Hair bleach on ceiling tile

To the real estate editor:

We live in a mobile home and have had the same problem Dwight Babcock of San Marcos, Calif., is having (a stain on the ceiling tile).

At the time I asked the local repair representative of a well-known mobile-home builder what to do? He said: ''I will tell you a trade secret. Go to a drugstore and buy a bottle of Clairoxide (hair bleach) and put it full-strength into a trigger-operated plastic spray bottle. Spray the area so it drips. Do it several times if needed.''

I did as he suggested and it worked. Apparently the liquid will not harm anything. In our case we had a brown area near where the smoke pipe from our wood stove goes vertically through the ceiling.

In the past you have kindly answered questions from my wife when we living in a stick house in Redmond. We are now in a mobile home and love it. J.T. Beckwith Bothell, Wash.