Upon hearing that I was suffering from allergies in her apartment, my landlord was nice enough to send over a man to clean my mattress and pillows for free. This man was very talkative and showed me exactly how the process worked. He was also very forthright with the fact that he was using a genuine US-made vacuum cleaner.
Interesting, how much?
$6000. 😐
No problem, we can clean for you.
Okay, how much?
8 cleanings $1200.
Thanks, I’ll think about it.
Would you like to refer your friends for a free cleaning?
I don’t think they’d want it. (They’d laugh at the price!)
Later, landlady says she can arrange a special deal to clean my mattress and pillows for only $60 per month.
Umm, I’ll think about it. (I can buy new bedding every month for $50.)
This company will clear your allergies!
Thanks, but I don’t think it’s just the dust in the bed. But thanks anyway.
Am I being hustled by my own landlady? And what’s she going to do with the black stuff in the bathroom?
*starts looking for a new apartment*
***
The past nine months have been marked by one main theme: being sick. Now, there are seasons of illness that are to be expected, especially if you travel quite a bit and work with a lot of different people. But there comes a time when that reasoning doesn’t make sense any more and it must be something else, possibly something closer to you. It wasn’t until about April of this year when I got hit again with being sick that I was both fed up and slightly worried. What was going on? Well, it turns out that it is allergies, but a touch more serious than that.
The Set-Up
A brief run down of the run up to this discovery:
Since about September I’ve been sneezing and dealing with all sorts of sinus unpleasantries. At first I thought it was seasonal allergies since I’ve suffered the same thing in Canada around the same time. Usually it’s because the farmers have started harvesting their crops and that sends up quite a bit of dust into the air. Alright, I’ll let that one slide, though September is kind of late for it.
It was also at this time that I recall going back to Winnipeg for a few weeks and feeling kind of light-headed, as if I was drunk but hadn’t been drinking. Maybe it’s the jetlag. Ok. And the climate. Ok. Maybe. Probably not, been through jetlag and temperature changes before. Maybe it’s age. Ok, maybe.
Then November rolls around and I get sick again. Again! Really? Ah, of course it’s “that time of year” when “it’s going around.” And, to be fair, I regularly shake hands with people and often have to hold onto the rails while on the subway. Ok. I can stop doing that or washing my hands more frequently. Got it. In the end, I have to take one sick day.
January, sick again. This time like knock out sick. I struggle through work. Maybe it’s the flu, it’s been going around. Gotcha. Fluids, rest, exercise, eat well. Done.
March, again. No way! Again? Something’s wrong. It feels like a dust allergy that I’ve had my entire life. I vacuum the apartment, wipe it down, run the air filter full blast. Eat well, exercise, get some rest, don’t drink so much. Ok, got it. Seems odd to happen this time of year, especially since no one else is sick at work.
April, again, but another knock out that feels a little bit more like January’s flu. WTF? Am I dying and I don’t know it? I’m losing weight, I know, but I’m eating salads and exercising and not drinking so much so that makes sense right? It can’t be cancer, I hope. Anything else? Not that I can think of.
But this time the sickness knocks me out and I can’t make it to work. This is not good. Something is wrong and I want blood tests to make sure things are okay within me.
The Doctors
So I go to the doctor and I end up seeing three in one day: a GP who says it’s allergies (I’m not dying, she says!), it’s allergies that have got infected says the ENT specialist, and the asthma doctor says the asthma is a result of breathing through the nose and pushing the junk down into my lungs. All of them assign me a selection of drugs (no doubt for commission’s sake, and for my own health) and all agree, “You look sick. You must find out the source of these allergies.”
“I’m allergic to dust, that’s all I know.”
“Does your apartment smell bad?”
“Only if I drink a lot of milk or alcohol.”
It’s at this point I faintly recall my kitchen smelling kinda bad last summer. I put baking soda and potpourri to kill the smell, not really thinking why the smell was there. And because I was hardly in my apartment anyway since I have to travel for work. I squench my nose at the memory.
“You may need to get your apartment professionally cleaned.”
“I think I can do that myself. I don’t want to spend money on something I can do myself!”
“Don’t just wipe down with a cloth as that will spread the dust. You may need to have it vacuumed.”
“Sure, I can get one. So what’s the diagnosis?”
