E.T. phone home...

Remember in the movie "E.T.", towards the end, when the family's house is draped in plastic and all those men are in Haz-Mat suits? Well, that's what our house has looked like (except for the men in suits part) for the last few days while our mold situation is being taken care of! I can't tell you how disconcerting it is when these words are inside your house!

and the downstairs guest room/playroom looks like this (yes, that's a zipper!...)

and the inside corner of the garage looks like this....

and yet, you don't actually have to leave the house while all this is going on!!! You just go on about your normal living as usual....this is all just so weird! Because all this moldy business was happening in the wall behind the hot water heater, we have had no hot water for the last 6 days, with 3 more to go.......Thank goodness Daughter has 4 full bathrooms w/showers!!

Mold is not something you are allowed to ignore if you know you have it. You cannot sell your house with previous mold damage unless you have a certificate to prove it's been cleaned up. It was all cleared today by a health/hygiene inspector so we are now good to go. Look at the difference!

BEFORE: all that black stuff on the wood framing is the mold.

AFTER: Look at that! It looks like new wood.

Now we can repair the drywall, lay the new flooring and carpet and be done with this whole inconvenient business! Hopefully one more week and we'll be back to normal......

Here's another little disturbing tidbit: for the first 2 years we lived here, this was MY room and my bed was up against the wall on this very spot! (I don't even want to think about it....)

Thank You so much, Previous-Homeowners (you know who you are) for leaving us this little gift to find 4 1/2 years later. We found your attempt at a quick coverup. Just remember, what goes around, comes around........