Ghost Busters Part 1: The Hoard We Inherited

Saturday morning, June 28, I was still in bed at 9:30 a.m., not wanting to get up, not wanting the new reality of my world to keep spinning.

Yesterday, I had been in the mountains of North Carolina with my sister, Mary, wading through our father’s hoarding house, trying to pull out the musical instruments and guns we thought we could sell to help cushion his debts so that we could hopefully make some profit from the sale of the house for the years of hell he put us through. Least he could do.

We were making good progress until everything went sideways.

Now, I found myself standing in my kitchen, numb. I kept saying out loud to myself, “What do I do now?”

In the weeks leading up to the trip, Mary and I had prepped our kits—we had hazmat suits, respirators, goggles, gloves, and body cameras to record the mess. We had pictures from our cousin and the junk removal team to go on, but there’s no smell-o-vision, so we had no idea how overwhelming the stench might be. Our cousin said he threw away his clothes and shoes after walking through the house. That was not a good sign.

On Friday morning, June 27, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to start loading the van with large Tupperware bins, our kits, and a cooler for water. We were on the road by 6 a.m. With a time-zone change and a stop for breakfast, we were aiming to be at the house by 1:30 p.m. to meet the tow truck that would remove his car to make room for the dumpsters.

When we stopped for a fast-food breakfast, we decided that we wouldn’t eat lunch before we walked into the house since we knew the stench might make us puke. Better to do what we could in a few hours and then eat later after we’d been able to shower at the Airbnb my sister booked 10 minutes away.

Parts of I-40 had been washed out by floods weeks earlier, so the GPS directed us to drive US 129, known as The Dragon—apparently America’s #1 best-loved road for motorcyclists. It might be a thrilling experience on a bike, but it was a beast in a panel van, I can tell you that much. We didn’t puke, thanks to Dramamine.

On the five-hour-long drive from Nashville to Sylva, North Carolina, we talked about how we felt, and what we were anticipating. We both said that we’d likely built-up the anticipation in the weeks leading up to this day, and that in actuality, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Sure, it was going to smell awful and look awful. Yes, we’d have to step over, through, and on piles of trash to get from room to room. But we had a loose game plan and a goal. Everything would be fine. We’d do what we could on the first day, then go clean off and celebrate with a steak dinner and Jameson in the Airbnb hot tub, sleep in on Saturday, and do one last walk through the house to pick up anything else before making the 5-hour drive back to Nashville on Saturday night. Our goal was to get back by 6 p.m., in time for our weekly family dinner.

When we pulled up to the gray double-wide manufactured home around 1:30 p.m., we were met by Terry, the HOA president. He gave us a Ziplock bag containing our father’s wallet and house keys. Terry told us there were some nosy neighbors who wanted to go inside his house, but for liability reasons, we couldn’t let them in. Not that we would allow that anyway. One neighbor supposedly wanted to buy the house. One wanted to talk to us about all the musical instruments. I was open to the conversations but I hoped the neighbors left us alone so we could do what we came to do.

With Terry gone, we quickly turned our white construction panel van into a makeshift dressing room, stripping off our t-shirts and stepping into full-body hazmat suits, then donning goggles, respirators, and rubber gloves. “We look like the Ghostbusters!” I said to Mary with a laugh to break the tension as we slid open the door and stepped out onto the hot asphalt. It was already 92 degrees.

A big black truck was idling behind our van. It was the neighbors who wanted to buy the house. Juanita introduced herself while her husband stayed in the cab. She asked if I knew the condition of the house. I’d seen pictures, of course. But we hadn’t even made it onto his front walkway yet. She kept asking about the house, and I kept politely deflecting, standing there in all my hazmat gear, Mary behind me. I told her we planned to sell it, but I wouldn’t know anything else until we stepped inside.

Getting no answers, she finally went home. Mary and I walked up the walkway, keys in hand, and I opened the glass storm door. That’s when the smell hit me through the respirator. Stale rot, mixed with cigarette smoke. Mary and I glanced at each other, and then I pushed open the front door, a rope of bells attached to the door knob announcing our presence.

It was dark, all lights off, but enough light trickled through the windows so we could see the awful condition. Before us, there were piles of cardboard boxes, some up to my shoulder, thrown everywhere. Where there should be carpet, the floor was covered in trampled-down trash and flattened boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes. Our initial plan was to first do a walk-through to see the condition of each room and then focus on one room at a time. That plan morphed into needing to first clear a walkable path between rooms.

In front of us, on the same living room couch we had in our childhood hell home, violins were stacked on top of each other like firewood. Four guitars leaned against the back of the couch. Against the right wall was his precious makeshift recording studio. Scanning the room, there were other instruments visible, the tops of them sticking out of piles of trash, but we couldn’t get to them yet.

[[Violins stacked on top of each other like firewood.]]

To the left was the kitchen, past what was probably the dining room table, also covered with boxes, trash, and several Ziplock bags full of cigarette butts. Why would he save those? Why would he save any of this shit? He literally kept everything. Next to the table stood a huge green tank of oxygen, nearly four feet tall. It’s amazing he didn’t explode the whole house, since he never quit smoking, even when on oxygen. On top of the refrigerator was the ancient fan I used to have in my shared bedroom with Mary. It belonged to my great grandmother, and I had initially wanted to bring it home. Now, I didn’t even want to touch it.

