Speaker 1: Now really.
Speaker 2: Really now really Hello, and welcome to Really No Really
Speaker 2: with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden to remind you that
Speaker 2: subscribing to our show helps us to keep the home
Speaker 2: fires burning. And speaking of fires, earlier this year, we
Speaker 2: collectively watched in horror as huge parts of Los Angeles
Speaker 2: went up in flames. In all, at least twenty nine
Speaker 2: people were killed, two hundred thousand were forced to evacuate,
Speaker 2: and more than eighteen thousand homes and structures were destroyed. Many,
Speaker 2: like our own Peter Tilden, were forced to evacuate their
Speaker 2: homes with virtually no notice. And while thankfully Peter's house
Speaker 2: wasn't destroyed, it remains covered in a toxic soot consisting
Speaker 2: of noxious chemicals and other unknown particulates deemed so dangerous
Speaker 2: that even months later, his home, like so many others,
Speaker 2: is still uninhabitable. Really No Really. As Peter and other
Speaker 2: Angelina's struggle with insurance companies, contractors, temporary housing, and more,
Speaker 2: we wondered, how are people, whether by fires or floods,
Speaker 2: hurricanes or tornadoes, able to go home again after those
Speaker 2: homes are damaged by disaster? So we invited James Mayfield,
Speaker 2: CEO of Mayfield Environmental, to educate us on what we
Speaker 2: all need to know in the aftermath of catastrophe. For
Speaker 2: two generations, James and his family have served southern California
Speaker 2: as general contractors for environmental cleanups, from biohazard and homeless
Speaker 2: encampment removal to crime scene and drug lab cleanups. Mayfield
Speaker 2: Environmental has seen it all and done it all when
Speaker 2: it comes to eradicating a disaster. And though we hope
Speaker 2: disaster never touches you, this is an episode that may
Speaker 2: just help. Here's Jason and Peter.
Speaker 3: Not long ago you saw it come on the screen
Speaker 3: and say that we were not going to have an
Speaker 3: episode that week because of the fires in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: and because members of our own little production community here
Speaker 3: it really know, really, we're all so affected. And I
Speaker 3: can tell you that one of those people that was
Speaker 3: affected was my partner Peter here, who has not in
Speaker 3: fact lost his home in the Palisades, but he is
Speaker 3: also not able to get into his home. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of remediation that needs to be done it. I've
Speaker 3: been hearing about it, he's been living it. It has
Speaker 3: been god awful and part of what I was fascinated in,
Speaker 3: and we'll talk to the extent that you're comfortable with
Speaker 3: what's happening and what your journey is and what you're
Speaker 3: hearing about things. But what I was fascinated about was
Speaker 3: the fires were a horrific disaster, and as we've been learning,
Speaker 3: what is left in the areas, especially in the Palisades
Speaker 3: where those fires burned, is a residue that is as
Speaker 3: toxic as anything we can imagine, between lithium batteries that burned,
Speaker 3: and metal and asbestos and all kinds of noxious chemicals
Speaker 3: and materials that are now potentially in the water table,
Speaker 3: in the ground.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: In my house, which is as far away from the
Speaker 3: fires as anybody could be, we had a crew come
Speaker 3: in today to clean the ash that had fallen on
Speaker 3: our windows and screens off so that we felt comfortable
Speaker 3: opening the windows again. And we're still looking for somebody
Speaker 3: to come in and tell us if anything horrible has
Speaker 3: gotten into our pool that we need to perhaps drain
Speaker 3: it or remediate it. So I wanted to talk to
Speaker 3: somebody who knows about what those efforts are going to
Speaker 3: be in the world of toxic cleanups and disaster cleanups,
Speaker 3: because what we're hearing is that the the effort that
Speaker 3: it will take to clean all this up could be
Speaker 3: as equally a devastating toxic event as the fires themselves.
