RANGE: First apartments, charming old houses, quaint summer cottages, experimental solar living modules, completely remodeled kitchens, dens that need some work, unfinished basements, north-lit studios, semi-equipped lofts and secure subterranean bed-sitters. HABITS: In any household with which you are unfamiliar, there you will find the Household Unfamiliars. Be it your first apartment or your last nursing home, these devilish sprites are there with a litany of liabilities: Putting the light switch on the wrong side of the door, mysteriously adding or subtracting a step from the stairs in the dark, blowing the bathroom door locked behind you, shifting ankle-breaking furniture while your attention is elsewhere, jamming windows open or closed, exchanging handles on the shower controls, breaking knobs off in your hands, and stacking pyramids of head-thumping canned goods on unstable shelves in innocent looking closets. All these pranks and more are the work of the Household Unfamiliar— but his special province is the refrigerator, where he moves as soon as you start to feel at home. Ostensibly, his job there is to turn the light off when you open the door and on when you close it, but he further diverts himself by lending to your costly imported beer a skunk-like odor, tempering your cheese to a gem-like hardness, and spilling dill brine into the yogurt. He specializes in unscheduled defrostings and freezer burns. Old wives’ tales have it that open boxes of baking soda and herbal bouquets deter the Household Unfamiliar from his activities. But as any housekeeper can tell you, you are just as likely to find a spilled box of baking soda and a broken bouquet of herbs commingled on top of the mousse. HISTORY: As might be assumed from the Household Unfamiliar’s preference for the chilly regions of the refrigerator, this creature came to us from Scandinavia, a direct descendant of that Nordic domestic pest, the Kobold. Thus, however neatly you box, store, cap, and wrap your foodstuffs, these “frigidaredevils” believe that what you wish to find when you open the door is a smorgasbord. During the course of the Household Unfamiliar’s food scattering experiments, that great American dish, chow mein, was invented. SPOTTER’S TIPS: In the fridge: green spots on the bread, ketchup spots on the ice cream, and gravy spots on the lettuce. In the rest of the house: brown spots on the bathroom ceiling, yellow spots on the mattress, and indelible spots on the laundry.
棲息地 高級マンション, しゃ
れた古い洋風づくりの邸宅, ふ
うがわりな別荘地の家, 実験的
な太陽熱利用のモダン・ハウス,
改築した部屋, 急造した子供部
屋などによく出没し, 住人を困
らせてはよろこんでいる。 とく
に新築の家の場合, 期待が大き
ければ大きいほどたくさん見る
ことができるだろう。
習性 家庭内でひき起こされる
あらゆる面倒なことの原因は,
この妖精たちである。 たとえ
ば,ドアを開けたとき, 部屋の
電気のスイッチが蝶つがいのあ
る側の壁についていていちどな
かに入ってドアを閉めてからで
ないと明かりをつけられないと
か、トイレの鍵が堅くて閉まら
ないとか、 台所の流しのパイプ
が曲がりすぎていて逆流してく
るとか、 家具が部屋の寸法から
少しばかりはみだしてしまい、
不幸なことにそのはみだした部
分の角にいつも足をぶつけて痛
い思いをしているとか, シャワ
ーの水と湯の表示があべこべだ
ったりとか、ドアのノブを引っ
ぱったら取れてしまったとか、
とにかくこの妖精たちのいたず
らは,それが新居であった場合
ほど腹がたってくる。
しかし、この妖精たちがいち
ばん本領を発揮するのは, 冷蔵
庫のなかである。 まず冷蔵庫の
ドアを開けたときになかの明か
りを消し、ドアを閉めたとき明
かりがつくように変えてしま
う。つぎに輸入品の高級白ワイ
ンにスカンクのような臭いをつ
けたり、チーズを宝石のように
コチコチに堅くしたり、 野菜か
ら水分を奪ってフニャフニャに
したり、 魚の臭いを肉に, 肉の
臭いを魚につけてみたり, とに
かく冷蔵庫のなかはこの妖精た
ちにとっては無法地帯なのだ。
温度調節も自由自在にできる。
急に温度を上げたり下げたり、
ビールを飲もうと思ったらシャ
ーベットになっていたり、冷凍
室の氷が解けて洪水になった
り、とにかく手がつけらないあ
ばれ者なのである。
冷蔵庫のなかの荒らしか
歴史
たでもわかるように,この妖精
たちはスカンディナビアの出身
で, 北方のやっかい者コウボル
したが
トの直系の子孫である。
って, 食料品をどんなにていね
いに箱に入れようと、ふたをし
ようと, サランラップで包もう
と、この妖精たちの活動をおさ
えることはできない。
私立探偵の情報 バスルームの
天井についたしみ, マットレス
の裏側のカビ、洗濯物の落ちな
い汚れなどがそうである。
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Habitat
Luxury apartments, charming old Western-style mansions, quirky vacation homes, experimental solar-powered modern houses, renovated rooms, hastily constructed children’s rooms — they turn up frequently in all these places, delighting in troubling the residents. The higher the expectations in a brand new home, the more of them you’ll find.
Behavior
These sprites are the cause of every annoying thing that happens inside a home. For instance: opening a door to find the light switch is on the hinge side of the wall, so you have to go in, close the door behind you, and only then can you turn the light on. Or the toilet lock is so stiff it won’t close. Or the kitchen sink pipe is bent at such an extreme angle that water flows backward. Or the furniture is just slightly too large for the room dimensions, and you keep painfully stubbing your toe on that protruding corner. Or the hot and cold labels on the shower are switched. Or the door handle comes off in your hand when you pull it. In a new home especially, these pranks are infuriating.
But where these sprites truly come into their own is inside the refrigerator. First they reverse the light — off when the door opens, on when it closes. Then they give imported premium white wine a skunk-like odor, harden cheese to gem-like rigidity, drain vegetables of moisture until they go limp, swap fish smell onto the meat and meat smell onto the fish. The refrigerator interior is essentially a lawless zone for these sprites. Temperature control is entirely at their whim — suddenly raising or lowering it, turning your beer into sherbet, flooding the freezer compartment when the ice melts. Truly uncontrollable hooligans.
History
As their behavior inside refrigerators makes clear, these sprites are of Scandinavian origin — direct descendants of that northern nuisance, the Kobold. Consequently, no matter how carefully you box, lid, or clingfilm your foodstuffs, their activities cannot be suppressed.
Field Intelligence
Stains on the bathroom ceiling, mold on the underside of mattresses, laundry stains that won’t come out — these are the signs.
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