Well, it was food left out of refrigeration as well. I've never really thought of ramen as cooked food -- it was heated in the microwave for the required time, though, so I suppose you're right.

Humidity has been around 80-90% recently, and the temperature that day was probably no higher than 30. The amount of growth was small -- just a few clusters less than a centimetre in diametre, but black and definitely fungus. I put it on the opposite side of the room where it wouldn't be near me and let it grow a little longer and it was covered within a few days.

The building is made entirely of concrete. If you think of a stereotypical cold war era eastern european apartment building, you'll get the idea, though ours has been prettied up (insulated, new windows put in, painted cheerfully) by the city. The walls in this room are hard to the touch, but in my bedroom, the wall is slightly spongy, but not visibly damaged in any way. The sponginess is uniform throughout and feels like I'm pressing against styrofoam instead of concrete. I assumed it was some sort of insulation.

I live on the fifth floor with cats and have no fly screens. There are shutters in the bedroom, so I leave the windows open and the shutters closed, so that air can get in, but cats can't get out. The window in this room leads to a balcony, though, which the cats are scared of because they don't like the noises from the street, so I can open the window in here as well if I keep an eye on them. They really like sitting on windowsills, though, so I'm careful about that. The cats aren't allowed in the kitchen (enforced by a closed door), so I can leave windows open there. I can also air out different rooms alternately with closed doors.

This is what the fungus looks like that was on my clothes: http://pics.livejournal.com/pthalogreen/pic/0012sbbx I managed to wash it twice yesterday, which decreased the smell and made the spots go away. I want to wash it a few more times before deciding what to do, and I think washing will kill at least enough of the spores to make it safe for me to throw them out, if I deem them unsalvageable.

There is a doctor I know of who would see me for free that I could go to. I've lived here for almost three years, and I really like my landlady. Also, I'm planning to move in with my girlfriend in about a year. It can't be sooner, because it will take a long time for my visa application to be processed. I am still at the satge where I have to run around and gather things for the application, but health problems makes it difficult. I want to improve my life as much as I can before I can move, but I'm reluctant to do drastic things ilke move out when I know I'll be moving again so soon.

I have a mother who lives very far away, who would spend money she didnt have to come help me if she knew, but I'd feel very guilty about the whole thing.

My best friend is currently at a summer camp like training thing for a new job and following that is moving to Budapest (2 hour train ride away) with her boyfriend (my other friend). So they're very busy right now and currently unavailable, and they've helped me out so much with other things in the past, that I dont want to be a burden on them. I'm ashamed of the condition of the apartment, but I know they would be understanding.

i have a religious community, but the last time i was very sick, in 2009, (3 weeks of influenza + 3 weeks of strep throat), I asked for help getting to a doctor (I had a high fever, was sleeping 22 hours a day, could not keep even a small sip of water down, and was terrified that i was going to die of dehydration). They helped me get to a doctor and get antibiotics and medicine to help me keep things down, but while they were here, they took one look at my flat (a mess. i was too busy throwing up to keep things tidy) and wrote my mother a letter saying that i was clearly mentally ill because of disarray I was living in which reflects an inner disarray of mind and emotion and my mother was so worried that she flew out to see me (which she could not afford to do), but by the time she got here I had mostly recovered and I made an effort to show her that I was okay, not having a nervous breakdown, was a little weak after a physical illness which had led to the mess that had been there (all tidied up in a frenzy that i wasn't really well enough to do before my mother arrived), and that i did not need to be taken back to live with her where she could ensure that i find a good psychiatrist, because the antibiotics had cleared up the "mental illness" just fine, thank you. i succeeded. This experience has made me much less willingly to reach out for help from the people involved (and it's a small community, so pretty much everyone was involved). (Their reaction has no basis in our scriptures, which say that when you are sick you should seek the best medical advice available to you and obey it. But the pseudoscience is strong in the individuals in question.)

