0:00

Hey, everyone, do you live in Washington,

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DC? Are you sitting around fretting

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about this upcoming election? Maybe you're

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even working on one of these campaigns. Well,

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we've got a great stress reliever for you, and

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Know Live.

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Yeah, we guarantee zero political

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jokes, one percent zero

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political jokes if you come out and see us.

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We're gonna be in Medford, mass on May

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twenty ninth. The next night, we'll be in DC

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on May thirtieth, and then the night after that

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we'll be at our old friend, the Town Hall in Manhattan

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Town, NYC.

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That's right, So check out tickets. You can go to stuff

0:36

youshould Know dot com, you can go to the theater

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websites themselves, avoid those

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secondary ticket brokers, or check

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out our link tree, right Josh.

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Yeah, link tree sysk

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Lot.

0:50

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production

0:52

of iHeartRadio.

1:00

You and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's

1:02

Chuck and Jerry's here too, and it's

1:04

just the three of us, Oscar the Grouch

1:07

in it here on Stuff you Should Know.

1:11

Yeah, I think this I think there may be

1:13

one more in this sort of semi

1:16

suite that we've been tackling

1:18

over the years, which is to say, the

1:21

the operations of New York

1:23

City.

1:23

It's fascinating stuff.

1:25

I love it because every time I'm there, I'm like,

1:28

yeah, how do they deal with all

1:30

this trash and deliver all that mail? So if

1:33

mail is interesting enough, well, I'm gonna do a little

1:35

research and see if New

1:37

York City mail is worth

1:39

its own deal.

1:39

Okay, we did one on the

1:42

USPS before.

1:44

Oh, sure, that was as done stuff

1:46

on landfills and all kinds

1:48

of things. But New York City is very specific

1:51

to its own self.

1:52

Yeah, as they say, living

1:54

it up between the Moon and New York City. I

1:57

can't remember the rest living it up.

2:00

Yeah, and then he says, no,

2:05

I like, it's

2:07

if you get caught, But I like, I

2:10

like.

2:10

Living it up better too.

2:15

All Right, so we're talking New York City trash,

2:17

Chuck. I

2:20

didn't ever really give much thought to it.

2:22

I've been in New York plenty of times and have been like, wow,

2:24

there's a lot of trash everywhere all the time,

2:27

some of it in bags, some of it on the street,

2:30

some of it in overflowing trash containers.

2:33

But it turns out that it

2:35

is an enormous issue and has

2:37

been an ongoing and very long standing

2:39

issue in New York. And

2:42

they now have a mayor and a sanitation

2:44

commissioner who's like, enough, it's done.

2:46

We're cleaning the city up once and

2:48

for all. And what's yeah,

2:51

Eric Adams, he's got a whole

2:53

like, his whole campaign is

2:55

called get Stuff Done, and

2:58

the the trash branch of

3:00

that is get Stuff Clean. And

3:02

just Katish, the new garbage

3:04

commissioner is from one of the wealthiest

3:07

families in America, possibly the world.

3:09

Oh wow, who's decided to dedicate

3:11

her career to civil

3:14

service, specifically in New York. So she's worked

3:16

in a few agencies and now she's the

3:18

head of the Sanitation Department

3:20

the dsn Y and

3:24

is basically just like steamrolling through

3:26

with new changes and just being

3:28

like, oh, I don't care. That's the way you used to do it. Apparently

3:30

it's wrong because it didn't get it done. We're doing it this way

3:32

now. So they're actually making huge enormous

3:35

changes by leaps and bounds that seem like they

3:38

actually possibly could clean New

3:40

York up in the next couple of years.

3:42

Do you know what how the Tish family,

3:45

what their deal.

3:46

Is, what the what

3:48

their deal is like, how they communicate Thanksgiving?

3:51

Well name, he said, one of the wealthiest families

3:53

in the world.

3:54

I was kind of curious, Oh, I get

3:56

what you mean.

3:56

So what from or whatever?

3:58

Her father is the CEO of

4:01

like the Loew's theaters, the Loewe's hotels.

4:04

Apparently they own a distilling

4:07

brand like the parent companies, the CEO

4:09

of the parent company. But

4:12

I have a feeling like

4:15

her family is like legacy wealthy. That's

4:17

my impression.

4:18

Yeah, New York NYU has

4:20

the Tish School of Arts, but I'm sure it's the same

4:22

family.

4:23

Yes it is. As a matter of fact, there's a really

4:26

interesting profile on her

4:28

and the New York Sanitation Department

4:31

in the New Yorker of all places, and

4:33

they rattled off like three different things

4:35

that are named after her family. So, yes,

4:37

they've been around for a while. But apparently

4:40

it's pretty cool. She's like, I'm

4:42

incredibly wealthy, but I'm going to go, you

4:44

know, work my way up in New York bureaucracy.

4:47

You know, it's really pretty

4:49

incredible. So should we go back

4:51

in time.

4:52

Yeah, let's yeah.

4:54

We've talked before about what old New York

4:56

was like, and when you see movies about

4:59

old New York, they you know, they might

5:01

grunge it up a little bit, like Scorsese's

5:03

Gangs of New York probably did one of the

5:05

closest, truest depictions

5:08

of early New York and just kind of how disgusting

5:10

it could be. And we've talked about

5:12

the amounts of manure

5:14

from horses on the sides of the street,

5:17

but it was really really gross.

5:19

New York was a disgusting place back

5:22

in the day. They did have a law,

5:24

and this show's kind of got it, has kind of got it

5:26

all. It's got like amazing facts

5:29

of the episode. Right off the

5:31

bat. We have a great album title, which

5:33

was this law from the sixteen fifties that banned

5:37

tubs of odor and nastiness. If

5:40

that's not like a stooge's album title or

5:42

something, I don't know what is, but

5:45

it was gross.

5:48

I think the first fact of

5:50

the podcast for me is that about

5:52

twenty percent of Manhattan,

5:55

or really the whole metro area is

5:57

built on land that didn't

6:00

used to be there. It's literally land that

6:03

came from garbage, bill

6:05

from construction debris, dirt

6:08

from the subway project. Like

6:11

Lower Manhattan in particular, just

6:13

kept growing and expanding in

6:15

size. And here's another

6:17

fun fact on that Ellis Island is

6:20

twenty eight acres now it started

6:22

out as three acres. Oh wow, It's

6:25

was literally built from I

6:27

guess just waste.

6:29

Yeah, because I mean, if you think about

6:31

it, if you just go dump one load off

6:33

of an island, you

6:35

you've just littered. But if you keep doing

6:38

it, you're developing the land.

