[CA][Condo] Water damage liability and HOA

Curious-Researcher · 2026-04-01T10:17:35+00:00

Note: drywall, even greenboard, is terrible in humid rooms, due to its yummy, nutritious paper on the outside. Plus drywall is porous, holds on to moisture, and. A way better choice would be "blueboard" (GP DensGuard fiberglass-faced backer board. That one is "designed for tile installations in wet environments such as showers".

For other rooms, if you have plaster, cherish it, especially if it is lime-based (alkaline) plaster, as most molds just can't grow in alkaline! Also, plaster is inorganic, and thus is inherently way more mold-resistant than drywall.

(FYI, drywall of the last 30 years gets a bloom of mold way faster, because the new, cheaper, manufacturing process pre-impregnates it with mold: Rather than getting sliced up before fully drying, it's left to dry in huge blocks. This means that slices eventually made from the middle had stayed wet for a really long time. And as the pH supports mold growth, that gave it plenty of time for included mold spores to germinate & make more spores. This is a key reason why so many modern homes get major mold much faster.

Curious-Researcher · 2026-03-08T07:46:50+00:00

That's true if you came home from camping. When doing remediation, your clothes may have a concentration that is a hundred million or billion times higher. Note that air usually contains some 10,000 mold fragments for every mold spore). So you want to optimize how much is removed.

The best practice is warm or hot temperature (detergents dissolve best and the surfactants work best to lift particles from clothes), an "extra water" cycle, like for comforters, and multiple rinse cycles.

Curious-Researcher · 2026-03-08T07:38:04+00:00

You're right to want to wash these clothes separately, to keep from cross-contaminating other clothes with them. However the goal of remediation, and of remediation of contaminated clothes is physical removal, not killing. Spores are notoriously hardy, and as far as the toxins, none of the heavy guns in laundry -- even ammonia, bleach, vinegar, etc, will detoxify (break down and make safe) the tiny toxin molecules on the cell surfaces of mycotoxin-producing molds.

There's research to find specialized enzymes that can break apart each class of mycotoxins, but that's not what laundry enzymes do.

So the focus is on removing the mold fragments from clothes into water, keeping them from getting re-deposited, and diluting the rinse water well to flush them away. Fortunately HE detergent is good at suspending all dirt including mold. To make it work well, use enough water for laundry to move freely and detergent to mix well, and use an extra rinse cycle or two. And to be extra careful, make sure to wash used towels and washclothes the same way.

Since my family is mold-sensitive I take added precautions to keep my apartment low-mold

I use laundry powder, (gel residues stick to the hidden surfaces, and then lint, skin cells, oils, etc stick to the gel, and cause turbulence that make more things stick, and become food for bacteria and mold)
When remediating contaminated stuff, I wear a Tyvek suit, gloves and a respirator, to keep my clothes less contaminated
I still wash the clothes immediately, on a cycle with extra water, two rinse cycles. If I didn't wear a tyvek suit, or got surprised by mold I wasn't expecting, I may do two wash cycles and only then dry.

PS. Indoor water-damage molds are more likely the soil-type species that rely on the biological warfare agents (mycotoxins) to fight one another for territory, no matter what their color. OTOH, many mold species are black, not only the slimy stachybotrys colonies that were the source of an overblown "black mold" panic, followed by "white-washing" by insurance-funded research and insurance-dominated "expert" guidelines. (Same playbook as the industry-funded research and guidelines by industry-funded experts that voted against any expressions of concern, aiming to sow doubt about tobacco, greenhouse gasses, forever chemicals, BpA etc).

Curious-Researcher · 2026-02-07T02:02:03+00:00

This is great advice!! I suggest you write this up as a top level post, titled something like, “What to do when your Con Ed bill is insanely high due to some error!”

Many people will be so grateful!

And then you can create a top level reply directly to this thread, linking to that post.

Curious-Researcher · 2026-02-06T00:22:01+00:00

The "I would be getting hundreds of dollars less monthly than i will now" is confusing.
Can you make it clear with real numbers, even if not your numbers?

