My view of life from the linoleum.

I had some awfully good news last Friday.  During a time when a little good news can go a very long way.  As I’ve been harping, I evidently have significant mold exposure, made worse by my Lyme Disease.  A couple of months ago we had our air conditioner and the vents cleaned.  Our air conditioner was full of mold.  THANK YOU FLORIDA.  And to add insult to injury, we were awfully excited to learn that our vents were never properly sealed and we have thusly been air conditioning the attic for the last 14 years.

Yes, we had a home inspection before closing.

No, they didn’t discover this.  However, they did discover that our builder left the dryer vent open to the attic, instead of directing the air out of the roof.

{{{Not bitter.  It’s still a good roof over our head.}}}

Anyhoo.  We have been assuming that we have mold in our shower, because a crack had formed.  And there was some pretty significant mold along the grout.

Every time I thought about the pending bathroom demolition that I was certain was in my immediate future, I seriously considered taking up with a bottle of hard liquor.

Which wouldn’t make the mold disappear, but would aid me in not caring so much.

We had a couple of different tile and plumber type people out to look at it.  The consensus was that they couldn’t tell what they were dealing with or how much it would cost until the tile was ripped out.

Fiddledaddy kept searching, and found a company that specialized in cleaning and re-grouting.  They came very highly recommended.  After an in-home consultation, the owner of the company felt that we were only looking at surface mold.  So we scheduled them to come and work their magic.

I left the house early on Friday with the children, and Fiddledaddy stayed to inhale the fumes and dust particles.  At some point during the day, he called me to tell me that they did check behind the tile, and there was no mold in our walls.  They were able to clean out the area where the crack occurred.  When I left, the shower looked like this:

Do not judge my housekeeping prowess.  No amount of cleaner or bleach would lessen these stains.  And my gifts are evident in other areas.  I’m not sure where.  But definitely not in the bathroom.

When I returned home, my shower looked like this:

Yes, the shower is the size of a coffin.  But it’s a clean coffin.

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I hate talking about serious stuff.  I’d much prefer blathering on about lizards, menopause, and vomit.  But I wanted to share something with you all that might save you a big headache and a lot of time.  And sadly, it involves one of my favorite places to shop online.

A while back, I learned from a friend that her Walmart.com account had been hacked, and merchandise was fraudulently charged to her account.  Walmart was less than helpful.  It seems that Walmart.com does not have the security system in place that one would hope when entrusting them with your private information.

I took the hint and went into my Walmart.com account and made certain that I had no credit card information linked, and I changed my password.

Recently, my SIL received an email from Walmart thanking her for $400 worth of e-cards recently purchased with her credit card.  She didn’t make such a purchase.  Again, Walmart was less than helpful and told her that if she had called immediately (evidently 2 hours had lapsed since she checked her email) they could have stopped the purchase.  Thankfully her credit card company reversed the charges.

This morning I received an official-looking email from Walmart.com thanking me for the purchase of a $900 wide screen television.  And evidently I am very generous, because I was shipping it to someone else in another part of the country.

Because I’m married to a technological genius with just a touch of paranoid on the side, I knew not to click any links within the email.  Instead I went to my browser and typed in the Walmart.com site, I signed in, and checked to make sure there were no open orders.  There were none.  Then I double checked with my credit card to make sure nothing was amiss.

Fiddledaddy knew how to hover over the links with the mouse to check the return addresses of the email, and they did not go back to Walmart.com.  This is known as a phishing scheme, designed to get you to click on an official looking link, leading you back to a fraudulent site that looks like the real thing.  At this point they can get you to sign in with your real log in information and they would then be free to view private information such as your credit card number.  Or your bra size.  If you purchase your bras online.  I do not.  But I digress.

We contacted Walmart.com and they concurred that this is what happened, and they told us to forward the fraudulent email to Spam@uce.gov.

We use a fraud insurance company, but I still don’t want to leave myself open for someone stealing our information/identity.

And by the way, someone has filed a fraudulent tax return in my husband’s name, using his social security number TWO YEARS IN A ROW.  That was a headache.  As you might imagine, our government took nearly a year to get our refund back to us last year.  And if the government is involved, the fraud insurance companies can do nothing to help you.

Be diligent, my friends.  These are turbulent times.

Stepping gently down off of my soap box.

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