Monday, October 04, 2010

update on lead in bouncy houses

After reading about the high lead levels in bouncy houses for kids, I wrote emails to two kid play spaces in the East Bay asking about lead levels in their inflatable slides and bounce houses.

Here's the email response I got from Pump It Up in Concord:

Hello Anita,

We are working closely with California’s Attorney General and the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) to ensure the safest environment for our customers and we’ll be pro-active on implementing their future recommendations. As the Attorney General and CEH develop new regulations for the manufacturers of inflatable equipment, we are ready to support the new policies and to help verify that vendors are
adhering to the legal standards.

Pump It Up has set the bar for safety standards in the industry, including promoting legislation to create consistent safety regulations for both indoor and outdoor
inflatable play environments, and we have always had our inflatables independently tested. The national franchise, with more than 160 locations, holds the most stringent
safety standards in the inflatable party industry. The company’s nationally recognized insurance carrier recently completed an independent audit of all open facilities, in which Pump It Up received an A+ rating with a total scoring average of 99 out of a possible 100 per facility.

We have historically kept our facility and inflatables clean and for any concerned parents we will also be offering the opportunity to have the kids clean their hands after playing in the inflatables as an additional measure.

Please feel free to contact Jamie Jefferson at the Attorney General’s office at (510) 622-2254 to answer any other questions you may have about the suit against the inflatable manufacturers.

Thanks for being a loyal Pump it Up customer.