1
Real Estate appraiser - all kinds of screwed up shit. Worst one for me though - I found a guy in the basement of a vacant, foreclosed house, flat on his back & little charred. Apparently he tried to steal the electrical wiring (to go with his copper plumbing stash) & the electricity was still on. I'll never forget the smell.
2
This one was scary, gross and sad all at the same time. I worked as a contractor for the local electric/utility company installing energy efficient lightbulbs and plumbing fixtures in apartments. The landlords would call us, schedule an appointment, and then often not even tell their tenants we were coming.
On one specific appointment my partner and I roll up to the duplex. It's in a nice area, but an absolute shithole. Grass not cut all year, old appliances all over the yard, just a fucking peach. The unit we were scheduled to do was upstairs. We walk up to the porch and you can hear death metal music just blaring (this is probably at noon.) We knock on the door. No answer. After a few minutes we call the landlord, he says he'll come over to let us in. He comes over. Unlocks the door, says "it's all yours" and leaves.
We slowly walk up the stairs, the music getting louder and louder. We walk into what you'd swear was a filming set for a "Breaking Bad" meth-head's apartment. In fairness I never saw any drugs, but it was absolutely disgusting (and I've seen some disgusting shit.) Every dish they've ever owned encrusted in decaying matter, submerged in a sink filled with water reminiscent of something you'd see pouring out of a power plant. The remainder of the dishes piled high on all counters and tables. Flies everywhere. Clothes and rotting garbage strewn across every floor; kitchen, pantry, bathroom, everywhere.
We yell, "Hello!?" no response. We turn to our right and see 3 fully tattooed skinny-as-hell dudes with shaved heads and no shirts on completely passed-the-fuck-out on a single futon in the living room with death metal BLASTING! I turn to my left and I see movement. At first I thought it was a dog or a cat. I walked into the bedroom to get a better look, it was a little girl.
She couldn't have been more than 4 years old. She had long straight brown hair and was wearing a full length dress. She was a pretty little girl, and would smile shyly and hide whenever her and I would make eye contact (as if playing hide and seek.) My heart absolutely fell out of my ass. She was in a room COMPLETELY filled with garbage. Completely. She was playing in a corner near an overturned mattress with a few toys that were in the corner. I wanted to cry and throw up all at once. I tried to talk to her, but I didn't know what to say and it was hard to hear over the music. My partner never even saw her. He said "fuck this" and went back outside the instant we saw the dudes on the futon. I did my job (changed lightbulbs, installed a shower head) all while gagging on the stench in the house, trying to be quiet as to not wake up the possible murderous meth heads on the couch, and holding back my sorrow for this poor kid's environment.
I called Social Services that night. No clue if anything ever became of it, but I hope so.
3
I'm a contractor under Home Depot, so part of my job is to measure peoples bathroom's and or basements. One time I visited this old couple who wanted their 2 bathrooms renovated. I finished measuring the bathroom upstairs rather quick, so I moved to the downstairs bathroom in which I found... well a grow op. These old people were growing weed in their basement. I was in shock, and didn't really say anything... In which the old lady realized and actually offered me some if I wanted it...
4
I used to be a cable installer in the d.c. area. Saw some wild shit, fights, people high and out of their minds. Naked chicks, dudes, etc. etc. but the shit I remember most, the thing that made me flip out and get all kinds of creeped out was when I was installing in this ladies apartment. She never had cable so I had to had to run the lines from scratch. Open up her closet to strategically place the hole I needed and 1000's, literally 1000's of roaches started falling down from the top of the closet. It was like an avalanche of roaches. Some fell on me and on my equipment and I just about lost it. I'm not really scared of insects but it fucked me up for a few weeks. I kept feeling them crawling on me even when I was naked and in the shower. I just kept seeing this waterfall of brown over and over. I had legit nightmares about being drowned in roaches after that. Like panic attacks. The thing about it was, the lady didn't flinch. I mean she looked at me like I was wrong for being creeped out. Didn't finish the job at all. Straight up bounced and told her to get a satellite.