Speaker 5: And to that point, so I was hesitant talked about
Speaker 5: this because it's emotional for me because I'm a tough guy,
Speaker 5: but I'm watching my family and it's very hard. But
Speaker 5: the other part of it is I just so many
Speaker 5: people have it worth off, but it's just it's hard
Speaker 5: to talk talk and as part of it being being
Speaker 5: escorted by a police patrol for your home, I've never
Speaker 5: had it, So yeah, I don't want to just make
Speaker 5: it about that. I wanted to widen it for people
Speaker 5: who've been through hurricanes, who've been through storms, who lean
Speaker 5: through all kinds of stuff. But my question to you,
Speaker 5: James Mayfield is our guest getting the whole bit. But James,
Speaker 5: my question for you after the introduction is I've also
Speaker 5: hearn from people that there's alarmist parts to this where
Speaker 5: not all smoke has Benzie has all this crap in it,
Speaker 5: And you've got to be careful because a lot of
Speaker 5: summer the remediation companies will charge up to a zoo
Speaker 5: for stuff that doesn't need to be done because it's
Speaker 5: not always all toxic. I heard that the rain has
Speaker 5: washed away a lot of stuff. A friend of mine
Speaker 5: who lives in the area has a friend who owns
Speaker 5: a testing company. It does a testing and said, I
Speaker 5: tested your order A there's no benzine in there, and
Speaker 5: be do you know the level of benzene that you
Speaker 5: would have to drink the rest of your life for
Speaker 5: me anything? And they said, I'm drinking particles of plastic
Speaker 5: every day. So introduce James and then maybe you can
Speaker 5: start us. And so hold that question in your head
Speaker 5: as I introduce.
Speaker 3: James Mayfield, who's the CEO of Mayfield Environmental. He and
Speaker 3: his family have served the southern California area as general
Speaker 3: contractors for environmental.
Speaker 5: Cleanups generations, two generations.
Speaker 4: I know that's a long time.
Speaker 3: Hazards and homeless encampment removals, to crime scenes, that's always fun,
Speaker 3: drug lab cleanups, murders, suicide. It's a family business.
Speaker 4: They this I love.
Speaker 3: So they specialize in firesoot, smoke, ash cleanup, disaster response
Speaker 3: as well as radioactive work, Bobcat services, vehicle cleanups, hoarding,
Speaker 3: mold and lead removal, hazardous waste, disposal, pumping, dewatering, soil contamination, debatement,
Speaker 3: erosion protection, and mundane work like testing for water safety.
Speaker 4: I shook his hand. I gotta go.
Speaker 1: I gotta run before this guy is.
Speaker 5: Covering crap that goes his cousin does the radioactive stuff.
Speaker 5: He's a reading lad.
Speaker 4: He's the toxic of vender bringing him.
Speaker 5: His cousin sits there and the wife goes turn off
Speaker 5: the light, and he goes me, so wow, second generation
Speaker 5: of all of this stuff grew up. Did you grow
Speaker 5: up going to crime scenes?
Speaker 6: No, that was actually my stupid idea. My dad, when
Speaker 6: I started branching out and covering these new territories, said, what.
Speaker 5: The man I've heard the Dutch about his bad That's
Speaker 5: pretty bad, right it is.
Speaker 6: You know, some decontamination or decomposition jobs are atrociously dangerous.
Speaker 6: You can get HIV, hunt a virus, hepatitis very very common.
Speaker 1: Others aren't so bad.
Speaker 5: Did they look like TV crime scenes?
Speaker 6: Well, generally, when you go into a crime scene, you
Speaker 6: start to piece together the puzzles yourself, and then you
Speaker 6: realize how creepy that is. And then when you go
Speaker 6: home at the end of the job, you realize that
Speaker 6: You've been stewing on this all day over dinner, and
Speaker 6: that's some families suffering that you're running. The family keeps
Speaker 6: calling you crying. They come back the next day and
Speaker 6: they say, I can still smell it, And I know
Speaker 6: what happens with the human brain is all the odor,
Speaker 6: all the decontamination waste is gone, but the brain literally
Speaker 6: continues to smell the odor, and they often can accuse
Speaker 6: you of not doing improperly. Yeah, it's demonstrably gone. It's
Speaker 6: literally the result of trauma is scientific. Yeah, do you
Speaker 6: how when you I mean, we're gonna get.
