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May 10, 2022 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

01:29:56

E392 Trauma Restoration Man

Trauma restoration man Bobby Cotton joins Theo to discuss what it's like working in the restoration industry, where he cleans up after hoarders, fires, murders and suicides, riots, natural disasters, and more. ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Podcastville mugs and prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com ------------------------------------------------- Support our Sponsors: Keeps: Go to https://keeps.com/THEO to get your first month of treatment free BetterHelp: Go to https://betterhelp.com/THEO for 10% off your first month Ritual: Go to https://ritual.com/THEO for 10% off your first 3 months MUD/WTR: Go to https://mudwtr.com/THEO and get 15% off your first purchase with code THEO ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Riley https://www.instagram.com/rileymaufilms/?hl=en See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	We can do it.
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	Grab your tickets at theova.com slash T-O-U-R.
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	Thank you guys so much in advance for your support.
	And I look forward to seeing you on the Return of the Rat tour.
	Today's guest holds a unique job in the world.
	And it's that job when there's a fire or a murdering or a hoarder or trauma.
	Somebody's got to go into those spaces and clean up.
	Somebody's got to go do the dirty work, baby.
	Somebody's got to be that little Shawshank baby crawling through the muck.
	And we have that man here today.
	He is a trauma restoration man, and he's out of Minneapolis, and we're grateful for him.
	But today's guest is trauma restoration man, Mr. Bobby Cotton.
	I'll be singing just for you.
	I'll be singing just for you.
	Yeah, where are you from, Rob?
	Minneapolis.
	Oh, nice, dude.
	Yeah, we went out there and did some shows not too long ago.
	Minneapolis is so strange now, it feels like.
	Like the downtown just feels deserted.
	Yeah, they're making everyone like the city and the state is actually after businesses to bring people back to the cities.
	Really?
	Yeah, they want them back in the offices because they like all the like there's nothing down there.
	It's just deserted.
	So like all the little businesses and shops are all closing down because no one's down there.
	Yeah, it's like the bunch of murals and nothing else.
	I'm funny.
	It's like everybody left and they just drew people on the buildings.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, they had all the George Floyd stuff, all them riots that happened.
	Yeah.
	Man, it was just the whole vibe down there.
	Well, it was crazy.
	Everything got smashed out, you know, because in restoration, like a big part of what I do is like when there's a fire or a window gets broken, I run out in the middle of the night and board stuff up.
	Oh, really?
	I mean, shit, I mean, I was working like 120 hours a week boarding up all the buildings.
	I had, you know, 300 sheets of plywood going up a day.
	It was crazy.
	Wow.
	So you're saying, so I'm sitting here with Rob Cotton and he's a trauma restoration man.
	And so you're saying that during the, and we're going to get into your job.
	We just started chatting.
	So in Minneapolis, during the George Floyd stuff, you guys were going out, you guys go out and board stuff up.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So whenever there's a, you know, riot, you know, we do board ups.
	So anytime there's a fire or there's a robbery or something, you know, you got to secure those buildings.
	And during the George Floyd stuff, we were doing stuff preventatively.
	People were worried about getting robbed and there was a lot of looting and stuff.
	So, I mean, we were boarding up and securing buildings, try and prevent people from smashing the windows in.
	Wow.
	I mean, we were working like 24 hours a day taking naps in the truck.
	Dang.
	Yeah, it was bad.
	Were there certain things you would write on the certain boards to kind of keep people out?
	Were they like, you know, like, was there any like kind of trickery like that, like verbal word trickery?
	I mean, we didn't do anything like that, but a lot of the business owners, you know, they put on like minority owned or, you know, we support BLM or lots of stuff got put on those boards.
	And yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know if there was trickery or not.
	I don't know if people were maybe a little dishonest on that.
	But yeah, people were putting stuff on there.
	Wow.
	Yeah, because I guess most people think that just businesses go and do that for themselves.
	But do you get hired by businesses to do it?
	Yeah.
	So either by the insurance or if they're in a really high-risk area, like their insurance company might call to have the boards put up to try and prevent the loss, you know, because it's obviously, you know, when the buildings get burned and stuff like that, sometimes the losses or the insurance claims are millions of dollars.
	So for five or ten thousand dollars, you can get all your windows boarded up.
	That could save you.
	That could really be the difference between your whole business going down.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I mean, there was a liquor store right in Minneapolis there, and they lost like $1.5 million in inventory, plus there was a fire in the building.
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, that's the problem.
	You get a little bit of liquor and you want to, somebody wants to have a Doral or, you know, or, you know, roll up a John or something, and the next thing you know, the whole place is going up.
	Oh, it's crazy.
	And I mean, even, you know, I had a gun pulled on me when I was cleaning graffiti down there.
	Uh-uh.
	Yeah.
	And why'd they do it?
	They were just unhappy I was taking down graffiti.
	And I mean, you know, whether or not that's at a turn, I don't care if you put more graffiti up.
	I got hired to take the graffiti down.
	The second I leave, you can do it again.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	You're just doing your job.
	Yeah.
	So just doing your job is really, I mean, your job is basically like your job is basically restoration, trauma cleanup.
	How do you like, give me an example of kind of what that entails, sort of.
	Let's start.
	Well, so like the name of the industry is restoration.
	And so restoration could be fire, water, mold, trauma.
	So it can be anything from a natural disaster to a pipe burst or, you know, the ground thawing outside or suicides, murders, and stuff like that.
	Basically, if something terrible has happened to your building.
	We're the guys that call.
	And do you guys go in there feeling like the Ghostbusters?
	Do y'all just feel like a bunch of like garbage men?
	Is there kind of a vibe that you feel kind of going into a certain industry?
	No one is ever happy to see us.
	Okay.
	You know, because fires are generally the worst.
	I mean, like when you do a trauma cleanup, you're not normally seeing anyone that lives there or anything like that because they're typically almost always gone.
	Okay.
	But like when you're doing a fire cleanup or something, you know, and everyone's personal belongings, everything, every picture, every birth certificate, everything's gone and you're shoveling it out with snow shovels.
	You know, it can be tough.
	Okay, so stuff like that, environments like that, where you're cleaning up a place and there's a lot of personal effects there, it really gets pretty, it probably, you know, it probably squeezes you hard, huh?
	Used to.
	I mean, it's hard.
	You get really desensitive to it, desensitized to it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So take, take me like into an example, like you go to a company, something's happened, you go to a business.
	Take me into some trauma cleanup.
	Yeah, well, so just to use that one as an example, so it was middle of the night, it was a manufacturing facility, and there was a lathe.
	So lathe, you know, you make like, for example, like a baseball bat.
	So it spins a piece of wood and you're cutting on it.
	A lathe.
	Lathe, yep.
	Okay, and bring that up, Riley, if you can on the screen here.
	Okay, so something like that.
	Yep, yep.
	So just like that.
	Piece of machinery.
	Yep, that green one is just about the same one there.
	Okay.
	And so the guy was wearing a glove, and so he ended up getting caught in that.
	And so it pulled his skin off from like his elbow all the way off his hand.
	It's called de-gloving.
	And so that got caught in there.
	So it spun around because obviously it's still spinning.
	So the thing's just spinning around with the...
	Wow.
	Red Rover, Red Rover, boy.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Send Danny right over.
	You guys get called in.
	The guy's been de-gloved.
	D-gloved, and that means...
	Like, if you had a glove on, you took it off, except for that's your skin.
	Ooh.
	And so that was spinning.
	And obviously it was shut out by the time we got there.
	But that blood was all over everywhere.
	So it was all, you know, the ceiling's 25, 30 feet tall.
	And it was a big manufacturing facility, so they didn't want to shut it down.
	So we had to, you know, hang plastic all around where we were cleaning.
	And all that stuff had to be scrubbed down and repainted.
	Okay, so you guys hang plastic around the actual site of whatever's going on.
	Yeah, if they don't want to shut it down.
	Dang, they got to keep that money coming in, huh?
	Yeah, so I mean, the whole time it was really crazy.
	You know, we're cleaning skin out of this machine.
	And on the other side of the plastic, you can hear people talking.
	And what type of, what were they making in there overall, you think?
	You know, honestly, I'm not sure.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I'm not positive.
	It may be like a cabinet shop or something.
	Yeah.
	It was a woodworking facility.
	Okay.
	Wow.
	And so you guys get called in something like that.
	What do you do with the actual, do you actually take the skin, the hand?
	Yeah, so anything that's like affected and there's a bunch of different like categorizations of like materials.
	So like wood that gets impacted really needs to be cut out and replaced.
	But like concrete, you can clean that.
	So anything that gets, you know, that we have to cut out and throw on away, you put it in these special bags and then you put that in a biohazard box and then a carrier that specially disposes of that takes it away.
	And typically they're going to go to like an incinerator.
	Okay.
	Oh, wow.
	So that thing, it doesn't get returned to the rightful owner.
	It gets the skin?
	Yeah.
	No.
	You're not getting that skin back.
	Damn.
	Have you ever had an employee try to sneak off with something, sneak off with a thumb or something?
	Never.
	A rotting thumb, no.
	Yeah, or just a middle finger.
	Maybe they're just going to pull it out at the bar or something.
	No, no, that would be something.
	So you guys hang up the plastic and you guys go in there as a team if there's some type of a trauma like in a workplace or any place, really.
	And so how long does something like that take?
	Like are you guys, they try to send you in in the middle of the night and get it done fast?
	Do they so it really depends.
	So there's certain things like manufacturing facilities and stuff because like a big manufacturing facility, you know, they might be making a million plus dollars a day, hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour in products.
	Oh, yeah.
	I'm trying to think of some different ones.
	Hormel.
	Trying to think of different anything.
	Mitsubishi.
	Trying to think of any other.
