I was laying in bed the other night and I was staring up at my ceiling.
And I jokingly thought to myself how it was a shame that I didn't have ceiling tiles to count, since I couldn't sleep.
I corrected myself though, as I wasn't serious, and assured the no-one that was listening to my thoughts that I actually prefer the smooth, plain ceiling.
I started thinking about how I didn't like drop-down ceilings especially, and that when my sister and I were younger, I didn't like them because they have them at hospitals, and she didn't like them because they have them at school.
Now I don't like them for both reasons.
At my old home, there was a time that our ceiling started leaking in our shared bedroom.
I think my sister was visiting some family at the time.
And anyway, it leaked directly above her dresser, giving water damage to some books of hers.
I remember our mom extensively trying to dry and preserve my sister's belongings, and I remember my sister being rightfully upset when she came home and found out about the water getting on her stuff.
I don't remember the extent of the damage to the ceiling, but I suppose it was significant, because the landlord had our ceiling replaced.
With the drop-down ceiling tiles.
This is when my sister and I shared with each other why we didn't like them.
There was at least one other time that our ceiling leaked.
This time, we had the furniture re-arranged, as we did from time to time, and my bed was in that corner of the room that was under our upstairs neighbors' bathroom pipes.
And the water leaked right onto my face.
I assume this was after we had already had our ceiling replaced, and the damage wasn't as bad this time. I don't know or remember what happened after that, if anyone did anything about it or if this problem just went away. Maybe someone checked the pipes or something. I think it stopped happening, as these are my only recollections of this happening.
By the way!
Our drop-down ceiling looked like this:
(Image description: A picture of a drop-down ceiling, I believe also called a dropped ceiling, or a drop ceiling. The tiles are white with many faint dots and dashes. The tiles are rectangles. There are also several rectangle-shaped white lights in place of some of the tiles. There are also a few squares on the ceiling. The ceiling frame appears to be an off-white color. End image description.)
The squares on the ceiling in the image might be some kind of vents, but I'm not actually sure.
This is just an image I got from Google. We did NOT have the rectangle lights or other things that looked like that. Just the ceiling tiles. I don't know what the squares are in this picture, but we didn't have those.
We actually received an unusual new ceiling light with our new ceiling. It was a circle. Like a ring light. Like a Sonic ring on our ceiling. Like a halo. And my dad, at some point, when considering the bulb (?) in this weird light might need to be replaced, said something like "why would they get that" and described it as being probably the cheapest thing that the landlords could get.
Also, fun fact! When I was a kid, I had a purple, furry, bird marionette... thing. You know, those puppets that are on string attached to sticks.
Well, in my sister and I's room, my dad had the idea to hang it up by tucking the cross-shaped stick into the ceiling frame.
I don't know how or why my landlord knew about us putting things in the ceiling, maybe my dad mentioned it to her, I don't know, but my dad had relayed the message to us at a later date about how she didn't want us doing that.
I don't know why.
Speaking of putting stuff in our ceiling!
There were many occasions I remember my dad and possibly also my mom sprinkling baking soda into our drop-down ceiling because our room smelled like mold (or was it mildew, I don't really know which is which), and I suppose they naturally assumed it was probably the ceiling that was the problem. Not a bad assumption considering our past with icky water getting into our ceiling.
However, we found out some time later that it was actually a humidifier sitting on top of a cubby, with old water in it, and it had gone mildew (or was it mold, not sure the difference, but I think mildew is the one that involves water sitting somewhere).
It is not impossible though that the ceiling ALSO was having this issue, contributing to the smell.
I don't know if it's fair to say that I feel slighted both on one hand that our house occasionally had such suspicious conditions and on the other hand when we were eventually kicked out. Not for anything that we did, but because they wanted to sell the place.
They had their reasons and they also weren't the worst people in the world, they were actually pretty kind.
But it still felt like being kicked out. I won't elaborate on that though.
written by Ari Painful Writer