6:40

It becomes art.

6:40

Yeah, it's got to stick with it, and eventually

6:43

it becomes an okay thing. Right.

6:45

Yeah, It's really pretty incredible to think

6:47

about that when there are overlays that show,

6:49

like, you know, how Manhattan, Lower

6:52

Manhattan grew just

6:54

from dumping stone.

6:55

Oh yeah, oh, but there's pretty cool maps

6:57

like that. I love that kind of stuff too, Like I love

6:59

walk looking around and being like, what was this building

7:02

originally? You know what used to be here?

7:04

I asked that out loud.

7:06

Sometimes, right, just the

7:08

building never answers that.

7:09

No. So this is not the

7:12

first time, under Eric Adams and Jessica

7:14

Tish that a New York administrator

7:17

has tried to clean the city up. Plenty

7:19

have tried, but the last truly

7:21

successful one was in

7:24

the century before last a

7:26

Civil War. I think colonel a Union colonel

7:28

named George Waring who

7:31

became the head of the Department

7:33

of Street Cleaning, which is what the sanitation department

7:35

was called back then, and

7:38

he cleaned up the city starting around eighteen

7:41

ninety five. But he was not the first head

7:44

of the Department of Street Cleaning. That department

7:46

was almost twenty years old by the time

7:48

he came along. But it had just basically

7:51

been a place where Tammany Hall and the political

7:53

machine gave jobs

7:56

to supporters,

7:58

political supporters, and it was like, you don't need to show

8:00

up to work, You're still going to get a paycheck kind of thing.

8:03

Yeah. I mean, they either did that or they outright just

8:06

stole money that was allocated for those cleaning

8:09

up projects to begin with. I

8:12

saw a name back

8:14

then in the eighteen hundreds that the sledge

8:17

of just manure and garbage and

8:20

cess sess a thing.

8:22

I guess cess is the best.

8:28

Pol I know it says pools that they is

8:30

sess the thing in the pool.

8:31

I would think so, all right, anyway.

8:34

They called the sledge that lined the streets

8:37

corporate pudding no gross,

8:40

because I guess it was just you know, it

8:43

wasn't getting cleaned up because all that money, like I said,

8:45

was either stolen or reallocated and

8:48

to cronies. There's someone named Robin

8:50

Nagel who's an NYU professor

8:53

who it's an unpaid position

8:55

but has basically worked as the unsanctioned

8:59

unsalary anthropologists

9:02

from for the Sanitation Department

9:04

of New York and just has an incredible

9:07

amount of knowledge about the stuff.

9:08

Yeah, we've talked about Robin Nagel before, and

9:10

George Waring and the changes

9:13

he made so supposedly you can

9:15

look at Harper's Magazine between

9:18

eighteen ninety three and eighteen ninety five, and

9:20

it's like it's like George

9:23

Waring came along and waived a magic wand

9:25

like the difference is so distinct.

9:28

Like he created kind of like a military type

9:31

institution hierarchy. He

9:34

outfitted as people with white

9:38

outfits designed by John Paul

9:40

Gautier and

9:43

pith helmets, and they went around

9:45

and they cleaned up New York. And apparently they

9:47

throw parades for him once in a while because

9:49

they were just so successful and loved and revered

9:51

because they did such a good job.

9:54

But you can see the difference between these

9:57

photos and Harper's Weekly that Robin Nagel

9:59

had. And I think we talked about all this

10:02

in the Typhoid

10:04

Mary episode. I think it was in the beginning.

10:07

Of that one, that makes sense.

10:08

I'm pretty sure that's where it was.

10:10

Yeah, I imagine George Wern came in on day

10:13

one. It was like, for starters,

10:15

how about you get that dead hog off the side

10:17

of the road.

10:19

Somebody's like, she did it.

10:22

He was famous, by the way for designing the Memphis

10:25

sewage system after the Civil

10:27

War. Before New York. They're

10:29

like, hey, he did such a good job, you know, working

10:32

out the or sewage. I guess in Memphis.

10:35

Come on to New York because we have sewage in the streets.

10:37

Nice. He worked his way up. Yeah,

10:40

if you could make it in New York sanitation,

10:42

you can make it anywhere with sanitation,

10:45

believe me.

10:47

So as things were going,

10:50

they had landfills that came along, obviously,

10:52

but a lot of the trash was handled by incinerators.

10:57

Still is just great controversy, as we'll

10:59

get to later, but a lot of these smaller

11:01

apartment buildings had their own incinerators.

11:04

They would just burn their trash.

11:07

The city was like, this is an air

11:09

quality nightmare, imagine, So

11:12

let's ban these things. And

11:15

I thought it said eighteen eighty nine, but they were

11:17

banned finally in nineteen eighty nine.

11:19

Yeah, that tracks. I

11:21

mean, it wasn't until the nineties that New York really

11:23

started to kind of turn around some.

11:26

No, that's true.

11:27

So one of the other things they did, aside from banning

11:29

individual buildings having incinerators,

11:32

which just seems like madness in retrospect,

11:35

you know what I mean, kind of does. Yeah,

11:38

they also started slowly

11:40

shutting down the

11:42

landfills that were within the city limits,

11:45

and finally the last one, Fresh

11:47

Kills on Staten Island, was

11:50

famously shut down in two thousand

11:52

and one, and the one of the reasons

11:55

it became famous is it was the landfill

11:57

that accepted a lot of the waste from the

12:00

Twin Towers after the World Trade

12:02

Center attacks, and that

12:04

was it. It's kind of like kind of fitting, you

12:06

know what I mean, in a really weird, bittersweet, poetic

12:09

way.

12:09

Yeah, like a turning of the page, I guess.

12:11

So, yeah, but that was

12:13

it. So the thing is is New York still

12:15

has tons of trash that

12:18

they accumulate every day. I mean, just as

12:20

we'll see a mind boggling amount of trash is generated

12:22

by New York every day and

12:25

they have trouble getting it off the street.

12:27

But then also they're starting to find

12:29

like we are having problems identifying

12:32

where to send this trash.

12:34

Yeah, for sure. So

12:36

getting back to wearing, back

12:38

then, he was like, all right, we gotta we

12:40

got to figure out a way to get

12:43

this trash. Like people just throw it in

12:45

the street, and Wearing is like that that's

12:47

not a good system. I don't know if anyone's noticed,

12:50

but just throwing your trash out of your literally out

12:52

of your windows sometimes of your apartment isn't

12:54

the way to go about things if we want to live a

12:56

healthy life as a city. And

12:59

so so why don't we get trash

13:01

cans? You mentioned Oscar the Grouch.

