Rain Causes a Bad Odor from Mold

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PHOTO: FOTOLIA/DANI VINCEK
After a month of rainy weather, the author's home is permeated by mold—and its odor.

It started last spring after a month of almost solid rain here in the Northeast, a rarity more typical of, say, the cloud forest of Costa Rica than the Hudson River valley. It was also frightening, apart from the storms and flash-flood warnings. I mean, it was like encountering an altogether alien environment, as though the microclimate had entered upon a diabolical new course. Since I’m a dabbler in science fiction, it even occurred to me that here were the makings of a workable plot: A long period of humidity leads to the coalescence–in the very air itself–of some evil creature. Not anything as humanoid as the yeti or Bigfoot, but, instead, something that could permeate its victims rather than flat-out club them. You get the picture. Well, the humidity eventually returned to normal, and the excessive moisture evaporated (like my plot idea). As summer passed and fall arrived, I chided myself for ever having harbored such a ridiculous notion at all. Prematurely, as it turned out, to my great distress.

The dining room got hit first. I had been away for 10 days in mid-October and returned to find, on the walls, which had been freshly painted in May, a nearly uniform covering of smudgy florets. Far from the beautiful patterns of a frosted windowpane, this looked more like the dried residue of a wet dog who had shaken himself at the room’s epicenter. Jet-lagged and feeling the first pinching signs of a head cold, I was in no mood for further–let alone, careful–diagnosis. I scowled at Arthur, my golden retriever, and ordered him out of the house. A week of banishment ought to serve him right. As usual with this breed–essentially Roman Catholic–he was consumed by guilt and curled himself into a fetal position on an old rug, no doubt reviewing his multitudinous sins. I got out the stepladder, filled a bucket with warm soapy water, and washed the walls the rest of the day.

It wasn’t until a week later, as my cold began to improve, that I noticed something strange about the dishwasher. I still couldn’t smell very well, but the odor coming out of the machine hit me like a shot of ripe Gorgonzola. A dead mouse, I concluded, reaching my hand down into that dark place below the rotator spray arm. But there was nothing there, thank heaven. I then sent the empty machine through three straight cycles one normal and two “pots and pans”–trusting in household chemistry by adding more detergent each time. But to no avail; for at the conclusion of each wash, I would sidle up to the dishwasher, slowly open the door, force a whiff through my congested nostrils, and practically fall over at the odious result.

What was going on here? While no mechanical whiz, I knew perfectly well that a dishwasher is made out of hard things, like metal and heat-resistant plastic. It couldn’t be rotting like some fig in a back alley, now could it?

Confronted by a phenomenon so distinctly unnatural and intractable, I did what any normal human being would do: I wished it away. Time, I hoped, would take care of it. I’d simply eat at the local diner for a spell, avoiding dirty dishes altogether. Before long, whatever it was would surely disappear, a passing glitch in the universe. I dosed myself with NyQuil and went to bed, Arthur at the foot, his penance complete, his soul once again irradiated by a state of grace, which, unhappily, proved short of duration, as the events of the following day showed.

  • Published on Jan 1, 1990
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