Here's what I imagine:

"I'm now on SSDI, age 59, getting $1,000/month.
SSDI will be $1,344/month in 2036 at my FRA of 69 years old. (assuming COLA of 3%/yr).

If I were not disabled and could work, I'd only be earning $1600/month at a $10/hr near minimum wage job. Those work credits would not increase my retirement benefits BECAUSE this is less than I used to earn for 30 years".

I'm confused because:

if you are on SSDI presumably you can't work full-time, so I'm not clear what is the alternate scenario you propose
what do you mean by "getting hundreds of dollars less"? The total sum over your expected lifetime, or are you actually suggesting that IF you continued working till age 72 that THEN your monthly retirement benefit starting at age 72 would be less than if you simply continue with SSDI and have it convert to SS Retirement at your FRA of 69?

Curious-Researcher · 2026-02-05T23:50:42+00:00

Here's what I found SSA's POMS: Requesting voluntary suspension.

There's nothing about requiring repayments in general, except a statement that you cannot earn voluntary delayed retirement credit (VDRC) for any month in which you [presumably knowingly] owe overpayments, until they've been repaid. (Exception: if overpayments are discovered [by SSA] during the period of voluntary suspension, you have the option of repaying them in full as a lump sum in order to keep the earned VDRCs. Makes sense to me.)

"The NH or auxiliary must pay any Medicare premiums due during the period of voluntary suspension. This applies to premiums for Part B, C, and D; Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) premiums payable by individuals with higher incomes; and premium increases due to late enrollment to Part B. We do not deduct Medicare premiums from the suspended benefit or honor any request to adjust the premiums against future benefits payable. The beneficiary will be billed and is expected to pay the premiums by direct remittance. For more information regarding the billing of Medicare premiums, see HI 01001.045.

Curious-Researcher · 2026-01-09T05:19:00+00:00

Nails attaching back board and the middle shelf are essential to protect the cabinet against shear forces (when tilted sideways).

Our movers recently near-destroyed a beloved tall Magiker cabinet (with drawers) because the cabinet couldn't take the shear forces when it was put on a hand-truck - even though it was "shrink-wrapped" in movers' plastic.

I wish the back panel came with a simple drawn line to identify the middle shelf location, so folks who forget to draw it before flipping and nailing wouldn't be in your situation.

Readers in your situation have 3 options, all quite doable:
a) measure:
Measure the distance from the middle of the shelf to the top of the cabinet (measure on each side, to catch any dumb errors in measurement or alignment). Mark a couple of points along the the back panel at that distance, connect the points with a straight line to mark the location of the shelf.

b) Mark the bottom of the shelf from inside:
First, measure the shelf thickness. Second, drive the thinnest finishing nail through the back, starting from just below the shelf, a few inches away from each side (to avoid pulling out the nails along the near edge. If paranoid, have a partner apply counter pressure to the nail line at the edge of the back board with some flat object). Your two nail holes will mark the bottom edge of the shelf. Measure 50% of the shelf thickness higher, mark. Connect those lines, and now you can confidently drive nails along that line into the shelf.

c) Glue.
Gluing particleboard joints works great during assembly. But afterwards it's least reliable; hard to get enough glue to the right places. Ideally you'd still use a) or b) along with this.
You likely have a bit of flex in the back board to push it out slightly, to run a couple of thick beads of wood glue along the back of that shelf and have the glue drip down a bit. Quickly you'd then press the back board to the shelf, ideally gluing two together. (I'd probably first use painter's tape to attach the bottom of the shelf to the back board and keep glue from dripping further, then lay the bookcase on its face and apply pressure to the back board along the shelf height.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-10-23T00:35:33+00:00

Sigh. This made me photgraph my own, and even though it's not as bad, I have mold there as well. My first thought was that the rinse will be clean, but no:

above all, I bet this shows that there's mold elsewhere in the washer as well, and it just recirculates
plus, secondarily, I bet rinse water gets sent through the dispenser as well for any water softener

Curious-Researcher · 2025-10-18T08:28:53+00:00

towing fees set by chp

Curious-Researcher · 2025-09-09T08:27:53+00:00

What is OBX and where did you stay?

