THE FLIP FLOP LIFE

So, we went all the way to Costa Rica and buried ourselves deep into nature to enjoy it, not in the least to enjoy its form of ‘quiet’. And what do we get as a free bonus? The hum of the bloody refrigerator.

I don’t know how many sound recordings ended up in the digital trash because the fridge suddenly started humming in the middle of the recording.

And they all hum. More or less. Simply because they get old or they are badly made or installed in the first place. They also hum often and long because of the heat in the tropics. In all the 14 or so houses that we visited, there were only one or two that were virtually quiet. That was bliss.

Many houses in the tropics are built as open as possible in order to keep them airy and cool. This of course means that the fridge can be heard everywhere in the house. And outside. Day and night

Remedies:

1 ) Build a house with a closed room for the damned machine.

2 ) Switch it off, if only while making the recording. I tried that a couple of times but I always forget to switch it back on.

3 ) Use a gas-powered fridge. They are super silent, but hard to find.

4 ) Do without a fridge. For me that is a bridge too far right now, if only because Matilda’s insulin needs to be stored below 25 degrees Celsius. You may have noticed also that the fridge was in the list of remedies of a couple of other annoyances (ants and mould).