This one time I was shadowing for class. The guy I was working with says hey watch out for her dogs in there. Once inside I saw three dogs and the owners kids took care of them and let them out. However I kept hearing barking from inside. The family had some bird that could mimic and would bark.
i once took a craigslist job to help a guy move a fridge. he forgot to mention he was a massive hoarder and the winding path through all the shit was, at most, a foot wide. The smell was ungodly. like what i imagine dead feet and cabbage might smell like. It just smack ed you right in the face. Made him pay me double and then we got to work moving crap from one pile to another. God forbid he throw anything out. There were 50 piece puzzles he had done with his grandma who died in the early 90s. A stack of them. It was pure hell getting that fridge out the door.
While doing maintenance inside college apartments in the 80’s , Contrary to popular thinking. women live like pigs and guys apartments are usually pretty clean and neat.
Our theory: Guys take women back to their apartments hence the tidiness. Women didn’t.
I’ve seen a lot of porn magazines , gay and straight, and sex toys. Why wouldn’t they move these if they know we are going to be in their bedrooms / closets. We would have to request them to move them before proceeding. .
Imma kitchen designer I am in peoples homes all the time.
– Done more gun shooting off a good ol boys back porch while drinking a beer than id like to admit. Those are generally 100% landed sales as the husband likes me and the wife feels comfortable as a result.
– Been solicited for sex more than once. No comment
– Been offered drugs and pot more times than I would know how to explain
– Been into some houses that are so dirty I go home to change and shower. Once in particular was a hoarders home with the hoard. it looked like they fried 3 meals a day in the home for 30 years and never cleaned.
– One lady wanted to redo her kitchen. Her previous kitchen was around 30 years old. She had me call all of my vendors and ask them for things from their dusty rafters. Every single cabinet was a different style, color, stain, paint. Every knob was whatever a vendor has sitting as a one off in a desk somewhere. Every piece of granite was whatever scraps the stone yards had. As the kitchen designer I was able to talk her into letting me pattern and gradient and select from the available cabinets to make a nice cohesion, same with the hardware and countertops. It was a super fun job but her entire house was like that.
I worked in ABA, and I was working with a client. He was being rowdy, and i was implementing the behavior plan. I heard talking and laughing, so I turned around only to see the whole family staring and laughing at me. And the real kicker, the grandfather was butt naked. The family didn’t care that he was naked in front of me. They just started laughing more when they realized I was uncomfortable with it.
It was a weird family, and I asked to be taken off the client’s case.
I used to do cable installs, and once this guy had a full-on jungle in his living room—like vines, heat lamps, and a parrot that wouldn’t stop screaming “leave!” Whole time I was setting up Wi-Fi like it was just a normal Tuesday
I was a case manager for people with significant mental health challenges (schizophrenia, bipolar, BPD, etc). I went to a woman’s home who had known me for a year. She thought I was an intruder and pulled out her gun. I ran (obviously) and she called my phone over and over threatening to come shoot us up at our home base. Quit soon thereafter lol.
Had a couple pull out knives on each other, drunk.
Cockroach infestation – helped the lady get a cockroach out of her oxygen tube by using a knitting needle.
3 weeks post-op open heart surgery, refused follow up care, I found her laying in bed with her chest wound opened by about 2 inches at the widest, filled with maggots, woman was still alive, coherent, and telling me to F off.
Too many hoarders to count, but the worst was a cat hoarder whose carpets squished and bubbled with cat urine with every step (80-90 cats).
Fell through the dog-feces-covered-and-rotted floors of someone’s family room and wound up falling a relatively short distance to the hoard in the basement. Fire company had to come and get me out.
Removed a severely autistic young man from his neglectful parents home and the dad threw a toilet at me and was arrested on the spot.
Doing computer work in a woman’s house, in her husband’s home office. She’s in a robe that isn’t shut all the way and while I work she is digging through hubbies drawers pulling out sex toys and waving them around yelling “He isn’t using these on ME that’s all I know for sure!”