“It’s called allergic rhinitis and I can give you a sick note for work if you like.”
“Yes please!”
And with that, I trundled back to my apartment armed with this new knowledge. This time I’d clean the apartment like never before!
On the way home and using the most convenient of shopping APPs, JD.com, I bought a vacuum cleaner from a reputable Chinese brand with a special attachment that has UV light and a thumper to remove dust mites from soft surfaces.
So I vacuumed, and wiped, and brushed, and air filtered and de-dusted as best as I could as much as I could. There were a few spots I wasn’t going to touch because “Meh, THAT can’t be the source of it, right?” So the books never got vacuumed, nor did I clean under the sink (bad move). On top of that, I vacuumed all of the quilts, shook them out and let them sit in the sun for a few hours. That oughta do it!
Things seemed to be fine for a while. I finished the schedule of antibiotics and sniffers that the docs gave me and refused to go for a follow up because, obviously, if these things had cleared up whatever it was, then it must be related to my apartment, not germs from other people or places, which was my initial concern.
A few people at work heard I was sick and asked if I knew what the source of the problem was. Not really, doc said it was allergies. “Could be mould,” said one. “Nah, haven’t seen anything.” (But did you actually look and match that to the pictures that pop up in every search engine? No.) “What about your mattress?” “Could be. I’ll look into it.”
The Cleaner
I continue to vacuum the bed on a regular basis and de-dust the place but I notice my nose is getting more and more stuffed each day once I was off of the medication. I kept track of my progress from the day I saw the doctor and couldn’t really see any pattern. Blue sky days, high AQI (150+) days, in Beijing, out of Beijing, Monday, Wednesday, Sunday, drinking/not drinking, air filter on full blast before or during sleep time, yet I could see no real pattern.
It still felt like a dust allergy, but I found it odd that, for all of my de-dusting, I was still suffering from a stuffy nose, that itchy feeling that precedes a sneeze, and asthema-like wheezy breathing. Maybe I’m cleaning wrong? Ok, I’ll get someone else in to clean.
I contact my former real estate agent (the person who brokered the contract between me and the landlord) since she would know who to talk to. Meanwhile, I have a another friend ask around for someone who would do “mould remediation” in case it turns out that I do actually have mould in my place.
So the cleaning lady comes over and I show her all the gross places that I don’t want to clean and what she can use to clean them with and, without hesitation, she got to work and scrubbed it all clean. Four hours later, a cleaned kitchen, a spotless shower door, and 100 RMB later, she was done! (A little too cheap, I thought, but she wouldn’t take more.)
Good, apartment “professionally cleaned”. Check. Take that allergies. I gotcha now!
The Re-Modeller
Then my friend has a company come over to do an inspection that I thought was for mould but turned out to be for home re-modelling. I can see how those words can get confused in the translation (on the company’s behalf, not my friend’s), but the price tag was where the difference could be noticed.
A young man from the company walks in (a little too young to know what to look for, in my opinion) and diligently puts on his blue plastic slippers that all Chinese workers adhere before stepping into your apartment. While looking at the bathroom he nods his head, “嗯”, which is a basic sound used for agreement in what has been said.
He says some words in Chinese, and I point at a few places of concern and use a lot of “这个 这个 这儿” Chinese, all of which means “this that and there”. Nodding, he pulls out a special laser instrument of sorts and beams it around the bathroom. Writes down a few things, says some more words that are above my Chinese level, and I give him the basic foreigner response of “可以” (okay).
He pulls out a booklet of papers, scribbles down some Chinese characters in one column and some numbers in another column. I can’t read the Chinese but I do see the numbers, and so far they’re not too big, a touch pricey, but acceptable given the circumstances. The last number, however, was a bit large: 7699.
Did he miss a period?
Some more words in Chinese but now, seeing him write another word at the bottom of the page, which I could only surmise was the actual total amount, I hum along in agreement.
“九千零四十四.”
I know 千 means thousand and there was a number before it, which means it was already more than I was willing to pay.
9044 RMB.
Turns out that the guy wanted to re-do the whole bathroom, not just the trouble spots!
“可以吗?” he asks.
Ha! (I don’t think I actually laughed, but I’m not sure.)
