Sally Breslin: My Life

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Monday, February 19, 2024

(PART 2) MY NEW CAREER...MUSHROOM FARMER!

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m having problems with dampness and mildew in my basement, to the point where photos I stored down there are stuck together in clumps, magazines and books are covered with so many spots, they look as if a wet Dalmatian sat on them; and all of my solid-colored summer clothes now appear to be tie-dyed.

After spending hours researching mildew online, I finally came up with what I thought were a couple of good solutions to the problem...better than the solutions given to me by the professionals I'd contacted, which would have forced me to sell my house (along with all of the mildew) to get enough money to afford them.

First of all, many sites mentioned that vinegar gets rid of mold and mildew. Spray it on, they said, then later wipe it off…but only on non-porous surfaces. So all of my clothes and paper products, as I’d suspected, were doomed.

Secondly, according to the online experts, a big, commercial dehumidifier (not one of those wimpy, bedroom ones) supposedly will lower the humidity to zilch in a basement. And “zilch” means mold and mildew will hop on the first train bound for a damper location, like Florida.

As one guy wrote, “Have you ever heard of the Sahara having problems with overgrowths of mold and mildew? That's because they need moisture to grow!”

He made a good point. I was determined to make my basement as dry as the Sahara…during a sandstorm.

So I went out shopping. Buying the vinegar was a snap…and cheap.

Buying the dehumidifier wasn’t.

The stores I visited had regular-sized dehumidifiers, but the clerks informed me that the kind I needed, the “super-suckers,” had to be ordered directly from the stores’ websites. Most had free delivery, however, which I thought was a pretty good deal.

I spent so many hours reading descriptions of commercial dehumidifiers online that night, my eyeballs felt as if they were on the verge of leaping out of their sockets in a desperate attempt to save themselves. Every time I’d find a dehumidifier that seemed like the perfect fit for all of my needs, I’d then check out the reviews.

“The only thing this cheaply made piece of crap is good for is a giant doorstop!” said one customer.

“It caught fire and nearly burned down our house!” wrote another.

“It worked fine for only about four months and then died!” said about 350.

So I continued to research even more dehumidifiers. I finally found one that not only sounded perfect, it also had great reviews and was reasonably priced. The description said it could handle an area of up to 5,000 square feet (which was about 3,000 more than I needed) and it could suck up 125 pints of moisture per day and drop the humidity by 50 percent in only two hours. It also was Energy Star certified and had a sensor that would turn the machine off and on only as needed, to save even more energy. And best of all, it contained an air-purifier to get rid of any odors, and a built-in pump to empty the water it collected so I wouldn't have to lift a heavy bucket and empty it myself.

Relieved and excited, I ordered it and was given an estimated delivery date of 12 days later. The store said someone would notify me before then with more specific details.

A week before the delivery due-date, however, I discovered the dehumidifier in a big box with straps around it, sitting on my front porch.

I called the store and explained I’d thought the dehumidifier was going to be delivered by actual humans who would carry it down to the basement for me, unbox it and set it up.

The employee’s tone made me feel as if she thought I’d just time-traveled here from the 1950s.

“UPS delivered it,” she said. “And they aren’t allowed to enter people’s homes.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because it’s the rule,” she answered, which explained nothing.

“So how am I supposed to get it downstairs to the basement?”

“Don’t you have any friends or relatives who can help you?”

I thought of a few of my friends and relatives. One was suffering from vertigo, two were going through physical therapy for sciatica, one had just undergone open-heart surgery, and another was scheduled to have a hip replaced.

“Nope,” I answered.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “If I lived closer, I’d come over there myself to help you with it.”

That was kind of her, I thought, but she had a slight accent and was manning a 1-800 customer-service number. That meant she probably was sitting in a cubicle somewhere in a place like Machu Picchu.

I knew I couldn’t just leave the dehumidifier sitting out on the porch. At the very least, I had to get it into the house, where it would be safe. So I grabbed it by the straps and dragged it, inch by inch, into the front hallway. Then I stood there with my hands on my hips and stared at it.

Was it possible, I wondered, that I also might be able to drag it down a steep flight of stairs if I took only one stair at a time?

I wouldn’t know until I tried.

And that’s what I did. As I struggled with each step down into the damp, smelly pit from Hell, all I could envision was my body, covered with an overgrowth of mildew and lying flattened beneath the dehumidifier, being discovered on the concrete below.

