Muffa!

 “ We are riding on a railroad, singing someone else's song; sing along…”

- James Taylor, Riding on a Railroad

I’m writing this post as we’re riding the IC #704 bound for Rome; we should be arriving about 22:20 (or 10:20  PM if you’re not using a 24-hour clock).  Well, I did say I wanted to spend a little time in Rome…but I wasn’t expecting to do it under these circumstances…

Italian houses, particularly the old ones (and, let’s face it, most of them are old - I think the place we’re staying is at least 100-200  years old), are ventilated just as they were when they were originally built - meaning:  they’re pretty much not, by modern standards.  No exhaust fans in the bathrooms, no venting over the stove, no whole-house fans in the upper floors.  In some parts of Italy, moisture is a huge problem, even when it’s not the rainy season.  A certain amount of muffa (mold) is to be expected, especially around doors and windows, and usually this is easily dealt with by a quick squirt of anti-muffa spray followed wiping it away.  This is considered part of basic housekeeping, like dusting and sweeping.  Italians typically air out their homes every day for at least an hour or so, even in the coldest weather, and frequently run dehumidifiers.

It turns out that sometimes the daily airings and dehumidifiers aren’t enough to cope with the problem, particularly when the weather has been as wet as it has been this month.  For reasons I can’t even remember now, I went upstairs to the very upper floor (where we hadn’t been for days simply because we had no reason to be up there) and discovered muffa pretty much everywhere - on the ceilings, the utility room walls, and in the (thankfully more or less empty) guest room.  I think the guest room had it the worst, but the ceiling over the landing was pretty horrific, especially around the small skylight.  It wasn’t quite so bad in the utility room.  Yesterday, we (foolishly) tried for about 10 minutes to wipe down the walls before we realized that doing so was a bad, bad idea.  I was afraid one or the other of us might get sick.   Cleaning up this level of muffa is clearly a job for professionals.

I reached out to our translator for help in getting in touch with our landlords.  Although Nicoletta was on vacation this week (I was not aware of that when I messaged her), she took the time to contact the landlords to let them know, and we were expecting to meet with them this morning.  Only - they didn’t show.  On the other hand, they might actually have come very early while we were still in bed - we thought we heard the buzzer but by the time we got down the stairs, there was no one there.  Sometimes people ring our buzzer by mistake when they mean to ring the doctor’s office though, so who knows.

When they hadn’t come by lunchtime, I called my service provider (Nicoletta’s boss) directly.  He agreed that the landlords absolutely need to take care of the issue, and that we should not stay there in the meantime.  He offered to put us up in a B&B, but I said that we’d wanted to go to Rome anyway, so we’d do so now and come back Monday.  He thought that was a good idea and said that if the problem isn’t resolved by then, he will get us another apartment or B&B to stay in until it’s cleaned.

Fortunately, I was able to book train tickets for this afternoon, and luckily, the nice hotel where we stayed when we went to Rome a few years ago had a room available, too.  

And that is the story of why we’ll be spending Thanksgiving in Rome.

Paolo at Termoli Station, headed to Foggia, where we changed trains to head to Roma Termini Station.