We flipped on lights as we went, some turning on and others burned out. The fire alarm beeped a warning every minute to alert us of a low battery. The kitchen counter was covered with opened soup cans, stacked several rows high. Many were thrown on the floor. The stench was the worst in the kitchen where three years’ worth of food waste had been left out in the open. To the right of the kitchen was a bedroom and bathroom. And on the other side of the house, were two more bedrooms and a bathroom. All in awful shape.

He’d turned one of the rooms into his office and makeshift assembly line for repairing violins. Mind you, he was not a professional luthier. I suspect he’d googled “how to repair guitars and violins” and thought he could have a side hustle doing it. Except all the instruments still sat in various stages of disrepair. He was purchasing broken violins to repair them, but likely never sold any of them, or finished a single repair, for that matter. Violins were missing strings or necks; the guitars were banged up. Not one looked to be in stage-ready condition.

In our childhood, he did the same thing with old, broken-down vehicles. He once bought two rusted out 54 Chevy trucks. He only ever got one running though. The other sat in the garage, along with piles and piles of car parts he’d never use, until everything in the garage and the house was demolished.

On the way to another bedroom, stepping over and around full black bags of trash he never thought to take outside, I spotted his Masonic Bible. I grabbed it and flipped through it. No sign of it ever being used. Figures. I set it down near the door. I’d deal with it later.

I was mostly looking for one thing—a picture I had always remembered from childhood, a black-and-white photo of a family reunion from the early 1900s. For some reason, as a young child, I recalled that one of the women in the photo looked a little darker than the others. And in my mind, that solidified the story of us having Native American roots on that side of the family. Now, as an adult, having done some ancestry research, I knew we did have a small percentage of Native American ancestry, but I didn’t know the names of the family members, or a confirmation of which tribe, and was hoping that picture would help answer some questions.

About an hour in, we had made decent progress in creating walkable paths between rooms. The house was full of brown cardboard boxes, most opened and empty but not all. They seemed to have been thrown around from room to room after he opened them and removed the contents. So, we followed suit, tossing cardboard boxes onto tables and piles, and into closets and other parts of the rooms as we walked, trying to make it a little easier for us to safely navigate the space.

From what we could see so far, he had 13 guitars, probably 50 violins, 2 saxophones, 3 dulcimers, an oboe, a banjo, and lots of instrument cases and accessories. Spiral notebooks, note pads, and scribbled-up scrap paper were everywhere, all containing lyrics of poorly written love songs about our mother. Pictures of her and the three of us kids—and far too many of me for my liking—were everywhere. And guns. There were lots of guns and ammo everywhere. He was clearly making some of his own ammo as well, using glass marbles as projectiles for his ancient muzzle-loaders. Our brother, our emotional and logistical support on standby, would call later in the afternoon to share with us how to safely empty and pack the guns.

In one closet we found two rifles leaned up in the corner. Next to them, Mary found a Gadsden flag sporting the infamous yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” snake. “Put it on the floor!” I commanded. Mary dropped it and we tread on it in unison, prompting a much-needed giggle in such a harsh environment. He would be so angry to know that we’re digging through all his worthless shit, I thought.

Outside, the beeping of a vehicle in reverse notified us that the tow service had arrived. Since his car was a 2010 model and hadn’t run for several years, we didn’t need a title to have it removed. The tow guy would bring it to the junkyard for metal scrap. We’d have to pay him $150 to tow it, and after some quick calculations, he offered us $60 cash, so we didn’t have to follow him to the junk yard to get our payout. We accepted—that would cover our dinner. In less than 10 minutes, the car was gone, so we went back to work.

[[The beloved car he once bought new.]]

Back inside, equipped with an axe handle and the hook part of a metal hanger, we moved around piles of dirty clothes and soiled underwear, looking for more guns. Then we dumped his dresser drawers out onto his bed with the same 50+ year old mattress and bedframe he had when we were kids to see if there was anything worth saving. After sifting through socks, papers, pictures, and over 20 pocketknives, we found a few family heirlooms and considered that room complete, as far as our search went. Everything was in bad shape. And by now, so was I.

The HOA president told us that the AC had gone out over a year ago, but my father was so paranoid that he refused to allow a repairman inside to fix it. Inside that rotting house in the heat of June, with no AC, in hazmat suits, it had to be over 100 degrees. I was fading fast. Maybe I should have had lunch first. Or drank more water, at least.

“I have to leave the house,” I told Mary, a little unsteady on my feet as I took the trash-covered path to the front door. On my heels, she followed me outside to make sure I didn’t pass out.

Reaching the van, I slid open the side door and grabbed my gallon of water out of the cooler. I unzipped my hazmat suit for the hope of a slight breeze and checked my phone. Maybe mom’s test results will be back, I thought. I logged into the healthcare portal. The results were back. She’d already opened them. But she hadn’t called us. Can’t be good, I frowned as I clicked the message and read the test results.

“Mary,” I called to her. I needed another set of eyes to witness the words. I held out the phone and she stood next to me, both of us reading the damning news in shock.

The cancer had spread.