“Uhhh, 我会觉得这个。我需要说跟我的老板。这是不是我的房间。” (“I’ll have to think about it. I have to talk to my boss (I forgot the word for landlord). This isn’t my apartment.”) I already pay 6800 RMB per month for rent, I’m not about to re-model the place for someone else’s benefit!
“Ah ok ok ok.” he says as he makes his way to the door. He leaves me with the cost breakdown and says he can touch base with my “boss”, whom he thought was my friend who set up the appointment.
Anyway, the guy leaves and I can’t help but laugh at the cost. $2000 CAD for a bathroom re-model? But now I’m starting to recall seeing lots of other apartments going through re-modelling and I start to wonder, am I missing something here?
A few days pass yet my nose is still stuffy in the morning. It’s not bad but it’s bothersome and I hate that tickly-sneezing feeling, even though sneezing itself feels sooo good. I’m not sick, I can mind-over-matter this, I’m exercising, I’ll fluid this thing out. I got this!
The Real Problem
At this time I also start doing some research on something I dreaded. I figure I should at least have an idea of what to look for and maybe how to treat it, just in case. And, sure enough, looking at pictures online, and looking at what was in my bathroom shower, it was getting hard to justify that it wasn’t what it could be. And that was, of course, mould.
Now, pealing paint doesn’t mean it’s mould, it could have been done improperly or, since it is in a bathroom, it could get damp and peal on its own without developing any mould. But looking into the shower itself, I see…
And, for good measure, on the sink itself:
Although it’s easy enough to see mould, it’s not as easy to distinguish which type it actually is. There is the dreaded black mould, but then there is mould that is dark but not black, or mildew, or it could, literally be paint… but I’m just trying to be optimistic by thinking it is paint.
I don’t like the looks of this.
To be safe, I search for remedies and I find that vinegar and baking soda should kill the mould, though more serious cases of mould should be taken care of by a professional. Recalling how the “professional” wanted $2000 CAD to redecorate my bathroom, I wanted something a bit cheaper and something I could do myself. I’m not against working with my hands, but I am against hurting my health. Needless to say, I wasn’t about to trust the expensive people.
And then, finally, Monday morning, again. Sick. Throat is sore, nose is proper stuffed, then the sneezing started and I was congested all day. Aggravated. By the end of the day I was blowing green shit out of my nose again which meant I was infected yet again. Fuckitty fuck fuck. I like this apartment, I like its location, and I don’t particularly want to move or to look for another place or pack or anything. But this needs to be taken care of and so I finally contacted my landlord fully expecting her to tell me that it was my problem, not hers.
The Repair Man
My landlord and I have a very common relationship that exists among many foreigners and elder Chinese people who have money: you are a foreigner and I don’t speak English so I don’t understand what you’re saying. (Even if I type in Chinese?) Luckily, since I had my friend call her one time, she has softened and is able to work through my broken Chinese.
I sent her pictures of the things I saw were problems and needed to be addressed. To my surprise, she didn’t say it was my problem at all. As a matter of fact, she said it was a problem and that it had to be dealt with. She would send over a repair man and he’d have a look.
The repair man showed up rather quickly, put on his plastic blue shoe covers, and started to have a look around. I pointed and 这个’d and 这儿’d and he pulled out a measuring tape. (Oh no! Not again!)
I take him over to the kitchen and point under the sink and point to the dark patch and say “坏了!” (literally “broken”, but refers to just about anything amiss, even spoiling vegetables). He nods but says in Chinese and then points at the wood and taps the ground, which is made of tile.
Her says some more things and will “会来” and then leaves. Alright. I felt that was more productive than the 9000 RMB meeting.
Landlord messages me and says, “No problem, he’ll come again on Saturday to fix it. I’ll pay 500 RMB for the materials and you pay 200 RMB for the custodian fee. We’ll re-tile it to get rid of the peeling paint.”
…And I’m thinking, okay, but what about the underlying problem of the peeling paint?
“And what about the kitchen?”
“Can’t just pull out the board as it’ll damage the water pipes, but we’ll get it out somehow and just leave the tiles underneath.”
Not sure how that will work, but I’ll go with it.
I add that I went to the doctor recently and they said that, without a doubt, it’s allergies and more than likely has something to do with the place I’m living.
Well, that got her attention!
