2008-05-19

Three Coats, A BAD Smell and Four Fire Trucks!

Thank you all for your comments & good suggestions yesterday. I discovered that we forgot to paint this, it hides behind the door and I think we should leave it as a grim reminder. Just picture a room with that colour all over the walls and trim, then look at the next photo.


This is the counter top and the carpet that are in the room, oh and rubber baseboards. The carpet is actually a green blue blend and lighter than shows in this photo. The counter top is lighter than the walls were but is fairly accurate in the picture. Don't you love how they didn't bother to edge it?



The yellow is the "primer" that we put on (the actual colour is darker) and you can see here how the green/teal is bleeding through. The white on the door is one coat of "Varathane Colours in Plastic" and the green/teal is bleeding through more on that than on one coat over a black cabinet she had us paint!

So, two coats of the intended colour and another coat of the white and we will still have to be back tomorrow after the office closes to paint some more! I think we are going to leave the walls though as they are. We have already put in 14 hours on this project and the owners are cheap so they will try to pay us less if it takes too much longer.

So, yesterday, Steve's wife made us lunch and as I was standing there knocking on their door, I thought "Yuck! This hall stinks, I hope that is not lunch!" Thanks all the PTB"S that is wasn't! Steve told me today, that the hall was worse last night and he was banging on doors trying to figure out where the smell was from and he hoped no one had died. (Yes, it was that bad.) He went around this morning too to try to get someone to open up as there had been an altercation in the hall with two other tenants about the smell., Of course, no-one bothered to call the office and leave a message, after all we were closed.

His wife was working today, so we had lunch in my suite which is on a different floor, unfortunately same building. He had to run home to get something in the afternoon and when he came back, he said the smell is even worse and had me phone one of the tenants, that he suspected as the source. No luck. Then he asked if I would come up when we were done and we could bang on doors and find it. He didn't want to find a dead body by himself if that is what it was. I don't blame him! I don't want to have to find one ever thanks! Especially one that has been stewing for a few days and it has been warm here.

Round about 5.30 p.m., we were just cleaning up, washing brushes and so on when we hear fire trucks. So, as Steve has left his stove on before I asked him if his oven was on! Sirens are not frequent enough here that you ignore them when they stop this close. Steve was at the window and could see the trucks - oh, they are across the street, no they are turning around. The only truck we could see from where we were was parked in front of the bldg between the one we were in and the one we live in. Nothing we could do, it is the managers bldg and she would take care of anything, if she needed us she knew where to find us - we just continued on, cleaning up.

The fire trucks were still at OUR bldg 1/2 hour later when we finished and were headed home! As I am blogging, you can guess there was no fire. It was the smell! It finally penetrated to my wing of the bldg and one of the tenants simply called the fire department. They sent FOUR big trucks!

The source of the smell, was a dead freezer and the meat rotting in it. Now, that meat has to have been rotting for quite some time for it to have gotten as bad as it did! These are big buildings and the fire men had to get out their blowers and the spray thing they use to get smoke smell out. They also told the manager that the suite was full of open air fresheners and aftershave and incense, they figure he was trying to cover it up. They insisted that the freezer be duct taped shut and removed to the garbage immediately and gave the manager the name of a company that will take it away and dispose of it properly. In all the fire men were here for over an hour just because one man was to stupid or lazy (more likely) to do anything about his freezer. This man just moved in & the freezer looked pretty new. I think (as there are no plug ins in the storage rooms) that he got an adapter for the light bulb to plug in his freezer and then turned off the light! Hello?

However, he has to pay for all of this, so maybe he will pay more attention in future. When I returned to my suite finally, I let the cat out for a few minutes and was promptly accosted by all of my neighbours. Spent a good hour telling them all that there was no fire, that it was a dead freezer and rotten meat and was all taken care of.

Now that the smell is cleared out of my sinuses, I think I might be able to eat, so I am off to see what I have for food - thankfully nothing rotten!

Good night all. I should be able to catch up on blogs tomorrow!

Oh, WWC tomorrow, I better take some pictures!

12 comments:

the Bag Lady said...

EEEUUUWWW, glad it wasn't me who had to smell that! For it to have permeated the entire building, it had to have been rotting for quite some time. One has to wonder what goes on in some people's minds! Did he know where the smell was coming from? If he was using air-fresheners, etc., he must have at least noticed it... *shaking head*

the Bag Lady said...

Hey, maybe it was cut-up body parts... is anyone missing?

Jay said...

I can only imagine how nasty that must have smelled. Yuck!!!

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

That's quite a life of adventure you're leading!

Reb said...

Sis, he claimed it was chicken...I just hope he wasn't actually eating it!

Jay, the only thing that will make me toss cookies, is bad odors. I can hear gross described, watch operations on telly - no problem as long as I don't have to smell it.

BG, wanna swap?

Leah J. Utas said...

My, what a perfectly disgusting adventure. Said freezer must have been off for quite some time.
The owner may have grown accustomed to it, or has an impaired sense of smell, and an equally impaired sense of, well, everything. Or no sense at all.

Jo said...

Yuckamucka! That sounded truly gross, but at least it wasn't a dead body!

I feel bad for the silly man, how mortifying.

Reb said...

Leah, I am assuming that he was rarely home and maybe cultural differences had something to do with it?

Jo, the worst thing is that I don't think he was embarrassed! Again with the cultural thing.

Anonymous said...

I was afraid someone had died. Can you imagine how bad New Orleans smelled, with thousands upon thousands of those freezers?
Ugh.

Reb said...

Kcinnova, I'd rather not! That on top of the mould and mud and other things rotting. I still can't believe that some people stayed there, refusing to leave their homes.

Hilary said...

Ugh, Reb. I don't think I'd be able to escape that smell.. no matter how well it was cleaned up. Those kinds of things seem to stay in my brain. And darned if I'm not cooking chicken for dinner!

Reb said...

Hilary, I know the feeling, I got so hungry though, I wound up eating cereal.