13:03

They were just sort of the standard metal

13:06

Oscar the Grouch cans for

13:08

a long long time until nineteen sixty

13:10

eight when there was a sanitation strike

13:13

that was only nine days long. But it

13:15

doesn't take long for a sanitation strike

13:17

to really I guess,

13:20

get a little steam not New York, a

13:22

little steam going, because there were one

13:24

hundred thousand tons

13:26

of garbage on the city streets

13:28

by the end of that nine days, and it was just

13:31

a mess. So they said,

13:33

all right, how about this. These

13:35

trash cans were working for a long time, but

13:38

you're just dumping your trash right in these cans. Why don't

13:40

you put it in trash bags inside

13:42

the can, And very sweetly,

13:44

they thought that that might help the rat situation,

13:47

like contain the smell enough where rats

13:50

wouldn't get to it, which is kind

13:52

of cooky to think about. Course, rats, we'll get

13:54

to trash anywhere. And

13:56

it was better than you know,

13:59

lifting up these heavy trash cans,

14:01

because they could just pick the bags out

14:03

of the trash cans and throw them in. And then

14:05

finally, just a few years later in seventy one, they said,

14:07

let's just get rid of these cans and just

14:10

put it in bags and put it out on the sidewalk.

14:12

Yeah, that's one of the greatest,

14:14

most important cities in the world. Just leave our

14:16

trash laying around in bags for

14:19

hours on end, multiple times a

14:21

week, every week. Let's do that

14:23

instead, because you can stick them anywhere.

14:25

They'll fit anywhere. Yeah,

14:27

and that's one of the challenges that New York has

14:30

is it lacks a lot of the alleys

14:32

and a lot of the little

14:34

side well alleys I think is good enough

14:37

to where people in other cities store trash

14:39

cans and trash bins like seeing

14:42

people. So instead they

14:44

have to use these trash bags and basically tuck

14:46

them wherever they can kind of

14:48

out of the way, and very frequently not out

14:50

of the way. You have to walk around them on the sidewalk pretty

14:53

often too. So that

14:55

is that's the state of

14:57

New York trash collection.

14:59

Now.

14:59

People leave their trash out and bags on the

15:01

sidewalk. The sanitation department workers

15:03

come along and pick up the bags and throw

15:06

them in the trash manually,

15:08

throw them in the garbage trucks

15:11

manually. And this is staggeringly

15:14

behind the times, Like garbage

15:16

technology has advanced by leaps and bounds

15:18

since then, in New York just because of

15:21

some of its unique characteristics

15:23

and traits, has had a really hard time

15:25

implementing them like other cities have.

15:28

Yeah. Absolutely, but

15:30

like you said, there's good news on the horizon. You

15:33

want to take a break now, yeah, all right,

15:35

we'll take a break, good little setup, and we'll

15:37

come back and talk about just how much trash

15:39

there is right after this. All

16:05

right, so we promised talk of just how much trash

16:08

New Yorkers produce. I

16:10

don't think, like per person, they're

16:12

creating an exceptional amount of trash. Not

16:14

picking on New Yorkers. Sure, there's just a lot

16:16

of people there, eight hundred

16:18

thousand, more than eight hundred thousand residential

16:20

apartment buildings, and they

16:22

produce about four and a half

16:25

million tons of

16:27

just residential trash every year, So

16:30

twenty four million pounds a day, or about

16:32

twelve thousand tons per day

16:34

of just residential people

16:37

trash from apartments.

16:38

Yeah, so every day they

16:41

generate an equivalent weight of

16:43

trash to fifty million, five

16:45

hundred and twenty six thousand, three hundred

16:47

and sixteen big macs.

16:49

I knew something like that was coming.

16:51

That's a lot of big max. Imagine all of

16:53

that being produced every day.

16:55

Is that netweight after cooking?

16:57

Sorry, that's yes, that's the completed

16:59

weight. That's what you get when they

17:01

put it on the tray.

17:02

Okay, gotcha.

17:03

And what's interesting is eating either one has

17:06

about the same impact on your health. Uh,

17:09

that's good, thank you.

17:12

It's mourning for us, which is unusual. So I'm a little

17:14

slower, yeah, and a little

17:16

little less giving with my laugh count.

17:19

As long as I'm getting a little bit of it, A

17:21

little bit goes a long way.

17:22

You've had plenty. You got me right off the bat there with the

17:25

what was that first.

17:25

Joke that really got me the Oscar the grouch

17:27

one?

17:28

No, that was okay though, Oh.

17:30

The mistaken living

17:33

it up in New York City.

17:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that got me going right off

17:36

the bat. So you

17:39

would not be surprised to learn, h dear

17:41

listener that the ds n Y, which

17:43

is the New York City's sanitation

17:45

department, is the largest in the country. One

17:49

reason is obviously because there are so many people

17:51

in so much trash, but also

17:54

New York is a little bit unique among

17:56

large cities and that they

17:58

are responsible or more trash

18:01

than other large cities are.

18:03

Yeah right, Yeah, a lot of other cities.

18:06

They still handle some like maybe

18:08

houses or something on the outskirts of town

18:10

or in neighborhoods, but you know,

18:12

the apartment buildings and commercial

18:14

stuff, all that's handled by private

18:16

companies. And then in other cities, that's all

18:18

private companies these days in some cases

18:21

too, especially suburbs. But

18:24

yeah, with New York, they're like, nope, we're going to handle

18:26

it. If you're a resident, we're going to take care of your.

18:28

Trash, that's right. And

18:30

as we'll see they on the private side, they handle

18:32

the commercial trash that's coming up

18:34

shortly, but as far as the residential stuff

18:37

goes, they collect from

18:39

each residential building two or three

18:41

times a week. There are fifty

18:43

nine different districts

18:46

that cover New York, each having its

18:48

own garage that house more

18:50

than two thousand collection

18:52

trucks over those fifty nine districts.

18:54

Yeah, and that's just the collection trucks. They have

18:56

other kinds of trucks too.

18:58

Yeah, I saw that. I

19:01

was trying to find out about maintenance of these things. But

19:03

collectively, the just the garbage trucks

19:05

of New York drive about four and a half million

19:08

miles a year.

19:08

That's crazy.

19:10

Yeah, it's a lot of miles.

19:11

So yeah, they have all sorts of different trucks.

