Posted: 6/14/2006 6:41:05 PM EDT
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A good friend of mine rents a storefront and runs a nice flower shop. It's in a classic old Hotel, a huge brick structure that takes up a quarter of a block. There are three stores on the ground floor, a victorian style lobby, and three floors of converted apartments. The stores all have exterior entrances as well as being incorporated into the first floor of the hotel-turned-apartments. She and her husband have been telling the owners for two months that there are strong sewer smells present, enough to be offensive at times. The owners are really only interested in checks of payment, so they were not real speedy on sending a plumber to see what was wrong. About two weeks ago, the lady who owns the business was working in the shop, and passed out. Her helper/employee called the ambulance, and she was whisked to the hosplital. They checked her out, and sent her to Des Moines (the culture capitol of the West). She was diagnosed with an overabundance of Carbon dioxide in her blood, due to breathing too much methane. Her condition was so grave that they put her in a hyperbaric chamber and changed the preasure in the vessel so quickly that her eardrums burst, as well as trhe blood vessels in her eyes. She had to be placed in the chamber for treatment a total of three times before they got her blood/oxygen levels where they wanted them. She was in the hospital for two weeks. She is home now, but they have told her it will be two months before they will allow her to drive a vehicle. Her existing floral stock is rotting in the coolers, and she cannot go into the building yet. I almost forgot. The attending physician here in town called public health and told them what was happening. Public health made the owners evacuate the building. Thirty five apartments. What caused all of this? floor drains in the basement that had dry traps. Floor drains tied into the city sewer system that had functional traps, except for the fact that the water in the traps had evaporated sometime in the last two or three decades, allowing methane to build up in the basement and travel upward. So...consider this a public health announcement. If you have floor drains in the basement, put a little water down them every month or two. If you want to go the maintenance free route, put a little motor oil down them instead. Oil won't evaporate. The only funny part? I drove by the building today and saw a plumber's van there. The owners finally got on the stick, two weeks after the building was evacuated.  .Ha. |