And the drama goes on...pt. 2

[continued from pt. 1]

Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009

I get up and get ready to head into work. My landlord promises to be here when they come to spray, so I don't have to wait. All I have to do is lock my cat Capri in the bathroom so she's out of the way. I do that, knowing that I will pay for it in the form of cat retribution when I let her out that evening. I head into work.

At 4:30pm I call my landlord to find out what's up. They came and sprayed around 1pm. They also left an industrial strength fan in my room to help dry things out. They will be back to pick up the fan on Thursday evening (so they say). The floor should already be mostly dry, it's just the walls. Still, it is recommended I shut the door to the bedroom to keep the cat out. No problem. I head home.

I get home, change, and shut the bedroom door. I then go to let Capri out of the bathroom. She's not there. She's not anywhere in the house. PANIC. I discover that she escaped via the bathroom window. I had left it cracked due to the heat, and she pushed the window open farther and got out. The screen in that window wasn't secure. It needed to be fixed. I reported this to my landlords LAST YEAR when I moved in. It was never fixed. So she escaped. Because ONCE AGAIN they didn't fix things in a timely manner (or, in this case, not at all, which is also not unusual...there are several other things that were never fixed too). Clearly basic maintenance is not something they actually do consistently, if at all, and now it's caused two major problems: flooding and my cat escaping. I am livid. And terrified. I have no idea how long she's been out or where she is. She's an indoor cat, just over 2 years old, and I've only had her about 11 months now.

What's worse I took her collar off of her before locking her in the bathroom. Why? Because the last time she caught herself on the corner of the cabinet and freaked out (fortunately I was home so I freed her promptly). I didn't want that to happen again, so I took off her collar. So now she's outside, running around gods knows where, with nothing but a microchip. MORE PANIC.

I call my friend Plum and freak out. She comes over and as soon as I see her I start crying in the middle of the sidewalk. I've been walking around the blocks near my place calling for Capri, meowing (she actually answers to my meows, really), and shaking a treat bag. I can't find her. Then we hear her meowing. I meow back, and she responds (typical, we have regular "conversations" in meows). So we start trying to follow the meows. Plum and I start looking in the neighbors' backyards and Plum spots her up a tree. OhMyGodsThankTheLordShe'sOK. I coax her down, and right as I'm about to grab her (I even have my hands on her), a car alarm goes off and she bolts. SH*T!! Plum and I take off after her, cursing the car alarm as we run. Capri runs for the street. Fortunately a nice woman out for a run (happens to be running in our direction) heads her off and the landlords' kid (elementary age boy) keeps her from going into the street and she turns around and runs back into the yards behind my place. Whew. She goes back up the same tree, only even higher this time, clearly scared and now panting slightly. DAMMIT.

So Plum and I camp out in the yard where the tree is. My ankles are a buffet for mosquitoes (really, they are now polka-dotted with bites and I'm using anti-itch cream like lotion). We wait. I try tempting her down with treats. No dice. So I try milk which she loves and is notorious for trying to trip me when I get the carton out of the fridge and shake it. Also no dice. Capri sits up in the tree, and looks at me, quite comfortably, meowing periodically, from her branch (a good 20 feet off the ground). After a bit, Plum goes to Fu-Wah Mini Market nearby to get tofu-hoagies for us to eat for dinner. I continue my stake out of the tree, fighting a losing battle with the mosquitoes. [Side note: the tofu hoagies from Fu-Wah Mini Market are fantastic. Definitely recommended...it's a vegetarian banh-mi sandwich!]

After waiting for over an hour, watching Capri move around on the branch 20 feet off the ground with no movement downwards, we give up around 7:30pm. Plum heads home to take care of her own 4-legged furry brood, and I head inside. I go back outside to the tree to check on her at regular intervals, and she keeps refusing to come down out of the tree and back inside. I try tempting her with wet cat food (a major treat) but still no dice. At one point when I look up the tree she's descended to a lower fork in the branches (now only about 10 ft. off the ground) but still looks far to comfortable. I am also alarmed to see a raccoon in a neighboring branch. They are ignoring each other and quite calm. I'm freaked out. I decide to not try another food temptation for fear I'll get the raccoon instead of my cat. Yikes.

Around 10pm when I check on her she's out of the tree and lying on the ground, but as soon as I walk towards her she runs from me. She climbs another tree, this one right in my backyard, and meows at me. For the next 3 plus hours we have regular conversations of meows, her in the tree and me on the ground, but she won't come near me or come inside. I call my mom and freak out at her on the phone for 2 of those hours (good thing she lives in Australia where it's mid-day...I can always call my mom at midnight and not worry about waking her up!). At nearly 2am I finally give up and try to get some sleep.

