Home Pollution With Fine Dust Particles from the Ceiling c/o Ondoy Flooding circa 2009
For the past few weeks, my wife and children had been having respiratory problems with coughs and colds. Lately this week, they found it unacceptable to sleep in our home because of falling debris straight at the beds and the air was getting to be insufferable.  Was it caused by termites? Caused by deadly molds? Remember the great typhoon Ondoy which submerged the entire house in mud in 2009? Maybe in between the wooden ceiling and the roof still harbored old mud. I called for Mang Ben.
You might remember Mang Ben, he’s my 59 year old plumber who I cured of an incurable terminal liver cancer in 2008 and had zero erections for 8 years. When you cure people like that, you develop a friendship, he delivers good services for me. Well, he’s all happy and strong now and he’s got connections with good skilled workers. He and his carpenter expert showed up yesterday morning.
At first we were thinking the worst. Then thinking how to survey the situation. Do we smash up access from the inside of the house? Carpenter found an access point outside the house, at the back side so it isn’t publicly visible, and smashed out that part. Found a termite colony. Then saw that the ceiling gap / kisame is just 3 to 4 inches. We reach in and found some fair amount of the Ondoy flood “mud” but it’s all dried up into fine dust, finer than sand, finer than soil. Is our mission to remove all that fine dust, Ondoy mud? That may entail major roof repairs or a really powerful vacuum cleaner. What can we do today?
Silicon gun to the rescue! The carpenter had a great idea. Just seal all the wood ceiling with silicon sealant. It’s cheap, quick, easy, effective. And it will solve our problems today. All we needed was our trusty ladder, 10 clear silicon cartridges and 2 hours of work.
While the carpenter was working on the ceiling, Mang Ben discovered when he climbed up that there was a big hole at the very top of the ceiling being covered by the beam, and the radiance of the light under the beam was keeping us from seeing the obvious gaping hole. It appears like rats may have eaten through that. And maybe some scurrying of creatures allow debris to fall on the beam. The beams were full of fine Ondoy dried mud dust. That was what was making our family sick.
Hey, even I developed some kind of sniffles / cold the past few days. Because of my raw paleo diet, I know that my cold is always caused by some external pollution, like chemical sprays, smoke, or in this case, fine dust coming from the ceiling and stored on the beams. So we now know to wipe out dust off the beams regularly.
The big hole? The carpenter rolled up some newspaper then lavishly sealed off the hole with the clear silicon sealant. In 2 hours, the entire ceiling, and all the in between slats were sealed with the silicon sealant. Now to wait for the sealant to dry and the vinegar smelling fumes to circulate out the windows.
I had the kids and my wife sleep in the other house. I slept in and tested the new setup. I survived through the night. My cold didn’t get any worse. Mucus formation in my case is due to bad air, my body makes mucus to protect me and escort out the filtered dirty air. Maybe today the smell of the sealant will run out and the entire family can sleep back in tonight. Let’s see.
