I'm from a very tiny town in Louisiana (westbank!) called Gretna--"small city, big heart!" There is not a wide range of topics to choose from, but what I picked was a story about a woman who's house has become infested with cockroaches. It's not the most relevant topic to choose, but I didn't have much to work with. I thought it was interesting the way the cockroach infestation in this one woman's house escalated to involving a crisis team "wearing full hazardous materials gear and using cans of insecticide to battle the swarms of roaches". It just seems a bit ridiculous, but also terrifies on some deep "bugs-are-icky" level.
link!
Roach infested home brings out crisis team
by Bill Capo / Eyewitness News
wwltv.com
Posted on June 30, 2010 at 6:06 PM
Updated Thursday, Jul 1 at 4:43 PM
GRETNA, La. -- The extreme roach infestation in this Gretna house was daunting for even the toughest members of the Jefferson Parish Mobile Crisis Team.
"Thousands and thousands of roaches, just stagnant water -- very, very nasty," said Chris Jones.
"Pretty shocking," added Clarence Casey. "It's unbelievable, really."
Wearing full hazardous materials gear and using cans of insecticide to battle the swarms of roaches scurrying everywhere, team members had to remove all the belongings in the home, finding that the roach infestation was so bad that nothing could be saved.
"I didn't know how we were going to begin," said Jefferson Crisis Team Coordinator Lisa Ruffin-Williams. "That was the first thought, I was like, where do we start?"
Normally crisis team members provide counseling and similar services, but they knew they had to take action when a relative of the owner contacted them because the roach infestation had gotten so out of control she was at the end of her rope.
"She felt that she had no reason to live," Counselor Tracey Peden said the owner told her. "She was very tearful because there was no one here to help her."
Not surprisingly the owner of the home did not want to appear in this story. She is a bit overwhelmed and embarrassed by all this. But for the crisis team, this is only the first step.
They'll have an exterminator out here Thursday to take care of the insect problem in the house, and then they'll turn to area charities for help to replace the furniture that can't be salvaged.
And for the resident, they'll be providing some longer term help.
"We have what we call a post crisis worker that will come back, check on her, take her to her appointments because she doesn't have transportation, come in, make sure she is following the regimen we give to her," said Lisa Ruffin-Williams.
Jefferson officials dispatched a truck to remove the infested contents of the house as quickly as possible, while the crisis team completed plans to help the owner.
"We are going to stick with her until the conditions in her home are livable," said Tracey Peden.
This reminds me of "Billy the Exterminator." Have any of you ever seen that show on A&E? It's about an entemologist and exterminator here in Louisiana, who goes around helping people with their pest problems. It's actually pretty funny, because Billy himself is not your typical "button-down shirt, khaki pants" exterminator... He dons the black skinny jeans, black shirt, spiky belt, spiky hair, chains, knuckle spikes, sunglasses... the whole nine yards. And you should see his bee-fighting suit: black, of course, and instead of some little old netting to cover the face, its a skeleton face - something akin to a halloween costume. But the guy knows his stuff. He is remarkable, he is so smart and is extremely knowledgable. What I really like about him (and what I thought was really interesting and pertinent to our course) is that he doesn't believe in using pesticides or any chemicals. He uses all natural products, i.e., flower extracts and such to "smoke out" bees, all natural products to eradicate cockroaches, traps to catch opossums and armadillos and release them into the wild in a natural habitat, etc. Want to know why? (http://www.aetv.com/billy-the-exterminator/about/ and search "Billy's Favorite Injury") And he'll tell you on his show, too, how proud he is to not use chemicals. He's definitely worth a watch... and just as a side note, having seen some of the cockroach infestations in the homes he has gone in, I don't know how on earth people can live that way! Its horrible - did you know cockroaches are one of the top leading causes of asthma? And that armadillos carry leprosy?
ReplyDeletelove, love, love this show! (but only b/c one of my vices is really bad television.)
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