Disaster Cleanup Worker

(2007-2013)

I’ve seen things, man.

I once discovered a man’s secret porn room in front of his appalled and unwitting wife. I’ve met a woman who lived alone in a house in the woods with 15 mannequins (all of whom had names and extensive backstories). Then there were the reams of paperwork for—and subsequent communication with—WSIB for a workplace injury that consisted of being bitten by a very irate hamster.

I clean up disasters at this job, but sometimes I think the real hot messes are the people I meet along the way.

Year-round, I find myself in the homes and businesses of strangers. Mansions to hovels, I’ve frequented them all. When it’s not floods, it’s fires. When it’s not fires, it’s mold, asbestos, vandalism, traumas, and sometimes the aftermath of drug abusing hoarders. Every day I go to work, I meet people having some of the worst days they’ll have. There are bat-shit funny moments, but there are exhausting human moments too. And there is nothing quite like sifting through a mountain of clothing, garbage, animal feces and used heroine needles in 35-degree heat to really hit the I-Need-A-New-Life spot.

It’s been six years, and is now 2013. I’m fairly certain I’ve learned every lesson life has to teach me; mastered every skill a person can master.

I’m wrong of course.