Upon hearing that I was suffering from allergies in her apartment, she said she could send someone over to clean my mattress for free.
“It’s definitely the mattress, because of Beijing’s dry weather and pollution, dust accumulates in the mattress,” she explains.
Well, that seems reasonable. Free mattress cleaning? Sure. Why not?
The Vacuum Guy
And the next day at 2 pm sharp, the agreed upon time, my buzzer goes off as someone is requesting to be let in. A minute later I hear the elevator trundle up its way and then a man wheeling two blacks bag behind him rolls past my apartment door, and then rolls back as he re-checked the numbers on the other apartments.
Must be the vacuum guy.
This man was very talkative and was pleased to meet me though, surprisingly, the normal foreigner-questions were not asked. Instead, he asked if I spoke Chinese.
“No, not really,” I tell him.
“No problem,” he responds.
And then he proceeded to show me exactly how the process worked and that he was using a genuine US-made vacuum cleaner from the Make Our Life Colorful Company (name changed). He did this, of course, in Chinese. And I’ve changed the name of the company for this story.
He proceeds to open the bags and display its contents, multi-faceted vacuum cleaner that had water in the bottom to catch the dust.
Interesting. I’ve never really seen these used before, certainly not in China. I bought my own, see?
He looks, “不好.” (No good.)
“But it’s Chinese!” I declare, hoping the nationalism would solve the issue.
“Yes, but even the Dyson isn’t very good. Look at this video,” and he gives me his cell phone that shows a Dyson vacuum cleaner being used and a spotlight over top of it showing just how much dust is escaping from the dust bag. Interesting, that man has the same kind of light with him.
During which, I imagine, he assembled the vacuum cleaner and pulled out a few sheets of thin, black cloth and puts them aside.
“You see, dust escapes from those vacuum cleaners because they only use paper filters, like the one you have over there,” pointing to the used filter on the shelf.” But this vacuum cleaner uses water to capture the dust.”
He shows me the bucket.
“May I fill it up with some water?”
“Sure.” This should be interested. I AM interested.
Thinking he could work while I was still in the apartment like the cleaner lady was, I figured I could get something done while he did his job. Thirty minutes, tops, I thought.
“How long will this take?” I asked.
“About one hour.”
Hmm, k. I see.
But before I could get back to my blog like a hipster millennial suffering from social media withdrawal, the man had started talking. And boy did he talk. What followed was an hour-long demonstration of the virtues of this very vacuum he had here in this very room. But he was clever, he had me engaged:
“You see how clear the water is right now?”
“Yes?” No shit, you just filled it up.
“By the end, it’ll be filthy,” he says. Then he asks, “You have problems with your nose?”
“Why, yes, I do.” My landlady must have told him, what a nice lady!
“That’s because of dust mites. You have them in your bed, your pillow, your quilts, everywhere. They are a problem and they are an enemy that needs to be taken care of. You see this black cloth?”
Holds up one of the thin black cloths.
“Why, yes, I do see that black cloth. What is that for?”
“I’ll show you what this is for. I’ll show you how mush dust is here just in the air itself, see?”
Now he had the big light in his hands and was pointing it downwards toward the floor and pointing to all of the little dust particles floating around.”
“Yes,” I say, “but those wouldn’t cause the problems I have.”
“Oh but yes they would. You think they don’t, but they do. Let me show you just how much is in the air.”
Having assembled the vacuum cleaner so that one of the cloths was placed within the hole (how did he slide that cloth onto the nozzle so easily?), he attached the hose and turned on the vacuum cleaner. He slapped my Swedish-brand chair and ran the hose over it then shut it off. Taking the hose off of the machine he shows me the dust that was accumulated, and it was quite a bit.
“You have an air filter?”
“Of course I do. It’s Beijing.”
“It’s probably no good. Sure, it gets rid of PM 2.5 but it doesn’t get rid of dust, and dust is the enemy.” He shows me a picture of some machine that reads PM 2.5 being held over top of an air filter and the numbers reads somewhere above 600 PM 2.5. “Your apartment is full of dust, let’s take a reading of the PM 2.5 levels.” And he pulls out the same little machine and takes a reading of the room.
46. Not bad, I say.
“Not at all, but let’s take a look at that air filter. Watch how much dust escape.”
