Section 8 and the Infestation

Whew... I think it's about time for another laugh. I was gonna post on Girls Jobs today, but man... If L and the gang got pissed about me saying that women are happier when Men are mowing the lawn for them, imagine how pissed off their gonna be when I point out that number 1 responsibilty of a wife is to seek Christ, and the number 2 responsiblity is to support her husband! HSSSSSSS! HSSSSS! Watch for the claws boys!

So anyway... on to the tale. First of all it should be pointed out that a certain breed of child, both boy and girl, is simply born without fear. My dear mom was lucky enough to birth 3 of those. This is the tale of what happens when one of those kids meets the infestation of a lifetime... But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Now in the early to mid-eighties HUD ran a program called Section-8. The idea was that they would take families out of the projects, and give them houses in middle class neighborhoods, and pay their rent for them. Because you know... if you expose them to people who work and are productive... they will then become productive. Brilliant!

Normally this is where I would stop and rip that premise to shreds, but the tale does it better than I ever could... so allow me to continue...

Our neighbors moved out, and put their house into this maddness. Soon there-after a family from the projects was moved in. Predictably, nothing about them changed. They would have drunken parties in the yard at all hours... They slept till 12, the baby was never in clothes... just a diaper... now that I think about it... none of the rest of them were in clothes much either.

I remembe laying in bed hearing the "mom and dad" yelling and fighting about who was gonna walk down the street to buy cigarettes. One night in particular I heard something that has stuck with me, and always will... the skank walked up to her 'husband' and demanded he go get cigarettes.

"I ain't do it. Walk your fat ass down there and get'em yourself... and grab some beer too."

And then the line that will scar my mind for all my days...

"Fine.... I'm goin'... but I ain't gonna let you piss on me tonight."

GAH! What did I just hear? WHAT? NO NO NO NO! I didn't just hear that....

"Dammit woman.. hold on now... I'll go... shit..."

Now an 8 year old boy has no business being exposed to something like that. The effects are not good. I had hoped to convince myself that they were joking, but sadly over the months I heard numerous conversations that proved that... watersports... were big in their lives.

Well... things got worse and worse over there... Cops were showing up one night out of three, until finally the social workers came by and told us they had moved them out.

I guess the house had been setting empty for a couple days... when a white man knocked on our door. Now understand... I don't mean caucasion... though he was.. I mean... dude was white. Like he'd just seen a corpe dance a gig. This cat stuttered and stammered, and somehow managed to ask to use our phone.

He was an exterminator of some kind and he needed to call his boss. His side of the conversation went something like this:

"Harold? yeah it's Mark... Harold, I ain't goin' in that attic.... Kiss my ass Harold... Fire me then... I ain't doin' it... Look Harold I've been doin this 10 years, and I aint never seen anything this bad, now you want me to bomb it from outside? Fine. Fine. Ok. I'll get it handled."

Now I don't know what scares the Orkin Man so bad that he won't go inside, but... You can bet your ass that I wanted to see it. The Orkin man propped the front door open, and threw about 6 bombs in, then just left.

As you can imagine... I was way to curious to see what all this was about. I mean.. for all I knew there was a 16 foot monster roach in there... and of course.. if there was, By God I was gonna go in there and kill it!

So the next day, I got suited up. I put on my one piece snow-skiing bib, workboots, gloves, skimask.... I was set. Mom was crackin' up about this, but hell... she wanted to know what was in there too. So off I went.

I opened the front door about 8 roaches fell down off the door frame. The walls were covered with them. I mean... millions. When I stepped on the carpet I could hear them crushing beneath it. The ceiling had so many roaches, they were periodicly falling off. I ain't never seen ANYTHING like this. I decided the kitchen would be the worst spot, so that's where I headed.

Y'all... I couldn't find the sink. The counters were so crowded with roaches, that the sick was invisible... it must've been full... I opened the cabinets, to find the same deal. Roaches... everywhere.

Well I made it outta there... got home stripped off all my gear on the front porch and spent the next 20 minutes convincing my mom not to burn it.

The house had to be condemned, doctors later told us that an infestation at a fraction of that level will often leave the family membes with roach eggs in every available orifice. The family that put the house into Section 8 got screwed with all kinds of bills, and the govenment had wasted several thousand dollars...

That was my first exposure to the law of unintended consequences and liberal stupidity... What a way to get your eyes opened huh?