Speaker 4: But how do you how do you?
Speaker 3: I mean, when you started doing that kind of remediation
Speaker 3: in a crime scene, how do you avoid being traumatized
Speaker 3: by what you're experiencing?
Speaker 4: Or do you Maybe you are traumatized.
Speaker 6: You know, a death is tragic because you see the
Speaker 6: pain of the family. Other jobs where it's a murder
Speaker 6: suicide are kind of creepy and they feel eerie and awkward.
Speaker 3: So how do you, I mean, you've got this in
Speaker 3: your head? How does it? It's one of the reasons
Speaker 3: I always thought it'd be kind of cool to be
Speaker 3: a police officer, you know, but I thought, and I
Speaker 3: worked in the hospital.
Speaker 4: I grew up in the hospital, my mom around the hospital.
Speaker 3: I saw a lot of grizzly stuff, but it was
Speaker 3: grizzly in a positive vein.
Speaker 4: It was people trying to save people.
Speaker 3: This is violence and mayhem, and I don't know that
Speaker 3: I could have handled it and been quite the same
Speaker 3: person that I would like to be. You know, does
Speaker 3: it do you inure yourself to it?
Speaker 6: Well, depending upon the crime scenes with which you're saturated.
Speaker 6: If they are of a murderous nature, it does make
Speaker 6: one nihilistic, very negative about the world.
Speaker 5: But you also see the pain that that person went
Speaker 5: through to do that, what they must have been experiencing.
Speaker 5: So let's leave murder for a minute. Let's get to
Speaker 5: the happy things. That's the initial question I put out.
Speaker 5: There is somebody said to me who does this testing, said,
Speaker 5: you know a lot of times the ashes like your
Speaker 5: your fireplace ash, and it doesn't always have the most
Speaker 5: danger chemicals and stuff. So you've got to be careful
Speaker 5: in projecting that it's always that because not always that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I can say as a FEMA vendor and
Speaker 6: an Army Corps of Engineers vendor, we were one of
Speaker 6: the first people on site after the cleanup, and we
Speaker 6: were one of the first to sample. Depending upon where
Speaker 6: you sample, you know how proximal it is to an
Speaker 6: industrial facility that may have that kind of contaminant material.
Speaker 6: You have the heavy winds of Santa Ana. They blow everywhere,
Speaker 6: so you'll have a different contamination profile depending upon where
Speaker 6: you go.
Speaker 1: Not everybody is honest with that sodial.
Speaker 5: If it's purely residential.
Speaker 1: It's purely residential.
Speaker 6: Depending upon the age of the buildings, you might have
Speaker 6: substantial asbestos. But I tell my clients there's no point
Speaker 6: in me as a as an environmental contractor sampling it
Speaker 6: because the particles will be so fine that there's no
Speaker 6: reason for me to make five hundred dollars off you.
Speaker 6: I can just tell you that it's a contaminant, you know.
Speaker 6: So I try to be honest with people. My competitors
Speaker 6: may or may not, but it's the fallacy is a
Speaker 6: bank run to make a substantial amount of money. Everybody's there.
Speaker 6: Half of them are not licensed, and you're to your point.
Speaker 6: Restoration the companies that tend to decontaminate for smoke, fire
Speaker 6: and mold.
Speaker 1: They're classified as restoration.
Speaker 6: That's one of the few industries in California that requires
Speaker 6: no contractors licenses.
Speaker 5: WoT So what you're eating fire this hurricane? What should
Speaker 5: you ask for for a restoration person?