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009

I wake up after only about 3 hours of sleep, and still no sign of her and now no meowing. She hasn't tried to come in. It's also raining. I head into work, hoping that when I get home later she'll be waiting to let in where it's dry and there's food. I spend the day surprisingly productive, fueled by coffee and worry.

I get home shortly before 5pm, and look for Capri. She's nowhere to be found. I meow. No response. I let my landlord (the father who owns the property) know that I'm extremely displeased with them because my cat got out because they never fixed the screen on that window that I reported a year ago. He looks shocked. I explain again that she got out because they never did a repair I reported several times and I'm really really upset about that and it's inexcusable on their part.

[Side note: I also notice when I get home that the Stanley Steamer people haven't been back and their fan is still in my bedroom. Wonder when they're going to come get that...]

I go inside and retrieve the milk carton, take it out back and shake it, hoping to tempt her. Nothing. No sign of her. I try shaking the treat bag. Again no sign of Capri at all. I meow. Nothing. I decide to walk around the block once, shaking the treat bag and meowing. There's absolutely no sign or sound of her at all. OMG. I'm afraid she's decided to go exploring farther away from home, has gotten trapped someplace, or someone has trapped her. I can't stand it! I just want my cat back home and safe!!

Now there's really nothing else I can do besides wait for her to come home. And it's killing me. I also print out signs to put up on the corners near my house, hoping people see them and if they've taken her in they'll call me.

My landlord (my regular contact) comes by to measure the bedroom for the carpet. She tells me people are supposed to be coming tomorrow to actually lay the carpet and then they'll put my bedroom back together. I also take the opportunity let her know about the window screen (since she's my "official" contact), and how upset I am that pretty much all of the recent problems could have been prevented if regular and basic maintenance/upkeep was done on the property, such as cleaning the drains/gutters, repairing exterior windows/screens, etc. All the little things you have to do when you own a house just to keep it standing. And I tell her I hope that they can see that specifically the flooding, etc. that's happened this week is an indication that maintenance is needed and I hope they use it as a learning experience and start doing said regular maintenance. We shall see. I'm not holding my breath. But I'm *this* close to putting a hex on their entire family, I swear.

I know all I can really do is hope and pray that Capri is OK and comes home soon. And try to get some sleep despite how worried I am. She's got to get hungry eventually, right?

And the drama goes on...pt. 1

There's no lack of drama around here lately. The Sunday flood issues (see previous post) are still being resolved.

Sunday evening my landlord finally called me back and said they'd be by again on Monday to work on drying the carpet some more. So at 9:30pm, I drag my mattress (futon) upstairs to my living room and put it on the floor. Somehow I manage to do this without getting the mattress wet by dropping or dragging it on the wet bedroom carpet. Chalk one up for anger-induced strength. Sunday night I sleep upstairs in my living room. This is strange, and confounds the cat, who keeps meowing at me to go downstairs to bed. On the other hand, she is also quite happy to have a giant soft surface to play/sleep on, so I don't think she quite understands that it's the mattress.

Monday, Aug. 3, 2009

Monday I wake up and call my landlord before 9am. I spend a bit of time explaining why the wet-vac ain't gonna cut it at this point. I convince her, and she's going to call professionals to come in and dry it and make sure all is well. I also have to provide her with the names of several companies (mad librarian search skillz FTW!) because she has no idea who to call. I give her three names and numbers. She makes calls and we settle in to wait. A little after 11am she tells me someone is supposed to be here between 11am and 1pm. OK. And we wait. My bedroom is now so musty and muggy I can hardly breathe and it's triggering my asthma (I keep coughing uncontrollably...a bad sign for me). It's been over 24 hours so I know the carpet is toast and will have to be replaced at this point. Cleaning it is no longer an option...the mold has set in.

At nearly 2pm we are still waiting. She calls back as well as calling the other places. She tells me all three work together and the first one she calls knows she's called the other two and is pissed off at her for calling them. Well, duh. If you don't show up as promised naturally people will look for other options. At 6:30pm I get another update from my landlord. They are still coming, the question is WHEN? A little later, the first company calls and says that a., they won't be coming until tomorrow now (but again, won't give a time) and b., they need at least $2000 just. to. show. up. OMG really? Landlord tells them to forget it, and she ends up calling Stanley Steamer. It's now after 7pm. Stanley Steamer doesn't come that night. Landlord brings by a dehumidifier to try and control the damp air if nothing else. I sleep in my living room again, my bedroom carpet still soaking wet and the air very musty/muggy, to the point I can no longer breathe in there at all (all I do is cough, which, again, is BAD and a sign my cough-variant asthma is kicking in).

Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009

I wake up and brace myself for the waiting game. Email various people at work to let them know and settle in with coffee and my remote desktop connection to get some reports and indexing project work done. Landlord calls Stanley Steamer people again and they say someone will be out that afternoon. I tell my landlord that the carpet is not salvageable at this point, it's been too long and there's no way to effectively clean it. What's more, because of my asthma any remaining mold could put me in the hospital with a severe respiratory infection and could kill me. She says let's wait and see what the professionals say. Grumble. I don't think she's really listening. MOLD = POSSIBLY DEADLY to an asthmatic, not to mention people with healthy lungs. No lie.

I see pictures of the flood in Louisville that devastated the public library via Twitter. OMG. The pictures make me gasp and are shockingly terrible. It's just an awful situation. And it certainly puts my issue in perspective. Still, I know my flood, while minor by comparison, needs to be resolved too.

Stanley Steamer shows up around 2:30pm. And thank the lords they back me and immediately tell her that the carpet needs to go. That they can smell the mold that's already growing in it. It's been wet too long now to be cleaned/dried and salvaged. It needs to be ripped out, along with the padding, and trashed. I am relieved. They want the room cleaned out, the baseboards, carpet and padding removed, and then they will spray the entire room and lower walls with an anti-microbial agent to kill any mold that's there. Once that dries, we are free to lay new carpet. OK. Sounds like a plan.

Landlord's dad (one who actually owns the property) shows up to get the estimate from them. He gets the estimate, and tells them they (landlords) will pull out the carpet. They make an appointment for them to come back on Wed. afternoon to do the anti-microbial spraying. The Stanley Steamer guys leave.

My landlord then offers me some lovely unsolicited advice in the form of a website promising a "natural cure" for allergies and allergy-induced asthma. I politely thank him and explain that my asthma isn't allergy related, but rather a portion of my lungs just don't work and I'm extra susceptible to respiratory infections and that said infections can get very serious and even deadly very easily if not taken care of. So, um, NO. Thanks but also "natural cures" like that one, well, it just doesn't work that way. Grrr.

He leaves and then people (more of landlords family, including my usual contact person) come in to move the furniture out of my bedroom. My bed is dismantled, and it and my dressers are placed in the hallway. Good thing it's a long hallway. They pull off the baseboards. I am disturbed to see mold on the backside of several of them, so I point it out and say that is NOT coming back into this room. Period. Landlord's daughter (my usual contact), says OK and promises they will be trashed instead (I'll be checking when they reinstall baseboards to make absolutely sure). They rip out the carpet, padding and tack strips, and clean up the resulting mess. The dehumidifier is put back in the now empty room in an attempt to start the drying process before they spray.

I realize my entire bedroom will be in the hallway and I'll be sleeping in the living room for the rest of the week. They won't be able to lay carpet for a good 36 hours after spraying, so the earliest new carpet will go down is Friday. GAH.

I go to sleep in my living room, cranky, but glad that things are finally getting done.

[To be continued...]

Bronchial spasms

It's been quite some time since my asthma has affected my life. Often I forget I have it. I know that sounds strange, but I typically have no symptoms unless I'm sick. Last week I started coughing and had a bit of congestion. I gave the workshop with a nice husky voice, and made it through by drinking lots of tea and sucking on cough drops. The cough was still more or less under control. By Friday I was coughing regularly and having a hard time stopping a coughing fit, basically starting to lose control of my breathing. So I put the plan my doctor and I had created when I can't control my coughing into action and started a supportive inhaler (prescription standing by).

I coughed all weekend. And Monday. On Tuesday it was so bad I had coworkers coming up to me and offering me cough drops. These coworkers sit several cubes away, but my coughing was so constant it was worrying them (and probably disturbing their work). Awesome. I even had cough drops. They just weren't helping. Not. At. All. Neither was the supportive inhaler, obviously. What's worse, the coughing was waking me up at night so I couldn't even sleep. I had to use my emergency inhaler a couple of times because the coughing spasm wouldn't stop. I hate my albuterol inhaler...it makes me shake. I basically vibrate for a good hour after using it. At 3am that kind of prevents me from getting back to sleep. Not to mention taking legible notes when you're vibrating is really really hard. And I was coughing so hard it hurt.

So off to the doctor I went on Wednesday afternoon. She confirmed that I was having an asthma-related bronchial spasm. Basically there's no bronchial infection, but my body doesn't realize that so it keeps trying to cough, which irritates my lungs, which perpetuates the whole cycle. The joys of cough-variant asthma. I'm now armed with a medley of medications to stop the coughing, including a stronger supportive inhaler and a short course of steroids.

Let's hope it works so I can get some good sleep. Not to mention I'm tired of tea and cough drops.