Meth House/ Day 33

The solution to pollution is dilution.

After today, I don't think I will have a more memorable day on the rez. It was one of those days where you just can't believe what you remember of your day is actually reality. It wasn't a dream though. I worked too hard for it to be a dream. I woke up at 6am this morning, because today marks the start of a three day decontamination process. What are we decontaminating you ask? A former meth house. That's what.

A buddy of mine moved into a house that the owner has been renting for a while. He had heard rumors that this house had been a meth house at one point, but nothing was confirmed and the owner didn't seem to know anything, so he moved in. Unfortunately, after a couple tests had been run, it turns out that there was still meth residue in the house, and it was dangerous to continue living there until it had been decontaminated. He said he needed all the help he could get and I couldn't imagine not helping.

I got there around 7am and I met a couple other guys who were helping out, then the professional showed up. It was a man and his son. He said he had been doing this for years now, which was crazy to think about-- for years there have been houses that have been so contaminated with meth that this guy has had a job. We were all thankful he was here, because we just wanted to get our buddy back in his house!

The pro instructed everybody to suit up in a full body ti-vac suit, we put on N-95's and plastic gloves, then we went into the house to see how the process was going to work. Everything started with a thorough rinse of the house. We took lawn and garden sprayers and sprayed a mixture of water, Tide, and 409 over the entire house-- the chemical compound of the mixture will dilute and decontaminate the meth residue. We let it sit for about 10 minutes then it was time to get started.

The pro took five people to start the process-- one to spray the wall, one to scrub the wall, one to wipe the wall, one to hand out the paper towels, and one to man the garbage. Usually this job was done by a professional crew, but assembling a crew of civilians led by a pro saved our buddy quite a bit of money, so it was time to learn.

Overall, the process was super tedious. One person would spray, then I would scrub, then the next guy would take exactly three paper towels and take one swipe down the wall, then he would throw the three paper towels away and the next guy would hand him another three to do this over again, and the last guy would make sure the garbage can stayed close to the wiper. I'm sure you can imagine how tedious this process was.

We were closely supervised by the pro, as we covered the entire house with spray then a wipe down. We took enough breaks to stay hydrated and to eat, but we really wanted to get the initial wipe down finished so we could start priming tomorrow, so we worked about 11hrs overall. What a long day of wiping down every square inch of a house by hand, but I was so glad to help my buddy out.

After we called it quits for the day, my buddy's parents treated us all to dinner at the Starlight Cafe. It was so good! We ate pretty quickly because we had heard about a MMA Fight that was happening at the Rodeo Grounds that night, so we went straight there after dinner.

We got there right on time! The fights started out with boxing, then they switched to MMA. We saw some pretty sweet fights, but we also saw some lame ones. All I wanted to see that night was a knock-out, and in the second to last fight, I got to see a knock out punch! That was well worth the $5 I spent to get in.

After the fights, Jonny and I went out to Greg's place to check on some stuff and mess around. We ended up having a competition to see who could hit the broad side of a barn with a golf ball first. Greg only has lefty clubs, and I probably should be able to use them, because I'm actually left handed, but things did not go as planned. My golf balls, hit a tree, hit another tree father down the lawn, and ultimately completely missed the barn. Jonny won. I was surprised.

When we were done with our competition, we took a cruise through Greg's land to see if we could find anything interesting. We saw a couple huge deer, but other than that, everything was super quiet. It was a beautiful night otherwise.

But alas, all good things much come to an end, so we headed back to Mission and hit the hay in anticipation of another long day tomorrow.

Thank you so much for all of your support!

God Bless,
Brenden


Things I learned today:
1. How to decontaminate a meth house
2. The cover of night makes doing stupid things more enjoyable.
3. Acts 10