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Post by htmb on Jul 31, 2020 19:51:45 GMT
I sure hope so, Mossie. We’re due for some better times!
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 31, 2020 21:55:16 GMT
I have two traumas.
One is that my #@%^&*! dog Oliver just bit me on the leg. He has this happy but intensely annoying habit of giving little fun nips when he's excited, like whenever we're leaving for a walk. I've tried to discourage it, but obviously haven't tried hard enough. This time I had to discourage myself from kicking him until he died of internal injuries. There are cats that cross the back of this house by jumping from one of the tin roofs to another, which is sometimes really loud. It was so loud just now that I went out to see what it was. Whenever I go to open the back door the dogs go into a frenzy, thinking they'll catch a cat out there. They bark furiously and push past me to all go out the door at the same time. I guess I didn't get out of Oliver's way in time, as he fanged me real good, leaving two little puncture wounds with a bruise between them. I hate him.
The other trauma is caused by my neighbor. This could also go into Pet Peeves. Well, it could go there if that thread were called Provoking Fury or something. I've talked before about how there is a chronic water shortage here, meaning that it's prudent to go pee-pee two or three times before flushing the toilet. Neighbor is from California, so subscribed to this habit even before moving to Oaxaca. However, this waiting-to-flush thing is only meant to apply to urine and that isn't meant to over-accumulate, either. Both he and I recently changed out the toilets in our respective houses to the water-saving kind, which has been great in terms of being able to flush more often without worrying about using up all the water. Well, anyway I flush more often. His bathroom has a small louvered window that lets onto my patio. I've already had to raise the issue with him of flushing more often as the stench coming through that little window is nauseating. He must have complied for a while, but today it's almost unbearable to be in my patio, especially under the carport where apparently the odor gets trapped. It's obviously not just pee in that toilet.I hate him too.
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Post by htmb on Jul 31, 2020 22:11:35 GMT
Oh my god. What a pain. You could punish Oliver by sticking his little nose near the neighbor’s window, but he’d probably love that, too.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 31, 2020 22:22:00 GMT
Yeah, but that would mean I'd have to get close to the window to hold him up, then would probably pass out and hurt both myself and the dog. Incidentally, I first noticed the stench this morning when I left the house wearing a mask. I was trapped in the effluvia until I exited through the gate onto the street.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2020 1:00:44 GMT
It must be really unpleasant. Especially in summer weather. Maybe you need a big outdoor fan, placed in your courtyard and aimed at his window.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 1, 2020 1:09:52 GMT
You think that would work better than the air deodorizer I sprayed through his bathroom window?
I am just completely unable to understand why a grown man wouldn't flush away his shit.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2020 1:21:05 GMT
I remember that window. It seems to be one of the only negatives to your wonderful home. Too bad you can’t just brick it up.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 1, 2020 4:20:50 GMT
Perhaps the guy has lost his sense of smell due to the coronavirus.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 1, 2020 4:48:19 GMT
I remember that window. It seems to be one of the only negatives to your wonderful home. Too bad you can’t just brick it up. Were it only up to me! Kerouac, he has told me more than once that he "can't smell bad smells". This could be true, but I maintain that you can see poo-poo and do something about it.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 1, 2020 16:49:53 GMT
Maybe you could cross-stitch him a nice wall hanging for his bathroom:
If it’s Yellow Let it Mellow. If it’s Brown, Flush it Down!
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Post by tod2 on Aug 2, 2020 11:04:16 GMT
Oh Kimby what a laugh! Bixa, He is a very un-hygenic man. Bet he doesn't wash his hands after No.1 or 2. It's obvious you will have to block off that loo window somehow. Either with a huge bank of plants on a stand, or with plants or something else hanging down in front of it. Sorry you are suffering at the moment but one night while you are falling asleep, the solution will come to you.
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Post by questa on Aug 2, 2020 13:39:48 GMT
Kimby, I was about to suggest the same rhyme myself. It is often seen when Oz is in drought.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 2, 2020 15:14:30 GMT
Maybe you could cross-stitch him a nice wall hanging for his bathroom: “If it’s Yellow Let it Mellow. If it’s Brown, Flush it Down!” This has been the rule at our house for decades. Although in hot weather we flush more often.
