spanner nut wrenches and mold

Today I learned that if you want to completely dismantle your Whirlpool/Kenmore direct drive washing machine, it helps to have a spanner nut wrench. We're still working with the 'pound on the end of a screwdriver with a hammer' wrench, but we'll see how it goes.

In other news, people in Texas are worrying about mold, so the Houston Chronicle has a pretty good article about it. I'd probably have something to say about it, too, but I'm totally wiped out, so in truly bad form, I'm just going to quote a chunk of it:

Only about 24 of the more than 100,000 species of mold are "really terrible," said Dr. Andrew Campbell, director of the Center for Immune, Environmental and Toxic Disorders at The Woodlands.

"It's like a small city where everybody is nice but there are a couple of dozen dirty, rotten scoundrels," he said.

When mold is bad, it is very, very bad. Some of the worst produce mycotoxins that have been reported to suppress the immune system, cause rashes, nausea, neurological damage and respiratory diseases.

The scope of the problem of toxic mold is unclear because there has been little conclusive medical research. No official standards have been set for how much of any type of mold is too much inside a house, in part because some people are more sensitive to it than others.

And here's the part about just allergies:

Far more common in Houston are mold allergies, where sufferers experience nasal congestion, sneezing and itching after crawling in a musty attic or being outdoors after a rain triggers the release of mold spores into the air.