	I mean, there's tons of them.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	And I mean, even a good buddy of mine had a call out to Florida for a machine that broke down, and it was a Kit Kat machine.
	They made Kit Kats.
	Yeah.
	Like, and I saw a little video of it.
	I mean, just millions of Kit Kats.
	And you're like, who's eating all these Kit Kats?
	Yeah.
	And they're all stressed because the Kit Kat line is shut down.
	Like, the world's going to end.
	We don't have any Kit Kats.
	Well, squirrels love them, dude.
	My dad, he used to sometimes go park his car at the park, and he would get like a, he had a buddy that used to get kind of old Kit Kats, and they were like a couple years old, kind of, but they, you know, you could still eat them, but the chocolate was turning white a little.
	You know what I'm talking about?
	Fermented.
	I mean, I don't know if it had become like alcoholic or not, but I know it had, it was a little bit decrepit.
	Bring up old chocolate.
	Aged.
	Yeah, old chocolate aged.
	Like a nice fine.
	There you go.
	Click on one of those, Riley.
	Oh, no, that's too old.
	Yeah, that's molded out.
	Just give me something that, um, give me something that I should have had at Christmas, you know?
	Nope.
	Okay.
	But I'll say this, is that, so, yeah, anyway, we would get the Kit Kats, we would take them to the park, and the squirrels would come eat them, man.
	Squirrels love them.
	And they would see squirrels jumping from just miles away.
	Just in the distance, you could see squirrels just hopping over trying to get them.
	So squirrels love them.
	But so anyway, you guys get called in any type of environment.
	Right.
	And so that's like an example of like a business of like a kind of a travesty that happened at a business.
	And what time is, do you have a pager on you?
	How do they just phone calls?
	I am just absolutely trained now.
	I mean, you can call me at 3 o'clock in the morning.
	I'm not even awake yet, and I got the phone to my ear.
	Wow.
	And so take me on another journey Of, like, what a trauma restoration man gets?
	Well, I mean, I would say for the most part, it's people that have been deceased for a long time.
	Okay.
	Almost always, it's the post carriers that are calling it in for a wellness check.
	Yeah, because no one's picked up the mail for a week or a month or whatever it happens to be.
	Can't get any more mail in the mail slot, and they're calling for the wellness checks.
	So, I mean, you know, you get a call, and those aren't really pressing.
	You know, that's not like a 3 a.m.
	call if someone's been dead for a month.
	Right, that's a voicemail more.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And so it's kind of wild, you know, when someone dies, first you like blow it up, and then as you decompose, like goo starts coming out of everywhere.
	So it can be real bad where it's like, you know, they might have died on a bed or a couch or something, and that couch will be soaked with stuff, you know, goo.
	With human goo.
	And so that goo is what all is it, plasma, feces, blood, everything.
	And then just, you know, your inside's decomposing on you.
	Oh.
	Yeah.
	And so you guys roll in.
	Now, are you the first people to roll in or the police roll in first?
	Well, so the bodies are always going to be gone.
	So the police are going to do the wellness check and then the coroner is going to come to remove the actual body or whatever that they can remove.
	Typically, they're going to try and remove like one large piece.
	So sometimes, you know, there's still skin or depending on how long it's still there.
	Really?
	Shoes, maybe?
	Well, they weren't wearing them.
	Right.
	But, you know, and so if you died on the second floor, if you've been there for a long time, that stuff will all drip down through the ceiling underneath and then into the basement maybe.
	So all that flooring has to come out.
	So the flooring comes out, your subfloor comes out.
	If it's affected like joists, sometimes you have to do some structural removal all the way down to the concrete, basically.
	So is, and is there like legalities where if something dies in a place, if a human dies, you have to do certain things to the building?
	Yeah, so there's really stringent like processes that you have to do.
	So there's specific chemicals that have to be used that have to meet these certain regulations or standards.
	And so everything has to be removed.
	And there's a book called the S500 that is a restoration book.
	So that's going to have like your processes.
	Like if you had a question, you know, you'd be able to.
	Sorry.
	No worries.
	No, no.
	No, no, I'm not taking any calls right now.
	But yeah, so there's a book of standards.
	So there's really strict processes that have to be followed so you can avoid liability.
	So like, you know, on a water loss, if you have bad mold and someone gets sick and you signed off that that building is dry, you can be, you know, either your business or sometimes personally brought up in like courts cases.
	So you have to, everything's documented.
	Some liability.
	Yeah.
	On a large like loss, I'm doing a hotel right now in North Dakota.
	You know, it's 44 affected rooms, and I'm going to submit probably 1,100 pictures.
	Wow.
	So and then processes, moisture readings, all that stuff, you know, hours and hours and hours of paperwork.
	So you got to, yeah, so you go in there and do a lot of paperwork, too.
	It's not just you're out there, you know, cleaning up the environment.
	Yeah.
	You guys are doing a lot of the backlogging as well, documentation.
	Yeah, there's a ton of documentation that goes along with everything.
	So take me on a journey.
	If you got called in, take me into a story where it was a deceased or something like that, a non-living human.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Well, you know, I've done a bunch of them over the years, but probably the worst one I've ever done was in an apartment building.
	And, you know, so we get the call, the coroners release the scene, so everything's out.
	And this fella met the wrong end of a shotgun.
	Okay.
	And so it was a 12-gauge shotgun.
	So all those BBs went through multiple walls and through multiple apartments.
	So because those are contaminated and carrying everything, so you have to find like where all those holes went.
	So, I mean, when we got there, you know, so first thing, you know, you're going to clean up as much of the, let's call it raw material as you can so you can avoid like bug problems.
	Okay, so you got to get up all the hue, all the living, whatever could have been living or semi-living, the leftovers.
	As much as you can, yeah.
	So, I mean, you're scraping that floor off, you know, you're using like a flat blade shovel and scraping stuff off.
	Day old bread, baby, you got to clean it up.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And then yeah, so then you're setting up ozone machines, air filtration.
	You're setting up an environment.
	So like if we're in this room, you need plastic over the doors and stuff so that you're trying not to cross-contaminate anything else.
	Okay, so you tighten it up the scene.
	Okay.
	You kind of get that kind of like a plastic off the scene.
	Y'all use Viscan?
	Visqueen?
	You ever use it?
	No.
	Bring up Visqueen, Riley.
	There you go.
	Oh, sure, yeah.
	You can barely see it because it's actually see-through plastic.
	Yeah, yeah, just like that.
	Poly.
	Yeah, we just call it like poly and it comes with different thicknesses.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, they used to call it bisqueen back in the day, but okay, so you guys, you guys will kind of cordone off the scene and then what?
	So then you're going to set up, you need to have air filtration, PEPA air scrubbers.
	And this guy had taken his life or he'd been shot?
	No, he had taken his own life.
	Yeah, and so then you have to go through and find, you know, where did those all stop and did they exit the roof?
	You know, and we ended up having to do some patching on the roof too.
	Wow.
	So a guy took his own life and is there still people in the building or no?
	Yeah.
	It was in an apartment building and it was real gnarly.
	So then after you've identified everything, you're making sure the roof's not going to leak and stuff because you don't want any secondary damage.
	Yeah.
	Then it's just all about taking everything apart.
	So every affected stud needs to be taken out, replaced.
	All the drywall that's affected has got to, again, be taken out, replaced.
	And so what, and who's still in the place?
	Did he have family or?
	No, so he was the only one in that apartment, but there was other people in the rest of the apartment building.
	It's not like they moved everyone out.
	Right, I see.
	Yeah, this is an interesting guest.
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	Okay, so yeah, take me into a scenario where you had to go where there was a where there was one of the kind of the gnarlier scenarios that you had dealing with like a human corpse.
	Yeah, so the easily, easily, the only one that's ever really bothered me, the one that really kept me up was a guy unfortunately took his life in his basement with his family upstairs.
	And he had two kids, you know, teenage children and his wife were there.
	Okay.
	And they didn't leave.
	So the whole time that we were there working, they stayed.
	So we are carrying stuff.
	In the room?
	In the basement?
	Was it the room?
	They were upstairs.
	They were upstairs, yeah.
	But, you know, and normally they would always move out.
	Right.
	You know, until everything's completed and put back together.
	In this case, they did not want to leave.
	So you roll up to the place, and who are you with?
	Is it just you?
	Do you have a little buddy with you?
	This one was just me.
	So I'll generally just go for, like, I'll check it out, and if I need labor, I'll call for it.
	Okay.
	But I generally don't ever ask anyone to do these gnarly ones with me.
	Damn, you just do them like Satan's minion, baby, out there.
	Yeah.
	You know, I'll have people, but like, I never like to ask other people to do this kind of stuff because it can really kind of weigh on you.
	Okay, so, okay.
	No, I can only fathom that, and we'll get into that a little bit.
	But so you get to this one locale and what's going on.
	So, like I said, generally I'm dealing either with the police or the coroners.
	This is the only situation where I've met a family member at a suicide, particularly.
	Sometimes if someone's died of natural causes, you know, I'll meet a son or a daughter or a wife or something like that.
	But this one, I knock on the door and this lady answers the door and she was the homeowner.
	So they were still there.
	Like he's killed himself yesterday and they're all still in the house.
	And so, you know, I'm down working in the basement and I'm carrying up boxes and bags of, you know, contaminated stuff past them.
	Wow.
	So you're just bringing up like basically stuff that has like human matter on it?
	Yeah.
	Like, you know, oh, it's horrendous.
	So it's like you look at it.
	Did the man gun himself in the head?
	And so a lot of your head just kind of goes wherever?
	Yeah.
	Does your head go in one piece or does it go in a bunch of pieces?
