An Omaha woman who saw a story on Channel 6 News about radon decided to check for herself and learned the dangerous gas is lurking in her own home.

Janice Alderson saw our story in November about the importance of testing for radon gas and the fact it's a major cause of lung cancer.

"Yeah, this is where we sleep in the summer because it's so much cooler." And it's in just this room where Janice recently ran a test. “Your newscast, they said about going to Home Depot so I did. I went down to Home Depot, found a little test, set it up in the room for four days and then capped it, dated it and sent it off to the lab and they sent me the results a month later."

Those results indicated that Alderson's home near 50th and Spencer contains a dangerous level of radon gas, a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas that occurs naturally in the soil.

"Because of your story, your original story that I seen on channel 6, that's why I decided to test because of that man's story."

The story that caught Alderson's attention was about John Atkinson, a non-smoker now battling lung cancer. "Stage three or stage four, it's inoperable cancer, it's lung cancer."

We first introduced you to Atkinson in October. Although doctors don't know exactly why his lung cancer developed, radon gas is the second leading cause of that cancer among non-smokers and Atkinson's home did test high for the gas.

A radon gas inspector tells Channel 6 News two out-of-every-three homes he tests in Nebraska show dangerous radon levels.

“Nebraska is the third-highest state as far as the percentage of homes that have elevated levels of radon,” says Mark Byrd of American Building Inspection.

As for Janice, "I'm getting bids for a mitigation system so they can reduce the levels in the house."

If your home has high levels of radon, a mitigation system will cost between $800-$1,200 to install. To test your home, a professional test runs around $100 or you can go the way Alderson did with a self-test kit. The total cost for that test is around $30.

Radon gas is a problem in homes in both Nebraska and Iowa. Iowa health officials say roughly 70% of homes in the Hawkeye State have elevated radon levels.

Inexpensive radon testing is available. In Nebraska, just $5 will buy a test kit as well as analysis. The address is The Nebraska Radon Program, 301 Centennial Mall South, Lincoln, Ne. 68509.

In Iowa, radon test kits and information are available by calling the Iowa Air Coalition of Public Health Officials at 1-800-206-7818. More free information is available from the Iowa Radon Program by calling 1-800-383-5992.