Who's going to clean all this? Not me!

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published June 23, 2025] 2025 

We are all products of our upbringings. I grew up in the post-World War II era where women who had been in the work force could now be home raising families and aspiring to keeping an immaculate home.

My rabidly feminist mother was having none of it.

While we lived in an upper middle-class neighborhood in a commuter town outside of New York City and she didn't have to work, my mother was desperate to use her skills. Her various occupations, paid and unpaid, included teaching convicts at an area penitentiary and substitute teaching junior high (is there a parallel there?) 

But she was most passionate about teaching ESL (English as a second language) and tutoring, on her own time, many of her students to pass the written driver's exam which in that era had to be taken in English. Given the lack of public transit in our area, a driver's license was essential to getting any kind of good job. Her efforts included teaching them to drive in our car. I think my mother could yell STOP! in eight languages. When we all left home, she went back to teaching full time at the college level.

What she wasn't interested in, however, was cleaning.

Every so often, Dad used to go around and sweep the cobwebs out of the corners with a broom. People didn't commonly have cleaning help in our area then and I'm not sure my mother would have wanted it anyway. Child labor was heavily utilized. I have no desire to ever again strip wax off a floor (thank you polyurethane!) or dust slatted blinds.

Every time a vacuum cleaner salesman would come by, touting his guarantees that the machine could clean anything, Mom would cheerfully invite him in and promise to buy his machine if it could remove any of the multitude of pet-and-child-inflicted stains which formed a continuous stretch of Rorschach-like blotches along the pale gray of the family room carpet. She never had to buy a new vacuum cleaner (we already owned one anyway) and would escort the frustrated salesman to the door looking distinctly apologetic.

I am her daughter. And I have similar conversations with my husband. 

Olof has always maintained that he picked after-dinner clean-up as his retirement chore partly because he read that, in recorded history, no man has ever been shot by his wife while doing the dishes. He never said so out loud but he was also apparently never all that happy with the job I did with them either. (We can put someone on the moon but we can't invent a machine that cleans the counters, stove top, and sink too?)

I truly feel that spending a half hour on kitchen cleanup is time that could be used far more wisely. Like reading War and Peace with a snifter of Laphroaig. Or in my case, People with a glass of Chardonnay.

When Olof is done, the stove top is spotless, the counter tops positively sparkle, and you could be blinded by the shine in our stainless-steel sink. And then listen to this - he sweeps the kitchen floor. Whether it needs it or not. As you might guess, our definitions of "needing" vary. Olof will sweep whether you can see a single crumb on the floor. "Part of the job,"  he says.

In my defense, it's not like I never sweep. Just recently I dropped a box of breakfast cereal on the floor which was more than I thought the dog could - or should - eat. As I maneuvered the broom, Olof happened to wander into the kitchen. "Whoa!"  he said, in mock astonishment. "I didn't know you knew how to use that thing!"

From time to time, I cruise the Home and Garden Channel and watch shows about people who are shopping for a house. When I see people oohing and aahing about a 5,000 square foot home with bathrooms larger than our living room and massive foyers and kitchens suitable for restaurants, all I can think of: who is going to clean all that?

Some of these newer homes will have a footed tub inside a shower room . Somebody is going to have to crawl behind that thing. That person would most definitely not be me.

The whole cleaning thing comes up in odd ways. I was reading my grandchildren the Curious George book, "Curious George gets a medal", in which Curious George spills ink on the floor and decides to clean it up by pouring a big box of soap over it then pulling the hose through the window turning the entire room into a lake. On the second to last page of the book, there is the line:  "A newspaperman took [George's] picture and everybody shouted and cheered, even the farmer and his son and the kind woman from next door (who had worked for hours to get the water out of the room)."   (Italics mine.)

I was outraged. Why is the kind woman next door cleaning up this mess? Why not the Man with the Yellow Hat who owns the damn monkey? I explained to the grandkids that he should have taken responsibility for cleaning this up himself rather than foisting it off on some poor neighbor woman who probably got this token mention as an afterthought. She should definitely have been paid going rates and had a bigger shout out than some measly parenthetical thank you.

