So I have a moldy carpet in my bedroom, I’ve mentioned this before. I haven’t yet related the whole saga however.
Mold likes to grow in the small airless space between my bed and my carpet. I have called the office before and they have sent someone over promptly to check on the situation. He pulled back the carpet to check underneath, sprayed to kill it and then came and put it back. Then they hired a new staff member. His name in Brandon, and he’s the dorky kid that would have been in middle school when I was on my way to university.
About a month ago, in the middle of a very humid heat wave, I found mold under my bed again. While in the office I mentioned it to Brandon, who said he would put in a work request. I told him that they could come in whenever after Monday. A week went by, no one came, another four days and I mentioned it to another employee, Erin, while in there working out the details of my transfer and new lease. (Oh yeah, I’m moving to a better location in the same complex, with brand new carpet and a kitchen window, and trees to look at instead of a dumpster, and I had to live on the phone for a day or two to get them to let me move, but Erin in the office did the hard work for me. Bless her.)
A day later there was a note stating that the man came by and found no mold, but I could tell he hadn’t looked under the bed. So I called, and Brandon answered, and I told him to tell them to come back and look UNDER THE BED. He said he would tell him. Another week goes by, no word. So I tell Erin again yesterday. Today he shows up, while I’m on the phone, feeding my kids lunch AND wearing nothing but an African sarong that my Milly brought back for me wrapped around my expanding pregnant body. Nothing indecent about it, and very comfortable, just not something I would wear if I were expecting someone. The Boy opened the door for him before he even rang.
So I was caught, phone to my ear, sarong wrapped around my chest, and I pretended that it was perfectly normal to be wearing nothing but a piece of cloth while a strange man walks into my bedroom. (Well, he does come all the time to fix things, but still.) My pretending couldn’t fool my body as the sweat started to prickle up and down my back and under my armpits.
So I go into the bedroom and he has pulled up the bed and looked at the mold spots on the carpet and says to me, “I don’t think that’s mold, that looks more like a stain to me, it’s not even wet.”
I stand there, in my sarong, with the sickening smell of moldy carpet wafting up to my nostrils from the recent disturbance and respond, “Why don’t you get down there and smell it then, because I can smell it from here.”
He looks hesitant still so I say, “I don’t really care anymore, I’m moving in two weeks, but I though you all might since it’s a mold problem and they only tend to get worse.”
So he pulled up the carpet and sprayed, and even though I was wearing real clothes when he came back later this afternoon to replace it, and even though I know a moldy carpet when I smell one, hello I used to live in Vancouver, I’m sure that I am now fixed in his mind as the crazy lady in a towel who keeps smelling things that aren’t there. I hope not much needs fixing at the other place, ‘cause I could be waiting a long time.