What Next At 3119 4th Street N.? A Rain Of Toads And Blood?

Photo By John Hoff

Word reaches me from "Patty Cake" in the Eco-Village of a disturbing new problem with 3119 4th Street N., which sits empty and awaiting demolition...

"Patty" emails me today as follows:

I called 911 yesterday on 3119 4th (St. N.). I smelled a natural gas smell coming from the apartment windows. I came to find out it isn't natural gas but SEWER GAS.

The fire department called the gas company and then told me the gas was already shut off. I was told there was nothing they could do about the sewer smell and only a SLIGHT possibility the sewer gas would build up enough to BLOW UP.

In a follow-up phone conversation, I learned from "Patty" that one of the guys bidding on the demolition reports the building is full of asbestos, which will make demolition a lot more complicated and costly. And fun, of course. Don't forget fun. Ooooooh, moon suits. I love moon suits.

In the meantime, now is the perfect time to talk about an itsy bitsy foray into 3119 4th St. N. which happened more than a month ago. See, "Patty Cake" is very allergic to mold, and due to water gushing inside and flooding the basement after copper pipes were stolen, the building has become Mold-O-Topia...to the point mold could be strongly smelled outside the building, and "Patty Cake" had to take a sick day at work from breathing that (expletive) in.

Right after "Patty" took a sick day, I went to "3119"...and I may have had my friends with cameras along with, who knows? And acting under the broad and sensible "adopt houses" mandate, I went inside and secured as many wide-open windows as I could, to keep the mold spore contained inside to keep "Patty" from getting sick. Sicker.

And, in fact, during Mayor Rybak's visit to the tree nursery, I told him quite openly about this little adventure...and Peter Teachout told him, at the same time, about taking shoes off power lines.

And with the cameras rolling and everything, nobody said "Don't do that" and so I figured, hey, it's coooool, so I decided I wouldn't have to write up my little They-Came-From-Planet-Mold adventure using the literary artifice of "The Ghost of Uncle Jack" to talk about who it was, exactly, who secured that building to trap The Spore. (I did, in fact, use some of Uncle Jack's nails which "Patty Cake" gave me. Uncle Jack is the relative who build the house in which "Patty" now resides. Uncle Jack still resides there too, kind of, heh heh)

Anyway, closing off the windows made things better as far as the mold spore issue, but after a while "Patty" noticed I'd either missed a couple windows or somebody had gotten inside and opened one of the windows, possibly even a city worker; since "Patty" had been making calls about the uber-toxic "Mold-O-Topia" situation next door, and its impact on her quality of life. And I meant to write about my little mold-containment foray but, good lord, I can hardly keep up with everything.

Mold is a very primitive life form. Mold can wait its turn in line while I write about life forms like gangsters with digital cameras. (Click here)

I kept meaning to get inside "3119" again and close those windows, really, but now it turns out it's a good thing I didn't...I mean, in light of the sewer gas.

Did I say LIGHT? No, I didn't mean that. Please, don't light anything.

Well, at least "3119" has a few windows to vent from, while the mold spore is still mostly contained. These are the kind of desperate "life in a lifeboat" issues we deal with in the Eco-Village:

Scary Mold Spore Mutant Attack or Revenge of the Sewer Gas.

Pick yer poison.