	No, and it depends on the type of gun or the caliber, but typically it's just going to, you know, if you shot yourself with like a hollow point, you'll like blow a hole out of the back of your head.
	But if it's a, if it's like just a normal handgun or something, it's actually a pretty clean hole normally.
	Oh, wow.
	But yeah, it's this was, yeah.
	So at the end of every day, I had to tell, you know, she's asking me questions and it's just like, you know, you're looking her in the eye and saying it's like, oh, we're going to be finishing taking your husband out tomorrow.
	You know, it's crazy.
	And did they come down and want to do any prayers or did they want to like spend any time praying?
	Was there, was it, did they like the husband?
	You know, did it seem like they had a good connection with the, who knows?
	I was really trying not to talk to them.
	Oh, you were?
	Yeah, it was, that really bothered me.
	Yeah.
	Oh, I can only fathom, man.
	I mean, that's a man.
	Yeah, I'm just trying to, yeah, I guess we don't know all the circumstance, but if a man, yeah, took his life, his family's right there, I can only imagine this how.
	And then I just wonder if they're looking at you like you're helpful or like, who knows?
	I have no idea.
	Yeah, but that, man, I still think about that one.
	That one was tough.
	Yeah, and did the kids try to communicate with you or anything?
	Yeah, at least hit a damn Fairfield Inn Suites or a day's in.
	You know, and I love Hampton and actually, but Yeah, I can't imagine if that happened, then I wouldn't want some space.
	Or maybe you want to be as close as you, you know.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	But that was a unique circumstance.
	One and only time, and hopefully the last time that ever happened.
	Because it really made it, it really added another layer to it, another, you know, because you, like I said, you get really desensitized to it.
	And, you know, it's just like you're just cleaning up a mess, you know, but when they're there, it's like, I'm cleaning up dad.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Right, right.
	Like, or Alan or whatever they got.
	Yeah.
	Harold or something.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's more, I can't imagine that.
	Gosh, I'd almost feel bad in a way.
	Yeah, yeah, it really gave me the heebie-jeebies.
	And so on a cleanup like that, where do you go for lunch on a day like that?
	Like, what is, is there, do you have like a, are there some days you go for different lunches?
	But say if it's a, you know, do you have a typical spot you like to go?
	I got a real problem with Chipotle.
	You do?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I feel like I should buy stock in there.
	Maybe they should give me stock at this point.
	Oh, you've been there a lot?
	A lot of.
	Yeah.
	Well, look, I'm just saying, if, you know, what goes with cleaning up a deceased, you know, I guess it's Chipotle.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Or a couple of beers, you know.
	Yeah.
	Let's try and get through it.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	God's Chipotle, baby.
	Servezas.
	Wow, that's so fascinating.
	What about like living people?
	Do you come into like trauma where the people are still alive or is it all kind of post-life?
	Well, so trauma probably makes up sub 10% of what I do on a weekly basis.
	It's not all I do.
	So restoration as a whole, you meet a lot of strange people.
	Okay, so trauma is just dealing with the deceased.
	Yep.
	Okay, so that is specified.
	That is trauma cleanup.
	Somebody is deceased.
	Yeah.
	And if you're non-deceased, this could be part of restoration.
	Yep.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	So restoration covers that.
	It's a big umbrella of a bunch of different stuff.
	But, you know, I've done some really gnarly animal hoarders.
	Oh, yeah.
	Really, like where the floor or walls are rotting out because there's so much, you know, animal urine.
	That bootleg Noah's Ark, huh?
	Oh, God.
	I mean, sometimes you don't.
	Oh, when they got animal piss in there?
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, dude, I'll tell you this.
	So I stayed at my buddy Johnny's house one time, right?
	I'm over there.
	I don't know if anybody had ever stayed there except Johnny and one of his folks.
	So they put me in the guest bedroom.
	One of the dogs had been urinating in there for probably seven or eight years, right?
	And I don't know if anybody had been in there.
	There was like a sewing machine and like somebody had like quilted like a little thing.
	It said like be back soon or something.
	It kind of had a sad vibe in there.
	But anyway, I go in there.
	The carpet had like almost had a yellow dust in the air from all the piss.
	Yeah, it's called urea crystals.
	Is it really?
	Yep.
	Pull it up, Riley.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, those urea crystals.
	And I know a lot of bitches are buying these these days and wearing them around their neck over there in Venice Beach.
	Look at there you go.
	Look at that, boy.
	Get you a couple grams of that.
	Sell that on the beach, baby.
	That's that piss cane, baby, right there, son.
	Yeah, urine dries in that, that, oh, and it's terrible.
	And they attract.
	So every time you get humidity, they attract or they kind of rehydrate.
	So every time it gets humid, you just smell it.
	Oh, that piss comes back.
	Yeah, well, look, because I remember being at my buddy's place, and I would breathe, and sometimes I had to blow my nose.
	The air was so thick because I would have to, I would remember being like, oh my God, something feels like it's like my nose is, and it would be, I would just be blowing animal piss right out of my own nose.
	Yeah, it's horrendous.
	Just fascinating to be a part of.
	Yeah, I got a call.
	This is a few years ago now, that the HOA required, like, it was like a house, you know, and the HOA had sent her complaints because you could smell it outside.
	Wow.
	And I got there, and I mean, she must have had 30, 40 cats there.
	Now, when you roll up, are the cats on the outside or it's all inside?
	It's all inside.
	And unfortunately, I mean, this lady had something going on upstairs.
	And the other thing you run into a lot is nudity.
	Well, something's not firing upstairs, you know.
	Okay, so take me through the cat lady.
	Let's walk through that a little bit so I can just have an experience of what that's like with you.
	Do you know you're walking up to the door?
	Do you know in advance it's cats?
	Do you know it's generally just animalia?
	So what do they tell you?
	We know that there's animal issues.
	Okay.
	So not a ton of information.
	So I call her on the way there and I'm like, hey, you know, this is Rob.
	I'm going to be there about half an hour.
	And so I get there and I'm knocking on the door and she is yelling through the door, who is it?
	Okay.
	I'm like, it's Rob.
	And she's like, I don't know you, Rob.
	And it's like, I just talked to you 30 minutes ago.
	Oh, yeah, denial.
	Yeah.
	And it's just like, okay.
	And so she opens the door, no shirt on.
	And she's like, I just need to go get dressed real quick.
	Why don't you step in?
	So she, so no shirt, tits out.
	Just tits out.
	Older lady, just a set of swingers on her.
	Really?
	And did you feel like she's flirting?
	No, no, no, no.
	I mean, this lady was in her 70s.
	She's loose, so her brain's a little bit loose.
	Yeah, something's not firing on all salen.
	Okay.
	And so I step inside and I can smell it outside.
	I step inside.
	I mean, it is so horrendous.
	I mean, the eyes are watering.
	There's birds and dogs and cats.
	I mean, it is crazy.
	Oh, everything's in there?
	Everything is in there.
	Wow.
	And birds, too?
	Yeah.
	What kind of birds was it?
	Maybe a parrot or wow, parrots and cats?
	I think a parrot will kill a cat.
	Will you bring that up too, Riley?
	I'm sure it could get it.
	They're mean.
	There you go.
	Can a parrot kill a cat?
	Most parrots won't attack cats for the fun of it, but may attack out of fear or self-defense, even if the cat isn't actually trying to cause harm.
	Wow.
	That's wild.
	So my bad, man.
	So you're in there.
	You got the parrots, the cats.
	You got a lot of animals.
	Oh, yeah.
	And are they just kind of running around?
	Everywhere, yeah.
	I mean, they're just everywhere.
	So she comes back in a robe, and she's like, I got three places I need you to clean.
	At the time, I was there for a carpet cleaning call.
	Okay.
	So I get out there and she walks me in.
	And as we're walking, I mean, the carpet is wet.
	Not like damp, wet.
	Like, it is literally squishing under my feet.
	And it's just like, holy shit.
	I mean, it is terrible.
	And you can smell a piss.
	Do you have on a face mask or not?
	I should have.
	I should have.
	I made a mistake.
	But you're going up straight in there.
	You raw dog, bro.
	You're raw dog.
	Damn, boy.
	And you out there huffing sea piss, baby.
	You really get it.
	Just horrendous.
	Just horrendous.
	And so she walks me over the landing of the stairs.
	And as I'm walking out of the land of the stairs, she's like standing between me and like the exit.
	And I like walk up and I'm standing on the stairs and the stairs are soft.
	The floor is rotting.
	And she's like, oh, I just need to get this cleaned up.
	And I was just like, I don't think that this is like carpet cleaning territory anymore.
	Like, she's like, well, how much do you think that's going to cost?
	And I was like, well, I'm going to need to get bids.
	You know, we need to get carpenters and stuff out here.
	And she's like, well, how much do you think that's going to be?
	I was like, maybe $10,000, $11,000 off the top of my head.
	And she doesn't even blink.
	She's like, I thought I had a coupon for $179 for three rooms.
	And I was like, carpet cleaning is not going to help this.
	Yeah.
	And so now it's like, I'm starting to panic because this lady is just, yeah, she's like, giving me those weird, crazy eyes.
	Yeah, she's going to trade you UPC sounds.
	Oh, my God.
	And the piss is, you know, two and a half feet.
	It's creeping up the wall.
	It's soaking into the walls.
	You can see it.
	Yeah.
	And who's doing it?
	Do you know the cats are doing it?
	Can it be also human piss?
	It could have been.
	It could have been.
	It wouldn't be the first time I've had to clean up someone that's incontinent.
	Unreal.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you got it.
	So now you guys have to go in and what, get all the animals out?
	Who do you call then for help?
	Oh, well, in that case, we did not do anything.
	She just wanted us, she just wanted the carpets cleaned.
	Wow.
	I am positive that she got moved out of that.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's a situation where social services gets involved.