19:13

This is where the part of me who

19:16

was once a little boy who loved looking at picture

19:18

books of like Caterpillar earth

19:20

movers and those giant Volvo dump trucks

19:22

really kind of came back to the surface. But

19:25

they've got some dual bin models and

19:28

if you look at them, they basically do what

19:30

it says on the tin. There's half divided

19:33

into half for trash and the other half for a recycling

19:35

so you can pick up both on the same day at

19:37

the same time. Yeah, they

19:39

have top loaders that you

19:41

know, go up to like a dumpster and just pick it

19:43

up and shake it like

19:46

an enemy you might on

19:48

the street who weighed much less than you,

19:51

all right, And then they

19:53

also have just the regular kind that are called the white

19:55

elephants, and those are just so incredibly

19:58

massive. Each

20:01

of the New York City regular

20:03

single bin garbage trucks

20:06

can hold twelve tons of

20:08

waste.

20:09

That's incredible.

20:10

A full size American

20:13

standard school bus weighs fourteen

20:15

tons, so they fit almost

20:17

a school bus weight of

20:20

trash in just one single truck

20:22

at a time.

20:23

How many big backs is it?

20:25

I didn't do that one.

20:26

Okay. This is the other fact

20:28

of the podcast for me is that every

20:30

garbage truck in New York has two sets

20:33

of steering wheels and pedals on both

20:35

sides, So either person can drive

20:38

and no matter who's driving,

20:41

each brake pedal is live. So

20:45

if someone doesn't see somebody and the person that's

20:47

not driving see someone, you know, dart

20:49

in front of the garbage truck, they can hit the brakes

20:51

as well.

20:51

Yep, it's a

20:54

good idea. They also have street sweepers

20:56

aka mechanical brooms, and

20:59

I should say I've seen those are starting

21:01

to be rolled out in electric versions, but apparently

21:04

they're trying to slowly electrify

21:06

their entire fleet. It seems like

21:08

street sweepers were one of the first to be

21:10

electrified. Salt spreaders,

21:13

snowplows, front end loaders, basically

21:15

everything you could possibly need to clean up and clear

21:17

trash. The New York City

21:20

Department of Sanitation has.

21:21

It, yeah, for sure. And if you're like, well,

21:23

why do they have snowplows

21:26

and all that kind of stuff, is because

21:29

besides trash and recycling and

21:31

composting, which there is sort of a

21:33

newer program, and

21:35

it came about because it's a big

21:37

problem. I think about twenty percent of

21:40

New York City's garbage's food waste. Man,

21:43

they can really really cut down on that with a

21:45

good composting system.

21:47

In the city, but they're working on that. We'll get

21:49

to that later. But they have to clean

21:52

vacant lots. They're the ones who remove the

21:54

snow. Here's another

21:56

fun fact. If there's a car on

21:58

the street that has the license

22:00

plates torn off of it and someone

22:02

has just dumped it and it's worth under twelve

22:05

hundred and fifty dollars, the

22:08

police say, that's a garbage

22:10

car. It's not our responsibility, so

22:12

it's the DSNY has to take

22:14

care of it.

22:15

Yeah. So I looked up a

22:18

little bit on that and I couldn't find how they

22:20

make that assessment of how much the thing is.

22:22

Worth Kelly Bluebook.

22:25

I guess I would think just by virtue

22:27

of having the license plate removed and it being abandoned

22:29

on the street would indicate that it was worth less

22:31

than twelve hundred and fifty dollars.

22:33

You know, usually

22:35

the fifty dollars is what kills me, like

22:39

that's where they landed instead of just twelve

22:41

or thirteen hundred. Yeah, hey, I guess it was

22:43

a formula.

22:44

Similarly, they also clean up abandoned

22:47

bikes that are like chained to public property

22:50

if the bike can just no longer be ridden because

22:52

it's so bent or it's missing some essential

22:54

parts, they will take care of it. They'll clip

22:57

that chain and throw the whole thing

22:59

away. But if you have a bike that you want to get rid

23:01

of, you don't have to abandon it in New York City.

23:03

You can take the wheels off, put them

23:05

in with your trash, and then you can put the bike

23:07

itself out with your recycling.

23:10

Oh very nice.

23:11

Yeah, I thought so too.

23:13

And as if that wasn't enough last year

23:15

in twenty twenty three, Eric Adams,

23:17

the mayor, said all right, you also

23:19

now have to regulate and

23:22

enforce street vendors. You got to clean up the highways

23:25

and take care of the graffiti in

23:28

New York. And I'm sure they were like, great,

23:30

it's not like we didn't have enough to do already.

23:32

Well, what's interesting is that's creating

23:34

a lot of grumbling because there's a lot of jobs

23:36

from other agencies that are just being taken.

23:39

Oh, I'm sure.

23:40

And the justification is like, hey, you're

23:42

doing other stuff. You have other stuff to focus on,

23:44

so this part has become kind of low priority.

23:46

So it makes sense the Department of Sanitation

23:49

would clean up graffiti. We're cleaning up the

23:51

whole city. And apparently there was

23:53

a backlog of one thousand requests for graffiti

23:55

removal. They cleared eight hundred of them

23:58

in one month. So they're doing

23:59

work there.

24:01

That's awesome. I mean, I like good graffiti,

24:03

like graffiti art.

24:05

Yes, So if you're a resident of

24:07

New York, you put in a request for graffiti

24:09

removal. You can also request

24:12

that graffiti be left alone. And

24:15

there's like this whole procedure and process,

24:18

but they give you like a certain amount of time between

24:20

the time you say I want this graffiti removed

24:23

and then the time they come out, I guess,

24:25

to give you a chance to really

24:27

think about whether you want it removed or not, and

24:29

then they'll remove it.

24:31

Yeah, Like do you want the vulgar

24:34

tag just spray painted across the front

24:36

of a business removed? Or is it

24:38

art?

24:39

Exactly depends on who did it.

24:41

I guess. So eight

24:44

thousand sanitation workers total, two

24:46

thousand other employees well

24:49

eight yeah, so I guess that's ten thousands total,

24:52

but eight thousand actual, you know, sort of. You

24:55

know, bag slingers and cleaner

24:57

uppers. They're known as New York's

24:59

Strong. They are ninety

25:01

percent mail, right, now, so

25:04

props to that ninety percent, and really

25:06

props to that ten percent of

25:09

these ladies that are getting in there and getting

25:11

their hands dirty, because it is tough,

25:13

tough, dangerous work.

25:16

Yes. So one of the things,

25:19

one of the reasons that it's particularly dangerous

25:21

for sanitation workers in

25:23

New York is again because they use bags.

