The Fungus That Ate My House

Will it never end? My bank account seems to have diarrhea. A seemingly never ending series of calamities requiring large donations to workmen, hardware stores and doctors keep coming my way without relief.

After a year and a half, my tenant in the little studio apartment had to leave, and despite the fact that he paraded around the pool every day in an unflattering, grape smuggler, speedo bathing suit, he was a valued tenant. The man was very clean and he did pay his rent in a timely manner. Before he moved in, I was aware of a leak in the shower, but I thought I had addressed the problem and I never heard otherwise from my tenant. After he left, an inspection of the apartment revealed that the leak had continued, apparently unabated for the last year. In fact the leak was so bad that I decided that the shower needed to be replaced.

As usual with projects done at 'Casa Alan', This one is having it's share of surprises. Over the years many snags have come up on my projects, but nothing prepared me for what the man rebuilding my shower found when he ripped out the old one. Behind the old shower wall was a weird growth of spores, and mildew, that looked like some kind of blob that was planning to burst out and envelop an unsuspecting renter. When he pulled up the old floor pan, it was even weirder. It looked like something from one of the Alien movies. A mass of fungus was growing in a circle around the drain, with huge long tentacles trying to work their way out into the rest of the room. All this requires that more time and money will have to be spent on the job.

So now I have another thing to worry about here in the high heat, and humidity of Florida. In addition to the rats, cockroaches the size of your fist, alligators, hurricanes, and crack crazed car-jackers, I have the beast that grows under your shower.