Wednesday, July 2, 2014

FTA News: the studio is going to need some love

In May, I kept smelling something. It was driving me nuts, it sort of smelled like mold but would only hit me now and again as I was working in the Annex. Finally one morning, I snapped and went on a hunt for the source of this maddening smell.

I eventually narrowed it down to a corner of the Annex, under my record shelf. So I emptied my large wall of Ikea record shelving.

After removing the shelving

Captain, I think I found the mold

There it was, mold on the carpet and under side of the Ikea shelving. As one could imagine I freaked out. Was it the last set of hip-hop records that I picked up? Did I have a crack in my foundation? What the hell brought in this infestation of mold in my goddamn studio?

So I did with any other cold-blooded American would do I nuked it. Vinegar, Teatree oil and then with a healthy vacuum into boot. I was hoping that'll be the end of it, however that was just the start. 

A few days later, I pulled up the carpet in that corner, discovering a very wet carpet pad.  I pulled back the carpet some more and put a fan on it. While that was drying out I measured out the space and trundled over to Home Depot to buy new carpet padding. Dry and treated carpet, new carpet padding, done and done right? Wrong. The mold was still tweaking my senses. 

That's when I hit the Internet looking up mold remediation and getting scared by really bad photos of crazy mold infestation. Addison in the end found David at Valor Cleaning Inc. David in short order explained to us what he thought the issues were and ran through series of options we could to remedy the situation. He would do the remediation work but someone else would have to test for the mold. David written a paper on the topic called "Pros and Cons of Mold Testing", which outlined the reasons to test and how one might go about it. In the end we went with David's suggestion and used Avery at Fusion Services, LLC. 

Avery was a pro. Polite, well spoken, could geek out about mold Addison but was able to explain it in a way that I could follow along. But the topper was a side comment. "Have you ever heard of the warehouse? I used to go dancing there when Franky Knuckles first started playing there." Insert mind blown, 

A) because Avery had been to the Warehouse
B) heard the godfather of House music back when it was all just starting. 

He filled my head with a few stories from the Warehouse. Which only made me want to do back to my books on the earily days of house and techno. It was truly awesome. 

I was bummed when Avery and all his high tech gear left, but I was also a bit anxious because the new idea of mold in the walls. 

Sure enough when all the lab results came in, it looked like the mold was in the walls. So back to David at Valor. Looking over the report he wrote up a budget and scope of work. Looking at the cost it made me suck a bit of air, however it was the first major expense we have had in our new location. To be fair to David, for all the work they did it was a steal, and I would totally recommend him. 

Totally felt like the E.T. tent. Ba ha

That's the image that made me cringe...

The walls have now been gutted. The finished studio is now in storage and I'm left wondering what and how I'm going to rebuild. 

First things first I'm having a electrician rewire the basement. 

 In the end... I'm looking for a crafts man to build me a record wall. A skilled electrician that someone can recommend. Advise on what materials we should redo our floors and walls with. 

In the mean time I may set up my decks in the kitchen. Grand Master Flash style. 

-the librarian