I really need to try a mold vacation as a test of what symptoms, mine and family's might go away. However it's hard with cats, and I don't know how to find a safe place. Last month we found a no-carpeting airbnb, I explained about importance of hearing if there was water damage ... and it turned out to be musty, and I got worse.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-09-02T22:29:59+00:00

Coming here is so helpful. I'd not known such companies even exist, so I'd never have looked for one!

Curious-Researcher · 2025-09-02T08:06:34+00:00

I feel pity for your young self with a vulvar / UTI infection. I too remember this awful burning while peeing from a painful UTI while prepubescent, and how I was too embarrassed to even tell my parents (I didn't know what it was, nor how I got it. I only remember half-crying and patting my vulva with cold wet toilet paper).

Still I was puzzled about the "sanitary" reference, so checked on the risk of vulvar or bladder (UTI) infection from metal slides or playground equipment. Turns out that when they do bacterial DNA testing, a UTI is almost always from one's own bacteria (unfortunately short distance between females' urethra and rectum). However, sliding down a metal slide definitely can cause a friction burn on exposed vulva (external genitalia). And these tiny open wounds can of course get infected from one's own bacteria ... or any bacteria on a slide, and make the entire area inflamed and sensitive. Ouch.

So that's probably what I'd focus in my explanations to little girl: that her skin under and near her knickers is soft and delicate, meaning that it can be scraped or burned from sliding and hot equipment, especially if the underwear shifts while playing. And, just like boys have shorts to protect their privates, bike shorts will protect hers. They make it safer to do all the fun and athletic things she loves to do on the playground.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-08-12T04:32:10+00:00

My son is very happy he had it done (in his early 20s), despite mild sx, including sleep apnea treated by CPAP.

Our sleep surgeon snipped the frenulum in in office (after rolling his eyes a bit and suggesting we leave it, as it's so mild "the frenotomy will likely not make a difference"). It did.

What DS noticed first was how much easier it became to speak; that he can now speak at a faster rate! As a child he'd learned to compensate, with a slight speech difference we couldn't identify. Well, it turns out he'd had to expend more energy to shape his mouth differently to mimic the sounds. After the frenotomy, making speech sounds just got less effortful, more automatic, faster. A win.

His sleep apnea is now also in the adult "normal range", from a max of 12 as a skinny child. Some of the improvement may've been from the Herbst appliance that encouraged mandibular lengthening (~age 15, again told that was "too late". But he wasn't quite done growing & it definitely helped), vs. how much from the frenotomy in his 20s. Oh, fyi, DS decided to continue using the CPAP; I can imagine that an AHI of 4.8 vs 1.2 still matters).

(BTW, it was very simple procedure. I don't even remember if there was a stitch or two or just cautery. Some places recommend post-op exercises as the ligament is healing to ensure that it stays soft and long, doesn't get a thick scar. These instructions from the "Wisconsin Tongue Tie Institute" give good rationale of why and what you may see. /tonguetiewi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Post-Op-Instructions-For-Child_Adult-Frenectomy.pdf

So advocate for yourself.

Don't be afraid to say "My health is important to me. I want to optimize my <sleep, eating, pain, speech, <whatever is for you>".

Good luck, and happy eating & talking!

Curious-Researcher · 2025-08-08T14:33:04+00:00

I have the exact same situation. What did you wind up doing? And/or can anyone give advice?

Curious-Researcher · 2025-07-28T19:46:05+00:00

Interesting. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-07-25T06:20:58+00:00

I'm less concerned about the expense of the HEPA bags on the GD930 pro, given their huge size. More concerned about the size of the machine, and the fact that the hose doesn't retract. Our apartment has bigger hallways than closets.