Speaker 6: Depending upon the particular situation. If there is heavy soot
Speaker 6: contamination that you know is actually contaminated material, you should
Speaker 6: have HASMAD contractors. Because we our insurance and liability is
Speaker 6: so high, we have to have our men fully prepared
Speaker 6: with Haswhopper certification. That means they're has MAD trained. They
Speaker 6: were respirators, a big giant restoration people. They tend to
Speaker 6: hire migrant labor and they work hard, but they don't
Speaker 6: pay them insurance. They don't pay their benefits. They pay
Speaker 6: them cash. They don't wear masks at all.
Speaker 4: Are they trained to do what they're doing?
Speaker 6: A lot of them is the first time they've ever worked.
Speaker 6: But but again they do their job. They've they've found
Speaker 6: a way to profit off of insurance. The companies like that.
Speaker 6: They tend to go in and they just wash every
Speaker 6: square foot of the house. They charged twenty grand. They
Speaker 6: only needed to do a little bit of hepa vacuuming
Speaker 6: in the corners.
Speaker 5: That's what I have a vacuum is that what they
Speaker 5: have a filter.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so hepavacuuming is a very special kind of vacuum.
Speaker 6: That's not what you get at Costco. I mean, they
Speaker 6: all say have a vacuum, but it's a specialized vacuum,
Speaker 6: usually three to five thousand dollars. And what that does
Speaker 6: is it mitigates dispersal in the air as you vacuum
Speaker 6: it up. So, for example, in the Palisades, I'm going
Speaker 6: around vacuuming up the obvious contamination I see in the doorways,
Speaker 6: for example, in the windowsills. Just a day, I can
Speaker 6: get the bolt materials and I'm out of there, and
Speaker 6: then you can go home if it's safe. Other companies
Speaker 6: in restoration might wash the whole house. They'd say, you've
Speaker 6: got to go to an Airbnb for a month, and
Speaker 6: I'll rip out all.
Speaker 1: Your walls while i'm at it.
Speaker 6: It's not necessarily rapacious because they're charging insurance.
Speaker 1: They get their money. You don't pay for it.
Speaker 6: Of course, they raise your premium, so you're paying for
Speaker 6: it in the end, but it's a money machine.
Speaker 5: How do you mitigate smoke smell? Can you really get
Speaker 5: out smell?
Speaker 6: Smoke is the most effective way to remediate it is
Speaker 6: ozone gas, which is very very effective. Although it has damage.
Speaker 6: It inflicts damage on rubber and insulation, and my competitors
Speaker 6: and restoration might not know that much about it, so
Speaker 6: they tend to not warn their clients.
Speaker 5: And what happens at that point that's ruined.
Speaker 6: Oh well, it ruptures, ruptures apart and find fine art
Speaker 6: painting statues for example, they can They can be damaged
Speaker 6: in the process, so that is a risk. But ozone
Speaker 6: works very well because it literally rips apart the odor
Speaker 6: molecules at a molecular level.
Speaker 5: What about stuff that's porus furniture.
Speaker 1: It barely goes through it, so that.
Speaker 5: Furniture needs to be mitigated. Can firsion be cleaned enough
Speaker 5: that it actually is cleaned to the point where for.
Speaker 6: The most part, yeah, really, yes, well, ozone is the
Speaker 6: best technique. And again restoration companies will say the only
Speaker 6: way to do it is to rip it apart completely.
Speaker 5: But do they take them They pick the front, sure,
Speaker 5: take it up, take it out, clothing out and then
Speaker 5: do it somewhere in a professional place.
Speaker 6: Yes, it's it's often morphed into a side industry called
Speaker 6: pack out and called contents cleaning, which is very very detailed,
Speaker 6: meticulous work, but it's immensely expensive. So they'll say, I'll
Speaker 6: have to take apart your entire your living room, all
Speaker 6: your fabrics, all your your grandma's clothing, and it'll cost
Speaker 6: you thirty grand but I'll decontaminate and disinfect every single item,
Speaker 6: and they discharge insurance and it's it's valuable.
Speaker 1: So you generally say, well, you look like.
