Miscellaneous Expat Experiences (1)

Besides the housing and driver license experiences, there are also some experiences that are not related to the bureaucracy or local laws, but are entirely a matter of inexperience with a new country. Two of these experiences follow below.

Several parts of New Jersey remind me of the more fancy residential areas in my country. By making that parallel, however, one automatically fills in a lot of details that may not be necessarily the same, even though the area looks familiar.

One evening, while fixing a couple of things in the house, I noticed a rubber or plastic like smell, becoming increasingly worse. It quickly reached a point where it became almost breathtaking. As usual with a new home, I started checking the lamps and other electric things we just installed: refrigerator, washer, dryer, etc. But they all seemed to be OK, while the stench became even more penetrating. Afraid about an electricity burn, I powered down the 110 to 220 VAC voltage convertors. The terrible smell stayed. Perhaps one of the cars, I thought, so I went to the garages and checked the cars, but no result either. Checking outside, my nose told me it could have come from the direction of a nearby larger road. A car on fire, perhaps, because it smelled like burning rubber tires? There was also a distinct element of garlic in it, my nose concluded. Having read about those major fires that produce large amounts of toxic dioxins or other Bhopal/Seveso gases, and living not too far from several perfume factories, I decided to call the fire squad of my town.

"No, we do not have any reports of fires in your area, sir", the person on the phone told me. I explained that it either appeared to me an explosion in a nearby garlic essence factory, or a tire dealer whose building was going up in flames and smoke. They said that they would check for me.

About fifteen minutes later, a huge yellow fire engine arrived in front of the house. I walked up to them and explained my view on the obviously toxic fumes. One firefighter walked with me in and around the house to investigate. After a couple of minutes he told me: "Everything seems to be fine with your house, sir". I told him I already figured that out myself, but that I was still worried about what the horrible rubber smell was and where it came from.

He replied: "Oh, you mean the skunk? We picked up his scent already a mile back on the road".

"A skunk?" "Yes, sir, a skunk! Are you new in this area?"

They understood when I told them I just moved from Holland. The truck was filled with laughter: "This guy is from Holland and has never smelled a skunk! A skunk, sir, is a member of the family of weasels, with quite thick fur and bushy tail. When they are in danger, or are overrun by a car, they emit a horrible stench from their anal glands."

I knew what a skunk was, but I did not know that you could smell one from a mile distance, and that the stench still can be smelled several weeks later, especially when the skunk is overrun in front of your house. I now also know that if one of your pets happens to meet one, the only recipe is to bathe them in tomato juice every day for a week or more, and if you happen to meet one yourself: bury the clothes. If you burn them, you will still have the stench for days.

After the unfortunate death of our two cats (one killed by a car in front of our house, the other from grief a few weeks later) we decided that we really needed some vacation, and headed for the home country to see the family. We left the keys with the neighbours with instructions on how to water the plants.

A few days later our friendly neighbour stopped by the house with her daughter to check the plants. At the house, the daughter remarked that she did not realize that they also needed to feed the cats. Upon the response from her mother that the cats weren’t around anymore, she pointed at a furry animal behind one of our windows: "So what about that thing?"

That ‘thing’ appeared to be a squirrel, who happened to have cleaned our chimney in an ecological way while falling down, ending up in the fireplace. After opening the glass fireplace doors, he/she tried to find a way out, without success. Probing through the food supplies in the kitchen it survived several days, while trying to chew its way through our window sills during the remaining time. Result: all window sills were chewed off at least one centimeter deep over their full length, and the furniture and curtains were covered with chimney black.

Eventually, our landlord was brave enough to open a window, allowing the squirrel to disappear without cleaning up his/her mess. It took us several weeks to fix all the damage in the room. Conclusion: Make sure that those animals stay outside your house or can easily escape once they’re in. So, there are more things in New Jersey that are new for expats, and some of them are not that obvious!

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