The Epic Battle with the Basement

Yesterday the epic battle with the basement began. We started by making a quick stop to Harbor Freight and Tools for the essential gear to complete this epic quest, full body coverage from top to bottom: jumpsuits, gloves, goggles, shower caps and breathing masks. For those of you who are questioning just how squeamish we are for wanting this kind of protection just wait until you get to the pictures and you shall see. Oh yes, you shall see.

Yesterday wasn't as nasty as today, but it was physiologically unnerving. let me paint a picture for you: You and another person are in a basement with very, very tight walking space. Why? Because the trash is closing in around you. But not only are you bumping into each other and the trash attempting to clean this shit up, but you also have all this gear all over your face impeding all of your senses and making it much more difficult to breath. Even after you remove the trash there is still a layer of years old dust and mildew on the ground. And why? Because some muthafuckers let shit pile up and pile up and pile up until its buried the basement. And you wonder 'dear God, will the trash ever fucking end?'

Yes, folks, I was flipping out the first day. The today I was a little better, knowing what I was about to get into and with a little more space to move. These people have so much stuff in their basement, especially to say they are 'poor'. There were boxes and boxes of toys that any child in their right mind would treasure. T pulled out a whole bin of blocks buried in dust. And the clothes... the goddamn clothes. There are enough clothes in that basement to fill a salvation army. But they are all destroyed. This is especially harsh to me because one of the things I try to take especially good care of are my clothes. And Tony, he's really mad because mixed in with the trash are some of his mother's and grandparent's things. Old pictures and heirlooms, all treated like trash. Oh, and he might be a little mad that they left all of their highly flammable clothes dangerously close to the heating unit.

We cleared out the boxes in the smaller area to the right side yesterday. Today we started on the right. I went for the clothes on the floor (which I lovingly call 'the carpet') and Tony started on the boxes in the back. I knew the carpet would be disgusting, but I really didn't know exactly to expect. I pulled up part of the carpet and found the picture on the right. Now some of you may be asking, what is that I'm looking at? Well that my friends is science in action. That is actually the underside of one of the chunks of carpet. Now, if you will notice, the bottom if forming a layer of sediment. So, yes science fans, these clothes are actually bio-degrading in the basement. Some of the clothes came up in big chunks and others fell apart as I tried to rip them out. Below is a cross section of the different layers of the carpet. The top layer is in tact and slowly goes from actual clothing down to moldy-clothing-dirt.

Now do you think we were squeamish for suiting up?

Oh and we also found droppings and a skull on the floor too. We think it was from a rat. So not only am I on the lookout for snakes, but rats too.

The basement still has plenty of garbage in it, but we've made a big dent. The front yard is almost covered in trash and we still have a long way to go.

Before

After

View the January 11th Album here.