I work in real estate and have seen some
Interesting things. A family had raccoons living in a spare bedroom. Plenty of sec toys on nightstands, a swing in the bedroom. The funniest was I walked in to show a house, always announcing I’m there incase anyone is home. We’re looking around and walk into the master bedroom and the owner was there watching TV in his tighty whities!!! He was a hefty guy and there were mirrors on the ceiling lol. Needless to say we left and they weren’t interested haha
Got called to a house where the lady swore her printer was possessed—printing creepy messages at 3 a.m. with no one around. She even had grainy footage of it lighting up in the dark.
Turns out, her teenage son was pranking her remotely from his dad’s house.
I disabled the remote access, fixed the settings, and now she calls me “the IT exorcist.”
Rode along on ambulance during pre med college, inner city/suburbs. I was just constantly astounded by the filth people live in
I don’t mean like “oops didn’t anticipate strangers coming over” with some laundry and dirty dishes. I’m talking just hoarder nightmares, things clearly not bothered with for years. Just had to keep my eye on the prize and help the person who needed help. But getting them out of the house into the ambulance was commonly a nightmare.
I was a residential cleaner. I worked as a cleaner for a home that was split into four floors – the top floor was 3 bed, 1 and 1/2 bath, den, and corridor for the family; the middle floor was kitchen, dining, and living room; the third floor was 2 bedrooms, 1 and 1/2 bath, kitchenette and dining, and den for assisted group home living; the fourth and bottom floor was laundry and two more group home bedrooms.
The group home owners’ vacuum was broken, and they had all hard floors. I swept every room and corridor every week and mopped them.
Their young child threw yogurt on the floor and screeched at me to clean it up. I refused, because I had just mopped, and her mother cleaned it up but said nothing to the child. I was called “slave” by that child for months, but she was disabled and she’s just a kid. Annoying, though.
The group home men were, as expected, not up to snuff on housework at all. The fruit fly problem was berserk. I had a half-hour of extra time one week and decided to set up fly traps. Amazing how they all disappeared.
They neglected their poor dog’s dishes and bed. Every week, I took it on myself and cleaned his dishes and vacuumed his bed and sat with him for a cuddle. They weren’t mean, just the type to overlook. When I created a list for the next cleaner, I included the dog care on it.
The dad was a media artist doing foley work. Something about having overstimulated autistic children and running chain saws and banging hammers in your office is just weird to me.
I quit because I got sick of the husband screaming at the kids. I have trauma in that area, and it wasn’t sustainable for me to be working that hard and that long in a house that felt unsafe. Also, one of the group home guys had a habit of watching me from a crack in his door and jacking off.
It was a difficult work situation, I wasn’t paid enough for that shit, and I’m glad to be out.
My husband was a cable field tech that installed cable modems. The weirdest person he ever encountered was a man dressed up in a Peter Pan costume who would sit perched on top of chair backs with his feet on the chair seat. He spoke in a very high pitched voice. And there were dildos all over the place. Apparently he needed his cable modem replaced so he could do his online webcam stuff. That was around 20 years ago.
People are generally more messy than you might think. That was the first thing I learned about the clients I’ve visited at their homes.
Also, although this of course is anecdotal evidence on my part, foreigners seem to be more friendly towards visitors than natives of my country. Turkish people are especially hospitable from my experience. A turkish family once invited me to a home-cooked dinner after one business visit at their home
I used to work for a government office in charge of visiting people’s homes to survey the number of people living in the households and the conditions they lived in, so they could get a score for social benefits. Kind of a population census.
One day it was very obvious that they were hiding some items that would raise their score. An Air conditioner unit, for example. Well, this 60-something pops was getting nervous and seemingly decided that he would start farting so we had to leave his living room, and said he needed to go to the bathroom, urgently rushing us out.
We went back the next day and he refused to open the door, citing stomach bugs and concern for our safety. Then he ripped the loudest fart I’ve ever heard to “prove” it. I respect the dedication.
Years ago I did door to door sales for an energy company for a short while to pay for school. One particularly drab evening, I was exhausted after a long day at school, it was hailing, only halfway through my list of addresses. I was about to quit on the spot and just go home. Decided to do one more, happened to be a dorm so they didn’t have anything to say about the power since the landlord handles all that. However, they saw me suffering in the cold and invited me in for dinner. Tortillas, first a hot coffee, later a beer and sent me back on my merry way. I offered to pay for the excellent service but they refused. Nicest thing some total strangers have ever done for me.
