Boudicca's Voice

"Lessons About Mildew" or "Perils of Living in Humidity" or "Black Death" Pick one.

And so we have had… a mildew problem in our master bath. It started just on this semi circular window we have above the tub… just along the edge of the window…a black outline appeared along the window frame. Within a couple years it had slowly crept up the ceiling.

I should have done something about it then, investigated what was causing it, but it just was not on my radar. I don’t spend that much time in the room, VW and I were joking this morning that I’m pretty low maintenance and probably spend 20 minutes a day, max, my husband, eh, more. But once I leave, its out of my mind. I don’t think about it.

I think of kids’ grades, behavioral issues, work, what we’re having for supper, what appliance probably needs to be replaced due to consistent breakage and age (is it more effective to get the POS continually fixed or buy a new one?), car maintenance, general parental worries and … whatnot.

Spots of black mildew on a bathroom ceiling, don’t register other than when I’m showering and then I think, “Damn, I need to remember to take care of that…”

As good fortune would have it, my husband has a client and a friend of his partner’s that is in the restoration business. I was fully set to purchase some Killz, throw it on the ceiling and spray bleach on the window, but I also wanted the wallpaper taken down and in passing, this client of his essentially said, “Look, it’s a quality of life issue. I can take it down quickly or you can take it down and it will take a weekend.”

Wow. Guess which one won out? The thought of fighting wallpaper for 16 hours was not the winner.

So he came out a couple weeks ago and looked at the mildew problem and GASPED. Folks, I did not think it was a gaspable issue. My folks have seen it. They’ll tell you, it was spots of black on the ceiling… esthetically not appealing, but it was not a black ceiling by any stretch. It was six years of not fixing the problem... but it was not *GASP!*

He looked at me and said, “Bou, have you had any health problems?!”

Me: *blink*

What? I think spending 20 minutes a day in a small room is not going to garner anyone health problems with a little mildew. He acted like this was… anthrax. I’m not kidding. He acted like little mildew spores could somehow have flung themselves to the far reaches of my home and we were now all going to die of… Black Lung Disease.

Or whatever disease you get from mildew.

I told my Mom this story saying, “Mom, humans lived in caves for thousands of years and nobody worried about mildew!”

She said, “Uh, well, not that they knew of. You don’t know it wasn’t a issue.”

I said the SAME exact thing to the guys at work and their response? “Bou, they would never have lived long enough for anyone to know mildew was a problem. Hell, mildew could have killed them! I think they died in their 20s…”

Hell, maybe it did, I just don’t remember reading in any books that malnutrition, wild animals, and mildew were the leading causes of caveman death.

Not that they’d know…

I’m not poo pooing this issue with mildew. Not at all. I just figured that it was a bathroom and not so bad. I seriously figured they’d throw some Killz on the ceiling, bleach on the walls and Boom! it would be finished!

But no.

A team of five came in, and in retrospect, I’m surprised they didn’t have HazMat suits on considering what’s been done.

My bathroom is now hermetically sealed off from the rest of the house. I call it ET’s bathroom.

There is some sort of hepa/dehumidifier thing in my bedroom that ran all night. It looks like Wall-e’s bigger and blind cousin. It sounds like… wow… loud. Holy crap. Loud. I’m perpetually amazed at how the human body reacts to such violations against it. One minute you’re lying in bed to the loud hum/rumble of Wall-e’s cousin three feet from the bed, and the next minute you’re awake in the middle of the night, completely STARTLED there is this loud hum/rumble in the room with you… as if you’re noticing for the first time.

Folks, I’m not talking white noise here. This is like frickin’ NEON explosion noise. This makes white noise seem like cotton.

But yet, your ears completely don’t hear it when you sleep.

Fascinating.

My Sleeping Companion that Snores like a WindTunnel

And if you unzip the seal, where I was told that a negative airflow had been created at some point and now it has been completely ‘hepa vac’d’ and some other space age weird crap, you will find… no frickin’ drywall.

They took it all. The entire wall where the window was located? Gone. The ceiling? Cut out. The offending spores removed, probably in some sort of vacu-sealed container to ensure that any offending potentially life threatening spores can no longer inflict any damage on the human race.

I'm calling this photo, "Maybe We Should Use Mildew as a Chemical Weapon Since it Required Removal of ALL Drywall" or for short, "WoMD" (Sidenote, there was wallpaper on this wall... a breeding ground for mildew.)

I'm entitling this picture, 'A bathroom ceiling without drywall'.

This is a photo of Wall-e's cousin's 2nd cousin twice removed who resides in ET's bathroom.

Now, the interesting side… what caused it. Evidently we have had poor ventilation in our bathroom. My husband had deemed the exhaust fan completely worthless and ineffective awhile ago. When my brother was in town, I remembered I wanted to check the air vent as I was told already when the room was looked at, that it could be a ventilation problem. TN climbed up a ladder and sure enough, the a/c vent was closed.

According to the restoration people, I need to clean the exhaust vent in every bathroom every 3-6 months. OK, other than not thinking immediately that I should use the FOIL method on that math problem, am I also the only one who didn’t know that you should clean the exhaust vent in one’s bathroom for dust at least twice a year? And it makes sense since I live in Florida and dust rules here.

Evidently that was the problem. And in case anyone is wondering, yes I clean my A/C filter every month. Its part of my monthly house maintenance… I just never thought about the bathroom exhaust fans.

So that’s where we are…drywall is going up next week and we are currently discussing paint as we will be repainting. NO wallpaper. Wallpaper in Florida… let alone in a bathroom, is not a good idea according to the restoration people.

And what I've learned from all this? You may not hear a big ass'd loud fan when you sleep, but you can still hear it when you blog.

I assure you.

Posted by Boudicca at April 25, 2008 08:21 PM | TrackBack