5
Years ago I had a job in apartment maintenance. I saw some crazy stuff over the years but by far the worst was one unit had a work order for a jammed garbage disposal. I knocked on the door but no answer. When I went in there was foil all over the windows and the only light was from several strands of of christmas lights. There was a terrible smell in the place and when I finally got over to the light switch I saw what the deal was. All over the dining and living room were clothes hangers on wires. Dangling from the hangers were strands of meat. I noped the fuck outta there pronto, it was way too chainsaw for my pay rate. I never met them but I think they were from the middle east somewhere and were aging the meat but it was pretty freaky. Their garbage disposal is probably still jammed.
6
Worked for a PC repair company. Got a call to go out to the country (wayyy out in the sticks) to fix a PC. Had bought a new car the day before, so I was already irritated that I had to get on a gravel road. Got to the house, and no less than 4 dogs jumped up on my car. Further irritation. I ring the doorbell several times and nobody comes to the door. I start to walk off and I hear the door open behind me. "WHO ARE YOU?"
"I'm here to look at your computer, ma'am." "Identify yourself NOW!" "My name is ___, I work for ___, you called 30 minutes ago because your PC isn't working."
She reluctantly lets me in. My first step through the door manages to somehow offend all five senses. Possibly a sixth. There were a minimum of 25 cats. Sounds great, right? Well...it would have been if the house wasn't their collective litterbox. CAT. SHIT. EVERYWHERE. Oh and what's that on the couch? It's her ~80 year-old hubby laying in his tighty-whities on the couch, barely clinging to life. She tells me to just ignore him (which is easier said than done, considering he TRULY looks like a corpse).
She leads me into the computer room. I really don't care about stepping on cat shit at this point because my shoes are already caked with it. It would be physically impossible to navigate their house without getting it all over yourself. Did I mention the lady had it ALL over herself? Clothes, hair, you name it. So I roll the computer desk back to get started. Needless to say, it was simply unplugged (I swear to god I'm not making this up), and I plugged it in and bolted as fast as I could. I left my shoes in their driveway, as they were now worthless.
I honestly gag every time I think about that day.
7 A few years ago I was cleaning apartments with a local carpet cleaning company. One day we got a call to go clean a rented house and they said that the door would be unlocked and to go ahead in. The tenants had apparently moved out and we'd have nothing bothering us as we cleaned, "Good deal" I thought to myself, "No need to move furniture, etc." When we arrived we (my partner and I) opened the door and immediately were accosted by this awful stench. We chalked it up to being another hot, humid, Iowa summer day and didn't read too much into it. We donned out respirators and started to it. While I was pre-spraying the carpets, I was opening all the doors to see if there was any carpet inside to see if they needed cleaning, I opened one closet and almost fell on my ass in shock. Laying on the floor in front of me was a maggot-covered, rotting, smelly, severed goat's head. Needless to say I bolted as my partner looked at me and said "The fuck happened to you?" Too late, I was already out side breathing in some much needed outside air. Two seconds later, he was right there beside me, pale as a ghost.
8
As a paramedic, I am constantly required to go into the filthiest places imaginable to drag people out. One of the worst I remember, a cop was in front of this trailer, and as I walked up, he just smiled and said "Be prepared". I walk in to blood, guts, and chicken feathers EVERYWHERE. Inside was a dude with pure crazy in his eyes waiting for me. I asked him what going on, he explained that he had quit taking his meds, and was demonstrating to his children where food came from. Dude had taken his kids PET chickens and proceeded to rip their heads off. Needless to say, that was one nerve wracking ride to the hospital.
9
I had to crawl under this woman's duplex to run a wire. In her living room she had 4 dogs in a cage that was nailed to the floor. Under the floor in the same spot were stalactites from where the dogs had been peeing over the years.
