Curveball - Issue #5

Things were going along swimmingly when...

Anyone who's been following along on Facebook has noticed that part of our back wall got knocked out, fixed, and put back together again recently. We had some water intrusion into the wall and some mold. So, Jonathon and friends from church and family have been busting their tails fixing that before we close on the house on Friday.

But after the house inspection, we discovered that there was another area of water intrusion in the subfloor of the bathroom off our bedroom. Saturday was the day Jonathon and a friend from church decided to tackle that problem.

I had a baby shower to go to, and then I was going to come home and help out with whatever needed doing or pack some more stuff. So, off to the baby shower I went.

Along came a problem

Around the time the baby shower was wrapping up, Jonathon called and said, "We broke into another massive amount of black mold. Go get an N95 mask, come home, get your stuff, get the dogs, and go to the Kaufman's. You can't sleep here tonight." (Kaufman's are church friends of ours.)

Once again, those that follow on Facebook know that I have Lyme disease and other unpleasant health conditions. One of them is mold toxins exacerbating everything. We thought we had dealt with the mold problem in our house...three separate times. Over the last six months, I have gradually had a return of symptoms and couldn't figure out what was going on. Well, I think we know now. The bathroom and bedroom are not air tight, and I have been getting a steady stream of mold spores into the area where I sleep for quite a while.

Jonathon and Scott Kaufman pulled off the siding, and out came a smelly, emulsified, moldy, rotting sludge of decomposing wood, insulation, and not-so-drywall. The subfloor was rotted under the tub/shower. In another month or so, someone was going to have a thrilling experience while sudsing up when it finally gave way! Here are some pictures:

Ew

How delicious

Oh, me. Oh, my.

I'm grateful

I am so grateful that my increasing symptoms now seem to have an explanation. At least, I'm going to blame everything on the mold for as long as I reasonably can.

I am so grateful we found this problem and fixed it before the next occupants moved in. I would feel terrible leaving something like that for the next folks to deal with.

I am so grateful for the help of friends and family. There is no way we could have gotten all these repairs done in such record time without them.

I am so grateful for friends who opened up their home to us and our hairy beasts. It's was delightful going to sleep in a put together home with no drywall dust laying around.

I am so grateful we are closing on this house on Friday and I never have to set foot in it again!!

Looking much better. And the shower won't fall through the floor now. Yay!

Onwards and forwards!

There is a lot of work we have to cram into the next five days before we close, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Then, I can spend a few weeks focusing on writing and publishing!

So, be flexible, folks. Flexible or not, life will make you step lively. You might as well be flexible and spare yourselves the pain if at all possible. Until next time...