— After getting out of the military as a medic, I worked as a civilian medic on ambulances for a few years in Southwest Missouri (Branson and Taney County, as well as nearby counties).
This job had us going into all sorts of places, across the socioeconomic spectrum. Though as you can imagine, we generally spent more time making calls to lower income folks as they tended to have more health problems. We would see just abject poverty, meth houses, and anything else you can imagine (and some you probably couldn’t/shouldn’t imagine).
The sheer disgustingness we would deal with was sometimes beyond comprehension. Places loaded with garbage (including rotting food), feces (human and pet), as well as just general disarray. It was a challenge to make sure we protected ourselves as we were trying to get to the people that needed our help. Firefighters/police were often also on-scene to assist in these situations, though the firefighters were almost always the most helpful. They would help us access the places as well as provide lift assists in getting people out (many patients were morbidly obese).
— I ended up going to law school later and early in my career I did criminal defense in Philadelphia and surrounding counties (Delaware and Montgomery mostly). Similar to the health issues I mentioned above, folks with criminal legal issues tend to be on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well.
When some clients couldn’t get to our offices, we would do client visits at their homes for client intake/pre-hearing prep. The worst places I remember were in West Philly and also Chester City (not County). We would go to places that were literally falling down. Front doors hanging half off/only barely attached with one hinge, bullet holes in the walls, etc…
Most folks have never really witnessed extreme poverty firsthand. You can see it in pictures, and maybe on TV/video, but it is no substitute for being there in person.
It is a multi-sensory experience. The sites, sounds, and especially the smells. Walking into a place were someone has died and been dead several days/weeks is something I will never forget.
Used to install home security systems. I have 2 that I always remember.
The first guy, we arrived, and his house was full of microwave ovens and VCR’s that were in various states of being disassembled but were all still plugged in. He was a strange dude.
The second, we arrived and were talking to the homeowner. He was walking us around, showing doors and windows that he wanted contacted. When we walked through the living room, there was a large metal tray on the coffee table. It had a huge pile of weed on it (pre state legalization) and some rolling papers and such. Both me and my partner noticed but didn’t say anything because, whatever, it’s their house. We finished walking through and gathered our gear. I was in the entry way, just off of the living room, and I heard the homeowner say, “Oh shit.” from in there. Followed by some clanking sounds. When I went back through, the tray was gone. We all just acted like it was never there but I still laugh when I think of it.
Almost 20 years ago I made a few home visits during my Center for the Aging rotation. Luckily, no horror stories. But one home was filled with 3,000 dolls. The home was small and I’ll never forget looking up and just being in a cave of dolls. They were stacked along every wall to the ceiling. Husband and wife were in their 90s and were so kind. Social Worker asked wife what she planned to do with all the dolls and she sweetly said she wanted to give them to her kids/grandkids, but that her daughter was begging to help her get rid of all of them. Can only imagine that daughter going in there after their deaths cleaning house.
I went into a kitchen for a customer to do a measure for new cabinets and there were roaches everywhere. I swear to god I got naked in my backyard before I went inside my house and used the garden hose to hose off because I was afraid those little bastards were in my clothes. I fumigated my car because I was afraid they were in there. I swear, it looked like a black shiny ocean of roaches on top of every surface in that kitchen. I shudder when I think about it.
Then there was the doll house. Dolls everywhere. This lady had one open space at her dining room table, empty chair. I asked where that doll is? The lady said she got up one day and she left, kept that chair empty for when she came back. I actually noped the fuck out of that job.
I used to collect cars for an auction company at the end of the owners lease period. They knew I was coming, everything was always amicable – with the obvious exception of the occasional repossession I did.
They also knew in advance that I would be carrying out a condition and safety check at the home prior to driving off.
The number of times I turned up to a car quite literally full to the roof with hoarder rubbish is sadly too many to count. I’ve had dirty nappies on the back seat, full of mould (so obviously been there a long time). I had an Audi which reeked of skunk cannabis that I refused to take.
