When I first moved to Seattle from
Manhattan's upper east side in 1998, I was
dismayed to see there were still unpaved
alleys--i.e., dirt roads--just blocks from
our apartment. What had I gotten myself
into? And here I am 20 years later, still
living in the city, tasked with cleaning out
our basement storage space in preparation
for pouring of new concrete floor. It's a
daylit 8'x10' basement room complete with
ceiling-mounted steam radiator, drawstring
lightbulb, and ancient operable window
(screened by dense shrubbery), but the
exposed dirt, weird wall stains, and
inexplicable pile of stone and straw
reminded me of nothing so much as the literal
pigsty behind the Czech farm village
house where we
briefly lived.
Our
building was started in 1909, and
whether the builders didn't know better or
just didn't expect it to last this long (grander
structures had been demolished sooner),
they did a piss poor job with the cellar
floors, which disintegrated completely over
the decades due to the 2x4 sleepers
being in contact with the soil. Prior
tenants covered the rotted floor boards with
lumpy layers of plywood scraps; when I
removed them today the liberated mold was so
overpowering I puked.
Some say our place is haunted. I tried to
tune in to the room's former inhabitants but
they remained aloof. This used to be a
residential hotel and these were maids
quarters. Maybe tidying up the place will
make it more inviting to them.
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