	Yeah.
	The H-O-A, R-D-E-R, baby.
	That's hoarder, huh?
	Is that hoarder?
	Yeah, that's called an animal hoarder.
	Yeah.
	And so is it a mental well?
	Is it mentally unwell?
	Do you see what's caused it?
	Is it loneliness?
	Do you get any idea what the root cause of it is?
	It's some sort of mental disorder.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	And they want the cats.
	And are they enjoying the cats?
	Are they petting them?
	Or is it more just trying to have a little jungle?
	Do you get any idea what they're trying to do?
	No idea.
	Yeah, like I said, I mean, it's just compulsive.
	They just keep bringing them home.
	And they can't care for them.
	You know, sometimes, you know, you find in hoarder situations, you know, you'll find cats or dogs that have been dead for a long time.
	And they don't even realize they've been dead.
	You know, you'll be clearing stuff out and all of a sudden you come across a little corpse.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	And they'll say, hey, your cat's dead.
	And they'll be like, oh.
	I threw a ball and it didn't get it or something.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know, they don't even have names for all the kids, you know.
	Oh, man.
	Dude, we had this lady when I was growing up.
	She used to give us a dime to go get her cats, right?
	This older lady.
	So she said, yeah, I got like 30 cats.
	You know, bring them in here to me.
	I'll give you a dime for each one y'all catch.
	Well, she only had three cats, but we'd go show her the cat, get that dime, and then let that bitch loose and then go get it again.
	And we just kept running these three cats till we had probably a buck fifty.
	And then go get us a little video.
	We'd do a video rental or sometimes you get a video and a pound of shrimp over there.
	They had a place called Pat's Video and Shrimp.
	Bring that up, Riley.
	Pat's Video and Shrimp.
	Pat's Video and Shrimp.
	Covington, Louisiana.
	I don't know if you still get a video store going on out there.
	Yeah.
	Oh, that's a good point.
	Yeah, I just thought they might have some old imagery.
	Yeah, yeah.
	wow, man, so you really are kind of like a...
	Or does it just feel like you are when it when it's dealing with humans, does it just feel like you are kind of like a does it feel janitorial?
	Does it get human at all, some of the feeling of it?
	No, no, never.
	And I mean, I joke about this a lot with my buddies, but I just never say no.
	And it's just like all these jobs have just escalated.
	Wow.
	And I just work for myself.
	Like, I don't have any employees or anything.
	I work as a subcontractor for other companies, typically as like a project manager.
	And so I'm using their people.
	So, I mean, I just never say no.
	And, you know, so it's just the jobs over time have just gotten worse and worse and worse and worse.
	You know, it's just like, so like when companies don't have anyone that feels comfortable doing like a small restoration company, they don't have anyone that maybe wants to do trauma or something like that.
	They'll call me.
	Bobby Cotton, the unfazable Bobby Cotton, dude.
	They call you Bobby or not?
	Regularly.
	Bobby Cotton, I get often.
	The unfazable Bobby Cotton, man.
	And they call you in.
	And so tell me like an example or something.
	Have you ever found anything unique in a property?
	You undid some flooring or something, find a treasure, find a skeleton or something?
	Not anything I wanted to find.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I mean, like I said, I found a lot of small animals, you know, found like a significant amount of money that like someone had left before.
	And hidden.
	Yeah, yeah.
	God, I like that.
	Yeah.
	What about some more like human take me on?
	A call you get, you go to a place and there's a human there and you have to interact with a human and maybe something outside of animalia, maybe.
	Well, I got another hoarder call.
	Okay.
	So this is on Christmas Eve of this year.
	And so we get the call early in the morning and it's a sewage call.
	So that just means there's different categories of water losses.
	So clean water, gray water, sewage.
	Okay.
	So this one was sewage.
	And so we get the call and I get out there and I got one other guy coming with me.
	And so I get out there first and I walk into the desk and it's a condo building.
	And they're like, hey, I just want to let you know that the source unit is up on the 10th floor or something.
	He's kind of a character.
	Okay.
	It's like, so alarm bells are already going off.
	And do you keep a piece on?
	You roll?
	No, never.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, check it out.
	I look around, you know, a couple of different floors.
	And so I got to go check to see the source unit now.
	So I knock on the door.
	And this is an old folks home.
	And I knock on the door.
	And the guy Answers the door, he's in a diaper.
	Wow.
	So he's in a t-shirt and a diaper.
	And I was like, and the smell from in here is just horrendous.
	And it's a grown man, definitely.
	Yep, yep.
	Yeah, man's maybe 75 years old.
	Oh, yeah.
	And so walk in, and I asked him, like, where's the where did it start from?
	He's like, oh, the toilet backed up.
	Okay.
	It's like, okay.
	And the man has a diaper on.
	Man has a diaper on.
	And does it seem like he's well and he has a diaper on?
	Does it seem like it's just hot?
	It's a hot day or does it seem like he's...
	Okay.
	We'll get there.
	So we walk in and there's piles of newspaper, piles of mail, and the floor is soaked.
	So again, you're just squishing.
	And so walk in, and he's going to, he's like, oh, it's back here.
	So I'm following him.
	This man's diaper is full.
	Saggy.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	So he's walking me back there.
	And you think it's piss or duty?
	It is duty.
	And so he walks, and this thing is swinging.
	Oh, wow.
	And so we're walking past, and we walk back into the back bedroom, and there's a pile of diapers.
	Okay.
	Sitting in this water.
	A pile of them, two feet tall.
	And everything, these newspapers are all sitting there.
	So now he shows me where it is and this toilet is just So now I'm looking for a broken toilet because if you've ever backed up a toilet, it doesn't just keep flowing over.
	That's that batch of dirty diapers.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh.
	And so this, this is the original cornhole game, it looks like.
	The living conditions in here are horrendous.
	And so I look at the toilet.
	I'm looking for it to be broken.
	Okay.
	It's not broken.
	And I asked like, well, so how did all the water happen?
	He's like, well, it plugged up at like 10 o'clock last night.
	And I was like, well, how did it flood everything?
	He's like, oh, I just kept flushing it.
	So for like six hours, this dude is just flushing this toilet over and over and over again.
	Like it's a video poker or something, huh?
	He's just sitting there playing it.
	Yeah, just over and over again.
	And just winning, just winning his own money, just winning his own, just winning shit back.
	So it's right there.
	So it's a full, it's a toilet and there's duty in it.
	Oh, everywhere.
	It's covered.
	I mean, it's just like somebody shotgun blasted duty all over everything.
	Oh, man.
	So we're going and we are shoveling all this stuff into bags because it's all sitting in all this water.
	Everything's garbage.
	I mean, we're talking years of newspaper, years of mail.
	This guy's just got it piled up.
	And it's all, and all the water kind of has a little bit of feces in it.
	So we finish everything out.
	We cut out all the carpet, everything.
	And the last thing we've got to do, and my buddy's there now, and the last thing we've got to do is pick up these diapers.
	So he's holding a bag and he's like trying to do it.
	And we're in full Tyvek suits, you know, so we're in plastic suits, respirators, everything.
	And he's standing there.
	He's like, I can't do it.
	I'm like, all right, I'll try.
	And I'm standing there because we were like arguing about who's going to do it.
	And, you know, so I go down and I reach for the very first diaper.
	And I'm wearing gloves and I go to pick it up right in the middle.
	And it's like a burritos.
	Oh.
	And this man is now naked from the waist down, watching us.
	So he has lost the diaper and he has told us that he can't wear the pants sometimes because he has to go to the bathroom real fast.
	No way.
	So would the pants prevent him from doing it, I guess?
	I don't know.
	I don't know what it's like.
	And you can see his wiener or not.
	Oh, yeah, right in the one-eyed Willie just hanging out.
	And what style of wiener was it?
	Was it like a real old one?
	Real saggy.
	Yeah.
	Bring up a.
	You know what they do have a chart?
	People use sometimes I've seen a bring up a mushroom chart if you can, Riley.
	A mushroom chart.
	If it's a pechorini or whatever.
	Zoom in on that a little if we can get some names off this bad boy.
	Because yeah.
	Oh, this is a poisonous mushroom chart.
	It was, in fact, a poisonous mushroom.
	That's a good point, huh?
	Man, that's not really one.
	Go back again, Riley.
	Sorry, that's too poisonous, I think.
	Let's just look at the one more.
	Hey, go down a little.
	We should have something that had some names on it.
	Okay, go up.
	Maybe go over to the left.
	Move something so I can see something.
	Just move somewhere on there.
	Are we to the left or not?
	Okay, yeah, yeah, hit on that one then.
	Let's see what we got.
	That looks like those look like a realistic ones.
	Yeah, let me see on that.
	Can you make that one big?
	Zoom in on it.
	There we go.
	Zoom in more.
	Let's see if we can see some of the names on there.
	That shaggy mane right there?
	That fly agari?
	What they got?
	That honey cup?
	What are we looking at here, you think?
	Rob, if you had to look at one.
	Oh, if you go over to the left there.
	Go to the left?
	Like something like that.
	Go.
	Porcini.
	Oh, damn.
	Okay.
	Yeah, there you go.
	Damn, he had that ballpark frank on him, huh?
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay, so, okay.
	Yeah, this guy's just now completely naked.
	From the waist down, he is Donald Ducking it.
	Okay, indeed, do you feel the responsibility to stay in there?
	Can you leave?
	Do you feel like the guy is going to attack or anything like that?
	Nothing like that.
	I feel confident in my ability to fend off a 75-year-old man.
	Okay.
	So I go to pick up the very first diapers.
	Now, there's probably 75 of these things we've got to pick up.
	And they're all sopping wet.
	And because it's sop and wet, it has lost its structural integrity.