It was actually rare that I turned up to a well looked after vehicle. When I did, I would forgive a lot of damage.
I had a set process to follow to record damage, including taking over 50 separate images – plus more if there was damage to record – and a detailed video. I then had to explain the damage to the customer and give them a breakdown of what their finance company was going to charge them. I got to see the inside of many houses, ranging from cheap rentals to multimillion pound mansions. The vast majority were as bad as the cars.
The way some people can live like that both baffles and horrifies me.
I’m a plumber and i can talk for hours about shit I’ve seen in peoples houses. Fleshlights, dildos and buttplugs lined up for display, not to mention full size sexdolls just hanging out in a dudes livingroom. I’ve walked on a path cleared of garbage that went from the mans refrigerator, to his tv, to his toilet. I’ve seen drug paraphernalia and that’s the top of the iceberg. These people didn’t bother to clean, hide or be subtle in anyway, just zero fucks given. And it happens more then you’d like to believe.
Sorting out papers for a client because we were to go to a debt-counselling appointment… suddenly finding documents on cases of r*pe, bodily harm, theft and illegal possession of weapons. Some dropped, some not.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god I have one from my husband lol.
He used to do solar on the east coast and had to go into ALOT of basements for the main panel, well there was one he went into and there were Santa Clauses EVERYWHERE. Life size, massive ones, some the size of his finger, literally the entire basement. Floor to ceiling. He sent me a video (with permission of course) and it was incredible lol
Field adjuster for property insurance. I’ve seen a lot lol.
There was the elderly couple who had a sex dungeon in their basement, including shelves full of dvds they had made of themselves…getting busy. Listing the damaged contents in their sex dungeon was interesting. Very nice people.
Been in my fair share of hoarder houses. Couple where people died in them. Some with lots of dead animals. Very sad.
There was the guy who overdosed on drugs while running the bath. Hot water overflowed and caused…well, many issues with body decay. Contractor said it was the worst he’d ever seen and I would have to agree. Had to strip it down to studs.
The elderly man and his adult son with mental health issues. Son exploded the house. After we boarded it up, squatters broke in. Didn’t know until my inspection. They threw the clients stuff all over the place, including his extensive porn collection.
Disgusting houses full to the brim with cigarette smoke. One where the floor rotted to the point the client fell through it. When I attended, I thought the walls were painted orange. They were not. They were white…it was just cigarette residue on all the walls.
Parents didn’t clean their house at all and their baby would crawl around in it. Final straw was boxers and an empty condom wrapper in the middle of the floor.
Other parents I worked for would ask me to come early so they could “Go to lunch.” Which was apprently code for showering together etc. While I was there with the kids…
Another family I interviewed with had heavy armored doors, so heavy you’d have to squeeze your body in before it slammed on you! Also keypad locking doorknobs on several of the bedrooms.
Used to deliver appliances. First day, first house, upscale neighborhood. The woman opened the door and it was a wall of odor. Cat pee/poop, cigarette smoke, and whatever else. The walls were dirty, roaches all over the counters, poop everywhere, just terrible stuff. We brought in a new fridge and I had to excuse myself to get fresh air a few times.
20 minutes later we get back into the deliver truck, I look over at the driver who’s been doing this for awhile, waiting for him to say something. He looks at me, and asks if this was my first ever delivery, I said yes. He said “Well, that’s probably the worst house I’ve ever been in, so nowhere to go but up!”
We actually drove back to the warehouse to get clean shirts because ours smelled like death.
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This one time I was shadowing for class. The guy I was working with says hey watch out for her dogs in there. Once inside I saw three dogs and the owners kids took care of them and let them out. However I kept hearing barking from inside. The family had some bird that could mimic and would bark.
No real weird stories; I do home visits for HCV/HIV treatment, so folks are generally welcoming.