Speaker 5: You're doing a good job, and when it comes back
Speaker 5: it really is.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: You would you would do that, you'd be okay doing
Speaker 5: it with your own.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I had a lot of money.
Speaker 5: I was just sure it. I don't know a lot
Speaker 5: of money. So I'm hearing this so.
Speaker 3: Far to the extent that because I know you're probably not,
Speaker 3: although I guess from what I understand your company, you could.
Speaker 3: But with what they're doing in the palace heads where
Speaker 3: they're going down in the ground which has been toxified
Speaker 3: and they're pulling out I think, you know, three to
Speaker 3: six feet of soil six inches six inches, that's all
Speaker 3: six inches, got a little bit okay. My wife keeps
Speaker 3: hearing about the idea that it's putting back into the
Speaker 3: air all the stuff that was in the ground. You're
Speaker 3: getting dust, you're getting ash, you're putting it back into
Speaker 3: the air, and then depending on weather conditions, you're spreading
Speaker 3: it further than.
Speaker 4: It went the first time.
Speaker 3: So when when you are folks that are doing this,
Speaker 3: how are they trying to contain that?
Speaker 4: Can they contain that?
Speaker 3: Or is it, in fact but a potentially second environmental disaster.
Speaker 6: What I see is many different agencies that joined in
Speaker 6: in the Palisades and in Altadena, and they all have
Speaker 6: good intentions.
Speaker 1: They want to help.
Speaker 6: The problem is as soon as they do, you have
Speaker 6: these regulatory contradictions that burden the entire process and drag
Speaker 6: it down.
Speaker 1: The first phase was that the EPA.
Speaker 6: Got involved and they shut down the entire city. All
Speaker 6: Palisades was shut down. They were the governing agent. See,
Speaker 6: they dictated everything and what that did during their as
Speaker 6: they did their initial remediation, it made all that the
Speaker 6: substantial contaminants in the ash and the soot wash into
Speaker 6: the ocean. That prevented hazardous waste contractors from doing what
Speaker 6: we do best, which is going in and trapping the contaminants.
Speaker 6: So while the EPA shut down the city, all the
Speaker 6: contaminants were still on the ground. Dispersing in the air
Speaker 6: with the next wind, with the next two atmospheric rivers,
Speaker 6: and then it washed into the ocean.
Speaker 5: But if people's houses, roofs, lawns had contaminants on it
Speaker 5: and the rain came down hard and it did run off, yeah,
Speaker 5: did that alleviate the situation immediately around those homes?
Speaker 6: Yes, for the for the most part, if you're talking
Speaker 6: like just on people's homes themselves, yes, that would clean
Speaker 6: it up to the point that you wouldn't need necessarily
Speaker 6: a restoration company to wash everyting about that.
Speaker 5: But then again, it's down the street and into the ocean.
Speaker 4: So now you have this entire.
Speaker 3: Devastated communities worth of toxic materials washed into the ocean. A.
Speaker 3: What is the cost of that going to be? But
Speaker 3: also is that the end of it? Well, so now
Speaker 3: you have this entire devastated communities worth of toxic materials
Speaker 3: washed into the ocean. A. What is the cost of
Speaker 3: that going to be? But also is that the end
Speaker 3: of it?
Speaker 6: Well, I've sampled maybe thirty homes outside of the Palisades
Speaker 6: for drinking water. You ask, is there excessive sampling, excessive
Speaker 6: hysteria going on? Yes, I'm sampled maybe fifteen homes for
Speaker 6: benzene and the drinking water. And I tell them, I mean,
Speaker 6: who's telling you to test for that? Benzine doesn't come
Speaker 6: from fire? I mean it can if you have underlying
Speaker 6: utility issues. I'd tell them right out, I'd make five
Speaker 6: hundred bucks from that, but it's not really worth your money.
Speaker 6: They say, yeah, but the city told us to sample
Speaker 6: for and said, okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 5: Then, So who decides if benzine isn't an issue to
Speaker 5: have people sample for benzi.