But, I’m relieved to say, the machine and I safely made it. I then unboxed it and grabbed the instruction booklet, which said to allow the unit to stand upright for at least a day before turning it on. That was fine with me because the instructions turned out to be so vague and poorly written, I was pretty sure it would take me an entire day just to decipher them.

I mean, this is an actual photo I took of a sentence printed on the back of the brochure.

It made me wonder if the dehumidifier contained a hidden audio-video camera somewhere!

So, did the dehumidifier do everything it promised? Do I now have a nice dry basement that smells fresh and clean? And why am I sitting on a heating pad as I write this?

I’ll tell you the rest of the story next week.

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Sunday, February 11, 2024

MY NEW CAREER...MUSHROOM FARMER!

Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t ventured down into the damp, dark catacombs (a.k.a. my basement) in quite a while, mainly because there are eight-legged creatures of various dimensions lurking down there, just waiting to pounce on me or drop from the ceiling and land on my head. The last one of these creatures I had the pleasure of encountering was big enough to warrant its own zip code.

But I recently had no choice other than to head down into the pit from Hell…because of the smell.

I’m talking about mildew.

For weeks, I had been denying that the odor wafting up through the vents was anything other than the long-term effects of my bout with Covid, which did strange things to my sense of smell – like make my bowl of chicken soup smell like cheap perfume. But when two different friends who dropped by on separate occasions told me my house smelled like mildew, I realized I had no choice other than to investigate.

After I cautiously inched my way down the stairs, what I saw left me speechless (and those of you who personally know me realize that's a true rarity). Everything down there looked as if it had been attacked by someone wielding a giant can of fake snow, the kind you spray on Christmas trees and wreaths. It actually would have looked pretty, even festive...if it hadn't been clinging to things like my doll collection or the furniture stored down there.

The most shocking sight was an expensive 5'x7' rug I'd rolled up and dragged down there for safekeeping because I'd wanted to protect it from the wrath of my dogs, who seemed determined to torture it and then kill it. It made me wonder if it might have been made from something like recycled road-kill.

Anyway, it had so much mildew on it, it resembled a shag carpet.

MY ONCE-BEAUTIFUL RUG!

Panicking, I called one of those guys I’d seen on TV who talked about mold and mildew in basements and how, if you didn’t have it treated right away, you could die a slow and agonizingly painful death after your lungs shriveled up to the size of raisins.

The first guy who came over took one look at my basement, shook his head and said, “Everything that’s porous has to be thrown out – paper, cloth, wood, cardboard, and even the insulation on the ceiling. It all has to go. Then we’ll come in and get rid of all of the mold and mildew. You’ll also need a commercial-sized dehumidifier, the kind they use in warehouses, to control the humidity in a huge basement like this. Mold and mildew thrive on moisture. So if you keep the basement dry, you shouldn’t have this problem again.”

His estimate, without the oversized dehumidifier, was $6,800.

The second guy was much more thorough. He tested, he measured, he looked outside at the land and inspected the foundation. He then made his recommendations. “First and foremost, you have to keep the basement dry,” he said. “And I guarantee I can make your basement so dry, you’ll be able to turn it into an additional living space.”

The spiders, I thought, might have something to say about that.

“I highly recommend an interior perimeter drain at the base of all four walls. Then you should have two sump pumps, one at each end, along with a dehumidifying system that drains into them and is capable of reducing the humidity down here to below 50 percent (it was a sub-tropical 84 percent at the time...in December). Finally, I recommend waterproofing all four walls.”

“Should I open the windows down here to let some fresh air in?” I asked.

He vigorously shook his head. “No, you don’t want any mold spores or humidity that’s outside to get inside. Keep the windows closed. In fact, basements shouldn’t even have windows, in my opinion. Some, like yours, are so low, the ground water leaks in through them.”

So basically, he was trying to tell me my basement was like a giant sponge.

His estimate to fix all of my problems? A mere $28,000.

No problem. By my calculations, I should be able to save up enough money to hire him after I’ve been dead for about 20 years.

So how do I intend to do battle with all of the mildew when I have only a few hundred dollars to spare (and that’s if I eat Ramen noodles three times a day)?

I’ll continue this saga next week...

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Monday, February 5, 2024

SOME RANDOM FACTS ABOUT CANDY...