I once found an old missile (unarmed but we didn’t know so we had to call the bomb squad) and an abandoned lizard i had to rehome.
i once took a craigslist job to help a guy move a fridge. he forgot to mention he was a massive hoarder and the winding path through all the shit was, at most, a foot wide. The smell was ungodly. like what i imagine dead feet and cabbage might smell like. It just smack ed you right in the face. Made him pay me double and then we got to work moving crap from one pile to another. God forbid he throw anything out. There were 50 piece puzzles he had done with his grandma who died in the early 90s. A stack of them. It was pure hell getting that fridge out the door.
Please don’t roast me for sharing.
While doing maintenance inside college apartments in the 80’s , Contrary to popular thinking. women live like pigs and guys apartments are usually pretty clean and neat.
Our theory: Guys take women back to their apartments hence the tidiness. Women didn’t.
I’ve seen a lot of porn magazines , gay and straight, and sex toys. Why wouldn’t they move these if they know we are going to be in their bedrooms / closets. We would have to request them to move them before proceeding. .
Lots of pot and paraphernalia over the years
Imma kitchen designer I am in peoples homes all the time.
– Done more gun shooting off a good ol boys back porch while drinking a beer than id like to admit. Those are generally 100% landed sales as the husband likes me and the wife feels comfortable as a result.
– Been solicited for sex more than once. No comment
– Been offered drugs and pot more times than I would know how to explain
– Been into some houses that are so dirty I go home to change and shower. Once in particular was a hoarders home with the hoard. it looked like they fried 3 meals a day in the home for 30 years and never cleaned.
– One lady wanted to redo her kitchen. Her previous kitchen was around 30 years old. She had me call all of my vendors and ask them for things from their dusty rafters. Every single cabinet was a different style, color, stain, paint. Every knob was whatever a vendor has sitting as a one off in a desk somewhere. Every piece of granite was whatever scraps the stone yards had. As the kitchen designer I was able to talk her into letting me pattern and gradient and select from the available cabinets to make a nice cohesion, same with the hardware and countertops. It was a super fun job but her entire house was like that.
Walked into a house as a cable guy once, got offered banana bread by a parrot before the owner even said hello. Still not sure who was in charge.
Some creepy old guys will enjoy a manual bowel disimpaction.
I worked in ABA, and I was working with a client. He was being rowdy, and i was implementing the behavior plan. I heard talking and laughing, so I turned around only to see the whole family staring and laughing at me. And the real kicker, the grandfather was butt naked. The family didn’t care that he was naked in front of me. They just started laughing more when they realized I was uncomfortable with it.
It was a weird family, and I asked to be taken off the client’s case.
I used to do cable installs, and once this guy had a full-on jungle in his living room—like vines, heat lamps, and a parrot that wouldn’t stop screaming “leave!” Whole time I was setting up Wi-Fi like it was just a normal Tuesday
I was a case manager for people with significant mental health challenges (schizophrenia, bipolar, BPD, etc). I went to a woman’s home who had known me for a year. She thought I was an intruder and pulled out her gun. I ran (obviously) and she called my phone over and over threatening to come shoot us up at our home base. Quit soon thereafter lol.
Adult Protective Services.
Had a couple pull out knives on each other, drunk.
Cockroach infestation – helped the lady get a cockroach out of her oxygen tube by using a knitting needle.
3 weeks post-op open heart surgery, refused follow up care, I found her laying in bed with her chest wound opened by about 2 inches at the widest, filled with maggots, woman was still alive, coherent, and telling me to F off.
Too many hoarders to count, but the worst was a cat hoarder whose carpets squished and bubbled with cat urine with every step (80-90 cats).
Fell through the dog-feces-covered-and-rotted floors of someone’s family room and wound up falling a relatively short distance to the hoard in the basement. Fire company had to come and get me out.
Removed a severely autistic young man from his neglectful parents home and the dad threw a toilet at me and was arrested on the spot.
Doing computer work in a woman’s house, in her husband’s home office. She’s in a robe that isn’t shut all the way and while I work she is digging through hubbies drawers pulling out sex toys and waving them around yelling “He isn’t using these on ME that’s all I know for sure!”
There are a lot more hoarders than you think. A LOT.
I was setting up wi-fi for some super wealthy guy, in his home office he had a life-size nude photo of his wife, full frontal.
Also had security cameras in every room in the house, including his teenage daughter.
