The "Dirtiest Job In The World" Story

It was an ordinary day. I had just finished the cleaning. Maybe! What a mess! Seems we decided to put new floor tile in our kitchen, laundry, hall, foyer, and bathroom on our first floor. The old 8" square tiles were out of date and some were cracked. I contacted the fellow who had done our second floor bathroom two years before and asked if he could do this job. He came and gave us an estimate for the job. He also gave us the name of a place that we could buy our tile from which would give us discounted prices. We found a tile that we really liked and bought enough of the 18" square tiles to do the job. Also bought 6" tile for the black splash on the kitchen counters and the tile around our family room fireplace. I asked if I could do some of the work myself and he suggested I take all the old tile out. Would save quite a bit of money if I did that part myself. Well, I took a chisel and tried to remove a few of the tiles. Not as easy as I thought. Then I asked a friend who I taught with if he could help. We both struggled with the chore. Jeff suggested we rent a small jack-hammer to help with the removal. An hour later we started with the jack-hammer and boy did it work great! Only thing was, the tile was cemented so well to the backer board that we had to remove both. Went right down to the sub-floor. The dust that was created was unbelievable. Since my house has a totally open floor plan, I couldn't put plastic up to stop the dust. At the end of the day Jeff and I had all the tile and board removed and laying on the floor of my garage. We were both covered with gray dust except for where our masks covered our nose and mouth. When you walked into the house you were greeted with a haze of dust. Never before had to deal with anything like this. What took me a day to create with the tile removal, took me over a week to clean. Every cabinet had to be emptied and every item in the cabinet had to be cleaned with soap and water. The spice cabinet took me a whole morning to do. All the furniture had to be vacuumed and dusted. The carpet had to be vacuumed and shampooed. The photos and artwork all had to be carefully cleaned. the ceiling and walls had to be dusted with a damp cloth. All laundry, towels, napkins and tablecloths in our drawers had to be washed. Not just the first floor, but both floors of the house had to be done. And then after I hauled all the old tiles to the dump, I had to do the same with the garage. What a mess. The house was really clean when I was done. I truly believe if I knew it would take that much work, I would have left the old tile in the house, sold the house and just moved to a house that had new tile. The place looks great now, but at times I open a cabinet and feel dust on something I forgot or see the edge of a frame I forgot to wash off and the dust memories return. Some nights I woke and couldn't get back to sleep, worrying about what I had to still clean. I can't imagine what it must be like to do tile work for a business and have to deal with that type of dust all the time. I'm warning all of you right now, be prepared for the worst possible scenario if you try to tackle a job as dirty as tile removal. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.