Mike Rowe didn”t have a hard time finding some really vile work in this week”s episode of Dirty Jobs, because he spent the whole show in New Orleans. He rode with the rodent and mosquito abatement crews, highlighting the issue of non-human life that”s thriving in a very disturbing way. Most interesting was how they combat the problem of swimming pools at destroyed houses that are now huge mosquito breeding grounds – they capture mosquito-larvae-eating fish in canals and transfer them to the swimming pools.
But half of the show was spent with a demolition crew at a house in St. Bernard Parish that apparently hadn”t been touched since Katrina (the show was shot in October of this year). Mike did a decent – but not great – job of driving home the magnitude of the situation down there and generally kept a respectful tone as he helped throw all of this family”s ruined possessions out on the curb before gutting the house.
And since the house hadn”t been touched since the flood, the kitchen was full of rotting, molding food, high-living mice and hundreds of the biggest roaches I”ve ever seen. They had to throw out everything in the kitchen – apparently the refrigerator rot gets less foul over time – before ripping out the cabinets and walls, so Mike rooted through the roach-filled cabinets to toss out the dry goods.
In a great moment, he paused while chucking one particular item:
If you don”t know what that is, I”m not going to tell you. A real shame. I like to think that Mike paused in appreciation for the little guy”s service and in recognition of the loss.
Thanks to Dirty Jobs for giving a little attention to the fading tale of New Orleans” struggle.