Speaker 1: In that case it was. It seems like it's a
Speaker 1: city ordinance.
Speaker 6: So that was substantial sampling for no reason, and not
Speaker 6: one test result came back positive for benzene, So.
Speaker 4: What are you What are you finding up there? If
Speaker 4: anything at?
Speaker 1: Asbestos is everywhere eyhere?
Speaker 6: Yeah, but the particulates are so fine, which is precisely
Speaker 6: why they're dangerous, and they contribute to spestiosis.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to test for them.
Speaker 6: So again I say, I'm not going to test for
Speaker 6: that because it'll say non detect.
Speaker 1: But it's there, I know for a fact because I
Speaker 1: can see it. But it's not worth testing for.
Speaker 4: So how do you hear of it?
Speaker 1: Half a vacuuming, and you just wear a mask, and
Speaker 1: what do you do.
Speaker 5: With alans would have installation and stuff.
Speaker 6: You would have to vacu a vacuum and disinfect or
Speaker 6: decontaminate the insulation, presumably.
Speaker 5: Rip it out.
Speaker 6: If you leave that to a restoration company, they'll probably
Speaker 6: rip it out and blow it all over your house.
Speaker 1: That's what they do.
Speaker 5: So you vacuum at first and then bag it up.
Speaker 6: Hepa vacuum carefully contain it. You have multiple air scrubbing
Speaker 6: devices HEPA filters.
Speaker 5: What's an aircra that's a new term for me to
Speaker 5: air scrubber, air scrubber.
Speaker 3: So I know about those because I've had mold remediation
Speaker 3: of a scrubber.
Speaker 1: But air scrubber isn't well.
Speaker 6: I mean, you can get them on Amazon right, there's
Speaker 6: hundreds of different types. They're all fake or they really
Speaker 6: don't do anything. That's a growth industry. So a HEPA
Speaker 6: an air scrubber essentially captures microbes in the air and
Speaker 6: traps them in the HEPA filter, but it doesn't do
Speaker 6: anything unless that material is disturbed in the air. So
Speaker 6: a lot of the air sampling you're seeing in the
Speaker 6: Palisades is garbage because it only detects what is floating
Speaker 6: your air. So I've done a few properties where I've
Speaker 6: sampled their air quality, indoor air quality. The whole industry
Speaker 6: is a scam because it's settled on the ground. Most
Speaker 6: of the ash is heavy metals, so it's not in
Speaker 6: the air. So I said, I'll do this sample for
Speaker 6: five hundred bucks, but I'm not going to find it.
Speaker 6: But I'm not gonna find anything. They say it would
Speaker 6: just help me because I have children. I say, okay,
Speaker 6: zero point zero because it measures total dust particulates in
Speaker 6: the air.
Speaker 5: But Billy's playing it on the floor. Yeah, well so
Speaker 5: you again, hepa, vacuum dat up? Yeah, you just get
Speaker 5: it out. You know it's there among other things. Yes, amazing.
Speaker 3: What's does your industry have a good relationship with the
Speaker 3: insurers on this stuff?
Speaker 6: No, and that's that's a huge problem, particularly for Alta Dina.
Speaker 6: Forgive me for so much detail, but the state is
Speaker 6: presenting this as a free cleanup if you go with
Speaker 6: the Army Corps of Engineers, right, But it turns out
Speaker 6: the state essentially compelled the insurance companies to foot the bill. Now,
Speaker 6: insurance companies, what they do is they calculate cost. Of course,
Speaker 6: so the insurance company has proven with their own metrics
Speaker 6: that demolition or a debris cleanup would cost, say fifty
Speaker 6: thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: They have no experience with hazmat. Answer your question.
Speaker 6: I go to these clients and I say, well, the
Speaker 6: disposal alone of the hazardous debris will be twenty thousand
Speaker 6: dollars because it's has mad. The insurance companies have never
Speaker 6: dealt with that. So they say, well, poor homeowner, will
Speaker 6: only compensate you fifty grand, which means the homeowner, after
Speaker 6: losing his house, has to pay me out of pocket
Speaker 6: or just sit there and wait for the army for
Speaker 6: five years.
