6 Filth, stink and coldness

 6 Filth, stink and coldness 

I entered the house of evil at 17th Denny Street in Tralee on the day of 29th of January 2025. The first impression - stink of processed, ingested cannabis and cigarettes. It is very disturbing, especially for somebody who is not smoking. The closer you get to the rooms, the more intense is that stench. The rooms, if there are people on their bunks, are usually shrouded in a thick curtain of smoke, because literally everyone is smoking there, and if not smoking, then inhaling from vipe’s the synthetic cannabis (don't know the official name of it). For someone who is not smoking, this place is like hell. I had a massive headache everyday. There is also no heating in the rooms, so windows are usually closed and the thick curtains, soaked up by that disgusting odor, are blocking any access to fresh air and light for most of the day. After one night all of my clothes were stinked after cigarettes. I couldn’t get over that reek. It was everywhere - in bedding, “fresh” clothes, hair… Literally I had the impression that I am oversaturated by that toxic stench. The worst was the fact that I couldn’t escape from that smoke, as after 9pm there was no place in that building except the room to which I was assigned, to hide. We couldn’t enter other rooms and the small kitchen with 2 chairs, a rotten throne and a small, narrow bench installed around in the window bay, which in a half was a reserved place for holy pictures and sculptures, was closing at 9pm. So I didn’t have any other choice than to inhale all of that deadly smoke every day and night, all the time I spent there, because the chimneys were working around the clock. 

Besides the cigarettes it was also another stench - body stink. From the very first moment I noted that filth is just assigned to that place, I thought generally like part of the culture. Everyone seemed to agree with the fact that the moment they become homeless they would also be filthy. Like one factor is determining another. For me, personal hygiene is very important, crucial as it is the fundament of my dignity, me as a human being. Over my secondary school I got every time during a school trips nickname “enslaved esthete”, as I was the one who showers at least twice a day. In Finnegan’s I didn’t have such a possibility as the hot water was only from 9-10.30am. No at evening time, no during the day time, no earlier. The bathrooms were very shabby, and a seemingly basic daily activity was a huge challenge. Before I got assigned to the bunk in the house of evil I booked an appointment with my GP in Kenmare - about 75 kilometers away from Tralee. Something was growing in my rectal area and I was really afraid it could be serious - the thing was the size of a tennis ball and even sitting was difficult for me. The visit was booked for 10.20: only available option. To manage on time, I had to take the bus from Tralee to Killarney at 7.50am and change further for the bus to Kenmare. Of course I wasn’t able to have any shower the day of the scheduled appointment, even ice cold, because that would wake up my fellow inmates (it was still January). The last opportunity for any kind of hygienic procedure was the day before at 10.00am. After I had my first shower at Finnegan's, I got a speech from one of the fellow inmates - the guy who came every night short before curfew or sometimes even after, always stayed awake long: chatting very loudly, sharing the joints with others and being a true society soul until late hours. I heard from him that: that I am making his day very long, that I should wake up at 12, maybe 1pm like he is, and not stay awake from early morning (10:20am) jumping like a monkey up and down on that terribly creaking bunk making that terrible noise. I answered, that is not my fault, that they put me in the upper part of a prison style bunk, that I am not going to adjust my days according to him and we could make it easy or difficult as we have to respect each other in that place. He didn't answer anything, just looked strangely at me. I guess he couldn’t believe that somebody new said: "NO!" to him, after his first night in that semi-prison. Anyway, the day of my visit by a doctor in Kenmare I didn’t have any possibility to prepare myself for that appointment. I thought that maybe in Killarney I would have a bit of time and could use the public bathroom. I recalled that the disabled toilet is equipped with a sink next to the bowl, but I didn’t have any time for that. To the Kendoc practice in Kenmare I ran like crazy as I arrived at the exact time of the scheduled appointment. Shortly: all of the circumstances didn’t let me wash myself before the visit by the doctor. As I arrived, and sat in the waiting room, the doctor came and invited me to his office. I literally didn't know what to do. Humiliated again, I started: “I am really sorry but I have something growing in my rectal area, but I have to tell you, that I didn’t prepare myself for that visit. I just didn’t have such an opportunity. I am staying in the homeless shelter as I got in very big trouble and there is no hot water in that place, either using the bathroom in the morning is not possible as everyone is sleeping and I am causing noise, which is a reason for a fight later on during the day". The feeling! At that moment I felt terrible and of course being overwhelmed, as usually I started to cry. He put the gloves on and instinctually opened the window, however outside was cold and wet. I felt really humiliated, not by the doctor himself, of course, but by the council, Finnegan’s, and the Irish government. I felt: angry, hopeless, and left to my own devices. Those were my first two days, after that horrible experience I started to look for a public swimming pool in Tralee. The only one available option was Aquadome - a kind of tiny aquapark. The same evening I went to Pennys and bought: swimming trunks, 2 hand towels (the bigger one would be impossible to dry out, and of course would catch the stink of processed smoke from cigarettes and weed) and flip-flops. I promised myself that never again would third-world conditions, guaranteed by the Irish government, put me in such embarrassing circumstances as I had that day in Kenmare. And so began my Aquadome adventure.   