25:26

They're not in cans. If you've not been to New York,

25:28

just imagine bags of trash

25:30

just piled everywhere. The problem

25:32

is when they're grabbing them and

25:34

throwing them in the truck, they're

25:37

probably trying to avoid garbage juice,

25:39

which is a very distracting thing. It's very

25:41

gross. It's rarely harmful, but

25:44

you don't want it on you, but it can distract

25:46

you from things that can harm you, like

25:48

some rusty, sharp thing poking out of

25:50

the bag that you put your hand on. There's

25:52

a lot of hazards. Sometimes

25:55

the stuff that's in there could pose

25:57

a hazard to you in other ways, like garbage

25:59

juice. There's an article

26:01

I found from nineteen ninety six where sanitation

26:04

worker named Michael Hanley died because

26:06

some jerk threw hydrofluoric

26:09

acid away in with the regular

26:11

garbage and when it was compressed in

26:13

the hopper, it exploded and

26:15

Hanley inhaled it and died basically

26:18

on the spot.

26:19

Yeah, I mean that's the thing that happens

26:21

when that hopper, you know, squishes

26:24

all that stuff down, there's

26:26

gonna be stuff that sprays out. They you know, try

26:28

to get out of the way, but sometimes they can't.

26:31

And Olivia found this another fun

26:33

little factoid here that apparently

26:36

enough of that garbage juice is coffee

26:39

related that whatever season

26:42

it is, if it's like pumpkin, spiceason and whatever,

26:44

the sanitation workers just like it's

26:47

like, oh God, here comes the pumpkin this you

26:49

know, this fall.

26:50

Yeah, I can imagine that just gets

26:52

really old, really fast, you imagine,

26:54

Yeah, because it's the worst version

26:56

of that coffee. It's not hot and

26:59

fresh and in the it's

27:01

cold and runny and mixed with other stuff and

27:03

leaking out of a garbage bag.

27:04

Like hydrofluoric acid.

27:07

So there's also it's also just hard,

27:09

Like a lot of this stuff is very heavy. You can fit

27:11

a lot of stuff into a trash bag, and

27:13

apparently residential places with compactors

27:16

use what are called sausage bags where you can fit

27:18

multiple compacted rounds

27:20

of trash into one single bag. You

27:22

need two people to toss those in, and

27:25

then the cans. They're also in charge of

27:27

the cans, right Like I think those

27:29

little very famous

27:32

kind of mesh wire New

27:35

York City trash cans that open

27:37

like a door, I think at the base.

27:40

Yeah, am I making sense here?

27:41

Sort of just streak winner

27:43

trash cans.

27:44

Let's just call them that.

27:47

Those weigh thirty pounds empty. So

27:50

I've never seen a New York City trash can that

27:52

wasn't absolutely overflowing. So

27:54

that's a lot more weight, and they're doing that by

27:56

hand. Some of these routes can have

27:58

as many a four hundred of yay.

28:00

So that's so crazy.

28:02

I just really really really hard strenuous

28:04

labor.

28:05

You also, so you said that there's never a

28:08

New York City corner of trash can that is

28:10

empty. So I found a

28:12

study from nineteen eighty seven that estimated

28:14

that a sixty pound can so a trash

28:16

can with about thirty pounds of waste. You can imagine

28:18

that's probably pretty average.

28:21

To lift it the forty inches into

28:23

the hopper and dump it requires three and a half

28:25

horse power from the sanitation

28:28

worker, and then, like you said,

28:30

there might be four hundred of those on a route.

28:33

I just can't imagine how just tired you

28:35

would be at the end of.

28:36

This well and all this stuff you're breathing

28:38

in too, especially if you're a street

28:40

sweeper. All kinds of

28:42

you know, sort of respiratory issues can pop up

28:45

before COVID,

28:48

you know, before people are like, hey, maybe we should wear masks

28:50

and sanitize things.

28:53

Thousands of New York City workers got

28:55

sick during the early COVID days. Nine

28:58

of them died. About one hundred

29:01

sanitation workers died from illnesses

29:04

cleaning up Ground zero. So

29:06

it is a you know, not only is it a

29:08

strenuous job and can be dangerous

29:10

because of you know, sharp and rusty things, but it's

29:13

just it's just hard on your body period.

29:16

Right.

29:17

Fortunately they have a really good union. They're

29:19

are members of Teamster's Local eight thirty

29:22

one, the Uniform Sanitation Men's Association,

29:26

and thanks to the union, they when

29:28

you are an entry level sanitation worker,

29:31

you start out making forty three thousand, three hundred

29:33

and five dollars a year, not great, which

29:35

is no especially in New York. It's hard to live

29:38

on that but if you stick with it for five and a

29:40

half years, it more than doubles

29:42

to eighty eighty nine hundred and seventy

29:44

nine.

29:45

That's pretty great.

29:46

Yeah, And once you reach that point, there are plenty

29:48

of New York City sanitation workers that

29:50

are making one hundred thousand dollars or over

29:53

from all of the extra pay

29:55

that can come from bonus work, like they

29:57

get triple overtime for snow

30:00

removal and stuff like that. So you

30:02

can make a pretty good middle

30:04

class income for New York City as

30:06

a sanitation worker just from sticking

30:09

with it for a few years. Plus Also, you can

30:11

retire in just over twenty years

30:13

too, with full benefits.

30:14

Yeah, I mean that's that's a big deal. You

30:17

get about eighteen days of vacation. But if you

30:19

start in your early twenties, you

30:22

put in your twenty two years. They don't have like an age

30:25

thing where like you have to work to a certain age.

30:27

So if you start in your early twenties,

30:29

you could potentially retire with your full

30:31

pension in your early

30:33

to mid forties. And you

30:35

know, you could do a lot worse than.

30:37

That for sure, Yeah,

30:39

because I mean you just you can be like,

30:41

well, I want to keep working, but I'll go over here and take

30:44

this other job, but I'll still get paid for my old job

30:46

because I retired.

30:47

Exactly. You do have to pass

30:49

a civil service exam.

30:52

You have to get your CDL, your commercial

30:54

driver's license. There's about a month

30:56

of training and then you have to

30:58

you know, once you get that license. They have a little

31:01

practice area where

31:03

they practice, like a little obstacle course basically

31:06

to you practice driving that garbage truck,

31:08

because you know, driving the New

31:10

York is I find it enjoyable and kind

31:12

of fun and exciting, but driving

31:14

a garbage truck, imagine, is tough.

31:16

There's stuff all over the place and you

31:19

can't just mad max it through there,

31:21

you know, No.

31:22

You can't because people get killed like that. Because

31:24

there's a lot of people walking and

31:26

running and riding bikes

31:28

around New York that you have to look out for.