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Post by whatagain on Aug 2, 2020 15:51:12 GMT
I started by putting a brick in the flush. So that there is less water used each time. Now we have savers, so small for yellow, big for brown. Yellow should happen in showers too, but i like baths...
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 2, 2020 17:03:44 GMT
Thanks for the amusing suggestions and the mnemonic poem. Re: the poem ~ when he moved in I attempted to explain to him how the water situation works here and the importance of saving water. He's from southern California, so knows about such things and even quoted the poem to me. Maybe he forgot the last line?
As far as the windows ~ somewhere on here I posted pictures of the re-vamp of the windows I did. The actual windows on that house are casement windows with a transom above them which open out onto my patio. They're thin single-panes, so I could hear everything that went on in that house. The landlords allowed me to block the windows from opening and to install 6mm frosted windows over them, but they asked me to leave the transoms alone as they are "the ventilation for the house" (<-- landlady's words).
The new glass did muffle the sound, but the bathroom transom allows stink to escape to my side of the property.
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Post by tod2 on Aug 3, 2020 6:43:57 GMT
Bixa I remember the El Nino that left South Africa high and dry like never before. We had to bath, then wash our clothes in the same water, then either use some for toilet flushing or water our plants. It wasn't long before the stores were selling canisters of a perfumed foam - very similar to hair mousse or what I call 'squirt cream' for topping a dessert.. One would leave the yellow but instead of flushing the solids away , all you had to do was cover the offending matter with a layer of foam. This worked like a charm but you had to be careful not to overload the toilet so it became blocked. Then when flush time came you poured a bucket of dirty water down the loo. Thinking back, it was not a pleasant time in our lives. We appreciate water so much now that we save rainwater in storage tanks for the garden and only use piped water for domestic use.
Whatagain - the brick in the cistern is a very handy tip and can be used for years. As a matter of fact most people forget they even put a brick in there.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 3, 2020 16:56:27 GMT
Oh gawd, Tod ~ that sounds awful! The canister foam sounds like a recipe for disaster, too.
The system here is that the municipality delivers treated (but now treated?) water to neighborhoods on a non-schedule. When I moved into this house in 2014 it was two or three times a week. It came in for several hours with enormous pressure. All houses have "tinacos" -- roof cisterns of anywhere from 700 to 1100 liter capacity -- to store this water, and some have underground cisterns which can hold up to 10,000 liters. My house is right down the hill from the water treatment plant, which is why the pressure is so good. But this house does't have an underground cistern, something that didn't matter when the city delivered ample water. But the city has grown and grown in the almost 23 years I've lived here and nothing has been done in that time to confront the problem of chronic water shortage.
I posted over in Gardening Waffle about how I save rainwater. In the downstairs toilet tank are several small plastic pop bottles filled with water -- a variation on the brick in the tank method. The upstairs toilet is now a water-saving model. Also, when I shower I catch the water in one of those square receptacles used for bussing tables in restaurants. There is also a little bucket to catch what flows straight down from the shower head when it's turned off -- a side effect of the gravity-fed water system. I use that saved shower water to flush the toilet in order to save as much as possible in the roof tank. I only use my washing machine when the water is coming in from the municipality.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 3, 2020 17:04:11 GMT
From what I keep reading, we will all have to use water saving techniques in the coming years. Today's newspaper talked about the summer drought that is now happening every year in most parts of France ("The ground is like concrete.") and the fact that livestock have to be brought into the barns a month early because there are no longer enough things for them to eat in the fields. And obviously, the hay they are fed is not free either.
I feel almost ashamed that Paris has no problems -- it is sitting on top of a huge water table that far exceeds its needs, no matter how long a drought lasts. A gift from god or just blind luck?
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 3, 2020 17:18:40 GMT
In the UK we have vast amounts of rain but we don’t seem to have the facilities or the will to store it. We could sell it like oil!