	So I go to pick it up and my fingers just sink right into it and it is oozing out.
	And I've got a strong stomach after doing this for a long time.
	And I'm losing my lunch.
	So I rip off my mask and I just like take the one step over to the toilet.
	And I just open this toilet and it's just covered in shit.
	We didn't clean the toilet first.
	And I am projectile vomiting in this toilet.
	And I look over to the guy, the guy I'm working with is standing there.
	And he's like, oh, and he tries to get his mask on and he pukes straight into the mask.
	And he runs over to the other bathroom.
	So we're both just vomiting.
	Puking straight in your mask?
	That's like a frat party.
	Oh, God.
	So he just puked straight into his mask?
	Yeah.
	Oh, it's terrible.
	And you puked right into the toilet.
	I'm trying not to touch it.
	Oh, it's horrible.
	And so then I look up and I'm on my hands and knees on the, throwing up in the store, and I look over the door again, and this dude is standing in the doorway.
	So I'm on my hands and knees.
	I'm right looking this dude's Willie right in the eye.
	And he started yurking off?
	No, no, no.
	He was just standing in the doorway.
	He started yurking off.
	No, he's the Ryan Sandberg of creepy shit.
	He started doing that.
	Unfaced.
	This was a cycle then, baby.
	Yeah, this is just like a normal Tuesday afternoon for this guy.
	Just watching.
	And do you think low-key, he had people come all the time and created this kind of scenario?
	I have no idea.
	I mean, it was just, that's one of the worst ones I've ever done.
	And so how does that scenario get from right there to actual some sort of solution?
	Well, I mean, so everything has to be taken out.
	So like all the flooring, all the carpet, all that concrete needs to get cleaned.
	And then, you know, you just rebuild it.
	So all that drywall that gets cut out, you know, you just got to replace it, repaint it, new carpeting.
	So at some point you guys left that premises and it was nice again.
	And you put the man back in there?
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Yep.
	Man, that blows my mind.
	Yeah, that was terrible.
	And how much are you wearing, like, are you, what kind of suit are you wearing?
	Are you like an astronaut?
	Well, so that's so like the ones, the ones that you pump air into, so like if you're dealing with something like really hazardous, it's called a positive air suit.
	Okay.
	You know, if you're doing like somebody dropped a vial or something of some dangerous disease, I mean, I've done that before, but we're wearing what's called a Tyvek suit.
	So it's got boots.
	It's just one continuous suit with a hood on it and then a respirator and a set of rubber gloves.
	Wow.
	Almost like Walter Whitewear's kind of.
	Yeah, just like that.
	That is a Tyvek suit.
	That's what those are.
	So do meth heads ever roll up to you while you're going in and out of the building trying to holler at you?
	Like, is there ever that kind of vibe where people think you're making drugs?
	No, no, nothing like that.
	But, you know, it tends to attract attention.
	Yeah.
	You know, you're carrying boxes out or bags out in a full Tyvek suit.
	People want to know what you're doing.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I bet.
	I'm sure you get a lot of onlookers or people that are stopping.
	You're wanting a curious folk.
	Oh, yeah.
	And you never tell them anything.
	Really?
	Yeah, because the property owner doesn't want people to know that someone's died or that there's been a loss.
	Even some customers, like big customers, they've got stealth protocols.
	They don't want any company vehicles parked outside.
	They don't want you to wear anything that says a logo on it or anything.
	They don't want people to know that something's happened.
	Yeah, because I guess people don't want to mess up their resale value or get a lot.
	Maybe somebody or if it's a product, if they're making, you know, honey baked hams or something and somebody loses a limb, they don't want people saying, oh, they got limbs in the ham or whatever.
	Don't want anyone claiming that there's a fingernail in their ham, you know?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	They don't want people.
	Yeah.
	They don't want people kind of, I guess, just ruining their business, you know, that they work so hard for.
	Wow.
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	So are there jobs that you won't do?
	I know you said you'll do anything.
	Has there been a job that you said, you know what?
	There's been things I've regretted taking.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	You know, when you're wading through, you know, four feet of sewage and like chest waders.
	Yeah, there's been horrendous ones.
	And when you're doing that, do you feel like God is with you or you feel like you strayed from the pact?
	Do you feel any human response, like a personal, like, okay, maybe I'm making some choices that are kind of wild?
	Do you think like that you're kind of like the bare grills of like, of like, you know, duty and death?
	Well, I feel like I should have finished high school.
	Yeah.
	Did you finish?
	No.
	No, never did.
	I've been joking about getting my GED for years, but, you know, I've got my life together real well.
	And I always joked that, you know, people with GEDs, you know, they always used to say that, you know, if you only have a high school diploma or a GED, you'll make a million dollars less than if you went to college.
	And I was like, well, I don't want to do that then.
	Yeah.
	You know, I don't want to.
	Oh, you don't want to go.
	Why go get that if I'm going to guarantee make a million less?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Just not have it.
	You never hear anything about people that don't finish high school.
	Dude, well, that's freaking interesting, man, because you really have kind of, it seems like carved out your own space.
	Yeah, take me on a little bit of a journey of like, what are some of the calls that you like you wish you hadn't done?
	Is there any other one?
	Oh, there's.
	Where are you walking?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Well, I mean, the one I was just telling you about, there was a pump station.
	So where I live at, there's a river, or the Minnesota River, and they pump sewage to a facility on the other side of the river.
	Okay.
	So there's a gigantic pipe that, for whatever reason, got plugged up.
	And so this pump is running, and there is one cul-de-sac before it goes across the river.
	So there's only like six, seven houses on it that's on the other side of the pump.
	So everyone else is on, you know, this side of the pump.
	Then the pump pussy across, and there's one more spot where it goes in.
	Okay.
	So it plugged somewhere under the river.
	So this pump, a gigantic pump, is pumping.
	And because it got blocked up, it ended up forcing the sewage into those houses.
	So when I talked to the guy that lived there, he said they were sitting around in the house and then all of a sudden there was like a noise that came from like the sink and it was like shooting up like a fountain out of everywhere, out of the toilets, out of the sinks, out of everywhere.
	Of dirty water.
	Yeah, sewage.
	Yeah.
	Oh.
	And it ended up like those chocolate things they have sometime at a wedding.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Chocolate fountain of goodness.
	And so it was like shooting up and hitting the ceilings and like spraying out.
	And it ended up filling up this guy's basement.
	So we got big, you know, pumper trucks.
	And so they're taking it away.
	And so I'm in chest waders holding this hose, like sucking stuff up.
	And it keeps getting plugged from stuff in there.
	So I'm in a Tyvek suit and chest waders.
	So the hose keeps getting...
	And I mean, oh, God, it was terrible.
	And yeah, so I'm wading through sewage, like six feet of sewage.
	Yeah, it was pretty awful.
	And do you have any other little henchmen that roll with you kind of?
	Or you said it's kind of you roll in and then work with, like, do you then like subcontract other guys to help you?
	How does that kind of go?
	Yeah, so like I said, I generally I never work under my own contract.
	So it's like if you, if something happened here and I showed up and you called whatever restoration company, you'd never know that I worked for a different company or that I'm self-employed because I just typically manage those projects.
	Okay.
	But I normally show up on the data loss and stabilize the situation.
	And then there's a lot of cleanup that has to happen, demo, drawing, whatever that needs to be.
	So I'll typically use either their labor or their subcontract labor.
	So I don't typically ever hire anyone personally.
	I'm using their resources.
	Do you notice when it comes to more of the people that have some real issues, right?
	Is it more men or women?
	Do you notice, like, do you have any clue where the mental unwellness comes from?
	Do you start to get any grasp on what could have happened to some of these folks?
	Yeah, I really don't know if it's like a trauma thing or if it's just something's never quite been right upstairs or something.
	I really don't know.
	But the common thing is it seems like people just can't take care of themselves.
	And when they don't have the resources or the family to help them, everything just spirals out of control.
	And I mean, just the living situations that people are in.
	I mean, we really need better mental health something around here.
	Yeah, we need.
	I mean, I need it.
	Everybody's, we're all trying to get it.
	What about, take me on another journey, something like with some of these hoarders.
	What are some other things that you see people hoarding?
	Because you had the man with the duty diapers.
	What are some other things that people keep that you notice?
	It tends to be like dated stuff.
	So, I mean, a lot of times it's like just knickknacks or something like that.
	It's like they go to the garage sale and buy the whole garage sale, it feels like.
	Otherwise, it's, like I said, dated stuff.
	So newspapers are really big.
	Mail is huge.
	And I mean, it's like, yeah, sometimes like rooms full of newspapers, you know, for these older folks.
	And you'll find newspapers from the 80s.
	Wow.
	Is it pretty cool, some of them?
	Yeah, I've definitely flipped through some of those newspapers.
	It's been kind of neat.
	And what about any pornography?
	You notice anybody hoarding that kind of stuff or not really?
	Yeah, I mean, you do find weird stuff.
	You know, I've definitely found plenty of like Playboys and stuff like that.
	Another thing I've noticed is men hoard sex toys.
	Really?
	Yeah, I've definitely run into that a couple of times.
	I mean, we're talking 200 dildos or something.
	Wow, really?
	And is it gay men or straight men?
	Do you get any idea if it's one or the other?
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I'm not sure.
	But something phallic.
	They want to have that sort of deal.
	That's a weird one.
	Sex dolls sometimes.
	Sex dolls as well.
	Yeah, yeah, like the big ones.
	I forget what they're called.
	And what do you mean like BBW, like kind of thicker ones?
	Are you talking about like it's a They're like a real doll or something like that.
	Oh, I see what you're saying.
	And what are they made of?
	They're probably made out of.
	It feels like skin.
	Oh, it does?
	Damn.