He bends down beside my orange and white 700 RMB air filter for which I replace the filters every six months. He turns the filter on and holds the little gizmo above the exhaust vent.
“Watch how much is left behind.”
The number starts at just above 36 and drops until it settles at around 6.5. Not bad, I say again.
He seemed surprised, “Yes, not bad at all.” Pauses. “But there’s still dust left in the air, see?” He points to the 6.01. “Let’s see what’s inside the filter.”
“One second, can I take a picture?”
“Why, yes, certainly you can, please do!” He holds for the camera.
He opens it up and sees a brand new filter inside. “Ah, it’s brand new!”
“Yes, I just replaced it.” Which was a pity because I would’ve liked to see how much it was leaking with the old, clogged filter.
“Most people don’t replace their filters very often. One home I went to hadn’t replaced their filer for ten years!”
“Wow, really? That’s gross!” I comply.
“No problem, I’ll clean this for you. You can see how much dust is accumulating in the water.”
He vacuums around the air filter and replaces it, turns off the machine and pulls it apart to reveal the water. He takes the big light and shines it at the ground.
“See how much dust is already floating around?”
“Why, yes, I do see how much dust is already floating around. That’s a lot!”
“Yes, indeed it is a lot, and there’s much more where you’re sleeping, on your mattress.”
“Oh, that isn’t good. Can you show me?”
“I’ll show you how much dust is in this one corner alone. Take a look at how this attachment bounces the mattress and uproots the dust. Can you see how much dust is just on top?”
“Yes, I can see how much dust is on top. That’s gross!”
“Yes, indeed it is gross and, can you hear that? The black cloth in the vacuum is already getting clogged. You can feel that there’s no air going through. There’s simply no more suck.”
And it was true, there was very little suck coming from the machine. You could safely put your finger inside it and wiggle it around and there was hardly a pull on it.
“And I can show you just how much dust was in that one little corner of the mattress.” During which he pulled apart the nozzle again and showed me the piece of black cloth that now had a ring of dust on it. “Can you see just how much dust there?”
“Wow, yes, I can see just how much dust there is. That’s gross!”
“Alright, let’s begin with your pillow and these sheets. This is what you’re sleeping on every night for eight hours a day. Notice how much dust is in there?” He slaps the pillow and holds it up to the window to show how the dust danced out and into the open air. “That’s what happens every time your head hits that pillow. Dust bounces out. That dust goes into your nose and that causes your allergies. What’s worse,” he adds as he pulls out an iPad (thin, space grey, light, seems new-ish), “Your body adds more every single day. Every single week! And this just keeps accumulating until you finally have to get a new, expensive mattress!”
He brings up a video of a white man in a doctor’s coat, “I have a video for you, in English, that shows you exactly what’s going on.”
He presses play and, like a magician who distracts your eyes, or a cult leader, as I watched as a man dressed in a lab coat displayed a petri dish with something inside. A close up revealed these rather gnarly looking bugs that were moving around, almost swimming, and chomping away at something. Like a beetle they had a big belly, four legs, but had two large pincers in the front of their face with which they snapped at the goods before them.
He vacuumed my pillows followed by my duvet cover.
“I’ll show you how much dust has gathered here. You can hear the vacuum cleaner pulling already.”
And, yet again, he disassembled the vacuum cleaner and showed me the black cloth and, yet again, a ring of dust could be seen. Gross!
“Look at that green blanket. Do you want to see how much dust is in that thing alone! These are some of the worst offenders for haboring dust!”
And with that, he replace the black cloth yet again and went to work vacuuming this soft, synthetic blanket that my friend had given me. I never used it because I didn’t want to have to clean the thing but I guess it provided a good example for this man.
“See?”
He pulls out the black cloth again and, again, a thickish ring of dust bigger than what was in the pillows and sheets so far.
“But let’s get down to work and clean your bedsheets and your mattress!”
Zim zam zoom, up and down, sideways, length-wise, diagonal, flip the sheets… though he didn’t seem very thorough because he didn’t go right to the end of the sheet, you know, the part hanging off the edge of the bed. Was I supposed to help him?
And he continued, flipping through the bed sheet, extra duvet, mattress protector before finally getting to the mattress itself.
“Would you like to try it?”
Odd. This is your job, not mine. Why would I want to try to do your job?