I had also noticed a blurb in US Magazine back in March about how actress Selena Gomez'  fiance, Benny Blanco, gifted her on Valentine s Day with an entire bathtub of queso, with a trail of tortilla chips spelling out "I love you."   Selena, sweetheart: DO NOT MARRY THIS GUY! I realize you folks have "people", but someone - probably a bunch of someones and almost certainly female someones - had to extricate congealed cheddar from an entire tub. There is not a shop vac on the planet that is that cheese-capable. I can't even imagine that the tub's plumbing ever even worked the same.

Now if Benny wanted to clean it up himself...

 

New Trash Fee System: Your Head Will Explode

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published June 16, 2025] 2025

On June 9, the San Diego City Council voted 6-3 to approve trash fees for 223,000 single family homes as part of Measure B, which was approved by voters by a squeaker margin of 50.5-49.5% in 2022. The actual costs will be double or triple Measure B's estimates and are mired in bureaucratic convolution so mind-numbing it made my head want to explode. Yours will too.

If the accurate figures for these costs had been presented to the voters, it wouldn't have had a snowball's chance of passing. This is exactly why it should have been put to a re-vote. Or at the very least, the fees kept at the level that were voted for.

The city needs money. Duping the citizenry is a pretty low way to get it. Even the people who voted for it didn't vote for this.

I've written two double-length columns on this topic already so I won't cover all the issues involved again. The level of deceit of this entire plan is mind boggling.

The city paid a staggering $4.5 million to a consulting firm to estimate the fees that would be charged. Afterwards, the consultant mea culpa-ed his gross miscalculations with "Sorry. I'm human."  Just wondering if he's giving the $4.5 million back to the city? It could sure use the money.

The affected homeowners were allegedly sent a six-page flier with the details of the new plan and a protest form on page six that could be cut out, filled in, and snail-mailed to the city clerk's office. Most people thought it was junk mail and threw it out. Lots of people (including me, and I was on the lookout for it) didn't receive it. Few people had the fortitude to wade through the soul crushing five pages of details.

For enough protest votes to count, 111,000 people would have had to send that form in. According to the City Clerk s office, "only"  46,000 did.

But wait! While the form asked only for a name, it came out later that the protest form had to indicate the name of the property as listed on county property tax rolls. So if it were a trust, that had to be indicated, otherwise the protest vote wouldn't be counted. Inquiring minds want to know: how many such protest votes weren't counted?

And in the sleaziest move yet, anyone who didn't send in a protest vote was counted as a yes vote for the new fees. This is truly an insult to the democratic process. It was stacked against any possibility of there being 111,000 protest votes.

One of the biggest downsides to the new fee structure is the plan to save billing costs by charging the fees on property tax bills, with adjustments only coming months - or years - after the fact. This is just the wrong place for trash fees to be charged and are pretty much guaranteed to create massive headaches for homeowners. Here s why:

Affected home owners are being offered three bundle options with options to add additional bins at additional cost. Bundle 3, the default option, includes three 95-gallon bins (one green, one blue, one black). In teeny 8-point font below the table are three very important footnotes which should actually be in 16-point bold-face font at the top:

Footnote 1: The City proposes to provide recycling and organics [green bin] collection at the service level of 95-gal containers only. Customers may request a 35-gal or 65-gal recycling and/or organics container at the same time if they prefer a small container for reasons unrelated to solid waste services, for example, if they would like a smaller size due to space considerations. However, all customers will be charged at the 95-gal container rate for recycling and organics collection services. [Italics mine]

Footnote 2: Under the proposed rate plan, the City would charge all customers at the Bundle Option 3: 95-gal container rate during Fiscal Year 2026. Customers will be asked to select a service level and bundled rate option during Fiscal Year 2026. Customers that select the 35-gal or 65-gal service level for their trash container will receive a credit on their Fiscal 2027 bill [italics mine] for the difference between the rates associated with their selected service level and the 95-gal service level for the period of time between when the customers subscribed to and received the smaller containers and the end of Fiscal Year 2026. [Translation: you re going to be charged the maximum rate and wait at least a year to get this credit.]

Footnote 3: Customers that select additional containers beyond the initial bundle will receive a debit on their Fiscal Year 2027 bill for the cost of the additional container for the period of time between when the customers subscribed to and received the additional containers and the end of Fiscal Year 2026.