	And so you've been in a place where guys had a couple sex dolls in there?
	Damn.
	Another weird thing is that when that movie came out, 50 Shades of Gray, a ton of people started getting like red rooms.
	And it's like a sex dungeon-y thing.
	And a lot of people kind of got off on like showing you that.
	And it's like, oh, sorry, I forgot to shut this door.
	Oh, you mean if you go to a place?
	Yeah.
	people will have that just in their house?
	Yeah, they'll like leave it open on purpose.
	Like they get excited from you seeing that or like stumbling into it.
	Have you had a lot of like, is there ever been in a place where somebody's trying to get you in there just to attract you or something or do sexual or something like that?
	No, like I said, I do some carpet cleaning too.
	It used to be really weird, so I'd clean a lot of bars.
	You'd show up at bar clothes.
	And I, oh my God, people would ask me, oh, what do you, can I help you?
	Oh, we're closed.
	Oh, I'm here to clean the carpets.
	I must have had 200 women say, oh, I hope you're here to clean my carpets.
	Really?
	Oh, yeah.
	It's a terrible beating joke.
	So you think you could have probably had sex with them, though, or at least tried to engage if they wanted to.
	I hope we could have engaged on that.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, that was just a weird thing.
	It happened all the time.
	Like, I'm here to work.
	And it's like, I'm sure there was plenty of men here at this bar for you to talk to.
	But like, I'm this new person coming in at bar closed time.
	Oh, I could see that.
	The worker comes in.
	I'm here to clean the carpets.
	It's also such like a, you know, it's almost a pickup line that a guy at the bar would be using.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And it was just, it was so bizarre.
	I don't, I don't know what that was about either.
	And what about like urine?
	Do people keep urine as well?
	I know you've had a lot of the people keep jars of urine.
	That's not, that's happened more than once where I've run into somebody that's got like shelves and jars of urine.
	Yeah.
	What is that?
	People just have like a fixation with like bodily fluids.
	Yeah, I wonder if it's they don't want to let part of themselves go or they because it's fascinating because a lot of college people do it too.
	A lot of dudes will pee in a jug or something.
	They don't want to take it to the because it's laziness.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I think anyway.
	But yeah, I always wonder why do people keep so much piss by them, some folks?
	Yeah.
	I mean, and it'll just be like jars and jars and jars.
	Small jars, like a baby freaking jar as well.
	Oh, okay.
	Mason jar, really.
	Yeah.
	Just right off of God's still, baby, that freaking kidney.
	I mean, that's happened at least three times.
	Damn, you run across some good piss out there.
	Yeah.
	It is an experience.
	Oh, I bet, man.
	It's crazy enough to even see somebody peeing in the bathroom really close or, you know, but to see them standing there with a couple jars of their own piss, I feel like seems.
	You know, we've really lost that experience since we're getting rid of all those troughs at like the stadiums.
	Oh, we are.
	So, yeah, they're not anywhere anymore.
	Oh, that team pissing?
	Yeah, yeah, where you really experience another man pissing right there.
	Yeah, you're right there.
	Yeah.
	The craziest part is when his arm is touching your arm, you can kind of feel the vibration if he's really got a fucking, you know, if he's really doing it.
	You're really connecting with strangers.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You can really feel like how each other's kind of flowing.
	It's almost like a little go-kart race, kind of.
	I feel like we're losing our community based on that, you know?
	I think so too.
	Everybody wants to piss on their own separate space.
	In the future, they're just going to give you a jar when you walk into a Jets game.
	You're going to have to, you know, keep it to yourself, basically.
	Yeah, take me down another road there.
	Take me down.
	Yeah, so I was in North Dakota for another job on Saturday.
	So I'm sleeping in this motel.
	And so I wake up and I'm sleeping with another guy in a room.
	And he's like, it's wet.
	And I was like, what do you mean it's wet?
	And he's like, the floor is wet.
	And I swung my feet off the bed and I put my feet down into puddles.
	And I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
	Like, it's chasing us.
	And I was like, did I fall asleep on a job site?
	I'm having a nightmare right now, you know?
	And so I walk out in the hallway and there's an inch of water in this entire floor.
	And I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
	Right.
	And so I jokingly text one of the contractors I work for.
	I was like, hey, I found you a job.
	And he's like, what's going on?
	And I was like, oh, you know, I fell asleep at the motel and it's flooded, you know?
	And so, and I'm just kind of joking with him about it.
	Like, someone local will take care of this, you know?
	And so we, me and this other guy hop out into the truck and we're going to go, we're going to go out to breakfast, you know.
	And so as we're pulling out, I see a restoration company pulling in.
	So I like hop out of the truck.
	I'm like, I'm going to go talk to that guy real quick.
	And so I go and I talk to this guy.
	And I'm not going to say the company name, but I was like, oh, I'm in town with this restoration company.
	He's like, you're kidding?
	And I was like, no.
	And he's like, will you walk through this job with me?
	I was like, yeah, sure.
	And so we go and we walk through the job.
	And the guy's like, oh, I just, I don't think I've got the resources to do this right now.
	It's all flooding in Graham Forks right now.
	And he's like, is this something you think you can do?
	And I was like, really?
	He was like, yeah.
	I was like, okay.
	So I call that contractor back that I was, I'm like, hey, we're going to do this job up here.
	And it's going to be a six-figure job.
	Wow.
	And he's like, and I'm like, this is why I'm your favorite subcontractor.
	I bring my own work.
	And so, but we had to get equipment all shipped up from Iowa and generators all up there.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it, you know, my guy had Sunbelt Rentals really pulled through.
	Yeah.
	That's a rental company?
	And what kind of stuff do they rent for folks?
	Everything.
	You can rent a lawnmower from them or you can rent a generator big enough to power a skyscraper.
	I mean, they rent everything.
	Forklifts, Bobkits, whatever.
	Sunbelt Rentals is the company.
	Yeah.
	Shout out to Rick.
	What's up, Rick?
	Damn, baby.
	Damn.
	Rick is usually somebody.
	Rick can go either way.
	I've met some real dicey Ricks and I've met some real quality Ricks.
	Yeah, that's where I'm going back after this, though.
	Really?
	Are you going back to...
	I got to finish that job up, and then I'm down to Phoenix for a job.
	And so is it hard to keep a personal life?
	Do you have a wife or children?
	No, I got two roommates that take care of my house.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	So do you feel like you could stay in restoration forever?
	does it wear on you as a human after a while or at a certain point, it's just kind of – I mean, the hours I work sometimes, I mean, it's not uncommon to throw in 100 hours in a week.
	So, I mean, I've got to have a retirement strategy.
	I'm putting money together to buy real estate right now.
	That's kind of my exit strategy to start buying apartment buildings.
	And then once I've got enough income from that, I'll just manage those.
	Wow.
	And I guess you get so much recon and research because you're in and out of them all the time.
	I know what to do.
	Yeah.
	You know, how not to get screwed on insurance.
	Has it been hard to date during that with that type of a lifestyle?
	Or do you just kind of make you just, I mean, has it been hard to have a serious relationship this year?
	Yeah, it's definitely hard.
	You know, it's like, I don't know, I'm on those apps a little bit.
	And, you know, I've met some girls and then, you know, it ends up not working out.
	You know, I'm gone a lot.
	I'm working a lot.
	You'd think some women would like that kind of a man that's on, you know, He's here and then he's there.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And I mean, the money's great in this industry, but yeah, there's no personal life.
	So it's like, we can go on vacation and really ball out of control.
	But it's like, I'm not going to be home every weekend or at the end of the night every night, you know.
	Well, shoot, if some ladies watch this, man, we'll have to have them chime in.
	If you ladies want to chat with Rob Cotton and you want him to come over and restore something, you know?
	Clean your carpets.
	Here you go.
	Yeah, you could definitely do that, dude.
	Yeah, a question I'm thinking of is how, do you think that you could hide a body?
	Do you learn anything from this type of stuff?
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's something that's doable.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And what gives you that knowledge?
	Just like doing it, like how you clean up a body.
	Like, I mean, you can just.
	Yeah, I mean, you, yeah, I mean, it's just like doing it, you know, it's like if you can clean blood and guts off of walls or a floor, you can just clean them the same way.
	If you actually took someone's life.
	Yeah, I mean, not that I ever would, obviously, but I think that the actual dislike, the actual logistics of making a body disappear, I think is pretty easy and pretty practical.
	But obviously, it's the making someone disappear.
	Yeah.
	That's the difficult part.
	Right.
	Do you ever look at a coroner or someone like that who comes in before you on a human trauma site and think like, man, I wish that that, like, do you ever want to get into that line of work?
	Is there anything about it that makes you think that you kind of moved a little further up the food chain kind of death?
	No, no.
	I mean, I, like I said, I'll just, I just never say no.
	So, I mean, to me, work is work.
	I have no real interest in restoration, really.
	If someone offered me $5 more an hour to dig ditches, I would dig ditches.
	Right.
	So to me, it's just about the compensation.
	I can't think of a different industry with my set of circumstances or qualifications that I could make more money doing.
	Right.
	Yeah, what can a restorator make if they have a good business going?
	Well, I mean, as a company, I mean, I think one person, like with no employees, if you were just subbing everything out, you could probably do seven figures a year.
	Wow.
	That's if you really base it well and do large loss restoration because a ton of it is just equipment.
	And, you know, if you've got good demo companies and stuff like that to do like your actual flood cuts or anything else like that, I think practically one person could probably clear a million dollars a year.
	And how far away can you smell piss from, you think, honestly?
	It really bothers me when I walk into a house because I'm so dialed into that ammonia smell a long ways away.
	A long ways away.
	Like if your dog goes outside into the backyard and I feel like when I walk into a yard, I can tell if a dog lives in that house.
	Wow.
