Pictures not necessarily in the right order:
Paul the trencher
King house with garbage from one room on lawn
Cockroaches, lizards and mice
We are advised that Miss Jane will not be allowed to return home from the Nursing Home until such time as she is taking her medication as prescribed. Obviously she has not been doing this yet, as we have not seen anything of her all week. The other day, we went over to her house and picked the oranges that had fallen off her orange tree in her yard – they were not any good.
Mr. John is getting totally spoiled – now he holds his hand out for Fig Newtons when we arrive!
The work on his house is progressing slowly. Until the wiring is completed, we are unable to finish drywalling and painting the back bedroom. The electrical panel is installed on the inside back wall of that bedroom.
We have had great weather for working this week. Our friend, 74 year old Paul, dug a trench for the sewer line – 2 ½ feet deep and 80 feet long. It took 3 days. I was wondering if he was thinking as he was digging, “I am way too old for this!!” He said he took is slow and easy.
Our Project Manager had a couple of our ladies start scraping the ceiling on the next project, the King house. I believe I have referred to the term “culture shock” in one or two previous articles. Well, this house is many times worse than the house we are working on, and we thought this one was bad! An older lady, Mable, and her mentally challenged sister live there, along with Mable’s son, Chris. Chris is a friend of Joe’s (Mr. John’s grandson). The house is three blocks down Lowhorn Road and one block right on Bluebird Lane. On Thursday, John went over there to install two exterior doors – the front door was completely destroyed and the other one was badly burnt.
It appears this house should have been evaluated more closely by the SETIO authorities. Our work sheet indicated minor repairs. However, on closer scrutiny, it requires major renovation. It needs to be totally rewired (only two or three lights and plug-ins work now and the wiring is aluminum – not acceptable). All the gyproc should be removed and the house gutted in order to eliminate the extensive black mold. We now have to wait for SETIO to confirm that they have the funds for this major project.
The auntie is an avid hoarder, as seen on the T.V. show. When my husband first arrived to let them know we were coming to work there, she shrieked that NOBODY was supposed to go into her bedroom, they were not even to touch the door knob. The second day our ladies arrived to scrape the ceilings, the auntie was not there. When it appeared that the auntie could not tolerate our presence in the house to fix it, she was carted off to the hospital for a while to see if she could be calmed down. She has an “administrator” in charge of her affairs, and the decision was made by this person and other family members that they simply had to enter auntie’s room and clean it up while she was away.
What they found, in amongst her bedroom furniture, was clothing, boxes and bags of mice-infested toilet paper, laundry detergent and other “stuff” piled so high that she has had to sleep on one of the three livingroom couches, because there is no room for her in her bedroom. John was there as they were hauling out clothes on a blanket, and he saw mice hopping off, mouse droppings throughout, and bugs galore. By the end of Thursday, the family members had 5 pickup loads of garbage in the front yard out of that bedroom! This was done with a great feeling of guilt on the part of the relatives, knowing there will be repercussions when auntie returns, but with the knowledge that it was totally necessary in order to clean up and have a healthy environment rather than the hell-hole they have been living in.
In addition, Mable and Chris agreed that two of the three livingroom couches had to “go”. When they moved the couches, the insides just lay there, all eaten out by mice and full of bugs.
The first day our ladies were scraping the ceilings, they did it with very heavy hearts. The whole atmosphere was very depressing and intolerable. When they saw the action that was taking place the next day on behalf of the residents, there was a little ray of sunshine and hope that these people were in the right track to a better home.
The rest of us were attempting to see some progress on the other project. The carpet in the livingroom in Mr. John’s house was taken up on Thursday and we got a start on lifting some tiles in the hallway to be re-used where necessary.
We also now have a resident pony in the yard, the same one the child was riding in the picture in my last article. The neighbour brought it over to eat the grass. It gets its share of attention from our crew too.
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