Who in God s name came up with this insane plan? And can they be legally enjoined from ever being involved in city planning again?

Are people in condo complexes subjected to this kind of convoluted billing? Don't think so.

I, for example, need two 95-gallon green bins (big yard), plus a 65-gallon black bin (we're retired, just the two of us) plus two 35-gallon blue recycling bins since that is what fits in our limited space. The City stopped issuing that size blue bin some years ago so after the trucks destroyed the city-issued ones, I had to pay $120 each at Home Depot for replacement ones that are compatible with the city's trash trucks. They're practically new but now about to be obsolete (see below) and replaced with new city-issued bins for which I will have to pay $13.78 (now) per month (going up to $17.74 per month in 2028) in perpetuity.

Why can't I keep my new blue bins? All blue recycling bins and black trash bins are to be replaced and new ones provided with RFID (Radio frequency identification) sensors. I've made several jokes in previous columns about our trash spying on us, wondering if the garbage police will show up if a green bin-designated banana peel is sensed in a black bin, or God forbid, a blue recycle bin. But it is unclear exactly how these sensors will work. The sensors will not be in the green (greenery-food waste) bins presumably because these bins are fairly new. Are these sensors bar codes? Or? Can the city's notorious trash bin-destroying trucks disable them? Can people steal other people's bins so that someone else is being charged for your trash? Honestly, I haven t been able to find out any real information about how they will work.

A really really important question that hasn't been addressed in all this is what happens to the half million to million old blue and black bins that are going to be replaced, especially if one of the motivations of the new system is supposed to be landfill reduction, A June 8 article in the Times of San Diego noted: A million plastic containers will be recycled and a million new ones will be purchased. California's lawsuit against big oil companies over plastics recycling tells us they will be burned. This is a horrifying possibility.

The same article queries: Can't we simply attach RFID chips to the existing bins?

The fee structure doesn't take into account people, say, retirees living alone who generate very little trash. You're paying anyway.

By the way, the weekly recycling program that was a draw to many isn't scheduled to start until the summer of 2027.

As for poor people or those on fixed incomes, the city documents proposes setting aside $3 million for a financial assistance program that would provide a full subsidy for about 2% of customers, a 50% subsidy for 3.5% of customers, and a 20% subsidy for 10% of customers. How that will all work out in reality is still being determined. And here s the deal: you re probably going to have to pay up front now and wait a considerable amount of time for a credit on your tax bill.

The three City Council members who voted against the new fee plan are Raul Campillo, Henry Foster, and Marni Von Wilpert. Those voting for it are Sean Elo-Rivera, Jennifer Campbell, Kent Lee, Stephen Whitburn, Vivian Moreno, and La Jolla's own City Councilman Joe LaCava, who has been an active supporter of this perfidious plan.

I've previously been a huge fan of Joe LaCava in his capacity as a community volunteer and I voted for him for City Council. Right now I wouldn't vote for him for Supervisor of Waste Water Management. Or then, maybe I would.

Twenty-two percent of those 223,000 single family homes have renters in them. They can expect their already-astronomical rents to go up commensurately.

On June 24, the City Council will approve the plan to collect the new fees on your property tax bill, and on July 1 the whole new plan becomes effective.

On May 19, five home owners engaged the services of the law firm of former City Attorney Michael Aguirre to file a lawsuit accusing Mayor Gloria and others of violating Proposition 218, a ballot measure passed some 30 years ago, that prohibits government agencies from charging more for services than the actual cost of delivering those services. The five plaintiffs are asking the Superior Court judge to render the city s previous approval of the trash fee null and void. Is it too late?

I can't even imagine a plan more devious, inept, and just plain unworkable and incomprehensible that could have been inflicted on the citizenry than this one. Regardless of how you feel about trash fees, the whole thing is just plain wrong.

 

 

The Mystery Of The Missing Altoids

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published June 9, 2025] 2025

Today marks my 560th "Let Inga Tell You" column for the La Jolla Light since I began writing it sixteen years ago.

I have to say, the first 250 were the easiest. 