	That's a skill, man.
	Yeah.
	That's the skill, to be able to smell piss from...
	I don't know.
	20?
	I don't know.
	20 feet.
	20 not that far.
	I mean, it's a pretty good distance smell of piss spot.
	Yeah, I guess that's true, actually.
	My bad.
	Yeah, that is true.
	My bad, man.
	Yeah, I guess I was hoping for, I guess part of me honestly was hoping for more.
	It's crazy.
	A quarter mile.
	I don't know.
	I was like, oh, yeah, he could snout a batch of freaking body sauce at a quarter mile.
	Do you think there's a time of year when more trauma happens that you notice more human trauma?
	Winter time.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	Like, especially around the holidays.
	That's when I get the most suicide calls for sure.
	I wonder what that is.
	You think?
	I mean, I guess that's kind of a known thing that people take their life around the holidays.
	Maybe they're lonesome.
	Yeah, I think it's just like, you know, people are depressed.
	You know, they're not happy with their family situation or whatever.
	And if people doing suicide, do they do more, do you ever see any rope suicide still or is it all gun work?
	Generally, I'm only going to get calls for gun stuff because there's not generally a lot of cleanup if you hang yourself.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	And it's kind of crazy.
	I mean, this is kind of dark, but it's really inconsiderate to kill yourself with a gun in a house, you know, because like now someone's got to deal with all that.
	Yeah.
	People don't think about that, you know.
	People just think about themselves when they're killing themselves, you know, unfortunately, and which is part of the issue anyway.
	Why, you know, they're just kind of stuck in their own head and their own pain.
	What about birds and bird shit?
	You run into things like that, like extensive, because I've seen birds, like, dude, I remember one time I parked over by, I guess I was going into a save a center or something.
	It could have been, what's that place called?
	Folks like to go all the time.
	Rouse's.
	So it could have been a Rouse's market.
	But anyway, I parked, dude.
	I swear to God, I was in there probably 16 minutes.
	I came out and birds had completely shit up my vehicle.
	Do you get a lot of stuff like that?
	Is it bird feasty?
	I have never gotten a call for a bird issue.
	Really?
	Never.
	Not once.
	Hmm.
	So I don't know if you can just like scrape it off or something that, you know, you don't ever need like professional intervention.
	I guess I'm thinking in a business if birds have been like sneaking up in an area and defecating for so long.
	Oh, yeah, I don't know.
	The chandelier falls in or something.
	You know, it's like, or, you know, a ceiling come in.
	You ever see the birds at like Home Depot?
	Yeah.
	Where's all that shit go?
	I've never seen a bird shit in Home Depot.
	That's a good point.
	There's lots of birds.
	Maybe they have a different level of respect for the place.
	I don't know.
	That's a good question, actually.
	A good guest.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that is a good guest.
	What do you enjoy doing on your personal time, brother?
	I've really gotten into raves lately.
	Really?
	I really like EDM music.
	Yeah, I'm looking forward.
	I'm planning on going to EDC, which is a big music festival.
	Nice.
	That's going to be good.
	And will y'all do like a lot of you do you get into some of the drug culture, the pill culture?
	It's kind of popular.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, you'll get out there and have fun.
	Oh, yeah.
	Have a good time.
	Have you ever had any drug experiences you had to call 911 on yourself?
	Never.
	Although I almost have.
	I mean, shit, I've gotten myself into trouble with too many edibles.
	Oh, my God.
	You know, you're contemplating life.
	Oh, yeah.
	When you start, I can't believe I've gotten a call for that.
	Hey, we got a guy over here who's just had too many edibles.
	That happens a lot.
	Yeah.
	I had a buddy in my fantasy football league.
	It was the night before the draft, he ate like a little bit of an edible up in Toronto.
	And next thing you know, he was just walking in a circle for about an hour and a half in his room, drinking orange juice and milk.
	Not doing well, dude.
	Those things sneak up on you.
	Yeah.
	Holy shit.
	And that's not fun, I don't think, doing that, having those beverages and just keep moving like that.
	You know, to me, that's not a party.
	No, no.
	Who do you like?
	Rufus DeSol, do you like stuff like that?
	Or do you like, like, are you getting into some like real Nordic kind of German trance stuff?
	Or what are you into?
	No, no.
	I mean, definitely my favorite for sure is Timmy Trumpet.
	He is spectacular live.
	Is he?
	Can you pull him up there, Rally?
	Timmy Trumpet.
	It's a man?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, he gets up on stage with like an actual trumpet or a trombone.
	And I mean, yeah, that's him right there.
	Yeah, he is spectacular.
	I'm seeing Steve A. Oakey in Minneapolis in a couple of days.
	That's fire.
	Yeah, it's going to be a good time.
	Nice, man.
	And so you just kind of travel around and do this.
	This is what you do.
	Will you travel?
	How many different places will you go in a year?
	I don't know.
	I mean, nothing too crazy.
	I generally stay in the Midwest.
	This one is like the first one I've done in Arizona.
	I used to before this, before I did this, I built and maintained water towers.
	That was a lot of traveling.
	Oh, really?
	You mean like in towns that have water towers, smaller towns?
	Yeah, and then transmission towers and television towers, like changing light bulbs.
	That was like four cities a week.
	That was like a traveling comedian.
	It's like that much.
	So you can climb up those towers?
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	So what's that like, take me through a water tower?
	So a water tower like in a small town or I guess, does it matter small town or big city?
	Does it I only worked in small towns.
	I mean, obviously they have them in large towns, but you know, it was a lot of times they would like just kind of put them on a hill and it wasn't even really a water tower.
	It was just like a big tank on a hill.
	Okay.
	And it's full of water though.
	And the reason for it.
	It creates the pressure.
	That's how so like the reason the water tower is up in the air is because that's what provides the pressure to your house.
	Okay.
	It's not like there's a pump or anything.
	The pump pumps it up in the air.
	And then it's just gravity is how you've got your like your pressure at your tap.
	So a lot of people don't realize that if there were no water tower in their town, they wouldn't have any water pressure.
	Is that the same in cities and in smaller towns?
	Well, if you're that small of a town, you might have a well, and then you'd have a pump.
	But if you've got like city water, yeah, that's how that works.
	Wow.
	Interesting.
	So even the water here, you think?
	Yeah.
	It's probably because there's a water tower.
	There's a water tower in the area, yeah.
	Okay, and so a larger place, will they have more water towers per population?
	Yeah, and then when you get into a big enough town like in like New York City or whatever, the water towers that provide the water towers are on top of the buildings.
	It's like those tanks that are on top of the building.
	That provides the water to that building.
	Oh, I see.
	So it'll even get more localized to the actual building where you get that little tank up top, that top tank.
	Dang.
	And so take me through that.
	So you get to a small town, you roll up on a water tower, and there's a lot of bees and stuff, I bet, huh?
	Yeah, there's bees, and then the wind is what really kills you.
	It's really not that bad because I worked on a service crew, so we didn't generally build them.
	So a lot of it was just like doing inspections, and I didn't do the inspections.
	I was just like support or changing light bulbs, you know.
	You know, those red blinking light bulbs on tall structures, there is heavy fines if those go out.
	Oh, really?
	So who fines the people?
	Who would find a town?
	Oh, I mean, I wasn't in sales.
	I mean, there was full-time sales guys.
	Right, but who finds, say if the water tower light goes out, who gets fined for it?
	Oh, whoever owns that structure.
	So like if it's a water tower, it would be the city, and that's fines from the FAA.
	Oh, wow.
	Like if you don't have functional lights, transmission towers are going to be owned by like the radio station and the television station.
	So once you get up to the actual tower, is there usually like a platform around the base of the actual water bowl or bulb?
	Yeah, so it depends.
	But generally, yes.
	There's like a walkway on the top and around the outside.
	And then it's just a stick ladder up.
	Wow.
	And how do you get onto the top?
	Because it usually rounds up.
	Bring up a water tower.
	Brother?
	What kind are we talking about here?
	So generally I worked on those top ones.
	Okay.
	Where it's like a metal tank.
	There you go.
	Let's link on one of those there, Raleigh.
	Yeah, so there's going to be a walkway, and then there's two walkways there.
	Okay.
	And then there's a ladder between them.
	And then there's generally an access panel on the top.
	Can you largeen up that?
	Yeah, so that one doesn't have the second, that one doesn't have the second walkway, but there's going to be a ladder on that tank.
	So there's a ladder that goes up there, and then there's a second ladder that'll take you from the platform to the top.
	Okay.
	And then if you zoom way in on that picture up at the very tip top, that should be an access panel right there.
	I see.
	Yep.
	And when you get, can you get into the water?
	Yeah.
	So when they do the inspections, they actually scuba dive in the tank.
	You would have to do that.
	Well, I didn't.
	But someone on the crew would, yeah.
	And that's a licensed scuba person?
	Wow.
	So somebody goes in there and what are they looking for?
	They're looking for corrosion generally.
	Okay.
	Corrosion, any like foreign materials.
	But yeah, generally it's just an inspection on the welds or the bolts.
	Make sure that it's not corroding.
	Okay, so somebody goes in there and inspects it.
	And do you guys ever find anything in those things?
	Not really.
	I mean, sometimes it would be like something that got pumped up, like some debris or a stick, but almost never.
	But nothing like the level of stuff you're finding now.
	No, no.
	The transmission towers were worse.
	You know, the transmission towers, you know, they'd be 1,100, 1,500.
	I think the tallest one in the United States is in North Dakota.
	And that one's like, I might be speaking at a turn, but it's like 2,050 feet.
	Oh, feet up in the air.
	Yeah.
	So these, you're not at a ton of risk up there for like, you said wind is a little bit issue when you're on these water towers.
