Personal Hygene

[brahmburgers]

Nobody wants mold and mildew growing in their home. Yet upon close inspection, especially during rainy season, the average home probably has lots of the stuff. Some might even be in plain sight, but not evident. Even though the Thai marketplace doesn’t have a Lysol-type product (anti mold/mildew aerosol spray), there are ways to deal with unwanted mold and the spores which come with it.

I have a habit of putting up shelves using wooden interior doors propped up flat upon cheap tables. It has since become evident that mold also like all that wood, though for different reasons that I do. Same for any unsealed exposed wood in the house. For future projects, I will make a point to seal the wood with clear sealer or paint – though that in itself won’t preclude mold and mildew from taking hold. I had thought of sealing with oil, but my worker made a good point, saying that insects will come around and find the wood more palatable – sort of like adding gravy to roast beef.

Anyhow, I recently sponged down as much of the wood I could reach – with pure bleach (‘hai-teu’ in Thai). Wearing rubber gloves helps. I’ve even come to like the smell of bleach around the house. Some day, when not feeling lazy, I’ll dissemble all the shelves and take them and every other piece of wood furniture outside to clean and reseal them.

‘Who Would Have Thunk’ Dept. I had some toothpicks sitting around for a while and, taking a close look I noticed faint turquoise splotches on them. Mold – not the kind of flora I want to add to my gums. Rather than toss them out and wasting twenty satang’s worth of toothpicks, I rinsed them in bleach. Toothbrushes can also handle a dunking in bleach or hydrogen peroxide (known in Thai as ‘hydroyen’). Indeed, a brisk rinse of the mouth with a peroxide solution is not a bad thing once in awhile.

A few words about flossing: I used to think just running dental floss between teeth was enough. Not so. I got a rude awakening, years ago, when I went to get a free teeth cleaning sponsored by a soon-to-be-graduating class of Dental Hygienists at a local college in the States. The unfortunate gal who got paired with me was almost led to tears. I had such a coral-like crust built up on my teeth that she had to literally work overtime to scrape it away. From that awkward three hours I learned that flossing is serious business. The floss string must be aggressively handled to do a decent job. Same for brushing; gums should be brushed vigorously in order to keep firm them up and keep too much bacteria getting down in alongside teeth – which is the cause of most dental problems. Flossing and brushing twice daily keeps teeth from getting too dull-looking, though they’ll never get as white as the average Asian’s ivories. I don’t know much it has to do with their diet, their genes or oral hygiene, but it’s plain to see that Thai peoples’ teeth are, on average, whiter than westerners.’