Monday, May 22, 2006

Have You Ever Smelled Moth Balls?


How did you get his tiny legs apart?

HA! hahahahaaa, funny every time.

But seriously folks. My next-door neighbor has just put in her flower bed. We live in condo-esque neighborhood, so her home and garden sits about 15 feet away from mine. She has also, apparently, sprinkled mothballs everywhere, to keep squirrels and rabbits from gobbling up her blooming beauties.

I'm not sure how many mothballs it takes to permeate the entire neighborhood with their scent, but that's exactly how many she used.

The odor is so strong that my garage reeks when I step into it from the house; I wonder if she hasn't made a neighborly gesture to save my climbing roses. I TASTE them, as I plug my own impatiens and petunias into the ground, wondering, as I work, if I'll ever smell their sweet scent.

I did a little search on the US Environmental Protection Agency website and came up with THIS mothball tidbit:
Acute (short-term) exposure of humans to naphthalene by inhalation, ingestion, and dermal contact is associated with hemolytic anemia, damage to the liver, and neurological damage.
Great. Just great. I can almost feel the jaundice coming on. Look at my eyes. Are they ok? Are the whites yellowing?

How 'bout now?

Anybody out there have any idea if these moth things just dissolve and go away? Or am I going to have to surreptitiously slip my EPA findings into my sweet neighbor's mailbox?

I can never tell her, the poor thing. I'm spineless, and would suffer cataracts (also a listed side effect) before I told her that her precious flower bed is killing me.

I know.

I need to get some (moth) cajones.

21 comments:

  1. Hmm ... Thats crazy ... I could smell it when i came to your house .. Now I can just feel my motorcycle smell like moth balllls ..

    ./thanks
    ilaiy

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  2. Yuck .... I would have to say something. Or, maybe you could leave a flyer on her door listing all the bad symptoms of moth ball over exposure.

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  3. Three words: Anonymous Blanket Party. Just kidding. Heh, heh, heh.

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  4. Dump a bag of peanuts in her yard and see if the squirrels will eat them.

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  5. I have been searching all over for a counteraction for you. I can't find anything! I think you may have to set her garden on fire.

    I wonder if the rain would help them dissolve. Or gasoline.

    Though, I also read that if you mix the mothballs made from paradichlorobenzene with gas - it creates hydrochloric acid. Might cure the problem for a while. Then you could say - Oh my Dear! It looks like those mothballs ate your flowers!

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  6. Anonymous10:03 AM

    yikes! i think you are within bounds of decency to make soem comment about a stink -- doesn't it ruin her appreciation of her own flowers? or is she nasal-impaired?

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  7. Right. Grow a pair. Bitch her out. Or complain to the EPA. :-)
    Hope yer otherwise well dearie!

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  8. I really hate that smell. Medical hazards to boot. Oy.

    Heloise recommends an enzyme-based pet-odor remover to eliminate the odor. But that stuff in massive quantity can't be so healthy either. And just how much of that stuff would you have to sprinkle around to get rid of the smell!? (Not to mention it does nothing about the other non-smell hazards!)

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  9. Anonymous12:43 PM

    Once, in my youth and folly, I bought moth crystals and generously spread them throughout my sweater drawer.

    Not only did my 3rd floor apt reek of the smell, but I could smell them before I entered the door on the 1st floor. When I met a neighbor in the hall, I commiserated with her about the smell and acted like I had no clue where it came from.

    I had to wash out the drawer and wash all of my sweaters. No way could I wear them with that scent...it made one's eyes water.

    formerly moth ball illiterate,
    km

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  10. Ilaiy: Your bike is spoiled. You'll have to toss it.

    Crazy: I thought about the sneaky flyer idea. Or spying, and when her cute son visits her, I'll tip HIM off, and let him do my dirty work.

    ChazE-D: Kidding my ass. I know you'll be on my porch with a handful of blankets for me to choose from, when I get home.

