Saturday, April 15, 2006

Good God, What's That Smell?

This post has been brewing for awhile, but what I saw Thursday put me over the edge. As part of my new position at work I measure and estimate jobs in peoples' homes. I have been in some of the largest, fanciest homes on the river and I have been in some of the low-income, subsidized housing. It' s the latter that I'm going to discuss.

Some of the apartments and rental houses I have entered have been the dirtiest, nastiest places I have ever been. I cannot imagine living in the filth that some of these people live in daily. Believe me, I don't mean messy or dusty. Everybody's house needs some picking up or dusting now and again. I mean full-on foul living conditions. Food and trash strewn about, animal droppings, dirt, bugs. You name it. One house had a pitcher of kool-aid spilled on the floor which looked like it had been left there for a week, all congealed and sticky. I guess it was just walked around as if it were a piece of furniture. The outside is no better; the yards are filled with garbage. Trash that does make it into bags is just piled outside the back door not in the garbage can. I literally look at the ground the whole time I walk through these yards to make sure I don't step in something disgusting or dangerous.

I don't understand how people live like this. Have some dignity and self-respect and clean up after yourselves. These houses are not the nicest places, but I know that before a new tenant moves in the apartments are clean, freshly painted and usually newly carpeted. There is no excuse for them to be trashed like they often are. Now, I know that, fortunately, I make a higher income than these folks and maybe I'd react differently if I had to walk a mile in their shoes. But I don't think I would feel differently because this isn't an economic issue, it is "how you choose to live" issue. Many of the apartments I enter are tidy and clean despite the tenants being in the same income range as the tenants with filthy apartments. One of my co-workers says that you can't help it if you're poor, but you can help it if you're clean. (While I disagree with him that you can't help it if you're poor, that's a whole separate issue that can be discussed later.) I know some of these people probably struggle to put food on the table, but I believe even if I couldn't afford a single bar of soap I would still pick up my trash and sweep the floors. I couldn't bear to lay my head down to rest in some of these places.

Now that I've rambled long enough, let me quickly get to what happened Thursday to push me over the edge. I saw the foulest of the foul. While escorting me to a vacant apartment, the maintenance man warned me that the tenant had abandoned the apartment and "really trashed it". I joked to myself about what trashed meant since I have seen some pretty nasty stuff. I thought 'What did they pee on the floor or something?' Oh, it was worse than that. The odor struck me as soon as I hit the door and when I rounded the corner I saw at least two walls smeared with shit. Literally. That's right, feces, crap, human waste, ol' number 2. How disgusting is that? I quickly turned on my heel and told the man I'd measure from the outside. I just don't get it. Can anybody explain this kind of behavior to me?

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:56 AM

    sorry, man. I reaally had to go, and there was no TP. it happens.

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  2. one word stupidity...well there are more words. respect for others property. this guy smeared poop on the walls of something that didnt belong to him. accountability. is anything going to happen to this guy? if not then he and other like him will keep doing "shit" like this. i could go on...but it would take too long...find this guy and stick him in the bottom of a porta-potty for a week...that should be a good deterrent!!

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  3. Anonymous3:28 PM

    "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I
    don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world
    are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want,
    and if they can't find them, make them."
    --George Bernard Shaw

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  4. I guess you won't be coming to visit us anytime soon, we just finished our second turd mural last night! Truly a work of pure beauty! Seriously though, I know where you are coming from on this one, I couldn't believe some of the trashy places I saw when I did windows. Granted they were few and far between but when I saw them all I could think was good God you can pay to have your freakin windows cleaned but can't you pay anybody to clean up this mess? Some of the stories I heard from electricians were pretty bad too. The worst didn't just involve filth either...one story had this place that was free housing that was more or less in a swamp, because of a large mudpuddle that made up most of the lot. I think that there were like four or five houses at the location not far from where we played hockey in Laurel (big surprise). The place that these guys were working at was awful! It was trashed, there was a large hole in the floor where you could see the water from the puddle under the house, it was cold, there were dogs and thier crap all around. That's not whats bad get this, out front just before the swamp sat a Lexus! Inside they had a large screen tv and several game systems. On one of the kitchen counters thier was nothing but new expensive looking sneakers all Nike and stuff like that. Now thats disgusting! These people living with thier young children buying all this useless crap and getting a free ride and living like they lived in some third world shanty. Only in America!

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  5. Roberto-
    I feel completely silly after reading your comment. I could have witnessed the work of the world's greatest turd muralist and not even known it. I'll have to learn to appreciate these things.

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