31:30

Yeah, increasingly distracted people, we should.

31:32

Add, right.

31:34

Yeah, So we

31:36

said that they shut down all of the landfills

31:38

within New York's borders, but that means

31:41

that they have to ship this trash one

31:43

way or another outside of New York. Some

31:45

of it gets diverted to incinerators. They're

31:48

like we don't want incinerators in New York because

31:50

it contributes to poor air quality,

31:52

but we'll pay you to burn it for us elsewhere.

31:56

Fortunately, they've now converted

31:58

some of those incinerators to waste to

32:00

energy plants, so you're actually

32:02

getting something out of burning the trash.

32:05

As far as these waste of energy plants

32:08

go. If you're thinking, like, what do you mean they

32:10

burn trash and get something out of it,

32:12

it's it basically works just like coal would

32:15

like any kind of energy creation like that

32:17

is just burning something to

32:20

create steam to spend that, you know, to

32:22

boil water to create steam to spin that turbine.

32:24

And in this case, they just burn trash instead of coal,

32:27

right, which you think is like, oh that's great. You know,

32:30

we may maybe this should be a whole episode at one point,

32:32

but there there are a

32:35

lot of people say like, these are an environmental

32:37

nightmare. You are creating energy, but

32:39

you're also creating a landfill in the sky

32:42

by what you're putting into the air, So we

32:45

might want to look into that as a full one at some point.

32:47

Remember we did our plasma waste generator

32:50

episode, and that thing was flawless in

32:52

its design and execution, But I don't think

32:54

that's what they're using for these waste to energy plants.

32:56

I don't think so. So some

32:59

of the garbage just be diverted and incinerated,

33:01

But from what I understand, the vast majority is

33:03

sent outside of New York to landfills

33:06

in places like Virginia or South Carolina

33:09

or Ohio. And the way that they get

33:11

there predominantly is by rail

33:14

and by barge. And

33:16

so New York set up five what are

33:19

called marine transfer stations that

33:21

are amazing if you look

33:23

into Did you look into them at all, because they're crazy

33:26

awesome?

33:27

I did, and they are crazy

33:29

awesome. Yeah, those marine stations.

33:31

I think they built those that were about a twenty year

33:33

period starting in the early two thousands.

33:37

There's five of them. The

33:39

neighborhoods you know where these were going to be near,

33:41

were obviously not too excited about them

33:44

when you know when they were first proposed. But

33:47

apparently they've done a pretty good job. As

33:49

far as the smell goes, They aren't too stinky.

33:52

I think it's noise more than anything, because

33:54

you're you constantly just have trucks

33:57

going in and out of there, right, But

33:59

they've done a great job with deodorizing

34:01

and venting this stuff. Even

34:05

have hawk calls being played on loudspeakers

34:07

to keep seagulls away because that would be a

34:09

nightmare. Oh yeah, but apparently

34:11

they're not as bad as everyone thought they were gonna be.

34:13

No plus, Also, the neighborhoods that they're in

34:15

are like already kind of ports, and

34:17

there's other industry nearby anyway,

34:20

And they set up essentially access roads

34:23

so that when the trucks start backing up, they're

34:25

not on the street, they're off of the street.

34:28

And then the whole thing is enclosed,

34:31

right, So garbage truck goes into the building,

34:34

sealed shipping container comes out the other

34:36

side, and inside

34:38

the building. Like you said, they've taken all these measures to

34:40

keep the smell down and just keep it from

34:42

being gross. But what happens is a garbage

34:45

truck comes in, backs up to the

34:47

tipping station, tips its

34:49

contents all the way down to the next

34:52

story down. Next story down

34:54

is just basically like that

34:56

trash compactor in Star Wars, the

34:59

first one. It's

35:01

essentially like that, but rather than having

35:03

like that pneumatic arm crush everything,

35:05

they have front loaders that basically push

35:08

all the stuff into shipping

35:10

containers, and a shipping container

35:12

can hold just over about two

35:14

full trucks worth of waste

35:17

I think twenty five tons. They top

35:19

that thing off, seal it and

35:22

say here you go, waste management take

35:24

over from here.

35:26

Yeah, and you know you mentioned some of this goes to different

35:28

states. I saw that almost

35:32

all of Manhattan's trash goes to New Jersey.

35:35

Oh nice, sorry, New Jersey, Virginia,

35:38

Pennsylvania, and Ohio is where

35:40

most of the rest of it goes, as far as

35:42

landfills go. And then

35:45

weirdly, Staten Island trash

35:47

goes to South Carolina.

35:49

That is a little weird.

35:51

I don't know why, but I guess they

35:53

just, you know, worked out an exchange program

35:55

or something.

35:55

Yeah, and I guess it's totally

35:58

up to private companies. Like I said, waste management's

36:00

a good example of taking possession

36:03

of the shipping containers, stacking them up on barges.

36:05

I think you can fit like forty eight full on

36:07

a barge and taking an on

36:09

a slow boat to South Carolina, or taking

36:12

it upriver to Niagara Falls.

36:14

I think that's where one of the incinerators is. Niagara,

36:16

New York yeah. And then also

36:19

if it's somewhere like Ohio, it's very tough

36:21

to sail a barge to Ohio, so

36:23

you just take it to a rail station and

36:26

the shipping containers get shipped by

36:28

rail to Ohio where

36:30

it gets dumped.

36:32

All right, maybe all actually right, before we take

36:34

a break, let's cover this one more thing I

36:36

think, which is if you've

36:38

lost something and you want to get it

36:40

back in the trash,

36:44

it's probably not going to happen, but it really

36:46

depends on how good of a looker you are, because

36:48

what you'll do is is you'll call up You'll

36:51

say I lost a

36:53

wedding ring in the garbage. I'm

36:55

pretty upset about this, and they say, oh great,

36:57

we have a program called the Lost Valuable Search.

37:00

Just come on down to the Marine transfer station. We'll

37:03

work with you to determine which truck is

37:05

yours. And then there's

37:08

a huge pile of trash and you have ninety minutes

37:10

to go through and find it by yourself,

37:13

and or I guess, with whatever friends

37:15

you are able to talk into coming with you.

37:17

And people have they found all sorts of stuff.

37:20

Sure it happens, Yeah.

37:21

It does happen. Apparently, Also there's people who are

37:23

like, oh, that's what I have to do. Just forget about it. I'm

37:26

good. Thanks anyway, Yeah,

37:28

I'll get a new wedding ring. So let's take

37:30

a break and we'll come back and talk about some

37:32

of the shady business that goes on in the private

37:35

industry.

