I got a call from my neighbor Kirk the other day. I was in my lure shop in Indiana getting ready for a show in Miramar. He was calling from Naples, Florida. He said, “It smells like someone died in your house down here!” I reassured him that no one was supposed to be in the house and asked if he would be willing to go in and check on things for me. He boldly agreed, and fifteen minutes later, told me he had to walk away the first time he opened the garage door. “The smell was AWFUL!” he said with a suppressed retch. Blasted again with a stench that made him want to do the technicolor yawn, he summoned more fortitude, took a deep breath, and went back in. Pools of dark brown ooze surrounded my defunct bait freezer. “It’s no bueno in there man, and I’m really worried about the whole house!” was his final gasping report. I thanked him profusely and made a mental note that I owed him big-time.
I decided quickly that I needed some help. I got on the phone and found a cleaning service willing to go right over and empty the freezer and clean up the ooze. She was super nice but told me there would be a LOT more to it than that. I assured her that I was coming down to take care of the rest myself. She said, “You sure about that?” I’m not the kind of guy who backs down from a challenge. So we settled on a price, and I grabbed the first flight I could find. When I arrived at the house and walked into my garage, the first thing I decided was that I had definitely not paid her enough! The second thing was that I had no idea where to start, and the third thing was that I needed a respirator! It was time for me to pay the price. Nothing to do but to dig in and see what could be done to retake our home from the malodorous funk that had taken it over.
I was moving all the contents of the garage into the driveway when my wife said, “Hey, there’s a new tropical storm named Milton.” “So, what!” I said. ”It’s strengthening into a hurricane out in the Gulf of Mexico.” she said. “So, what!” I said. “It’s headed our way!” she replied. “So whaa, wait what! Seriously?” I said. It was occurring to me that it might be easier if Milton just floated everything away! “Well, we’re just going to have to see what we can get done and keep an eye on Milton.” I replied with more than a little Eeyore in my voice. Anything that couldn’t be deodorized by spraying it down with ammonia or bleach or enzymatic odor remover went in a growing pile of junk at the street. We were beginning to look like the hurricane had already hit us. Seriously, with all the hurricanes that had hit Southwest Florida in a row, our neighbors probably thought we had finally snapped and were just throwing all our possessions away preemptively. “Why wait to clean up when there is no electricity or water? Just do it now!”
With the garage emptied, we set about eliminating the odor from things with every chemical known to man. For two days, we thoroughly cleaned the walls and floor. Still stunk. We even bought an ozone generator. Nothing worked. But, with category 5 hurricane Milton bearing down on us, we needed to heed a mandatory evacuation order. We put everything in our house, and I mean everything, up on chairs or outdoor tables to avoid damage from the 6–10-foot storm surge predicted. The epic bait freezer debacle of ’24 would have to take a back seat to Milton for a while.
We stayed with our good friend Corine during Milton’s rampage through Southwest Florida. Mercifully, a northward jog just before landfall allowed us to escape the worst. After we helped Corine remove debris and set her up with a generator and a little room air conditioner, we said our grateful goodbyes and went back to our place to survey the damage. It turned out that stacking all our stuff up like furniture Jenga had not been necessary. The storm surge was not as bad as predicted. Our boat and home were fine… except for the persistent stench left by our unintended little experiment in microbiological warfare.
Thankfully, after some weeks of continued cleaning (using the protocols established for remediation after removal of a dead body), we were able to apply the epoxy coating to the floor and seal all the cracks along the floor-line, permanently. Finally, we could walk through our garage without the respirators! The things we do to fish, right?
Now my neighbors and fellow fishermen stroll by (without their hands over their noses) and comment on how good the walls and new floor look. They smile and congratulate me on the new garage and ask, “When are you getting your new bait freezer?” or “Are you going to upgrade that freezer to a bigger one?” or “Hey! I hear you are going to be restocking a new bait freezer! Want me to bring you some Ladyfish for your blue crab traps next time I’m out?” Not even one of them asked me if I was going to stop keeping frozen bait in my garage. My bait freezer failure was epic! It failed at the worst possible time. It was expensive! Losses well above and beyond the expense of the freezer. It took an unplanned trip and days of backbreaking, soul wrenching, and painful work. Through all that, and Hurricane Milton destroying a huge swath of my community and uber-complicating my bait freezer cleanup-a-thon, the thought of not replacing my freezer never crossed my mind either. We fish; therefore, we are.
Got to go,
Doc
Comentarios