    Awe: That cracked me up. I DO have a bin full of corn to put in the squirrel feeder...

    Momo: Fire's a good alternative, but she's a little close to MY house. Hmmmm

    Paul: I guess they're just to look at, the flowers.

    Andy: She's really a sweetie, I can't bitch her out. I can ask her if she's feeling ok....tell her she looks a little...YELLOW....

    Wendy: Another mission: the pet enzyme stuff, black ninja clothes and crawling around her shrubs to counter-act the mothballs. Be at my house at midnight.

    KM: LA here we come! I mean, that's terrible about your sweaters. At least you didn't use them for bath oil beads.

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  11. Anonymous5:45 PM

    As long as summer is getting underway, you might as well get all your warm sweaters and throw them in her garden until fall. At least they'll be safe from those bad, bad moths.

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  12. Ugh mothballs - in a lot of uh...3rd world oops I mean developing nations, they use mothbals to deodorize bathrooms. Just changing one bad smell for another if you ask me.
    Well, the 3rd world countries where they have bathrooms... ha ha

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  13. You always have a great way of telling stories... Btw, i absolutely love the pics in the previous blog... did you take them?

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  14. Haa haa! :)I'm sorry but that was funny in a bad way. I say that because jaundice is not good. I love that picture. Nice photo!

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  15. The smell of moth balls is one of the few fragrances that I can't stand. Give me rotting manure, seaweed, or pig farms instead! It's such a gagging, insidious, chemical perfume -- you just know it's sneaking deep into your sinuses to settle into your membranes. *shudder*

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  16. Tai: Yeah. What you said.

    Larry: You're a genius! That will clear up my closet space also.

    Barry: I, uh...think the mothballs are worse. I think. Depends.

    BBB: ty. The moth wasn't mine, and the starfish below wasn't, but most of the images on my blog are mine. Glad you liked them.

    Stephen: I know, jaundice jokes are tacky. I couldn't help myself.

    Hi Kimber! I'm with you, it does seem like mothball molecules are embedding themselves.

    SteelK: You're not the first person to encourage me to hurry up and blog again, if only not to look at that creature. I'll hurry it along.

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  17. i am so sorry you are dealing w/ this. we are experiencing the exact same thing w/ our next door neighbor- we live in a duplex attached to her unit and we are inches away from her garden. the smell is nauseating, and i have tried everything to mask it- temporary solutions include dumping cheap colognes/ perfumes in the area, but the effect is very short-term. i've also tried burning incense in my window when it is open, but that, too is only a temporary fix. i'm going out of my mind. the next move i'm going to make is to dump gasoline in her garden. ;)

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  18. Condifidential to Brendon: Darling, get in line; after blogging this long, there's a long line of tedious, and much more-vicious-than-you trolls hurling idiocy at this blog.

    Knock yourself out; these blog trolls are just something you step in and wipe off your shoe every now and again, when you start blogging. Hurt my feelings? Uh. No.

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  19. Anonymous8:13 AM

    You might suggest to her that she plant some lavender, rue, geraniums, absinthe, or lemon thyme as a natural repellent.

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  20. Anonymous2:46 PM

    It has also been suggested that the toxic chemical in mothballs will bond to garden soil, causing damage to it.[citation needed] Research has shown that a weak bond can occur, but naturally occurring soil microbes will break down the toxic component of mothballs over extended periods of time.[citation needed] In addition to this, the toxic effects of mothballs may also kill beneficial soil insects while it is present in soil.[4] THIS INFORMATION AND MORE ABOUT MOTH BALLS ON WIKIPEDIA. JUST GOOGLE IT. AND GOOD- LUCK TO YOU EXPLAINING TO THE IGNORANT. I HAVE A DEAR FRIEND WHO HAS BEEN EXPOSED TO THE FUMES FOR YEARS AND HIS LUNGS ARE NOT GETTING ENOUGH OXYGEN. GOOD-LUCK AND BE SMART AND SAFE. PEACE...:)

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