2000s,
consumers are,

one, wary of their
municipal water

and, two, more likely
to buy bottled water.

On top of that,

kids are more likely to
be playing video games

or chatting with
their friends indoors.

Drinking from the hose is sort
of over and it's sort of sad.

- [Brian] I wouldn't
go back in time

and not drink from the hose.

I think I gained more

from being outside
drinking from the hose

than I lost with whatever health
problems I'm gonna develop.

- Today, we worry about toxins,

but back then, we just grabbed
the hose, took a long sip,

and went right
back to being kids.

- Back in the '50s and '60s,

homeowners were delighted by
the innovative new appliances

that were suddenly
available everywhere.

Our houses with their
old electrical wiring,

they were less enthusiastic,

and they had ways of
letting us know it.

- [Austin] In September 1882,
Thomas Edison pulls off

what appears to
be a magic trick.

He illuminates a
cluster of homes

in Manhattan with electricity.

The dream of an electrically
illuminated home

is just around the corner.

- [Jason] For centuries homes,
have been lit by an open flame,

candle, a lamp, so
house fires are rampant.

So electric light is going
to put a stop to that.

- [Lance] By 1920,
still only about

one in three houses in
America has electricity.

And between 1920 and 1950,

that will go from
about 35% to about 90%.

- [Jason] These early
electrical systems

are called knob and tube wiring,

and they're really only
designed to take on

the load of houses'
electrical lights.

But once electricity takes off,

inventors see the opportunity

of a whole new era of
electrical appliances.

- ♪ What a thrill
to be so free ♪

♪ When you live electrically

- [Austin] Suddenly
everything's electrified.

There's electric irons.
There's refrigerators.

There's stoves. There's
washing machines.

Everything is electrified.

- [Jason] These new appliances,

they draw far more
power than the lights

these systems were designed fo,

and it creates
widespread problems.

- [Reporter] Home becomes more
dangerous than the highway.

Although it has fewer
fatal accidents,

it's the scene of four
million more injuries

than result from traffic.

- [Lance] Most people are
still living in houses

that were built in
the 1920s or before

and so whatever
wiring's in there,

it's meant not to
hold a lot of power.

It's just gonna power
a few light bulbs.

[can opener whirring]

- [Natalia] Older
homes can't handle

all these newfangled gadgets

because they're not wired
for that much wattage.

I mean, just one toaster
oven needs like 1,300 watts

and the average house can
only handle 1,440 or so total.

- [Austin] Some of these
homes only had four circuits

with a very small fuse
box to keep it all safe.

As people add appliances,

they're overloading
these circuits

and the fuses are going to pop.

- [Henry] With the
house in the dark,

it is usually DIY
dad to the rescue.

- This is still an era

where people really did
their own repairs on things.

So they started doing
their own upgrades

to their electrical systems,

whether they
understood them or not.

- [Martin] What American
dads quickly figure out

is that you can
defeat that safeguard

by backing the fuse out,
placing a copper penny,

then you thread the fuse
down on top of the penny.

Then that circuit's
never gonna pop,

but you have also
removed the one guardrail

that's there to prevent the
house from burning down.

- In some ways, this is worse
than the age of oil lamps

and candles because
the source of danger,

the wires, are hidden
behind the walls.

Today, modern electrical wiring
is sheathed in insulation,

but back then, it's just a
copper wire covered in fabric

and they're gonna get hot.

So by the time you figure
out there's a problem,

the fire is already
raging within your walls.

- [Henry] By 1959, there
is an electrical fire

every seven minutes in America.

- [Lance] In the
years that follow,

the problem just
keeps getting worse

because people are
plugging more and more

into more and more outdated
homes and electrical systems.

That is a hazard.
That is a terror.

- [Martin] That was my
childhood in the '70s.

We'd have a regular
electrical grid

inside the house that,
during the holiday season,

we would completely overload.

We might die on Christmas,

but at least let's
get through it.

- [Lance] Finally,
authorities start

to realize something's wrong.

In 1974, they pass the Fire
Safety and Prevention Act,

and at least for new
construction, houses are built

so that they can
handle much more power.

Instead of coming
through a fuse box,

you're gonna have a breaker box

so you can control
a lot more power.

- [Austin] Home insurance
companies now ask

for inspections, and
modern dads figure

it's probably better off

to pay a couple bucks
to an electrician

rather than burn the house
down on Christmas Eve.

But we sort of lost something
in a comforting era of,

"Oh, Dad'll go fix it."