Also had automatic security shutters on every door and window.
I work in real estate and have seen some
Interesting things. A family had raccoons living in a spare bedroom. Plenty of sec toys on nightstands, a swing in the bedroom. The funniest was I walked in to show a house, always announcing I’m there incase anyone is home. We’re looking around and walk into the master bedroom and the owner was there watching TV in his tighty whities!!! He was a hefty guy and there were mirrors on the ceiling lol. Needless to say we left and they weren’t interested haha
Got called to a house where the lady swore her printer was possessed—printing creepy messages at 3 a.m. with no one around. She even had grainy footage of it lighting up in the dark.
Turns out, her teenage son was pranking her remotely from his dad’s house.
I disabled the remote access, fixed the settings, and now she calls me “the IT exorcist.”
Rode along on ambulance during pre med college, inner city/suburbs. I was just constantly astounded by the filth people live in
I don’t mean like “oops didn’t anticipate strangers coming over” with some laundry and dirty dishes. I’m talking just hoarder nightmares, things clearly not bothered with for years. Just had to keep my eye on the prize and help the person who needed help. But getting them out of the house into the ambulance was commonly a nightmare.
I was a residential cleaner. I worked as a cleaner for a home that was split into four floors – the top floor was 3 bed, 1 and 1/2 bath, den, and corridor for the family; the middle floor was kitchen, dining, and living room; the third floor was 2 bedrooms, 1 and 1/2 bath, kitchenette and dining, and den for assisted group home living; the fourth and bottom floor was laundry and two more group home bedrooms.
The group home owners’ vacuum was broken, and they had all hard floors. I swept every room and corridor every week and mopped them.
Their young child threw yogurt on the floor and screeched at me to clean it up. I refused, because I had just mopped, and her mother cleaned it up but said nothing to the child. I was called “slave” by that child for months, but she was disabled and she’s just a kid. Annoying, though.
The group home men were, as expected, not up to snuff on housework at all. The fruit fly problem was berserk. I had a half-hour of extra time one week and decided to set up fly traps. Amazing how they all disappeared.
They neglected their poor dog’s dishes and bed. Every week, I took it on myself and cleaned his dishes and vacuumed his bed and sat with him for a cuddle. They weren’t mean, just the type to overlook. When I created a list for the next cleaner, I included the dog care on it.
The dad was a media artist doing foley work. Something about having overstimulated autistic children and running chain saws and banging hammers in your office is just weird to me.
I quit because I got sick of the husband screaming at the kids. I have trauma in that area, and it wasn’t sustainable for me to be working that hard and that long in a house that felt unsafe. Also, one of the group home guys had a habit of watching me from a crack in his door and jacking off.
It was a difficult work situation, I wasn’t paid enough for that shit, and I’m glad to be out.
My husband was a cable field tech that installed cable modems. The weirdest person he ever encountered was a man dressed up in a Peter Pan costume who would sit perched on top of chair backs with his feet on the chair seat. He spoke in a very high pitched voice. And there were dildos all over the place. Apparently he needed his cable modem replaced so he could do his online webcam stuff. That was around 20 years ago.
People are generally more messy than you might think. That was the first thing I learned about the clients I’ve visited at their homes.
Also, although this of course is anecdotal evidence on my part, foreigners seem to be more friendly towards visitors than natives of my country. Turkish people are especially hospitable from my experience. A turkish family once invited me to a home-cooked dinner after one business visit at their home
I used to work for a government office in charge of visiting people’s homes to survey the number of people living in the households and the conditions they lived in, so they could get a score for social benefits. Kind of a population census.
One day it was very obvious that they were hiding some items that would raise their score. An Air conditioner unit, for example. Well, this 60-something pops was getting nervous and seemingly decided that he would start farting so we had to leave his living room, and said he needed to go to the bathroom, urgently rushing us out.
We went back the next day and he refused to open the door, citing stomach bugs and concern for our safety. Then he ripped the loudest fart I’ve ever heard to “prove” it. I respect the dedication.
I use to install wood, pellet and gas fireplaces.
