I'm sorry for the lateness of the post.  Apparently when you have an adult-person job, it sometimes takes priority over all those other adult-person extra-curriculars that you might like to do all the time, but that if you did, you'd probably be a hobo on a corner and wouldn't be able to do them anyway.  Besides, in addition to work things, our internet bottomed-out last night a little before 9pm.  And I say "our" in the loosest way possible, because technically it wasn't ours at all, we were just pirating it.  However, I'm confident that the rage I felt at seeing my wireless indicator empty out of all signal is exactly what I would have felt as a paying customer.  I want to know why the owners of linksys felt the need to take their signal completely away.  All that said, none of that is the topic of my posting.

Today I want to continue my discussion of the mold in our apartment and how my apartment's management office apparently doesn't care.  Before I lost internet connection, I was busily looking up the symptoms of mold inhalation/poisoning.  Turns out that they're mostly just the same as allergies, which I have, so finding that out didn't help anything.  Symptoms include:

-Nasal and sinus congestion: 

-Eye irritation, such as itchy, red, watery eyes

-Respiratory problems, such as wheezing and difficulty breathing

-Cough

-Throat irritation

-Skin irritation, such as a rash

-Headache

I suffer from practically all of those.  In fact, right now, my throat feels a little scratchy, and my head hurts.  But then, I'm thirsty all the time these days, so I might just be dehydrated.  BUT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHICH IT IS?!  Mold must seriously be one of those super sneaky, subtle killers.  Just imagine, you think that you're merely suffering from the normal, pain in the ass symptoms of hay fever: drippy nose, some serious eye rubbing (ever notice how the more you rub your eyes when they itch, the worse they get?  Sometimes I just want to rub my eyes out of my head), and maybe a headache every now and then that you just put down to your drippy nose…then WHAM, one day you're gasping for air and are rushed to the hospital and the doctor is holding your hand and you can't really see all that well and people are shouting and there is an IV drip in your arm and the doctor says, "You've had a very close call. A very close call indeed. The mold almost got you."  I don't actually know if that's how it would go down,  but you get the idea.  One moment, allergies, the next, DEATH.  And it is that kind of very sneaky, very unobtrusive death that is lurking underneath the carpet in my APARTMENT!!

I self-promoted to my parents and sent them the link to my blog.  My dad wrote me an email back and this is what he said (the fact that he said nothing whatsoever about the blog itself is not terribly hopeful, but it was nice that he did some mold research of his own):

Luckily, we haven't signed the lease yet, so we won't be in breach of contract.  However, the site that the link takes you to is less than reassuring.

***Currently there is no city agency that will inspect for mold. You can inform the customer that if mold is growing in their home, it should be cleaned up readily. Mold growth can be removed from hard surfaces with commercial products, soap and water, or a bleach solution of no more than 1 cup of bleach in 1 gallon of water.***

What the fuck?  I beg your pardon, Philadelphia?  So now what? We still have the holes in our walls, and the leak might still be there…  Perhaps we should run the shower indefinitely until the hallway has a puddle again, and then call the License and Inspection Department because:

However; if a tenant states that they have a leak that the property owner will not repair, and as a result mold is forming, a maintenance residential service request can be entered to L&I for an inspection of the leak only not the mold.  

But they came into the apartment today and supposedly fixed things (read: the shower).  I stuck my head into the wall (because the hole is big enough for me to do that) and I still see rusty metal.  I just googled "shower pan" because I did not know what one looked like and it turns out that "shower pan" is just a term for "the floor of the shower."  

So now I am really confused.  Because I am pretty sure that they put in a new one of those the first time they replaced our shower.  But the leak came back.  So what the heck is leaking?!  I almost half hope that the leak comes back again, because then I will call the city and make them send someone out and tell them that WE HAVE HAD A LEAK IN OUR APARTMENT FOR THE PAST THREE MONTHS!  I'm so frustrated!

I'm going to go eat something.