Case Study: One To Be Remembered
We knew this one was going to be rough, but we didn’t expect the day to turn out the way it did.
The day before, we prepped the truck, wrapped it in plastic sheets, and bought new gloves, glasses, masks, and hazmat suits. At the time it felt like extra work, but by the end we had about a million reasons to be thankful we did.
When we arrived that morning, we backed into the driveway and suited up. Nobody really wanted to be the first to step inside, but we knew timidness wouldn’t help here. The house layout was simple enough: foyer into the living room (with a bathroom attached), then the kitchen with stairs leading down, a hallway leading up to the second floor, and finally a back door leading out.
The first strike happened fast. Jay tugged down a curtain in the living room, and instantly cockroaches went scattering. Everywhere. By the time the rest of us ran in to see what happened, they had already disappeared — except for a few stragglers, enough to confirm what we were up against. This wasn’t just a messy house. This was a cockroach-infested house.
We got to work anyway. First out was a massive sectional couch. Clean, surprisingly, but almost impossible to fit through the front door. We were already drenched in sweat by the time it was out on the curb. It was a hot, sunny day, and inside those suits it was hard to breathe through the masks. By the time we cleared the rest of the living room and foyer, it felt like we’d been working for hours.
Next was the kitchen. We noticed another curtain in the corner, dark and heavy, and all three of us (me, Daysean, and D’Andre) had a bad feeling about it. We decided to ignore it and keep working. That decision would come back to haunt us later.
Upstairs, we hauled down two beds, some desks, and storage cabinets. The staircase was brutal — narrow, only about 4 feet wide, with a sharp 90° bend halfway down. To get the mattresses through, we had to stomp them down, twisting and folding them until they barely fit. That staircase drained every ounce of energy we had left.
Jay eventually went off to tackle some cleanup on the main floor, and the rest of us went down into the basement. As soon as we opened the door, it hit us. The smell wasn’t from anything in particular — it was just the walls themselves, damp and rancid. We didn’t want to stay down there long.
Among the junk, we found three heavy reclining chairs. The steel mechanisms inside made them unbelievably heavy. Getting them up the staircase felt hopeless, gravity pulling us down while the chairs scraped the walls. But we kept at it, knowing that if they went down, they had to be able to come back up.
That’s when it happened.
D’Andre was leading the way up the stairs when suddenly the curtain at the top was yanked down. Cockroaches poured down the staircase, scattering in all directions. D’Andre sprinted back, yelling “They’re coming down the stairs!”
We had no choice but to retreat to the farthest corner of the basement and wait. Minutes dragged by. When it finally seemed clear, we bolted up the stairs one by one, desperate to get out of that basement.
From there, it was just a grind to the finish. Couches, bed frames, dressers, cabinets, bikes, tools — we even found six knives scattered around the place and a bag of rotten potatoes. Piece by piece, the house started to open up.
After six long hours, it was finally done.
Haul stats:
3 couches
2 bed frames, 2 mattresses
A freezer and a microwave
A few dressers and side tables
7+ bags of trash
Countless awkward, oversized items
About 4,000 lbs of junk total
By the time we loaded the last bag, the transformation was shocking. A house so cluttered you couldn’t see the floor was now empty, open, and spacious.
It was hot, it was nasty, and it was one of the most exhausting jobs we’ve ever done. But we got it done. Another wild day in the books.