A day before that, after my first night at Finnegan’s I asked in the morning about towels, as I didn’t have any. Eileen gave me 2 worn dirty rags, that probably used to be hand towels in Emmon Devillera's time. One was still green, another dark gray, with a couple of huge brown streaks (I guess the gray-one a long ago probably used to be white). I thought I would vomit, but with the last force of will I took them to my hand and brought them to room number 16. Of course after my first shower in that place I didn’t use them. I wiped myself in the t-shirt and next day, as I wrote, I bought my own towels in the local Pennys store. The most funny thing about those dirty rags: after the first night they disappeared from the place where I left them. Thinking she had taken them to the laundry, I asked about them the next day (I really don't know why). It turned out that someone had stolen them, or at least taken them for reasons I don't fully understand. Sitting on her rotting throne, she turned to me in the tone of a mother scolding a naughty child: "You have to buy them back." I couldn't believe what I was hearing: "I gave you the >towels<, and you lost them. How would you feel if someone stole or lost something you lent them?" At that time it was hard for me to understand what was happening, but after two months of life lessons in this land of absurdity, nothing will surprise me anymore.  

"Washing" dishes after meals was a different kind of exotic. We were supposed to leave dirty dishes in a plastic bowl placed next to the sink. The procedure for washing dishes was as follows; used in particular by one of the "volunteers" working there: put on thick rubber gloves; pour water from an electric kettle into the bowl; add toilet bleach; stir the resulting soup a little by your hand (food leftovers, sauces, bleach); take out the dishes "washed" in this way and rub them with a dirty rag; put them back to their place. Eileen loved bleach. As she often said, "bleach is good for getting rid of germs". And she certainly was right!

When I saw all this, I had breakfast in town for a while, but being on social welfare didn't give me many options - finally I was forced to prepare breakfasts on the spot. Every time I took a theoretically clean plate, cup or cutlery from the shelf I had to first wash it thoroughly in dishwashing liquid and dry it with tissues. I really don't know how this place can function as a facility paid for by the state and therefore theoretically meeting basic hygiene and safety standards. Where are the health inspections?

Coldness - the constant coldness, as there is no heating in the house of evil, not a single radiator. I came to that place at the end of January - the temperature outside barely reached 5 degrees Celsius. The building - victorian or edwardian, I am not really sure, has single glazing windows and no isolation either. The rooms are very tall and only two sources of heat are: lungs and bodies of people or small, and really very tiny oli radiators from Lidl. But… but every morning Eileen was checking each room and running up and down in the thick winter jacket, wearing at least two jumpers and yelling: “Guys, it is very hot here, I am roasting. In fact I can’t even breathe”. As only protection for that coldness in the night we had a thin, synthetic quilt. It was really very cold, and as I left the place, being moved to the “quieter facility” I was very sick - I had a bad cold, terrible cough and rhinitis. One day, after I was moved from room number 9, she ran into it, spotted that the tiny four-rimmed electric oil radiator was on, and started: “Guys, turn off the radiator right now. Outside it is 11 degrees. I am roasting here, open the window immediately”. Then she turned to me; I was coughing and blew my nose into a handkerchief: “Are you not hot Rafal?” I looked at her like an alien and replied: “Why are you addressing that question to me?” (probably because I had a very bad cold). I thought I was in a hidden camera or taking part in some kind of absurd play, but that was for real, I could see even the steam coming out of her mouth; but no, she wasn’t joking. She ordered us to turn off the tiny radiator and as a punishment, that we dared to use it during the day, one of us had to bring the heater back down to the storage room. Each breakfast at the kitchen was a kind of survival game: regardless of the weather, except maybe heavy rain, all of the windows were open “to get rid of the germs”, as she used to say. As a result I had my hood constantly on me during breakfast, and it was really, very cold as the kitchen, like all other rooms in that building, didn't have any heating.

I honestly still wonder: how is it possible that the council sends homeless people to this dump? Why do they even bother? Wouldn't it be better to just put us straight in a barn? The conditions are similar, and prison bunks could be placed on the dirt floor. Where is there any health inspection? How did this place pass any kind of check-up? Are we actually considered as human? I'm not talking about the omnipresent stench of cigarettes or joints, but the conditions in the kitchen or the rooms with prison bunks? There was never any heating inside - no one is able to find any traces of it - neither on the walls nor on the floors. Single-glazed windows may be good in a barn, but certainly not in winter, when the temperatures reach almost zero, and an icy wind blows through the cracks in the walls. Such conditions prevail in the very centre of Tralee - in one of the most prestigious locations in this town. Such conditions are provided by the council, sorry: a specially dedicated unit for preventing homelessness. Shame!