“Sure!” I said.
He handed over the vacuum hose and watched me move it around the bed.
“See how easy it is to handle? It moves like water!”
“Yes! It is very easy to maneuver! I want to see if it’ll get those corners and just agile this thing is!”
“Yes yes, try it out. See how fast you can do this on your own.” And after another brief ten seconds, “Alright, that’s enough. I can take it back.” And I duly handed it back to him.
“You’ll see just how much dust we’ve collected so far in the tank.”
“Yes, quite a bit. Oh, before I forget, those are my sheets but these are my landlord’s. You’ll see that I replaced these old ones with my new ones.”
“Yes yes, we can do those, too.”
“And that quilt over there. It’s kind of old and probably needs a good cleaning.”
“No problem.”
He cleaned the landlady’s undercovers and started to vacuum that old quilt I mentioned and stopped after a cursory pass over.
“Wow! That thing has a lot of dust in it!” And he slaps the quilt to demonstrate the issue, and then proceeded to undo the vacuum cleaner and show me the dirty bucket of water.
“Do you see how filthy the water is?”
“Ugh! Gross! That water is filthy! And I’m breathing that in every night?!”
“That’s what you are breathing in every night. That’s why you have allergy problems.”
“Well, actually, I think it’s more than that, but you probably won’t deal with the other issue I have in this place.”
“But let’s go dump this water out and replace it with some fresh water.”
“Sounds good.”
He goes into the bathroom and I wonder if he’ll see the peeling paint issue that I also now figured had to do with my allergies. If he did notice it, he didn’t mention it.
“Do you want to see me dump it down the toilet?”
“Why, yes, I do want to see you dump it down the toilet!”
And I watched him pour the bucket of dirty water into my toilet, splashing a little bit over the edges of the bowl. I wonder if he’ll clean that bit up?
“We’ll get some more water and I’ll show you what else we can clean with this thing.”
Quickly filling the bucket again with fresh water he re-assembles the vacuum cleaner and points at my air conditioner.
“I bet you haven’t had that thing cleaned.”
“Not this year, no. I haven’t really used it yet.”
“Let’s take a look. Do you have a screwdriver?” I hand him my one, two-sided screwdriver that cost 10 RMB plus a shipping fee of 10 RMB. Pulling apart the air conditioner, “Ugh! Look at that filth!”
And he was right, I hadn’t cleaned it and there was a nice layer of dust across the whole thing. I had turned the machine on once this weekend and maybe that’s what triggered my latest issue.
“Look at how much dust was on that thing!” he said as he pulled apart the vacuum cleaner once again.
The clock read 3:04 pm so this must be close to the end already, I thought.
“Ugh! Yes! Look at that pile of dust!” I said, pointing to the rather large pyramid of dust on the black cloth. “Can I take a picture?”
“Yes, of course!”
“But this thing isn’t just good for mattresses or air conditioners, it can do your whole apartment, including windows. Can I clean you windows?”
“Yes, sure, go ahead.”
“Look how much dust is on these windows,” he says as he runs the nozzle over the window and points at the window sill. “See how much pollution has gather here on the edges?”
“Yes, but I don’t think that’s the part that’s getting my nose all plugged. The bed, yes, but the window sill? Not sure about that one.”
“I’ll clean it anyway. Both sides.” He hustled over to the next window and performed the same sweep of the glass and sill. “There, dust free!”
“So what do you think of this cleaning? Pretty good, right?”
“Yea, looks good.”
“Would you consider buying a vacuum cleaner like this?”
“Yea, I would consider it. How much?”
“三万千.”
“Say again?
As he repeats the number I pretend to count on my fingers as I’ve seen numerous Chinese people do, starting with my pinky finger, but really having no clue how to count this number. I knew what he meant, and I wasn’t going to ever give him that number, not today, tomorrow, at least not with my current pay level.
30,000 RMB or $6000 CAD.
“Uhh, well, not really looking to buy one right now. As you see, I do have my own that cost 500 RMB.”
“No problem. It’s a lot of money, I understand. Right now we have a special on in which we’ll take it down by 4000 RMB and, in addition to that discount, we’ll take another 1000 RMB off and come over to show you how to assemble and use the thing. Sound like a deal?”
