It was mid-summer of 2014, and, being the kind to enjoy my free time and despise taxes, I was becoming relatively adept at finding impromptu blue collar, under the table jobs.

Hopping from job to job, things often did not differ much, with tasks ranging from weed-whacking to power washing, and jobs lasting few hours to a few days. Many of the jobs I did are ones I would consider important for everyone to do at least once in their young life, whether they be gross, difficult, or just good old hard work. But little did I know when I signed onto a kitchen demolition/ remodeling job, that I was stepping into a situation I would never wish on anyone.

I had run into an old friend’s father in my town and we got to talking about work, and not long after I agreed to work at least most of the following week on a woman’s kitchen a few towns over. When I arrived on site a few days later I was greeted by a beautiful half-stone, half siding two-story home nestled on the side of a steep slope.
I met up with my boss, and we began to work, wasting no time unscrewing, prying and hauling cabinets, countertops, and appliances out of the small, rectangular kitchen. I hardly noticed a faint, lingering smell of cats, even though the woman said she “had a few.” The next step after removing all the large extras was to pry the trim off the ceilings and floors. Not a hard task at all, and somewhat of a relief from heavy lifting in the heat, or so I thought.

Everything was going smoothly until I moved into the kitchen bathroom. As I was prying trim from the wall and floor, the tip of my hammer sunk through the drywall, exposing a slight hole. Not sure what happened, I lightly touched the drywall that had basically fallen apart. Nothing could have prepared me for the concentrated explosion of the odor of cat urine that burst from the wall as my whole hand easily sunk clean through the wall, soaked in the substance.

Before I had time to inform the boss man what had happened, the stout, grumpy, middle aged woman who owned the house came running down the stairs, screaming bloody murder, that one of her cats was stuck in a hole in the bathroom wall upstairs.

After a short period of coaxing, we managed to lure her striped orange “baby” named Tiger out of the wall. He was never stuck; he was travelling in and out, presumably with all other 7 or so cats (at least) that we saw that week, and it didn’t take much to start to piece together the problems with this house.

But cats peeing in the walls turned out to only be a fraction of the problem. We were told not to work on the walls themselves, so after bleaching and patching the hole for our own sake, we began to tear up the floor to get to the sub floor. Shortly after tearing up over 1000 sq. ft. of linoleum, we discovered there was not one floor of ceramic tile, lathe, and the base wood, but rather one  layer of tile, three layers of linoleum, one layer of lathe, one layer of wood, and then the sub floor.

After what ended up taking two days of work time alone we hit the last layer of linoleum. When things finally were starting to look up, they managed to take another turn for the worse.

Once we started peeling up the last layer we discovered that not only had cats been peeing in the walls, but also in corners and by doorways, such as cats often do to mark territory.

But these locations, along with what was draining out of the walls, were soaking in god knows how many years of cat urine. I discovered colors of mold I didn’t know existed, and smelled a stench so purely chemical and foul, that I can render no words for accurate description.

But the show must go on, and so, accompanied but copious amounts of bleach and facemasks, as well as yelling from the homeowners that the condition of their home was our fault, we finished our task.

The rest of the week went relatively smoothly, despite the fact we went home every day reeking of cat piss, which did wonders lingering in cars and on clothing.

I went through a new pair of work gloves every day. Ever since that week, I have had second guesses about how willing I am to do similar jobs in the future, but regardless, I have a new-found respect for the tradesmen and blue collar workers of our country.