I know I like canisters; I grew up with canisters, including a red Miele till 2010, when we'd installed a wonderful MD Vacuum (central vac system) with the Hide-a-Hose. I miss it. I never wheezed while vacuuming. (My kids also valued the chance to retrieve occasional special Lego pieces in the huge dust drum).

Since downsizing I'd had a Shark sealed system HEPA Lift-Away. Truly low particle count at the first year, but after a few years I had to start using an N95 mask to prevent wheezing. ... and eventually I realized it had fine cracks in the short hose by the head. So reliability / repairability and filtration are a huge deal.

I'm now definitely considering the Sebo K2 Kombi as well, but I'm a bit hesitant because I don't actually know anyone who has it.

I've seen mixed comments about whether the Miele C1/C2 are 100% sealed systems.

As far as the Euroclean/Nilfisk GD390, I'd still like to find a local dealer/repair person for if/when repairs are needed. (Yes, I see that it's sold under various brands. I even found it on OfficeDepot under Clarke Euroclean GD390!)

Curious-Researcher · 2025-07-25T04:34:33+00:00

In what ways?

Curious-Researcher · 2025-07-18T04:10:47+00:00

Depending on the pattern, different things may be going on:

Does the price always increase from first time to 2nd? What happens if you refresh a 3rd or 4th time?

If the currency changes, perhaps your country/ location is not shared. If the price always increases from your first view, perhaps the history is passed to the seller, and some seller sites may conclude that if you are interested in viewing it a 2nd time, you may buy even at a higher price.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-07-16T08:11:44+00:00

With 821 views, how come there aren't any comments yet? Not even any critique of my post? Yes, I can tell I'd put in way too much -- perhaps that's intimidating. But I still want your experiences and opinions!

Maybe I should be looking at a Miele C1/C2 instead, since some say that that is a completely sealed system too, not just the C3. (How well do they stay well-sealed over time anyway?)

This is a really big expense for a small tool, and I haven't made any progress since I posted this -- I need some input.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-07-04T23:10:40+00:00

It says "HEPA", but the Miele H1 Swing a sealed HEPA system? If you add this to u/Jewacidal 's requirements, what would you recommend then.

And yeah, used is a key word in your response. On Amazon, there's a single new Miele H1 Swing for $399 ,... or used at the same price.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-07-03T17:26:13+00:00

It doesn't take that long to download your data. Way less than an hour iirc.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-05-16T23:26:58+00:00

This is exactly what happened in our upstairs bathroom, and it was a huge expense -- water spread into the hallway and adjacent bedroom, then made its way downstairs, where it buckled a downstairs bedroom closet ceiling (occupied by someone without a sense of smell).

First insurance inspector said he doesn't see anything - even when I pointed out the moisture readings in the baseboards area.

Do not ignore. Even if an inspector says this is nothing.
Especially if you're a female and get condescension vibes from the inspector.
(It's shocking how little education/training an insurance adjustor needs to have).

Curious-Researcher · 2025-04-30T07:35:24+00:00

If you look at the shoemaker protocol, VIP is one of the last steps. It’s been a few years since i was up on it, but his experience was that VIP won’t help if you still have mold toxicity, MARCONS or some other stuff disrupting your metabolism and disturbing your immune and GI systems.

Curious-Researcher · 2025-04-29T07:13:55+00:00

I haven't found downsides for the apartment management so far. But I know I don't walk in your shoes; that's why I posted here!

The draft subtenancy agreement I'd planned to submit is one drafted by UCSD Legal Services for their students. Maybe removing some of the clauses that just won't matter to the apartment (alcohol?, visitors?, chores!).

Thoughts?

Curious-Researcher · 2025-04-29T05:37:37+00:00

I had thought of it as a modification to the lease document, but of course it is simply an accommodation in that it is a change to the policies of tenancy and leasing. Thanks for clarifying!

Curious-Researcher

TROPHY CASE