For the third day today we were at this old house - from the twenties the owner’s son told us - still gutting. We really have such an excellent group of happy, silly, motivated and hard-working people, which makes for super productivity and fun. Our amazingly cool team leader secured us a radio for the second day in a row so we’ve been having oldies dance parties periodically throughout the day, which really brightens things up. Although it’s hard to sing along wearing the respirator…believe me, I tried.
I knew that I’d be exhausted from the work and I am physically so tired and sore, but other than that I’m awake and having a great time. I really didn’t know just how much work is involved in gutting, particularly in a house this big. We had to knock down all the walls in the downstairs and then some of the ceilings because the mold climbed that high. Once the walls are down we have to take out the nails in the frame…plus clean-up of all the debris in between. Let me tell you, it’s easy to fill up those trash cans but much harder to carry them out because that concrete and dust is heavy. And then you have to find a place to put the debris - it’s a good thing this is a corner house because we have a wall of garbage almost 5 feet high in front of and along the whole side of the house…and we still have to gut some rooms in the upstairs, which means the pile is only going to get higher. When you’re just gutting downstairs, then it’s work, but when you’re upstairs having to go through the owners’ stuff, it hits you just how fast people had to leave, how long they’ve been displaced, and how much they have to lose. However, we found out that the owners are in Memphis and don’t know that their house came up to the top of the list so us preparing their house for remodeling is their Christmas present, which makes it all the more special.

I guess the motto of our trip, from repetitive use, has become “That could’ve been so much worse.” Which is true, but the fact is that things are going really well and I’m having fun and am really proud to be a part of this service project.