37:35

All right, cool, okay,

38:01

Chuck.

38:02

So we said that the city picks

38:04

up residential trash, but for the most part, commercial

38:06

trash like stores, office buildings

38:09

industry that's handled

38:11

by private companies. And

38:14

that's not actually new. That goes all the way back

38:16

to I think the mid to late fifties,

38:18

nineteen fifty seven, I think when

38:20

the city was like, hey, we could

38:23

use some help collecting trash. How about

38:25

private companies get involved? And the

38:27

mafia sat up and said, yes, let's

38:30

do that. And apparently the Gambino

38:33

and Genovese crime families

38:35

were really big into what's called karting.

38:37

It's private trash collection. Yeah,

38:40

for decades it was extraordinarily

38:43

corrupt, and finally in the

38:45

nineties, New York did

38:47

something about it, got the

38:49

crime families out of the karting business.

38:52

But the companies are like no less

38:54

shady than they were before, and

38:57

they're just shady in different ways. Whereas before

38:59

they were screwing over the customers, now

39:01

they're screwing over the workers. Because back

39:03

then, at least they had they were mob

39:06

run, but they were in really

39:08

good unions. And as these

39:10

private companies came along, they don't have very

39:12

good unions. So I saw somewhere

39:15

that a worker at a private company

39:17

today makes less as

39:20

a driver for a truck than a helper

39:23

made in nineteen eighty five. Wow,

39:26

sixteen dollars an hour. They make less than

39:28

that nineteen eighty five to twenty

39:31

sixteen. Isn't that crazy? Yeah,

39:33

that's what happens when you have a union that's

39:36

good, that goes away in favor of union

39:38

that's bad and that's in cahoots with the ownership,

39:42

or if there is no union at all, which is in case

39:44

some true wouldn't.

39:45

Tony Soprano win sanitation?

39:47

Or didn't he say he was, yes, he was in karting?

39:50

Yeah, yeah, I remember that. I also remember

39:52

when I lived in New Jersey, the

39:54

Italian. I'm not saying

39:56

it was a mafia truck because that would be wrong

39:59

to as but whoever picked up our

40:01

trash had a big Italian name on the side of the truck.

40:05

And it was during that time of

40:07

the Sopranos where I was kind of like, what's going on

40:09

here?

40:10

Oh, you know, what's going on there? But supposedly

40:12

that was after they cleaned things up, although that was Jersey

40:14

huh, So yeah, they probably didn't. That

40:17

was probably mafia run well.

40:19

And it was also mid nineties, so I think they were

40:21

just like, that's when they were cleaning it up.

40:23

Gotcha.

40:25

So there are about two

40:27

hundred and fifty private handlers

40:30

that are now overseen by the Business Integrity

40:32

Commission, which may as well

40:34

be called the Don't let the

40:36

Mafia get Involved Commission And

40:39

sometimes yeah, except exactly

40:42

so you mentioned, you know, just bad

40:45

conditions in some of these private companies,

40:47

like very long work hours, maybe

40:50

safety training maybe not, maybe

40:52

safety gear maybe not there.

40:56

If you hear of a story about a pedestrian

40:59

that's killed in New York by a garbage truck,

41:02

chances are it's a private company. Not

41:04

always, but they're much much higher incidents

41:07

of I didn't say incidences. Somebody

41:09

called us out on that.

41:10

You remember that, Yeah, Yeah, it's

41:12

what we're really progressing here in year

41:14

sixteen.

41:15

Hey, we're trying to, but many

41:17

more incidents from the private companies, you

41:19

know, running over somebody

41:22

than the DSNY, and largely because

41:24

of training, but also because they're

41:27

just they're working too long, they're

41:29

too tired, and they have too much to do in general.

41:32

Yeah, an investigative

41:34

journalist named Kiara Feldman wrote

41:36

an article for Pro Public called

41:38

Trashed, and I don't remember what came

41:41

after the colon, but it is. It's

41:43

really eye opening. I mean, even if you

41:45

don't care about trash collection or New

41:47

York City, just the fact that

41:49

people are being treated this way is just nuts.

41:52

Man. So it's definitely

41:54

worth a read if this episode piqued

41:56

your interest at all.

41:58

Yeah, there's an African immigrant name uk Diallo.

42:00

And I don't think we mentioned that some of these private companies

42:03

will just like, you know, pick

42:06

up the dude in the parking lot that's

42:08

looking for day work. So they're not

42:10

covered at all or insured or anything

42:13

like that. They'll just like, we'll pay you under the table to

42:15

like run out in front of the truck and get

42:18

bags out, you know, to where they can be collected

42:20

easier. And Muktar was one of

42:22

these guys, and he was crushed

42:25

under a truck. And when

42:27

it came time to talk

42:29

about this, the company said this,

42:32

we do know this guy. He just is a homeless

42:34

guy that ran out in front of the truck. And

42:36

of course it later came out what really happened. So

42:39

in twenty nineteen, a New York

42:41

passed a law that said, all right, we're

42:43

dividing this into zones. Now there

42:45

can be no more than three companies picking up

42:48

in each zone, just trying

42:50

to sort of rein in the chaos a little bit. And

42:53

you have to if you want to do this, you have to sign a contract

42:55

that meets certain standards of safety

42:58

and working conditions. And it's

43:00

you know, it's kind of being

43:02

implemented now, so it is still currently

43:04

changing for the better.

43:05

Yeah, and you mentioned all the miles that the

43:08

DSNY travels just on

43:10

their routes every year, these commercial

43:13

haulers might be driving from what you know,

43:15

one one spot to many

43:17

many blocks over to the next spot. Yeah,

43:20

and just wasting so much time and burning

43:22

so much gas. Whereas if it's

43:24

like there's only three companies in this

43:26

one quadrant, they're going to be driving

43:29

a lot around a lot less. And they're also

43:31

going to be burning a lot more, a lot fewer

43:33

fossil fuels and releasing fewer

43:35

emissions too, So it's all together a

43:37

pretty good plan. Of course, the

43:39

companies are like, can't do that, Like

43:41

what about competition? But New York's

43:43

not really listening apparently, And that's

43:46

what's happening right now. And that's just part of

43:48

another again, this larger push

43:50

for reforming the whole place under

43:53

Eric Adams and Jessica Tish, and

43:55

one of the big ones is getting rid of the black

43:57

bags in favor of container

44:00

like the same plastic bins that you see in basically

44:03

every other city in the world in one way,

44:05

shape or form or another. New York's

44:07

finally being like, we're going to get in on that.

44:10

Are they black backs? I

44:12

think they were blue?