My neighbours are mostly elderly and I would feel improper asking them to clean up my messes for me. My landlady is a dear, knows about my migraines, and if she knew I was in trouble would probably be able to find someone who could help. She's seen my flat in disarray before (she took care of my pets when I very suddenly had to go help my mother recover from a surgery (she recovered well)). It's mostly shame that keeps me from reaching out to people I know. And expecting other people (even those who seem trustworthy -- after all, I'd known those religious people for a years) to assume I'm mentally ill instead of helping.

My girlfriend also lives far away (we're planning to get gay marriaged and move in together, but there are a lot of logistics to sort out because her country is difficult to move to, and Hungarian is a very hard language to learn (and there are other, valid reasons that mean it would make more sense for me to move there. It will probably be another year yet till I can move. Even though we are engaged, it will take many months for the visa to be processed, and before that there a million and one hoops I have to jump through (health checks, background checks, saving up money, and more) to get the 60+ pages of forms filled out and submitted. she is available daily on skype for moral support, and can tell me when I'm overthinking things. (Until I got all these responses, I really did think that there was just some basic step to laundry washing that everyone but me knew and I was stuck going over the steps in my head trying to figure out how to get into a universe where I do not have frequent, sudden, unpredictable headaches that lead to situations like these. this step by step analysis of all of a problem is great for identifying the racing condition that is causing the bug in the code I'm writing. But it's not useful for simple things like laundry where I understand the steps of putting clothes in, adding detergent, and taking them out, and can't think my way into a situation where my clothes aren't rotting in the washing machine.

I didn't sleep last night (was too panicked about the washing machine), but today my girlfriend talked me into running it a couple times. I set it to 60°C, added extra detergent and vinegar, extra fabric softener, and ran it twice, napped, and then woke up to my mother calling to tell me to expect a phone call from my sister (who also lives far away), and I had wanted to wash it a couple more times before trying to take anything out. But I couldn't, because I wouldn't be able to hear my sister on the phone if the washer was going. She didn't call till 11pm, so tomorrow I'll wash them a few more times. I peeked after the second wash, and the fungus is no longer visisble, and the smell has decreased and was no longer dizzying. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to wash them a few more times, and if I can, I will try to take them out. If I can't, I'm not sure what I'll do. But I figure that the washing does seem to have killed at least some of the fungus which will make them safer to handle when I get to the point of deciding whether to put them into a trash bag and carry them downstairs to the bins or whether some of them are safe.

It might be possible to wash them daily, and then when I hit a day where my pain levels are lower I can take them out and make a decision. This does seem like a tremendous waste of water, detergent, and fabric softener, and my financial resources are not unlimited . But it's summer, and hot, and 82% humidity, and I left out a bowl of ramen noodles that I couldnt finish last week and it grew visible fungus within 8 hours. so it's the season where everything will rot if i'm not on the ball all the time, which i cant be. And comments here have made me realise that my usual strategy of "wait till i'm feeling well and then deal with it" won't work if the thing that needs dealing with is actively making me sick, which it might well be.

EDIT: decided i had revealed a lot more abaut myself in this thread and since it's no longer active I'm redacting a lot of stuff.

I should have more IRL social contact, especially in some larger group.

1) (this is the main one) There is none to have any social contact WITH. If not for the very low prior I might think there simply isn't a single interesting person within a 100 mile radius from here. I don't think I could say I live in the middle of nowhere, but it certainly feels like it. Maybe it's unreasonable to expect the same quality as online in a much smaller search space, but being around people you can't respect as somehting more than dull tools just isn't socially satisfying, when I know I could be online and chat with actual PERSONS. An LW meetup or convention for somehting I'm a fan of is somehting I'd jump at, but nothing even close to that never happen around here and probably never will.

2) I have psychological issues that I do not wish to discus in detail, but the end result is #REDACTED#

3) For various reasons setting of a few hours to go somewhere is inconvenient, and #REDACTED#

What about practicing balance?

