are my children and i safe

have recently moved into a council house,we have been stripping the wallpaper off the walls as we did the walls started to bubble and crack and large pieces of thin plaster fell away, and as now revealed artexing in every room in the house,and a lot of this artex is crumbling, should we try and do anything with it or do we need professional help and if so what would be normal procedure

I woukd suggest contacting the council a.s.a.h.p -- read an article about asbestos here - http://imotech-articles.com/pharmacy/Mesothelioma.html

If it contains asbestos, it most likely is chrysotile, the least harmful (not to say harmless) form of asbestos. There is little, if any, published evidence that short term (a few days) exposures to chrysotile is likely to result in asbestos related disease. Nonetheless, if the Artex does contain chrysotile (and there is no way to know without sampling and analyzing it), it should be left to asbestos contractors to handle it.

my house which was built by an independant builder in1997 has some artex under the stairs cuboard was asbestos still used in artex then.regards david

David, Given the age of your property it is highly unlikely that asbestos will be present in the artex.