broken scary stuff

Today I learned by talking on the phone that today is some kind of unofficial house-repair day. So far we've had calls from friends about how best to clean up a broken compact fluorescent light bulb (mercury contamination) and where the best place is to get a replacement garbage disposal (water leak = mold potential). At our house, the room we've been sleeping in smelled sort of like wet wood late this morning, and according to the water meter, there is a very small leak somewhere in our house. A trip into the attic revealed that the pipes are even farther away from that room than we thought, and they didn't appear to be dripping or anything, so we're pleased to report we probably have a leaky toilet.

It finally dawned on one of us that maybe the bed itself was the source of the smell, and by crawling around under it, we found a tiny hole in the aluminum-foil wrapping of one of the formaldehyde-free particle board pieces. Judging by the inflation of the wrapping, the particle board has been offgassing, and standing on the bed this morning to change a light bulb caused a blow-out.

It took a few months for that wrapping to inflate. If you want to see something really offgas, you should get one of those remote controls Cox hands out with its cable boxes. The husband of the really, really sick lady has to let the gas out of the plastic bag he keeps his in at least once a day or it puffs up enough that you can't push the buttons.