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Mike plays doctor to an old house then gets a little to friendly...Tuesday, May 13 2008 |
On this not-so-pleasant new episode of Dirty Jobs, Mike joins to philosophers under a house for a little time in the muck. Then he heads to a turkey farm to get fresh with some, ahem, Toms.
what you're about to.
The journey begins under a Santa Cruise home. The home belongs to the gentlemen Mike is helping out. It was first the grandfather's, then the father's and now the son inherited the rat-infested dump. On the plus side, the kid may not have lived there, maybe he just owned it . . . here's hoping.
The owner explained the symptoms of the sick home to Mike. Apparently, one or two dozen rats used to live in the ceiling and felt entitled to poop and pee everywhere. Now, whenever the heat kicks on, pieces of dust, feces and fiberglass get sucked into the vents and blown around the house.
They started by running a duct blaster. They tape all the vents, except one, which they insert a hose in. They then turn on the blaster, filling the vent with air. The blaster has a meter built into it that measures the amount of air escaping from holes in the ducts. This home was leaking 167 cubic feet per second, a loss of about 25 percent. The target, they explained, was a loss of less than 60 cubic feet per second.
Mike, the cameraman Troy and the workers zipped into white jumpsuits, sort of like a mechanic might wear, only white. . . to save money on dyes? Anyway, once they're suited up, Off to work they go.
"We're dressed resplendently as giant sperm," Mike said before crawling on his stomach and shimmying under the house.
Once under the house the have to remove any debris they find like, animal feces, dead mice, fallen insulation and any other random objects they may find. They have to wear a vapor-barrier mask to avoid inhaling dangerous mold spores. They start by removing the larger pieces of insulation, shoving them behind; the guys following can do the same, getting the junk closer to the opening where the trash bags are. The guide explained they were lucky to only have a little rat poop on their masks, it was cat poop that was the worst.
The other interesting thing growing in the damp, dark underside of the sickly house, was a dangerous mold.
"The question isn't if there is toxic mold, but where," his guide said with a laugh.
It wasn't long before they found it, a black sludge with yellow spores forming on top. Not long after, Mike came across the skeleton of what appeared to be a rat.
"How long you figure you're gonna live?" he asked his young guide.
The guy said he wasn't sure how many years each job took off his life.
"You should be dead now," Mike said. "or a superhero."
There was a moments pause as they reached the far corner of the foundation. That was a good sign, it signaled the end of their debris clearing hell, and on to the next phase.
The next phase was to lay down a large, plastic floor, called "too tough;" it looks almost like a very thick garbage bag. It spans the width of the house and they unroll it back toward the entrance, removing any other debris along the way. They also slap a coat of mastic along the walls, which acts as an adhesive that keeps the too tough in place.
After picking up a dead, bloated rat on the way out, Mike quickly decided this was one of his more vile jobs.
Mike paused on the way out, to inquire which of these young men had college degrees . . . both did, in philosophy. During the credits they ran a clip and the two guys advised students to avoid pursuing the same degree.
The job wasn't easy or clean. They told Mike they had three guys quit on them, because they needed money, just not that bad. They lasted anywhere from 2 weeks to a month and a half. As they climbed out, the guys joked that it takes someone with mental to do that job, or mental weakness.
The house wasn't clear yet, however; now it was the time to hit the attic/crawlspace. There was a wooden ladder leading to a 3X3 foot hole in the wall, near the ceiling.
This part was similar to under the house, except they were crawling on boards on top of the insulation and rat droppings, instead of under the insulation and in the rat droppings. It was another messy job but with Mike, the cameraman and the cleaning crew all crammed into the little space, the workers started to get frustrated and Mike decided it was time to climb down and get the hell out of there.
"I usually try to form a checklist in my head," Mike said. "I have a column for redeeming qualities versus the real degree of difficulty; I have nothing in column A."
For his next job Mike headed North to the Oakdale Farm in Kensington, Minnesota, to milk a male turkey. . . yep, you heard right. The brothers who owned the farm were the fifth generation to run it and Mike arrived at feeding time.
The turkeys responded to Mike's voice with a unified gobble. The farmer informed Mike that they could tell he was the new guy. Mike was informed that the turkeys would be sent to the slaughter house a day and a half later.
"Don't worry," he assured them. "Every thing's gonna be fine."
He was answered by another resounding gobble.
They started by feeding the Toms, male turkeys. They only give them a half serving of the corn and soy meal mixture on breeding day. Then Mike and the farmers took turns squeezing the turkeys, which made them burp. After a few choruses of burps, it was time to get down to business.
The turkeys are bred to have huge chests, for that oh-so-delicious breast meat and each weights around 65 pounds, which makes natural breeding impossible. The male turkeys don't have a penis, instead the seamen leaks out and drips into the female. Without the room to mate naturally, it is the farmer's job to strap the male in and siphon off the semen, which came as an unpleasant surprise for Mike.
The farmer told Mike to grab the right wing and the left leg, then heft the turkey into a bench-like contraption for the milking, for lack of a better term.
Then came the fun part. . . siphoning off the seamen. The farmer instructed Mike to squeeze the phallus, which would cause the Tom to excrete seamen, which he then had to siphon off with a hose attached to a vial. The chances of getting any in your mouth is rare, but possible.
"That's why I told you to bring water," the farmer explained.
Mike had trouble getting the Tom to secrete anything, so the farmer said he would squeeze and Mike could suck.
"It takes practice," the farmer said.
"I've been practicing for almost four decades," Mike replied.
After the Toms have been milked, it's off to the hen house. They used yellow and green flags to corral the hens, until they had a few alone that they could block off with a net. Then the insemination began.
They would grab the female by the legs, put her in a clamp, that grabbed her feet. Next, they would take a shot of seamen, loaded into a machine and distributed through a hose by a burst of air, and insert it into the hen.
Mike sat on a stool behind the turkey, straddling it. The turkey was hanging upside down by its feet. Mike placed a knee on either side and gave a gentle squeeze to keep it steady, then inserted the hose in the right hole, hit the trigger and let her go.
The process ended up being quite messy, as the hens like to go to the bathroom when you grab them, spraying a vile mess into the air and onto unsuspecting cameramen.
Withing a week, each hen will lay about five eggs, which are then sent to a hatchery, where the process starts again.
The final job for Mike was in response to a letter, a Webby Award winning segment called 'Mike's Got Mail.' A viewer asked if he had issues with violence because he seemed to like to destroy things. Mike explained that he believed in the ideal that everything returned to the earth, so he was just helping it along.
To prove his point, he went to a car compactor. The 750-ton machine,called a baler takes a full size car and reduces it to a pint sized block which is then sent to be melted and reused.
In this short segment a red, 1979 Cadillac was used to demonstrate. The large tractor was equipped with a claw, like the one in those stuffed animal games at the video arcade, only it worked. The claw grabbed the Caddy like it were a piece of litter and gently set it down inside the baler. The top of the baler closed over the car, crushing it, then a large piston shoved the block out the back side, ready to be stacked and shipped.
Then Mike sent the viewer off from the middle of the Hay Cannon rainstorm, pleading for ideas.
