Part Two-for those of you following along…
About 8:30 p.m. we pull into our designated parking spot in front of our townhouse excited to find see the house lit up-until I saw the smoke.
The AC unit in front of the house was smoking! I thought we’d need to call out some air conditioning services to get it fixed at first.
“It’s probably just dust and dirt from being off for a while,” hubby said.
Lights flashed inside the house and then it was dark again. The boys and I stayed in the Jeep while hubby went in to investigate. When I decided he was taking too long (two moments later), I hopped out and headed into the house.
Hubby shut the breaker off, and turned it back on. The light flared again-literally. The lights, the ones that actually turned on, were blindingly bright. It looked like every light fixture in the house had 200 watt bulbs in them (do they even make 200 watt bulbs?) It was bright!
It started in the kitchen first. Pops and sparks sounded like small explosions as the light bulbs burst, and smoke poured out of the stove and the refrigerator. Bulbs exploded in the bathrooms. The living room and dining room lights grew brighter.
When the smoke cleared, and explosions stopped, the only light left working was an older dining room chandelier. Its tiny bulbs were gleaming. Since all the popping and smoking had stopped we thought maybe we could stay in the house with only that one light and call the power company in the morning, and then maybe start the search to find an electrician like S.E. Electrical Services (myseelectric.com/services/), if we were going to need new fixtures, wiring etc. I didn’t want to drag the kids out and go searching for a place to stay.
We piddled around the house for a while glad to have that one dining room light working. But as I stood there staring into the dining room, I watched three bulbs smoldered and melt! This house was amazing and although it did have some electrical issues, I’m still glad we bought it. My friends recently moved to meadows aurora and they’re having no problems with their new house – guess we were just unlucky!!
Time to go!
We turned off the main breaker, packed the kids into the car, and headed downtown to find a hotel to stay in for the night. By the time we arrived at the Suburban Extended Stay hotel, it was midnight. Aspie Teen already fell asleep in the car, but the other two little ones were still awake!
We chose this hotel because it was cheap and it boasted kitchen facilities, which we needed-desperately. Big mistake!
When my 20-month-old tried to make a run for it down the sidewalk instead of heading into the room, I should have run too. Hubby put my 13-year-old in bed, set up the portable crib, and I got my 8-year-old settled in watching the Disney channel. But, the place was admittedly looking like a dump. The front lobby was much nicer than the room.
All in our PJ’s we hopped into bed, exhausted again. I was being so good. I was trying not to complain. Hubby was incredible stressed and already hated the place-but I smelled urine. I checked the baby, and even the older ones; no one had peed in their pants. I tried to push passed it since only my Aspie super senses picked up the smell initially.
Damn Super-Senses!
I thought I could smash the pillow over my face, or hide my head under the covers to get away from the smell. The room scared me, but the blankets scared me more.
Did you ever leave a load of clothes in the washer and forget about them? If you did, you know that nasty mildew moldy rotten smell I am talking about-that is what the blankets and pillows smelled like! My Aspie Teen would have puked if he was awake, and thankfully for him, the smells do not wake him up like they do me.
Now for those of us who are notorious for doing a load of laundry, getting distracted, and remembering the next day that we forgot to dry the load-the solution is simple. Re-wash the darn clothes! The bedding in this hotel smelled like they forgot them in the washer, and then just dried them. It was baked in mildew nastiness!
Hiding in the blankets was not going to work. So I thought I would overload my sense and maybe try to drown out my sense of smell. (Ok, I was tired, hadn’t had much sleep in the past few nights and was clearly not thinking straight.)
I turned the volume up on the Disney channel, opened my Kindle and tried to concentrate on the words and breathing through my mouth. Bad idea; I can taste what I smell. It is probably why I cook by smell. I can tell what is missing and what it will taste like just by sniffing the pot, especially if I am making spaghetti sauce. I can usually re-create dishes that I taste in restaurants the same way-by recalling the taste and smell of the dish. Hubby calls it my super-powers! Not a power I wanted this night.
My head started throbbing so I had to pop my earplugs in-another really bad idea. The smell intensified. I am currently researching this phenomenon: the intensification of one sense when I nullify another.
The ear plugs were not going to work; I took them out. I felt so bad for Hubby. I didn’t want to complain because I knew he was exhausted. My 8-year-old old passed out next to me, but the 20-month-old was screaming on top of his lungs, and had been since we got there. He knew we should leave.
I desperately wanted to get up, shower, and bath the kids in the morning with nice hot hotel water (water was on in the smoking townhouse, but no electricity-no hot water) I was half tempted to get in contact with a company similar to sharpplumbing.com/services/water-heaters/ for the hotel owners so they could get the hot water sorted… There was no way I was bathing in this place.
When hubby finally put his head down on the pillow, I knew he would be asleep in minutes. Instead, he sprung out of bed. “We’ve got to go!”
“If you want to…we can change hotels,” I was eager to get out of there.
Apparently, when he put his head on the pillow he smelled the urine! He never smells anything! He called the front desk, got a refund, and we checked out. It was past 1 a.m.
Hubby wrestled Aspie Teen asleep into the car, and carried the other two (now sleeping) little guys.
Back in the car, he asked me how I was handling staying in the room. “If I smelled it,” he said, “I know it was killing you. I couldn’t let you sleep there.”
Later he confessed that when he went into the bathroom, flies were coming up out of the drain in the tub. I had been too scared to venture in there, and it is a good thing.
By 2 a.m. our eyes were blurry but we finally hauled three sleeping kids, the portable crib, and our suitcase into the Fairfield Inn. The room didn’t smell, the beds were clean, and I passed out very quickly.
That place sounded nasty and poorly cleaned and maintained.