	If it's a windy space, then you, you, you got to really, do you kind of like attach yourself as you're going up?
	Yeah, like in a carabina or something?
	Yeah, you, you're, you want to try and keep like 100% connection.
	So like you've got a harness on and then it's got a Y hook onto it.
	And then that Y hook, so you hook one up and then you climb a little bit, you hook the other one up.
	So you're always connected even when you're moving it.
	Yeah, like Leclerc, like that boy Leclerc.
	Have you seen it?
	The Alpinist?
	No, I haven't.
	Oh, man, it's good.
	And so when you get to the transmission towers, that's even, that's way up there.
	And what is that?
	You bring up transmission tower, Raleigh?
	Yeah, look up television tower.
	Television transmission tower.
	Yeah, so the taller your antenna is or your broadcast pole, the less power it takes to go further.
	If you look at that, you go up there?
	Yeah.
	No.
	What?
	Damn, y'all up there, huh?
	And can you hear television when you're up there?
	No, no, you can't hear any of that.
	But a lot of times they'll have cell phone towers or like cell phone antennas on there.
	You got to be careful about that because normally they'll only want to shut off one side.
	So you got to climb on one side.
	And if you accidentally climb in front of one of those like cell phone transmitters, you'll get a sunburn through your clothes.
	Yeah.
	Because they work on microwaves, I think.
	So just for like a second, you go in front of it because it's so high powered, you're like microwaving yourself.
	No way.
	So you'll take your shirt off and you're sunburned.
	From just walking through the pathway.
	If you stayed in the path, could you die?
	I'm sure you could.
	I mean, it would probably take a while, but it'd be a crummy way to go.
	And what's going through you?
	Just all the calls and everything?
	All the information?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	All that stuff.
	So that was pretty nutty.
	They find you and you just have a Nike advertisement on your chest?
	You just have a sign for butcher box.
	Wow, bro.
	That's bananas.
	Yeah, that was terrible.
	Dude, you've done some pretty unique jobs, man.
	Just don't say no.
	Wow.
	And is that a motto of yours overall in your life, kind of a little bit?
	Yeah, I really do try.
	You know, it's like, that's the only way that I feel like I've been able to maintain my personal life is it's like, I'll work like a long time.
	And, you know, it's like, well, my friends are going to a show or something like that.
	And so we'll go out and go to the show.
	Shows done at like 1.30.
	And then I'll go back to work sometimes.
	I mean, that's happened.
	But it's like, if I don't just do it, then it's like, you're just not going to have a personal life.
	And it's, yeah, it's the same thing.
	And I was like, when you work, like a lot of times I work seven days a week.
	You know, it's like, I still want to go out to brunch and stuff like that.
	You know, and even if you're tired or whatever, it is like, but if you don't like work to maintain it, it'll just go away, you know?
	I love that, man.
	Yeah, because I find sometimes I'll get too caught up in what I'm thinking or feeling instead of just staying busy with my work, you know?
	Yeah.
	And a lot of times just staying busy will keep you out of like, you know, I'll get caught up in like self-pity or just thinking about myself too much.
	It's like, I guess the busier you stay, it really does just kind of keep things moving.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And it's like, I've tried a lot of stuff.
	I'm always down to try stuff.
	I mean, it's crazy that I'm here right now.
	You know, it's like, yeah, this is crazy, man.
	It's awesome, dude.
	It's so fascinating to hear what goes on.
	Who does this kind of stuff?
	Because a lot of times we think that things just get done somehow.
	Yeah.
	You know, it's like, oh, that just gets done.
	Yeah.
	But to think that somebody actually comes and takes care of certain things, yeah, it's interesting, man, because a lot of us would never know what that's like.
	Well, and it's like my next step, what I really want to get into is I'm working on getting into large lots.
	So like, you know, million-dollar projects and stuff like that.
	But I really want to do cat work.
	And that's like the hurricanes and stuff.
	So, I mean, like when there's the hurricanes rolling through Louisiana, someone's got to clean up all that stuff.
	I want to do that.
	My buddy Giddy does that.
	And I think my buddy Tully does that from growing up.
	They travel around if there's a big hurricane or storm and they do, I guess, loss.
	But that might be insurance loss or something like that.
	Yeah, that might be an insurance adjuster.
	But you want to get in there and really do the work.
	You want to do the work.
	Yeah, like I got a good buddy of mine.
	They were down in Texas for that real bad freeze-up.
	And so, like, there was apartment buildings that every water pipe burst.
	And so, I mean, you're talking about an apartment building that's got three, 400 units in it, and every single one's wet and molding.
	And all that stuff's got to get gutted.
	Like, that's what I really want to do is I want to do the real large loss stuff.
	Wow.
	And what's fascinating about it?
	I mean, I guess obviously it's a higher paying job.
	Yeah.
	And I mean, it's just like the idea of like doing the larger jobs where it's like, I've got one job for like the next month instead of like the traveling around all the time and the middle of the night calls and stuff like that is I really like that, I think.
	And how, what do your folks think of your work?
	It's kind of funny.
	So my father just passed away.
	Oh, man.
	Yeah, thank you.
	What happened with him?
	A cancer.
	It just ate him alive.
	Yeah, it was St. Patrick's Day this year.
	No way.
	Oh, man.
	Was he pretty neat guy?
	Oh, super cool.
	I mean, he's got a really crazy life story, too, family and everything.
	Wow.
	But so when I was in high school and I was really kind of fucking things up, he pulled me aside one day and he says, you know, there's only three ways you can be successful in this world.
	You can do things better than anyone else can do it.
	You can do something no one else can do or you can do things that no one else wants to do.
	And I was like, that's what I'm going to do.
	And that was not how he meant that.
	But, you know, dude, that's a really fast.
	That's a really good square way to kind of communicate with your child.
	Yeah.
	These are sort of the options because it sounds very like, okay, that makes real clear sense.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, he was a well-spoken dude.
	He was an aircraft mechanic and my mother's a therapist.
	And where did they meet each other at?
	Through a FedEx driver.
	Oh, damn.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So my mom was working at her mother's business and their FedEx driver was my dad's friend.
	Okay.
	And so, you know, he's meeting this pretty girl at the FedEx thing.
	He's like, you're going to meet a friend of mine.
	And so literally the FedEx driver set them up.
	They were married for almost 30 years.
	That's delivery, baby.
	That's dang.
	Yeah, dude.
	And look, FedEx, I've always thought, first of all, obviously they're doing great things for people.
	I don't think Amazon's really making love like that.
	But FedEx, man, they should do airline.
	Because there's been times where I've mailed a package somewhere and then I tried to fly this commercial airline and I quit.
	They're like, we have something that flies delayed or whatever.
	But the package is, that thing goes out every time.
	Yeah, if it doesn't get there in a day, they'll refund you.
	Dude, if FedEx did an airline, I would be all over that, like a commercial airline.
	It'd be so sick.
	Yeah.
	Well, I bet your dad was really proud of how you became just so much of your own ingenuity, you know, and just taking control of your own destiny.
	Yeah, I mean, he definitely shared with me that, you know, because I moved out, you know, and I just dropped out of school.
	I moved out of the house.
	Yeah, those are like warning signs to a parent.
	Yeah, they were like, oh, we really weren't thinking this was going to work out, you know?
	And it was like, well, made it work somehow.
	Do you think there's any way to avoid trauma in the world?
	We'll just finish with this question.
	Like I said, man, I just think that there's got to be better mental health something.
	I don't know the solution.
	I don't pretend to know the solution, but just like more care for people that can't get care of themselves.
	Yeah.
	You ever roll up anybody and they're in a costume or something like that?
	They're dressed like a, you know, they got a crown on or anything like that?
	No, nothing crazy like that.
	But like I said, I deal with some people that are maybe not firing on all cylinders.
	Oh, yeah.
	And nudity is the thing that happens a lot.
	That's the first thing you know.
	Yeah, if somebody's nude, you kind of see your science.
	Yeah, there's a glitch.
	There's a little glitch in the system.
	Dude, we had a guy bus.
	He used to poop in this.
	He had like a vase in his town or vase or vase.
	And in his house, and he would tell us, go look in the vase, right?
	And we'd be pooping there.
	And we'd always be like, there's not still going to be pooping.
	It'd be like a year or two later, dude.
	And every time there was still, it was like, oh, come on, man.
	But it's crazy how many times you'll go back to the well sometimes when somebody's tricking you, you know, shit tricking you.
	Shit, tricking you.
	Bobby Cotton, dude, thank you so much for coming in, man.
	Good luck out there at the Raves.
	And thank you.
	First of all, I just want to say thank you so much for just for getting things back to their original form, man.
	For repairing things that need to be repaired in the world.
	Yeah, and thanks for having me.
	I really enjoyed this.
	Yeah, this is awesome, man.
	Thank you so much for your time, man.
	And we'll share Rob's socials if you guys want to hit him up.
	And yeah, that's Trauma Cleanup, man.
	Rob Cotton.
	Thank you, Bub.
	Thank you.
	Now, I'm just floating on the breeze.
	And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
	I must be cornerstone.
	Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found.
	I can feel it in my bones.
	But it's gonna take a little time For me to set that talking brake And let myself unwind Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me
	And I will find a song I will sing it just for you I've been moving way too fast On the runaway train with a heavy load of my past Yeah.
	And these wheels that I've been riding on, they're walls so thin that they're damn near gone.
	I guess now they just weren't built to lay.
	Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
	The answer may shock you.
	Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
	Sometimes I won't.
	And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
	You have three new voice messages.
	A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
	I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
	So great.
	Hi, Sweet.
	Easy to you.
	Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
	German.
	I'll take a quarter bottle of cheese to add a bit quarter.
	I think Tom Hanks just buttiled me.
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	Tell everyone about Kite Club.
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