Unreal.

We moved Chris Bates yesterday. You don't know who Chris Bates is, but that name will forever be burned into my memory.

When we first got there, he had to prep us for what we were about to see. He declared his intention of loading up as much as he could in his house, so that no one would know the kinds of things he has. Then, when we had a bit stacked up, we'd move that little bit into the truck, and start again.

So we get to his door, and he says that one person should come in and look around. Get a feel for what it was going to be like. I thought the one person idea was odd, until I walked into his door. Well, I sort of slid in sideways, because it wouldn't open all the way. What I saw was something unlike anything I've seen before. Things were piled up in every direction. On the right was the entrance to the living room.



The living room was completely inaccessible. He said that the living room would have to wait for another day.

The bedroom was worse. I tried to take a picture, but the hallway lacked any natural light, so my shitty camera phone couldn't pick up enough light. It was literally piled, floor to ceiling, across the entire doorway. Of just stuff. Half full boxes of papers and plastic bags. Old McDonald's bags. Empty bottles. Newspapers. A random 3 pack of cheap plastic flashlights.

To the left was the rest of the hallway, which had one of the two pieces of identifiable furniture. A metal shelf, jammed to the brim with more stuff. He said not to touch anything, because it would set off a slide that would cause everything on the shelf to come off. That had happened before, and it took him months to get it back to the way it was supposed to be.

On the right of the hallway, was the bathroom.

You could not get into the bathroom. He said he didn't use this bathroom. The building had a toilet in the basement that he used when he really needed it. Poor Steve. Poor Steve found the collection of bottles that Mr. Bates used when he did not feel like going to the bathroom in the basement. Needless to say, the shower was also inaccessible, so I'm not entirely sure what he did about that. I'm pretty sure he just doesn't shower, but I'm not entirely positive.



Is the dining room. Also inaccessible when we first arrived. For the four hours we were there, we managed to clear out a path through the hallway, and into the dining room. We cleared out about a sixth of the dining room. We almost got to the back door, ran out of time before he got too exhausted.


The odd thing is, he didn't want us to throw any of this out. In fact, just the opposite. We moved 61 boxes and 8 bags yesterday. We threw out 2 trash bags. All he wants us to do is organise his mess. Boxes of old newspaper. Many boxes. I think the old papers I saw were from 1999. Old coupons (oldest 1997 for aluminum foil. Old food (unrefrigerated yogurt that expired in 2007, cake mix, cans of soda that had broken and ruined the box they were in. All of this mess was sorted as best we could, and moved in stages out to the truck.

I think we're just moving it into a storage unit so the exterminator can come in (he has QUITE a few roaches, Steve saw a rat, Bill and Steve both found numerous rodent skeletons), then move all of his stuff back in.

Usually, my boss says "Oh, I've seen worse." I asked him what he thought of Mr. Bates, and he shook his head. "Never before, never again."