I was amazed at how much money some of these people had. This one dudes kitchen and dining room was the same size as my 976 square foot house
Years ago I did door to door sales for an energy company for a short while to pay for school. One particularly drab evening, I was exhausted after a long day at school, it was hailing, only halfway through my list of addresses. I was about to quit on the spot and just go home. Decided to do one more, happened to be a dorm so they didn’t have anything to say about the power since the landlord handles all that. However, they saw me suffering in the cold and invited me in for dinner. Tortillas, first a hot coffee, later a beer and sent me back on my merry way. I offered to pay for the excellent service but they refused. Nicest thing some total strangers have ever done for me.
Two different types of experiences:
— After getting out of the military as a medic, I worked as a civilian medic on ambulances for a few years in Southwest Missouri (Branson and Taney County, as well as nearby counties).
This job had us going into all sorts of places, across the socioeconomic spectrum. Though as you can imagine, we generally spent more time making calls to lower income folks as they tended to have more health problems. We would see just abject poverty, meth houses, and anything else you can imagine (and some you probably couldn’t/shouldn’t imagine).
The sheer disgustingness we would deal with was sometimes beyond comprehension. Places loaded with garbage (including rotting food), feces (human and pet), as well as just general disarray. It was a challenge to make sure we protected ourselves as we were trying to get to the people that needed our help. Firefighters/police were often also on-scene to assist in these situations, though the firefighters were almost always the most helpful. They would help us access the places as well as provide lift assists in getting people out (many patients were morbidly obese).
— I ended up going to law school later and early in my career I did criminal defense in Philadelphia and surrounding counties (Delaware and Montgomery mostly). Similar to the health issues I mentioned above, folks with criminal legal issues tend to be on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well.
When some clients couldn’t get to our offices, we would do client visits at their homes for client intake/pre-hearing prep. The worst places I remember were in West Philly and also Chester City (not County). We would go to places that were literally falling down. Front doors hanging half off/only barely attached with one hinge, bullet holes in the walls, etc…
Most folks have never really witnessed extreme poverty firsthand. You can see it in pictures, and maybe on TV/video, but it is no substitute for being there in person.
It is a multi-sensory experience. The sites, sounds, and especially the smells. Walking into a place were someone has died and been dead several days/weeks is something I will never forget.
Used to install home security systems. I have 2 that I always remember.
The first guy, we arrived, and his house was full of microwave ovens and VCR’s that were in various states of being disassembled but were all still plugged in. He was a strange dude.
The second, we arrived and were talking to the homeowner. He was walking us around, showing doors and windows that he wanted contacted. When we walked through the living room, there was a large metal tray on the coffee table. It had a huge pile of weed on it (pre state legalization) and some rolling papers and such. Both me and my partner noticed but didn’t say anything because, whatever, it’s their house. We finished walking through and gathered our gear. I was in the entry way, just off of the living room, and I heard the homeowner say, “Oh shit.” from in there. Followed by some clanking sounds. When I went back through, the tray was gone. We all just acted like it was never there but I still laugh when I think of it.
Almost 20 years ago I made a few home visits during my Center for the Aging rotation. Luckily, no horror stories. But one home was filled with 3,000 dolls. The home was small and I’ll never forget looking up and just being in a cave of dolls. They were stacked along every wall to the ceiling. Husband and wife were in their 90s and were so kind. Social Worker asked wife what she planned to do with all the dolls and she sweetly said she wanted to give them to her kids/grandkids, but that her daughter was begging to help her get rid of all of them. Can only imagine that daughter going in there after their deaths cleaning house.
I went into a kitchen for a customer to do a measure for new cabinets and there were roaches everywhere. I swear to god I got naked in my backyard before I went inside my house and used the garden hose to hose off because I was afraid those little bastards were in my clothes. I fumigated my car because I was afraid they were in there. I swear, it looked like a black shiny ocean of roaches on top of every surface in that kitchen. I shudder when I think about it.
Then there was the doll house. Dolls everywhere. This lady had one open space at her dining room table, empty chair. I asked where that doll is? The lady said she got up one day and she left, kept that chair empty for when she came back. I actually noped the fuck out of that job.
In my experience, people are disgusting.
