Iron Bacteria

In June, soon after we took possession of the house, Mars and I flew up with the kids to paint their bedrooms. We thought it would make the transition easier if they could picture where they would be living (we were right), and if they felt some ownership in their personal living spaces (ditto).

Girly Girl really liked the existing color scheme in her room (pink and mauve — what’s not to love when you’re a Girly Girl?). But Mad Scientist’s room had been a nursery, with soothing green walls, a cute wallpaper border, and cartoon animals. We painted his room a dark orange and teal blue (his choice, not mine, but it works much better than it sounds — I’ll post pics when we find the bedding we want).

As we washed the rollers and paintbrushes, though we noticed a distinctive rotten egg smell wafting through the house via the laundry chute (yes, we have a laundry chute — best invention *ever*). I didn’t think too much of it. I figured there was a little sulfur in the water. No worries!

Then we moved in, and the first time I took a bath in the glorious jetted tub, I noticed the water was a bit yellow — and threads of some dark filament came from the jets when I turned them on. But the next time I took a bath, it was clear, so I just figured it was some sediment that built up since the house was unoccupied for a six weeks before we moved in.

I was wrong.

Last Thursday I had an appointment at the beauty salon (gotta maintain the purple!), and I casually mentioned that we apparently had sulfur in our water.

She immediately started telling me about her problems with well water — problems that sounded suspiciously familiar — and it wasn’t a little sulfur dissolved in the water.

No, it appears that our well is infected with iron bacteria. Or perhaps sulfur bacteria, but they are similar enough that it’s not worth making a distinction. It’s a bacteria that somehow thrives on iron oxide (or sulphur). Rust.

Don’t ask me how. I don’t understand. Bacteria, disgusting though they might be, are carbon-based living things, and I didn’t think iron oxide would provide anything to organic beings. But apparently it provides something.

It doesn’t appear to be a health a hazard, but WHAT A PAIN!! All the toilets are stained — it looks like they haven’t been flushed for a month, but it looks that way right after flushing, bleaching, and scrubbing too.

And my poor towels! Here, I’ll show you: these are bamboo towels, gloriously soft, and they suck up water like a camel that’s been wandering the Sahara for a year or two.

Pretty, no? That lovely butter color is great in my bathroom — it brings a warmth to the dark green marble backsplash that covers the lower half of the master bath.

Except … those rather expensive bamboo towels used to be white. White. Yanno, like the dryer they’re sitting on.

What, you can’t see it?

Here, I’ll toss a hand towel on the stack, a towel from the same set that I haven’t yet laundered in this house.

Can you see it now?

All these towels were the same pristine white when we moved in six weeks ago. And this is after bleaching them twice.

Yeah. The water stains everything. Girly Girl had a pretty pink T-shirt that is now salmon colored. I’m afraid to wash any of my nice white shirts, so we’re paying for dry cleaning we don’t actually need.

Apparently it’s virtually impossible to get rid of iron bacteria once your well is infected. There are certainly things you can do — shock the system with highly concentrated chlorine and leave it running through the system for a couple of days, add filters and purifiers and water softeners. All of which cost money, of course. But in the end, unless you’re willing to dig a brand new one, your well is just infected and has to be retreated every little bit.

The house came with a very complicated water softening system we haven’t figured out yet, and I’m beginning to understand why it’s there. And it’s not about the hardness of the water.

The sellers offered to come over and teach us how to manage the house. The light switches are complicated, we were told, so they wanted to show us how everything works. And indeed it’s true. Some of the switches don’t appear to do anything, and many of them are in odd places. But they’re just light switches. We’re figuring them out.

We’re beginning to wonder, though, if it was really the switches they were planning to teach us. We’re beginning to wonder if what they really wanted to teach us was how to work the various water softening systems and how often to replace the filters and how to know when the system needs shocking.

And we’re wondering why nobody breathed a word about iron bacteria when we were in the process of purchasing the house.

Still, I love the house. It’s perfect for us. I told Mars, it would have been my dream house if anyone had ever given me permission to dream this big. And I rarely wear white anyway, and the towels are kinda pretty this color.

But the toilets? No, ma’am! I’m calling the company that deals with water problems and shocking the hell out of that bacteria!

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