He sits down and pulls out a binder of previous sales receipts with the number 25,000 RMB on each receipt. Impressed, I can’t help but wonder if those are actual sales receipts.
“Hmm, how many of these do you sell a month?”
“Hmmm… 22.”
“A month?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, nice.” He must be one of the rich Beijing people and I should’ve followed him outside to see what kind of vehicle he was driving. Or he simply didn’t clarify by what he meant by 22 sales per month.
“Still a little much? No problem. We can come clean for you.”
“Okay, how much for one time?”
“We usually sell them in packages of 8, that way we can ensure a proper cleaning.”
“Eight? Okay, don’t really want you here eight times and, at this moment, I’m not sure I’ll be in this apartment with this problem by the time my eight cleanings are finished. But how much?
“六千六百八.”
“Hmmm, I see.” 6680 RMB = $1200 CAD. Noting that they used a rounded number, an eight and two sixes, this number was obviously meant to be fortuitous for whomever paid it. “Not sure I need that either.”
“I understand, no problem. You don’t have to pay today, but maybe you would like to refer your friends?” He pulls out a sheet of paper with ten boxes with spaces for contact information.”
“Ahhh, I really doubt any of the people I know would want this. Further, if I even mentioned in any measure of earnestness that I was referring them for a free cleaning from a 30,000 RMB vacuum, they’d probably laugh at me.”
“Hmm, I see. Well, I’ll leave this for you and if you think of someone who might want this service, you can take a picture of their contact details and send it to me over WeChat.”
“That sounds like a better idea.” That way I can quickly delete your contact, right?
“Alright, my job here is done. Keep that sheet handy and you already have my contact. It’s been a pleasure and thank you very much for your time. You will sleep very well tonight, I promise. Your bed is surely clean!”
And with that, he dumped out the rest of the water into the toilet, packed up his stuff and, exchanging a few of the common questions for Chinese people and foreigners (how old are you, are you married, do you have kids, do you like Beijing?)
And then he was on his way.
Despite the prominent sales pitch, I wanted to share my gratitude to my landlady for setting up the free cleaning
“谢谢您!” I write to her.
“You’re welcome. How was the cleaning?” She responds.
“Very good. But I don’t think I’ll buy the vacuum cleaner.”
“It will clear your allergies.”
“Yes, but it costs too much.”
“That’s fine. We can set up a monthly cleaning service.”
“No, not for 6680 RMB.”
“That’s fine. We can arrange a special deal for mattress and pillow cleaning, 380 per month.”
“No thanks. I’ll clean it with the vacuum I have here, I’ll just do it more often.”
And with that, she wished me well.
The Fix
As I mentioned before, I’d been spraying the black stuff with vinegar and baking soda in an effort to kill whatever it was in there. It seemed to reduce my suffering a little bit but I was still waking up feeling congested. I finally messaged my landlord and told her that the bathroom needed to be dealt with. Sure, it might be the bed (even though I switched the bedding) but this black stuff in the bathroom doesn’t look good either. It won’t just benefit me in this apartment, I figured, it would also benefit the value of her apartment. If we cleaned up the mould and re-did the bathroom a little, I’m sure it’d look and feel a whole lot better.
And so the repair man showed up with a shopping cart full of tools and materials and got to work. All together it took him about 3 hours to re-do the bathroom. Though I had showed him the problem, I really didn’t know how to explain what needed to be done with the mould (I was still spraying it with vinegar every day). Perhaps I should’ve had someone who spoke Chinese there to explain the situation in greater detail but, I thought, he is a repair man, he should know what mould looks like, right?
The result was that he did make the bathroom look much nicer, possibly an increase-in-rent nicer, but I’m not sure he dealt with the underlying problem of the mould.
As you can see, the problem has disappeared and since then my allergies haven’t been acting up as much, though they still do, and that makes me think that it might be something to do with the bedding. At any rate, given this situation and the possible rise in rent, I’ll probably start looking for another apartment in the coming months.
The Conclusion
In the end, as much as I don’t want to move from my prime location, I’m starting to think I might have to. I’m told there are apartments for rent for about 5000 RMB further outside of the city and they are practically brand new. My current apartment was built in 2005 and some of the appliances here are dated from that same year. Two years in one place, I guess that’s enough, right?