Goodbye, Futon Pad

Last night when Rosie took me for my final walk of the day, we spotted a Fox 25 remote van setting up for a live shot along Columbia Road (on the grassy area best known as the doggie restroom).

While I found much interest in their presence, Rosie seemed to prefer sniffing weeds and changing direction many times during her standard erratic after-dark walk.

I had intended to walk over to the reporter or cameraman and ask what was newsworthy about Southie this evening, but figured that they were busy and probably didn't want a local dog and her keeper on camera.
So, back we went to catch it live on TV.

It appears that many residences in Southie took on water and sewage during this weekend's violent flash storm. Being that I was out of town for much of this weekend, I didn't realize how bad the rain actually was. A few folks in Dorchester struck by lightning aside, it appeared to be yet another fast-moving storm. The locals that they interviewed were pointing fingers at the ongoing NWRA project that has made much of Columbia Road in Southie an eyesore, but Boston Water & Sewer isn't accepting much responsibility.

So I thought I would check our basement to see what happened down there.

Sure enough, in the boiler room, there's some water. Not a ton, but a few puddles that required two beach towels to sop up.

I then checked inside of my storage bin and found some dampness, but no water. It is, after all, a basement. But when cloth-based items are on dampness, they too become damp. That would be my futon pad that I was given in 1995 and seems to have followed me around to five post-college residences.

It's probably time to discard the now-unused damp futon pad.

So I checked on the City of Boston's sanitation department website, learning that furniture seems perfectly acceptable for curbside drop-off:

Items list below require no scheduling for collection

• clothes dryer
  
• dishwasher
  
• food waste
  
• furniture
  
• hot water heater
• house hold appliances
• mattress and box spring
• carpet – no longer than 3ft in length and tied
• washing machine

Excellent! I had no idea that such large items were good to go.

I was always fearful that I would put large items outside and they wouldn't be removed, only for rains to come and I would have to then drag a now wet and unwanted item inside.