I was thinking about penny candy the other day, mainly because I think about candy a lot, and decided to check out some online candy sellers that advertise it.

What I discovered was penny candy should change its name to quarter candy because it’s false advertising to associate anything about it with a penny now – unless maybe you’re talking about a couple of those teeny white balls on the tops of nonpareils.

When I think back to when I was a kid and a dollar bought 100 pieces of penny candy or 20 full-sized candy bars, and how today, a dollar buys only four pieces of penny candy and maybe half a candy bar, well, it’s enough to make me swear off sweets for life.

Almost.

The truth is, I’ve been addicted to candy ever since I was a toddler and found my grandmother’s secret stash of a 10-lb. box of Whitman’s chocolates hidden underneath her sofa. I ended up with most of the chocolate on my face and hands, but I did manage to get enough into my mouth to create a lifelong craving for more...so much more.

Which, according to my recent online search, should have caused my premature demise ages ago.

For example, I’ve always loved Tootsie Rolls, even though many people have described them as tasting like weak chocolate milk and being chewy when soft, but capable of yanking out fillings when they get hard. What I never knew, however, was a Tootsie Roll contains one gram of trans fat. That doesn’t sound like much, but according to the American Heart Association, only one percent of a person's total daily calorie-intake should be from trans fats. For a person who consumes 2,000 calories a day, that translates to just two grams.

Believe me, I was not the sort of kid who ate only ONE Tootsie Roll at a time. That wasn’t even an appetizer for me. So all of my arteries probably were clogged up by the time I was 10.

I also just read a shocking article released by PETA in which they are asking people to send the following request to candy companies:

“I've learned that your company uses insect secretions to glaze candy, even though you can still make your product without it. Not only is this unappetizing, it's also cruel. Some 100,000 lac bugs must die to produce about one pound of shellac flakes. Please, make your candies cruelty-free by replacing this shellac with a vegan alternative so that I can once again enjoy them. Thank you.”

I’d never heard of “lac bugs,” so I researched them. There are many types, but most commonly they are a type of beetle that sucks the sap from trees and excretes "sticklac" (a resin) almost constantly...which then is used in making shellac, as well as the glaze on some types of popular candies. One brand of candy they mentioned just happened to be one I've enjoyed eating at least once a week for over 50 years. I even have a brand new box of it sitting in my cupboard at this very moment.

So I figure I’ve probably consumed more bug parts than an anteater at this point in my life.

Another fact I found interesting was which candies currently are considered the top two favorites in the USA…and which two would guarantee your house to be bombarded with eggs if you dared to hand them out to trick-or-treaters. The two most popular, according to the majority of the polls, are Reese’s peanut butter cups and Snickers bars, in no particular order. The two least favorites are candy corn and circus peanuts.

I’ve never understood why those banana-flavored, bright orange candies were called circus peanuts in the first place, other than they are shaped like peanuts still in the shell. And candy corn has no flavor at all, even though the three different layers of color on each one deceptively lead you to believe it has three different flavors, like orange, lemon and vanilla...when it actually tastes like plain sugar mixed with candle wax.

Ironically, both of them were my late husband’s favorites.

But I can’t criticize him for being in the minority and liking the least popular candies in this country…because one of my own favorites came in third on the “prefer to let the dog bury” list.

I’m talking about Atomic fireballs.

As a kid, there was nothing I enjoyed more than burning out my tonsils or cracking a molar while sucking on and then crunching (when I got bored because the flavor had disappeared) a fireball jawbreaker. The Atomic ones were especially good because they were capable of making even your eyeballs sweat.

And let’s not forget the excessive amounts of red dye used on them. When licked, a fireball could then be used like bright red lipstick…that lasted all day. I still can remember when I was in the eighth grade and bought fireballs after school every day (unbeknownst to my parents). I experienced so many bouts of heartburn, my mother finally took me to a doctor who made me drink a glass of chalk and then X-rayed my stomach. The diagnosis was an inflammation of the stomach lining.

I’ll bet it just looked inflamed due to all of the red food-coloring it had absorbed.

And now that I’ve learned all of this valuable information about candies that contain artery-clogging trans fat, bug excretions and questionable food coloring, do I regret eating so much of it? And will I, from this day forward, make an effort to avoid such offenders?

Heck no.

After all, it’s not my fault I still need my candy fixes – it’s my grandmother’s.

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