RUSH: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, this is Mary, and I’m glad you waited. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush! I have another example for encroachment for you. I live in an apartment, and my property management company has coupled with a local utility to come through our apartments on Monday and replace our incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.
CALLER: I know. (giggles)
RUSH: But have they told you of the inherent dangers? Have they given you warnings about these compact fluorescents?
CALLER: No, they did not. I had to tell them.
RUSH: You had to tell them about the mercury content and what happens if —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — one of these things breaks. You’ve gotta have hazmat people come over and fumigate, clean out your place. You told them that?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And what did they say?
CALLER: They didn’t have an answer for me because they weren’t given any opt-out options, and I also asked them if they were going to have a recycling bin to put them in because you can’t put them in a regular landfill and still they had no answer.
RUSH: Now, is every light fixture that you have in your apartment capable of accepting a compact fluorescent?
CALLER: I don’t know.
RUSH: Well, I mean, do you have some fluorescents in there, those long like spaghetti type lights? Do you have sconces? I don’t know how your apartment is set up, but some people have dimmers.
CALLER: No, we don’t.
RUSH: I don’t know if you can dim these things or not. So let me ask you this: Have they replaced the bulbs?
CALLER: Not yet. That’s Monday.
RUSH: Next Monday?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You keep a sharp eye on this because I want to see if they try to replace every lightbulb in your apartment with a compact fluorescent.
CALLER: I will be because I’m taking a day off work to watch this.
RUSH: You had no choice in rejecting these?
CALLER: I’ve asked them to, and they said they’ll make a note, but I honestly don’t trust them so I’m going to be there to meet them.
RUSH: Are you going to try to stop them from making the switch?
CALLER: I will ask them again, yes.
RUSH: Well, you’re not the property owner. They own the property.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: The landlord, whoever, owns the property. You’re a renter. So technically if he wants to put these things in, if he wants to fall for this, he can do it.
CALLER: Yeah, I know.
RUSH: But it’s still — You do need to be careful with these things. Do you have kids?
CALLER: No, I’m single.
RUSH: You’re single. Well, do you have boyfriends over then?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Yes or no?
CALLER: No. (giggles)
RUSH: No. All right, because they can be clumsy.
CALLER: No. (giggles)
RUSH: They can be more prone to break one of these bulbs, knocking or kicking over a lamp than you might be. So I was just going to say, do you have anybody over there, you better warn them about these things is the point.
CALLER: Yeah, I know. I’ll have to. ‘Please don’t break that, you might kill us.’ (giggles)
RUSH: All right, Mary, thanks for the call. I appreciate it. It’s nice that you held on.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: You bet.