After working in the installation industry for nearly ten years, I got more then tired of making money for other people and finally came to the realization that I needed to go into business for myself. So in June of this year I set up my own LLC and began doing my own installs. I set about gaining new contacts and jobs and trying my best to make my company a success.
One of my very first contacts when I started in this industry nearly ten years ago was a contractor named Danny. Danny was a large residential builder located in central New Jersey. He built mainly custom homes for extremely wealthy people. Danny didn't even raise his eyebrow unless you were talking in the high six-figure range. If you were looking for a custom home less then $500K, Danny was not the man for you.
Danny didn't do any of the building himself. In fact, I think I saw him use a hammer just one time, and that was to tack a "do not use" sign above the homeowner's toilet. Most of his employees were subcontracted out. His normal laborers were usually Mexicans. I've seen three Mexicans who didn't speak a lick of English sheetrock an entire 3000 square foot house in less then three days -- so, needless to say, no one had any problems with the Mexican laborers. They usually kept to themselves, they would bring their own tools and such, and since they didn't speak any English they didn't try to talk to you about stupid shit you didn't care about. The only problem was their bathroom habits.
On this particular job, the homeowner had purchased a small home on the river. The home was to be totally gutted and a second story to be added. I was there to do the intercom, home theater, and whole house audio. It was one of my first jobs working with Danny, so I knew I would have to be on my toes and get things done right.
I showed up to the job early and started working. Things were flying along normally. The Mexican laborers were already there. Some were working on framing; others were starting to shingle the roof. I really didn't pay too much attention to them, nor them to me. I did notice that there was no porta-potty, nor was there a working bathroom inside the house. To a Shameless Shitter such as myself, I really wasn't all that concerned. If I had to piss, I'd just go down the street to the fast food joint and hose out there. Shitting wasn't an option for me, so it was of little consequence.
At roughly midday I had to venture down below the house into the crawl space. In this home, which had been added on to countless times before, the crawl space was somewhat similar to downtown Beirut. The entrance to the crawl was normal enough, but once you were within the belly of the beast, everything changed. The laborers would actually fight to see who would go down there -- if you lost, you spent the day in the crawl space. Since I was working alone, I had no choice but to venture below.
The crawl space was split up into different sections. As they added on to the house, they would just bust out a 2'x2 square of cinder block and create a new foundation. If you had to get to another section, you'd have to squeeze your ass through these 2x2 holes. Anything that was part of the old house was strewn about in the crawl space. There were old lead pipes, rotten asbestos shingles -- pretty much anything that was old and shitty and should have been disposed of properly was discarded under this house.
And there was also a row of mysterious spackle buckets.
Normally you see lots of building refuse and maybe the occasional case of beer under a house. Things like that. But rarely do you see a row of five perfectly laid out spackle buckets. I stared at them in vague amazement and then went over to the part of the crawl space in which I had to work. This was one of the larger crawl spaces I had been in -- you could kneel down and not hit your head on the floor joists. Even though this crawl was a total and utter disaster area, at least you had reasonable room to work -- well, in this part, anyway. The back parks were only about 18"-20" high. You had to literally belly crawl through sand, dirt, and other shit to get to where you had to go.
Working throughout the day, I noticed many of the Mexicans would go under the house and then emerge ten to fifteen minutes later. Sometimes two or three at a time would go under the house. I really didn't know what they were doing under there since they were not plumbers or electricians. At the time, I really didn't give it much thought -- until the smells began.
The first to say anything about it was Danny. "What the hell is that stink? It smells like beans and death." Everybody had noticed the stink in the house -- Danny was just the first to say something. Then the plumbers spoke up. "It's coming from the crawl space. I think maybe we cracked a sewer line."
Hearing that threw Danny into a rage. "What do you fucken mean, you hit a sewer line?! This is a two million dollar project! We can't have shit filling the crawl space...!" Danny dropped his clipboard and went to take a look.
It had been quite a while since Danny had been down in a crawl space, let alone a disaster zone such as this one. We all stayed above ground as he went down into the crawl to investigate.
It was about five minutes before the cursing started.
We all were just kind of standing around when Danny began to freak the fuck out. And then we saw it. Four of the Mexican laborers came booking out of the crawl space, pants around their ankles, sprinting for their van. Right behind them was Danny, covered in some brown sludge. Turns out the Mexicans had been shitting in the spackle buckets for about two weeks. When Danny went down there he saw four of the Mexicans lined up on the buckets shitting and having a grand old time. Once they saw him, they panicked, jumped off the buckets and tried to get the F out of Dodge via the only exit -- which Danny was in the path of. Through all the commotion, two of the five shit-filled buckets got knocked over. So dirt and shit got kicked all over Danny and all over the crawl space.
For the next couple of days, no Mexicans were allowed on the job, and the house fucken stank. Fellow PoopReporters, when I tell you this stank, believe me, the smell was just putrid. Shit stinks, but two-week-old shit of fifteen laborers smells like something you can't even imagine. The crawl space was declared a disaster zone by all who were working on the house. We thusly voted to not enter the crawl space unless absolutely necessary. I actually ran a wire roughly three hundred feet just to avoid going in that crawl space -- it was that bad.
In the end, they eventually had to get some crime scene cleaners down into the crawl space to get rid of the hazmat. I completed my end of the job in roughly a week and only had to go back for the finish-up. And even when the house was totally finished, there was still the faint smell of shit. I'm sure Danny told the home owner that is was the paint or something. But anyone who worked on that house on Princeton Ave knew better. Paint doesn't smell like beans.