- Today, we flip a switch
without a second thought.

Gone are the days when every
new appliance was an experiment,

and not every house
passed that test.

- In the post-war years,

families discovered
the potential

of a whole new room in
the house, the basement.

It stopped being a
dark storage space

where the furnace lived.

It became a place for
ping pong, board games,

the suburban rec room.

But beneath the old
sofa and shag carpet,

something lethal was lurking.

- [Jason] Before the 1960s,
most basements were unfinished.

Basements were just where you
stored gardening equipment,

sometimes canned produce
that you would make yourself.

- But by the 1960s,
times are changing.

The baby boom is in full swing

and families need more space.

- [Jason] They realize,
okay, maybe that old cellar,

that old basement, we
can repurpose that.

Now enter, the rec room.

- [Negin] Everyone who
had a basement rec room

knew that that's where
the actual fun is.

That's where you let loose.

That's where you
get a little dirty.

No one cares about what that
looks like, so it's fun.

- We had a basement kind of
rec room vibe when I was a kid

and I always liked it.

It's where I would go and I'd
watch TV and lay on the floor.

My parents had this old kind
of shag carpeting down there

that was really period correct.

It's funny because you're 10
feet away from everybody else.

You're in the basement,

but it feels like a
totally different spot.

- [Henry] But by the 1980s,

families discover that the
most fun room in the house

hides an invisible threat,

one that no one ever
thought to look for.

- [Martin] It's 1984.

Stanley Watras, who lives in
Boyerstown, Pennsylvania,

is reporting for work at the
Limerick Nuclear Power Plant.

But as he reports to the
nuclear power plant,

he sets off the sensors
that detect radiation.

[alarm blaring]
[Geiger counter ticking]

- [Rutledge] It's
never been set off

by a person coming in before,

which means he's radioactive.

- [Martin] They begin
tracing his steps

and all of the arrows
point back to his home.

The levels of radiation
in Stanley's basement

are 675 times higher
than the safe threshold.

An equivalent of a chest
x-ray every 20 seconds.

[Geiger counter clicking]

- [Rutledge] So
there's poor Stanley,

who's basically, just
glowing at this point

like he's been
bathing at Chernobyl.

But then they start
to realize like,

oh, this isn't just
a Stanley problem.

- [Henry] The source of the
radiation in the Watras home?

it's something natural
that's been hiding,

under their house for millennia

and it's not just Stanley's
home that is contaminated.

- [Hakeem] Radon gas is
naturally occurring.

It's emitted from the ground

and it's a byproduct
of uranium decay.

- [Austin] So usually
the radon just escapes

into the atmosphere where
it's diluted harmlessly.

Now that what they find
is the radon is seeping

from the uranium
through the bedrock

into your basement
where it accumulates.

It can't escape and
it is irradiating

where you and your
family play Twister.

- [Lance] This is
truly the atomic age.

The lava lamp is
not the only thing

glowing in your rec room.

- [Hakeem] Now,
with this incident

with Stanley and his family,

America learns that
average American households

have to worry about this.

- [Henry] When the Watras
incident hits the news,

it causes a radon panic.

- EPA investigations
show that one in 15 homes

has dangerous levels of
radon, but it occurs randomly.

So the only way you can know

if your basement rec room
is trying to kill you,

is to get the air tested.

- [Negin] So you could be
sitting in your rec room

watching a movie about
nuclear annihilation,

and then an ad comes
on that's like,

"You might have radon
in your basement."

It's terrifying.

- [Rebecca] After years
of research, we found out

that the second
most common cause

of lung cancer is
actually radon exposure.

- [Henry] The level of exposure
that the Watras family has,

it's equivalent to smoking

more than 100 packs
of cigarettes per day.

- [Austin] Congress institutes
the Indoor Radon Abatement Act,

which incentivizes homeowners
to seal those cracks

and, essentially,
radon-proof their basements.

- [Negin] So it was that easy.

Seal your basement and
get rid of the radiation

coming up from your shag carpet.

In the end, these radon
remediation companies

got really rich
and the rest of us

got rec rooms that
weren't radioactive.

I don't think American rec rooms

ever really came back from that.

The salad days of
rec rooms are over.

[TV clicks]

- Thinking back on the dangers

that lurked around our houses,

from the unassuming garden hose,

to the toxic bug treatments,

to freezers that
could trap us inside,

sometimes peril came
with the territory.

But no matter what the problem

throughout our
hazardous history,

there was no place like home.

[dramatic music]