44:14

There's blue too, Okay, yeah, they have

44:16

all different colors, but there's definitely blue as

44:18

well.

44:18

Yes, okay, how was it? Sure? It's been a while, but I

44:20

just have a visual in my head of like mountains

44:23

of blue bags on trash

44:25

Day. And if you've never been to New York at all,

44:27

or you haven't been many times, you

44:30

would probably be shocked to come

44:32

out on trash Day on a hot

44:34

summer, rainy trash

44:36

day, because it's quite

44:38

a sight and quite a smell. But like

44:41

you said, they're moving toward bins in

44:44

just a few months ago. In February of this year, they

44:47

said, all right, here's our new plan we're

44:50

going to get. If you've got a smaller apartment building,

44:52

you're going to have those little wheelie bins.

44:54

Like almost every other city in the United States,

44:57

if you are in a really big apartment building,

45:00

it's basically a dumpster, but it's plastic,

45:03

but it's like a large container. You

45:06

mentioned the fact that there aren't a lot

45:08

of alleys in New York. It's

45:10

kind of a movie trope when you've seen

45:12

alley scenes set in New York City, probably

45:14

not being filmed in New York because most of the buildings

45:17

on a block are just you know, crammed

45:19

you right next to each other. So these

45:22

dumpsters have to go somewhere. And they

45:24

said, all right, we'll make them small

45:26

enough to fit in a parking spot. We'll

45:29

lose one hundred and fifty thousand parking spots

45:31

all over the city, but we

45:33

have to do it, and it'll also help us reclaim

45:36

some of this sidewalk space that we're losing.

45:39

Yeah, and apparently parking spots

45:41

is one of the most politically charged

45:43

issues in all of New York politics.

45:45

I'm sure.

45:46

So that's really gutsy to be like one hundred

45:48

and fifty thousand parking spots are going away

45:50

so we can put these bins there. And

45:53

it's not even across the board.

45:55

There's some blocks I read that are losing a quarter

45:57

of their parking spots.

45:59

Oh, I'm sure.

46:00

So it's definitely going to take an adjustment, for

46:02

sure. But there won't be

46:04

bags of trash everywhere. They'll just be like different

46:06

colored bins that are on the street, just

46:08

off the sidewalk that

46:11

a truck comes along and picks up. That it doesn't

46:13

require human hands to throw

46:16

bag after bag into the truck anymore.

46:18

Boy, in New York City, the residents really

46:20

have to get on board with this to make that work.

46:23

Well, they did a pilot study

46:25

of it in Harlem and

46:27

this is back in September twenty twenty three,

46:30

and apparently it was extremely successful.

46:32

Yeah, rat sightings were down sixty

46:34

eight percent.

46:35

Where did they go?

46:37

I don't know. I think they just kind of where they

46:39

disappear. They go poof into nothingness

46:41

after they don't eat for two days.

46:44

Boy, that means they're organizing. This could get really scary.

46:47

But supposedly they

46:49

the people of Harlem were like, this is this is

46:51

cool. We can definitely deal with this. So

46:53

they're rolling it out to the rest of New York.

46:56

Yeah.

46:56

I think they will see the benefit to where people

46:58

get on board, because what real

47:00

would really screw up that system is that

47:02

truck is going using the mechanics

47:05

to dump those cans, but then there's

47:07

four or five bags that wouldn't

47:09

fit in the can just sitting there. So

47:11

you're still going to have to have some people down there slinging

47:13

bags.

47:14

Definitely, for sure, but it should.

47:16

Speed up the whole thing and clean it

47:18

up if everyone If everyone chips in.

47:20

Yeah, and isn't that what living in New York

47:23

is all about. Everybody chipping in

47:25

a little bit.

47:26

For sure.

47:27

You got anything else?

47:29

No, just another mention of composting.

47:32

They're getting that going I mentioned earlier,

47:35

still pretty new program. Since

47:37

twenty percent of that total waste dis food

47:39

waste. If they really got a pretty

47:41

efficient composting system going, then

47:44

it would do a lot to reduce trash

47:46

and do better things

47:48

for Mother Earth.

47:50

So you did have something else I did.

47:54

Well, if you want to know more about New York trash

47:56

collection, go to New York and just walk around

47:59

and you'll find find out everything you need to know

48:01

about it. And while you're booking your

48:03

flight, how about it's time for listener,

48:05

ma'am.

48:08

I'm going to call this what

48:10

is this? Oh Arson investigation?

48:14

Hey guys. In twenty nineteen, I moved to Saint Paul

48:16

with some friends from college. It's really

48:18

fun. I made many new friends in back. Two of my

48:20

roommates I had never met. One was a

48:22

local rapper, the other was a

48:24

firefighter.

48:25

EMT Saint Paul is the arson

48:27

capital of the country.

48:28

Is it really? It wouldn't surprise

48:31

me. After listening to this story, this

48:33

guy said it was a glorious era of

48:35

my life, filled with healing, fun and

48:38

young adulting. Within a few months,

48:40

I got a job at a discount movie theater and

48:43

I was working one day when the theater

48:45

got a call from

48:48

our boss and said, Hey, your

48:50

house is on fire. You should come

48:52

by. So the firefighters

48:55

walked me through the burning home. I saw no flaims,

48:58

but it was smok. I

49:01

went up to my room. Nothing was burnt there, which is great,

49:03

but it did smell like a bondfire for about

49:05

a year after that. Man, everyone

49:08

was gone at the time, so nobody was heard about

49:10

a month later my landlord slash

49:12

boss, same person, which is why that sounded weird.

49:14

Earlier I mentioned that there was

49:16

a big break in the fire investigation, but

49:20

made me do a little work to figure out who it was. It

49:22

turns out the firefighter EMT that I

49:24

lived with decided he didn't want to live

49:26

with us anymore, so a week before he

49:29

moved a couch to the basement and set

49:31

it on fire and walked away.

49:32

Oh my god, with.

49:36

I only found out because he admitted it to

49:38

me. My life went haywire

49:41

for a while after that, but I'm happy to report that

49:43

I'm settled in full on adulting with

49:46

love.

49:47

That is.

49:47

Teagan Tour is fantastic.

49:50

Quite a great, great story.

49:52

Thanks a lot, Tegan, who saw that coming. I

49:55

did not me that was a twist

49:57

that you'd find at a discount movie

49:59

theater.

50:00

Right.

50:01

Well, if you want to be like Tea in and send us an

50:03

amazing story about something we talked about,

50:05

we love that kind of thing. You can send

50:07

it via email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio

50:10

dot com.

50:13

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50:16

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