Lex called me today to say that when she was walking the dogs this morning, she heard a whole lot of screaming and yelling, and as she walked back toward our rig, she realized it was the neighbor, Jeanne, screaming at her mother. Apparently, Jeanne was standing outside the door of her mother’s travel trailer, cussing her up one side and down the other, using “fuck” as every possible part of speech. Lex, who actually loves her own mother dearly, was pretty horrified. My reaction was more like, “Oh, great. They’re going to be THAT kind of neighbor.” You know, the kind that makes the trailer-dweller stereotype bear out — white trashy, foul-mouthed (I am, too, but generally not at the top of my lungs out in front of God and everybody), and generally uncouth. I suppose we should be glad that, unlike certain RV parks in Texas, at least these guys aren’t flying Confederate flags. They’ve been quite nice to Lex, actually, on the two occasions she’s had to speak with them, so maybe it’s just their own parents they are nasty to. Wonderful.
In other news, there have been a couple of times lately when I’ve smelled sewer gas in the house, even when the tanks had been dumped and I’d confirmed that nothing was leaking. I’ve figured out where the odor is coming from, but I’m not sure why it’s there or how to fix it. I have my suspicions, though. It seems that the overflow pipe for the washer connection in our little hall closet has gas from the holding tanks backing up into it (just gas, not liquid). This shouldn’t be happening. We have vent pipes on the roof that are supposed to pull the gas up out of the tanks and release it back into the great outdoors. At least some of the time, that’s clearly not happening and the gas is coming back inside. This is dangerous becaue methane isn’t exactly something humans are built to breathe in large quantities.
I believe what might have happened is that when we had the Great Sewer Explosion this summer, solids of some sort must have partially clogged the vent pipe, restricting the discharge of the gas, causing it to build up until it finds some way to seep out. That’s my theory, anyway. I don’t have the energy or the know-how to take proper care of the problem, and I don’t have the money to call the repairman, so my big fix for the time being has been to wrap electrical tape around the pipe in the closet, covering the vent holes. Let’s hope the whole place doesn’t blow up as a result. I don’t know if that’s possible, but if it is, it’ll probably happen. After all, our rig has a knack for breaking in the most inconvenient and incredibly dramatic ways.
There are just a million little things that need fixing right now, but none of them will be getting done anytime soon: underbelly cover replacement, vent pipe cleaning, grey water tank valve replacement, awning arm and spring mechanism, repair of leaks at the fresh water inlet on the toilet and underneath the kitchen sink, replacing torn day/night shades, mysterious wet spot on the slideout floor…the list goes on. At this rate of decay, the whole rig will probably just be a pile of unroadworthy rubble by next summer!