Our water management is pathetic.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 3, 2020 17:25:17 GMT
One of the many horrors of climate change is that places all over the world are set into agricultural systems that are having the rug pulled out from under them. Obviously this starts an economic domino effect. The thing about the livestock is frighteningly dystopian. I wonder how long it will be before plans are made to siphon Paris's water supply out and away to other areas. Is that even possible? Humans too often treat natural water sources as something eternal. The history of the Rio Grande river should be a cautionary tale. It starts way up in the Continental Divide in Colorado and eventually empties into the Gulf of Mexico -- or not. Native American and Spanish names for the river all reference its size and importance. Nevertheless, increased use throughout the history of the US has depleted the river: In mid-2001, a 328-foot (100 m)-wide sandbar formed at the mouth of the river, marking the first time in recorded history that the Rio Grande failed to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The sandbar was dredged, but reformed almost immediately. Spring rains the following year flushed the reformed sandbar out to sea, but it returned in mid-2002. Wikipedia
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Post by lagatta on Aug 3, 2020 18:30:04 GMT
I was wondering why the mighty Rio Grande/Rio Bravo looked almost dry at some points... Not surprised though.
We have an admirable carbon profile due to the central role of hydroelectricity here, but are scandalously lax in terms of water management. Showers should have an automatic means of collecting "grey water" and we should be flushing with that.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 3, 2020 18:57:57 GMT
Our phone line is down atm. It's a pain. Can't speak to my sisters which makes the local lockdown even more horrid. Also waiting for a call from my hairdresser as they're open from today and we are allowed to go to hairdressers, pubs and restaurants so long as we maintain social distancing (presumably the hairdresser will be using a hedge trimmer for my messy tangle)
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Post by tod2 on Aug 4, 2020 7:47:14 GMT
Can't remember exactly when but a week or so ago I saw a wash hand basin positioned on top of the toilet cistern so that every little bit of water is captured then used for flushing. I can't picture how it was set up but it was in such a way that the cistern and basin were back to back - no straddling the toilet bowl…..
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 10, 2020 12:04:36 GMT
Yesterday I was seized with an urge to have a sort out of the box bedroom. It's a cluttered space 2 walls lined with clothes racks so we use it as a sort of walk-in-wardrobe..I also store a lot of craft supplies in there...stuff that I'm not using at the time. The air conditioning unit is in there too...with the pipe fed through a hole in the plasterboard wall...it stops the noise keeping us awake when it's turned on. Anyway, I was clambering about, standing on a dining chair to reach the top shelves where I had boxes of wool, old greetings cards, Christmas wrap etc when I lost my balance and stepped off the chair a bit suddenly onto the corner of a large plastic crate cutting my heel. The crate is fine but I have quite a deep cut on my heel...quite sore it is. Nothing terrible but in an awkward place, i still managed to take the dog for a walk this morning...i just needed to whine a bit....poor me...
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Post by questa on Aug 10, 2020 12:37:23 GMT
I'm sorry to hear you have hurt your heel. Does it need stitches? I hope it 'heels' quickly. OK...sympathy over...what the *&^%$ were you doing standing and probably reaching on a dining chair? You do know we girls get quite breakable at a certain age. If you need to get stuff it is better to stand on the table itself and use a broom stick or upside down mop to act as a stabiliser.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 10, 2020 13:20:06 GMT
Ouch. I hope you won't be hobbling for too long, cheery.
Yesterday, I somehow switched the language on my telephone to Estonian and it took me about an hour to fix it because if you don't know the Estonian word for "language" it becomes quite difficult to find!
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 10, 2020 14:36:06 GMT
That sounds painful Cheery. Take care.
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Post by mossie on Aug 10, 2020 14:37:19 GMT
I naughtily thought that with Questa's broomstick it would have been easier to fly up and get things, or use the magic wand to command it to come to you.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 10, 2020 15:24:20 GMT
This is what broomsticks are supposed to do.
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Post by tod2 on Aug 10, 2020 15:32:33 GMT
I bet we all remember seeing that movie as a kid. Of course in a huge theatre it must have been quite daunting to watch .
So sorry to hear of your woes Cheery - I bet the air turned blue… Get well soon.
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