I'm always on the lookout for column material given that I truly, really have no life. So a few weeks ago, when I was out front watering the azaleas and letting the dog run around the front yard, I noticed a very serious-minded young couple intently focused on their phones approach the bike route sign across the street, and suddenly exclaim with jubilation that seemed wildly out of proportion to the circumstances, "Oh my god! Yes! This is it!"

Intrigued, I continued overwatering my plants just to see what it was. It looked a lot like a bike route sign to me. Ignoring the screams of my azaleas to "Turn OFF the hose already!", I watched as the couple felt the metal pole up and down. Then they beat the bushes behind the sign. They even got down on the on the ground and dug around the base. This went on for an hour.

Finally, in my signature shy and retiring way, I queried, "What is it you re looking for?" The wife (I assumed wife) briefly explained that it was a "geo test."  She said they have this all over the world. You get (coordinates?) of something and the adventure is in finding it.

Afterwards, I Googled what I think was the app they were using and got: The Geo Test App is a tool that allows developers and testers to perform manual and automated geolocation testing. It includes 300+ different games to test your map skills. You can simulate user behavior from different locations by testing with secure, private IPs hosted in 45+ countries around the world.

I, of course, being Techno Moron to the Stars, had never heard of Geo Test. It sounds like a digital treasure hunt? Or maybe a cardio Where s Waldo?

Turns out there is no prize, other than the satisfaction of actually locating the item according to the... coordinates? (I am so out of my league here.) No mention of then going to the nearest bar to celebrate. When I was their age, all celebrations involved libations. 

The wife explained that they had successfully located their previous two... whatevers. But this one was truly stymying them. It HAD to be RIGHT HERE. They were SURE of it. 

So, ever the annoying spectator that people who do Geo Tests regard as the downside of their hobby, I pushed on: so are you looking for an actual object? For all I knew, something would ding or buzz or light up on their phones when they'd found the target.

Apparently, there was indeed an actual object they were supposed to locate: an Altoids tin. Presumably empty? You probably know the tag line: "Altoids: Curiously strong mints."  And if you've ever had one, they most definitely are.

As I continued to drown the azaleas in my fascination with the drama across the street, I momentarily thought of offering the services of my dog, Lily, who was deliriously happy at getting all this bonus bark-at-the-gate time.

Dogs, you may know, have an olfactory sense that is literally 7,000 times stronger than humans (although I m not sure how anyone actually measured that). Yes, this was a job for a dog. No way a dog would miss the scent of Altoids. Unless, of course, the scent actually gave the dog a fatal asthma attack with its intensity. 

OK, so maybe not a great idea. Dog noses most definitely did not evolve on scents like mints. In fact, back in column number 404 (June 10, 2021), I addressed the whole issue of the difficulties pet food makers have in making pet foods that smell disgusting enough to appeal to dogs but not so bad that it will repel their owners. Among the "palatants" added to dog food can be such colorless flavorings as "putrescine"  and "cadaverine."   Yum-mo.

I don't think even Altoids could cover up these scents. Which may explain why dogs have such terrible breath.

Anyway, if I understood this correctly from the wife, the whole thing about this Geo Test thing is that you're supposed to find the target but LEAVE IT THERE. The lovely young couple finally had to conclude that someone had swiped it from where it was secured to the bike route sign or the nearby surroundings. Was this Geo Test terrorism? Satellite sabotage? Just plain bad sportsmanship?

Or did some well-meaning local La Jollan on his/her daily constitutional happen to notice an Altoid tin tethered to a bike route sign, sigh in disbelief that people are such slobs, and dispose of it as his/her civic duty? Or hope it had been left by the Mint Fairy and was theirs for the taking? Maybe even mistaken it for a drug drop?

Inquiring and pathologically-over-active minds want to know.

So if you were a fellow Geo Test app-er and maliciously mint-mooched it to thwart your fellow Geo Testers, BRING IT BACK RIGHT NOW!

Alternatively, if you might have been that Altoid-appropriating tin-tampering Samaritan who inadvertently threw it out, the next time you're at CVS, please buy some Altoids, dump the mints, and cable tie it to the bike route sign again. Those poor kids were so disappointed. 

Or maybe I should do it? It might be the most exciting thing I do all week in my (truly, really) non-life. And best case, generate column number 561.