I used to collect cars for an auction company at the end of the owners lease period. They knew I was coming, everything was always amicable – with the obvious exception of the occasional repossession I did.
They also knew in advance that I would be carrying out a condition and safety check at the home prior to driving off.
The number of times I turned up to a car quite literally full to the roof with hoarder rubbish is sadly too many to count. I’ve had dirty nappies on the back seat, full of mould (so obviously been there a long time). I had an Audi which reeked of skunk cannabis that I refused to take.
It was actually rare that I turned up to a well looked after vehicle. When I did, I would forgive a lot of damage.
I had a set process to follow to record damage, including taking over 50 separate images – plus more if there was damage to record – and a detailed video. I then had to explain the damage to the customer and give them a breakdown of what their finance company was going to charge them. I got to see the inside of many houses, ranging from cheap rentals to multimillion pound mansions. The vast majority were as bad as the cars.
The way some people can live like that both baffles and horrifies me.
We were told at one time we were going to be required to report any drugs seen in homes.
We told them we could not identify drugs unless they were in a prescription bottle.
They dropped the idea.
I’m a plumber and i can talk for hours about shit I’ve seen in peoples houses. Fleshlights, dildos and buttplugs lined up for display, not to mention full size sexdolls just hanging out in a dudes livingroom. I’ve walked on a path cleared of garbage that went from the mans refrigerator, to his tv, to his toilet. I’ve seen drug paraphernalia and that’s the top of the iceberg. These people didn’t bother to clean, hide or be subtle in anyway, just zero fucks given. And it happens more then you’d like to believe.
Sorting out papers for a client because we were to go to a debt-counselling appointment… suddenly finding documents on cases of r*pe, bodily harm, theft and illegal possession of weapons. Some dropped, some not.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god I have one from my husband lol.
He used to do solar on the east coast and had to go into ALOT of basements for the main panel, well there was one he went into and there were Santa Clauses EVERYWHERE. Life size, massive ones, some the size of his finger, literally the entire basement. Floor to ceiling. He sent me a video (with permission of course) and it was incredible lol
Field adjuster for property insurance. I’ve seen a lot lol.
There was the elderly couple who had a sex dungeon in their basement, including shelves full of dvds they had made of themselves…getting busy. Listing the damaged contents in their sex dungeon was interesting. Very nice people.
Been in my fair share of hoarder houses. Couple where people died in them. Some with lots of dead animals. Very sad.
There was the guy who overdosed on drugs while running the bath. Hot water overflowed and caused…well, many issues with body decay. Contractor said it was the worst he’d ever seen and I would have to agree. Had to strip it down to studs.
The elderly man and his adult son with mental health issues. Son exploded the house. After we boarded it up, squatters broke in. Didn’t know until my inspection. They threw the clients stuff all over the place, including his extensive porn collection.
Disgusting houses full to the brim with cigarette smoke. One where the floor rotted to the point the client fell through it. When I attended, I thought the walls were painted orange. They were not. They were white…it was just cigarette residue on all the walls.
Nanny here:
Parents didn’t clean their house at all and their baby would crawl around in it. Final straw was boxers and an empty condom wrapper in the middle of the floor.
Other parents I worked for would ask me to come early so they could “Go to lunch.” Which was apprently code for showering together etc. While I was there with the kids…
Another family I interviewed with had heavy armored doors, so heavy you’d have to squeeze your body in before it slammed on you! Also keypad locking doorknobs on several of the bedrooms.
Used to deliver appliances. First day, first house, upscale neighborhood. The woman opened the door and it was a wall of odor. Cat pee/poop, cigarette smoke, and whatever else. The walls were dirty, roaches all over the counters, poop everywhere, just terrible stuff. We brought in a new fridge and I had to excuse myself to get fresh air a few times.
20 minutes later we get back into the deliver truck, I look over at the driver who’s been doing this for awhile, waiting for him to say something. He looks at me, and asks if this was my first ever delivery, I said yes. He said “Well, that’s probably the worst house I’ve ever been in, so nowhere to go but up!”
We actually drove back to the warehouse to get clean shirts because ours smelled like death.