The potting shed

Our house used to be grow-house.  This wasn't exactly a startling revelation, since one of the upstairs rooms reeks of cannabis.  We hoped the smell would dissipate after we moved in, but it's still really pungent.  It explains why our landlord had strategically placed plug-in air fresheners everywhere when we viewed the place.  Annoyingly, he also removed them once we moved in.  Cheeky.
I think the smell is so bad as it's wood flooring, so the smell has permeated into the wood.  It's awful, and makes me feel sick if I'm in the room too long. And no, that's not because I'm getting too stoned; the room just smells, there's no active THC! I hope.*
It smells like a concentrated version of student digs, minus the obligatory fermenting fungi fumes, and rotting sock stink.

There were a few clues that the house was a grow-house, and not just home to some dedicated stoners.  A policeman knocked on the door asking for someone who doesn't live here anymore; and the back door has a broken hinge, which is consistent with the door being kicked in.  The biggest clue was when our neighbours told us there was a police raid, and the growers' stock was turfed out into the garden. This explains why Willow, who has bad arthritis, spends so much time in the garden just sat there looking thoroughly chilled.

Since regularly spraying with air freshener doesn't seem to be having an affect, and I'm worried our books are going to start acquiring the smell, I'm going to try the plug-in air fresheners the landlord used - they seemed to have a pretty good effect.  Although I reckon they will only continue to mask the smell and not actually eradicate it.

Every house has it's story, and one day we will live in one that doesn't read like something from the Brother's Grimm.

*After writing that I got all paranoid and scoured the Internet to find out if this was true.  Luckily, just smelling it doesn't mean it's active. Phew.  I would not have been pleased else.  Although I doubt I'd have the motivation to do anything about it if it was active.

System Crash Sketches

Here are a couple of sketches I did whilst waiting for the computers at work to unfreeze.  They crash with an alarming regularity, so this may become a regular feature of the blog...