10
I once had to go to a house to install a computer and I should have known it would be bad when the directions I was given led to a condemned house. I called the customer and said that the only house at the address she gave me was a condemned house and she stated that that was indeed her house and it was just a "little messy".
The lawn: Covered in piles and piles of junk. Absolutely no grass, just garbage, feet and feet high. I had to climb over all of this mess with a computer just to reach the collapsed porch that was held up by piles of moldy mattresses.
Inside: It smelled like puke, onions, BO, and shit. I could barely breathe. Garbage was literally floor to ceiling and a tunnel was carved through it to get to the kitchen.
Kitchen: A little more room to walk but not much. Candles were lit everywhere, illuminating the piles of plates with moldy food and TONS of maggots and insects all over them. The smell was unbearable. The lady insisted that "their house was a little messy because someone in the family died recently." Well it was obvious by the smell they didn't find him/her in all the garbage yet!
Basically I just dropped of the computer and left. I lied and said I couldn't set it up since they didn't have a standard outlet (they really didn't, it was three wires coming out of the wall which I wasn't about to touch!
The smell was so bad I drove to a Sheetz (gas station) afterwards and threw up repeatedly in their bathroom. I then took off all my clothes down to my boxers, threw them out and drove home to take multiple showers and change before going back in to work. I could STILL smell the smell for a day afterwards and for weeks in the work vehicle. You know the show "hoarders"? I've seen all episodes and not one single house came close to the house I mentioned above. Not one.
11
We went to this woman's house. You could smells the horrible smell outside in the driveway. We tried the front door but was told to go around back. We couldn't get in the front door because the door was blocked by used diapers. We then made our way around the garbage to the bathroom where her husband had taken the computer apart in the bathtub. Most of his tools were rusted together sitting in the sink. This is no exaggeration, there was something growing out of the toilet on to the floor of this bathroom. There was garbage everywhere in this home. What was sad was the woman had a baby in there. All she could talk about was being happy that the state gave her baby back to her. I felt uncomfortable on many levels.
12
Two years ago I had a job doing crime scene/ untimely death clean up. We saw some pretty sad stuff. The worst job had to be an eviction clean up. No one had died amazingly but it was worse than when I had the opportunity to hold grey matter in my hand. The former tennant was a heroin addict, hoarder with hep c. Our job was to clear the apartment. Upon arrival we discovered he not only hoarded trash and large amounts of clothing and other miscellaneous items but also his used needles. They were scattered throughout the junk mixed into every little nook and cranny. Given the fact that he was Hep C positive we had to don our most protective suits and sift through and separate everything piece by piece. A total of 42 man hours were spent in the abatement. We found diaries, telephone numbers, hidden stashes and many other things. He mainly shot up in his right arm, I can say this because his lazy-boy was soaked in blood on just the right side. Luckily None of us were pricked in this ordeal and we saved the apartment. I have an AMA about this if you are interested..
13
I was painting a house with 2 other guys my age. The house looked untouched since the 1970s. The kids bedrooms looked like nobody had been in them for 40 years. Toys, books, beds, drawings... It was creepy. The medicine cabinets were full of bandaid, medications, lotions and such all from the 70s at the end of the day I go down to the basement to rinse out brushes and rollers and the basement is packed full of junk. It was a hoarders dream. I hear a weird squeak noise coming from the far corner and went to investigate. I found a giant freezer hidden behind a bunch of boxes and stuff. I tried to open it, but it was locked. There were no joke more then 30 bottles of bleach around the freezer. I freaked out and went upstairs to tell the other guys. They tell me I'm being dumb and don't worry about it. I went home that night and Google the guy's name but didn't find anything. I told my boss and he said he would check it out. He saw what I did and called the police early that morning before I got there. When I arrived the police were just leaving. In the freezer was his wife's head. The kids had died in a car accident when they were young and the wife was a vegetable. He was taking care of her at home and he just went crazy. When she died he cut off her head and froze it.
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