Tuesday, February 08, 2011

My nemesis smells like an egg

There is so much you can't do until you do something else.  Figuring out which comes first has been one of our biggest challenges, what with a to-do list of approximately 3.7 million items.  Luckily, I am super awesome at that kind of thing, so when contractors let us know that they thought we were out of our minds to be laying new carpet before we put a drop of paint on the walls, I quickly responded "Tell them to lay their infant child upon that mold-infested mop of skinned Elmo...



and then come talk to me about how we're doing it in the wrong order."  Because it was definitely not the wrong order.  I know what's up here, folks.  What's up is a lovely playroom instead...



Now when people (not many) come over, I'm pretty sure they ask themselves why we have not torn out and replaced our dump of a bathroom.

 It really is quite the nasty thing.

Pieces of ceiling tile that simply refuse to stay parallel to the floor despite the application of several varieties of fastening device dangle precariously over the commode.  The top layer of wood laminate on the vanity is peeling off.  The walls are covered in some kind of floral vinyl paneling.  (Bet you didn't know those words could all be said in a row like that, did you?)  
The shower is the most disastrous of all the disasters, though.  Happily, we have a shower curtain that I keep closed at all times so that no one's eyes bleed after seeing it.  So, why?  Why have we not torn that decrepit thing out yet?  It's because we have a tiny bit of an iron bacteria problem.  And by "tiny bit", I mean "enormous, elephant-hiney sized" iron bacteria problem.  This problem makes our bathtub look like this:
and the inside of our dishwasher look like this:
and our toilet tank look like this:
and my toenails look like this:

Hah!  Just kidding!  Did you hold your breath there for a second thinking I was going to make you look at a picture of yellow toenails?  You're welcome.

It's so bad that our tap water smells like a boiled egg and tastes like one too.  It killed a Brita filter in three days.  It haunts me in my dreams and makes me listen to nails on a chalkboard.  It refuses to be exorcised.  Oh yes, we've tried.  It laughed at us.  A big hearty, evil laugh.  Like a cackle.  An egg-fragranced cackle.  But do you know what my nemesis does not know (I hope iron bacteria doesn't read blogs)?  That I secretly love him....because I never have to bother to scrub the bathtub.  Hah.  In your face!

8 comments :

  1. Ha, you totally crack me up. If it is of any comfort to you, our place looked quite a bit like yours when we moved here 7 years ago. Same ceiling tiles falling down, same crazy bathroom (except ours had shag carpet, SHAG CARPET and the previous owners had cats). Yeah...

    Live wires, 3 layers of tiles on the walls and 3 in the ceiling. We actually gained height once it was drywalled, lol.

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  2. Oh my goodness, Nadia...it DOES sound like we have the same house! Shag in the bathroom???? At least the previous owners had "updated" ours back in the 80's ;)

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  3. I too would hesitate to put a child on moldy elmo carpet. Good choice to do that first.
    Ewwww iron in the water. That is a pain. Looks like bottled water for you guys for a while.

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  4. Yep. We're going to try and do one more shock treatment, and if that doesn't work I guess we'll be saving up for a new well. Fingers crossed!

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  5. I'm totally in bloglove with you (and your house!) Our bathroom is/was just as nasty. When we gutted the walls we found a bat cave. YAY for Tommy cleaning that one up, lol. I threw up sheetrock and we have the shower lined in garbage bags right now... till I get around to tiling. Or should I say, LEARN how to tile. How hard can it be? ;)

    ANd we were SUPER lucky. Under our nasty smelly carpets were hardwood floors. Otherwise I would have done the same thing!

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  6. Catching up on February tonight...skinned Elmo? Great description and best choice of first change out due to the little one. Still cannot believe you actually experienced all of this. I would have been over it by now!

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  7. Glad to find someone else with a bathtub that looks like mine. We just bought a little house in the country (the city is one the other side of the road) and it appears to have the same kind of iron-type problem.

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    Replies
    1. It's really wild. You can get it clean (if you want it white and don't mind chemicals, try "The Works" toilet bowl cleaner on the tub. It REALLY works, but doesn't smell great) but then it *immediately* turns orange again. Makes an unloved chore even harder to do, huh?

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