You don't need to buy a special balance board or exercise ball for it. You can just use any board on a pivot of some sort...say a plywood board on a solid rubber ball (depends on your weight).

Balance will protect you well into old age and practicing it should strengthen your leg joints, abdominals, and lower back, as well as forcing you to be more aware of your body's position, movement, breathing, etc.

For entertainment, you can listen to music or an audiobook.

As for sweating/comfort it is definitely on the less strenuous side of things and can be done indoors with air conditioning (though this may be an expense you don't want to incur).

Interesting prospect. I don't think I've got any boards or rubber balls lying around, but will keep an eye out for something to jury-rig.

Dancing in the shower with someone to catch me? Okay, to be fair, I didn't mention modesty issues in my original post, but I didn't really think anybody was going to suggest something that involved immodesty...

(The shower curtain in my home is transparent.)

I do not exercise.

(Caveat: I will refrain from taking any advice that would lead to me starting to significantly exercise until I have a diagnosis and a treatment plan of my apparent heart condition, which doesn't indicate it would be unsafe or otherwise a medically bad idea. I'd be really surprised if my doctor told me not to exercise, but in case she does I want to wait and make sure that my body is really lying to me when it says "don't do that, bad things will happen".)

Reasons (and existing known routes around each):

• Sweat is horrible, and I overheat too easily. (Swimming gets around these; outdoor exercise in cold weather, interestingly, does not.)

• Sunshine is horrible (and other environmental issues). (Anything indoors or at night gets around the sunshine thing. Other environmental issues are mostly limited to smelly gyms and excessively humid indoor pool facilities. Anything outdoors and at night and in nice weather gets around this.)

• Many forms of it are financially costly (equipment, facility use). (Going for walks does not have this problem.)

• It is boring. (When I tried jujitsu, it did not have this particular problem. Merely being able to listen to music does not solve this, although it could combine with another partial solution. If this problem is solved by simultaneously watching a movie, it has to be in a context where I can turn on subtitles, because I will not be able to reliably hear dialogue over any non-perfectly-silent form of exercise.)

Known route around all of these problems: happening to have free access to an outdoor pool which is open at night and a person who will go with me and chat while we both backstroke laps. This would be great but I don't happen to have access to a free outdoor pool that is open in the dark.

I doubt I could hear anything with content over the shower itself no matter how good my speakers were, and I have pretty terrible balance in general. (I rarely actually fall, but I have to touch walls a lot to make that not happen.)

I do not exercise.

(Caveat: I will refrain from taking any advice that would lead to me starting to significantly exercise until I have a diagnosis and a treatment plan of my apparent heart condition, which doesn't indicate it would be unsafe or otherwise a medically bad idea. I'd be really surprised if my doctor told me not to exercise, but in case she does I want to wait and make sure that my body is really lying to me when it says "don't do that, bad things will happen".)

Reasons (and existing known routes around each):

• Sweat is horrible, and I overheat too easily. (Swimming gets around these; outdoor exercise in cold weather, interestingly, does not.)

• Sunshine is horrible (and other environmental issues). (Anything indoors or at night gets around the sunshine thing. Other environmental issues are mostly limited to smelly gyms and excessively humid indoor pool facilities. Anything outdoors and at night and in nice weather gets around this.)

• Many forms of it are financially costly (equipment, facility use). (Going for walks does not have this problem.)

• It is boring. (When I tried jujitsu, it did not have this particular problem. Merely being able to listen to music does not solve this, although it could combine with another partial solution. If this problem is solved by simultaneously watching a movie, it has to be in a context where I can turn on subtitles, because I will not be able to reliably hear dialogue over any non-perfectly-silent form of exercise.)

Known route around all of these problems: happening to have free access to an outdoor pool which is open at night and a person who will go with me and chat while we both backstroke laps. This would be great but I don't happen to have access to a free outdoor pool that is open in the dark.