"Hey Mom, How Do You Get Rid of Mold?"

Early this morning I received a text from Cal with the question, "Hey Mom, how do you get rid of mold?"  I was surprised by the message and even more concerned when I saw that the response to my question, "Where do you have mold?" was "So my ceiling has been leaking and now it is getting moldy, do you have any tips for how to get rid of mold?" He also sent along this picture:

Although I didn't really see mold, I was extremely worried, especially the size of the hole was bigger than his hand.  I told him to contact his landlord immediately.  He said that he had talked with the maintenance guy and that he said that a roofer would have to come first to fix the hole in the shingles before they could address the ceiling.  I knew that was true, but their sense of urgency to correct the problem didn't match Cal's or mine.

I was extremely frustrated for Cal, but did have to laugh this afternoon when he sent me another picture that did finally get the attention of the maintenance guy.  A huge section of the ceiling came off, exposing a much larger problem.  He took that piece of the ceiling directly to the guy in charge of fixing it.  That started the ball rolling as he went directly to the roof, saw the problem, and promised a roofer would be there tomorrow.  From his actions today, I knew that Cal would stay on top of it if no one showed up.

I sent Meg the pictures and told her all about the situation with Cal.  She agreed that it look horrible, but instantly changed the mood.  Right away she sent me a picture from Stranger Things and said that she really wasn't worried about mold, but more that Cal was going to be sucked into the Upside Down.  

That made both Cal and I laugh.  He said that he was now worried about that too and maybe he would just move back home.  I let him know that we always had a place for him, no matter where we lived.