Speaker 1: So do we have a good relationship with insurance? There
Speaker 1: is no.
Speaker 5: Relationship because they don't have the relationship. Yeah, and also
Speaker 5: this is so many these fire has been so massive.
Speaker 5: I feel for them. I mean they're in a business
Speaker 5: where they went what happened? Wait, what just happened? Which
Speaker 5: is just horrendous. You know, I'm curious because for everybody
Speaker 5: listening who isn't in this situation. I had down to
Speaker 5: ask you. My wife wanted to no cleaning, what's the
Speaker 5: best blown and oil cleaning? Cleaning supply. So this odor
Speaker 5: pet owder, everybody, every product I've ever bought the claims
Speaker 5: to do something doesn't do the thing. So I'm curious
Speaker 5: what you use has to do the thing? So can
Speaker 5: we buy from.
Speaker 3: Over the Can you realize if answers this question the
Speaker 3: trade secret, you don't have to know the type, the type.
Speaker 5: Of areas area areas vinegar and bacon.
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you yeah.
Speaker 6: So again, my competitors would provide several different chemicals that
Speaker 6: are the cutting edge technology. They bring out ozone machines,
Speaker 6: hydroxyal machines and all this which I provide usually included
Speaker 6: because it's anything that it doesn't cost me anything. The
Speaker 6: number one cleaner is hydrogen peroxide. It's a miracle. And
Speaker 6: the cool thing about it is if you're on a
Speaker 6: blood scene and you can't always see where the blood is,
Speaker 6: it stains where it's it's very hard to text.
Speaker 1: So you put down the hydro peroxide bones on protein enzymes.
Speaker 1: So it's a miracle.
Speaker 5: So I really come on, really, no, really, that's not really.
Speaker 5: I knew that you know hydrogen peroxide bones on protein.
Speaker 4: Side did because where did I grow up? What was
Speaker 4: my family?
Speaker 5: Livingston?
Speaker 4: New Jersey in the in the hospital.
Speaker 5: Bus, my father's family. What do you know? Oh blood,
Speaker 5: Now I get it. Yeah, so wait, hydron peroxide foams.
Speaker 5: It finds the protein and.
Speaker 6: And it foams, and then you let it sit and
Speaker 6: it it disinfects the majority of the material, but you
Speaker 6: still have to crebit with scrub it with additional chemicals.
Speaker 1: That's how you find it. So we've done some jobs.
Speaker 6: Where you have a door and it looks fine and
Speaker 6: you you put the hydrogen peroxide on it and it
Speaker 6: foams and you can literally see a handprint.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 5: And then you clean it with other trades.
Speaker 1: My crow antimicrobial towels that absorb the surface.
Speaker 3: And I saw this in your biolet. How are you
Speaker 3: getting rid of radioactive materials? What are you doing careful?
Speaker 6: It's a long story, but chiefly my what I what
Speaker 6: I see in California is going to be raided on,
Speaker 6: which is another homeowner's disaster because it's in it's naturally
Speaker 6: occurring in the soil underneath your home, and the gases
Speaker 6: go through your home up through the vents and it's
Speaker 6: completely inert and it's harmless right on. But when it decays,
Speaker 6: it produces polonium and lead as a radioactive byproduct that
Speaker 6: settles on the dust in your home and is the
Speaker 6: number two cause of lung cancer in the United States.
Speaker 3: And so to remediate that, you're just like using the
Speaker 3: scrubbers and.
Speaker 6: The no well, I guess you would for the contaminants
Speaker 6: or the radon die particles. Yes, but the way to
Speaker 6: mitigate rate on itself is simply to vent it. You
Speaker 6: produce negative pressure in the soil and it sucks it
Speaker 6: up in the air.
Speaker 5: So I read that. Of all the stuff you got
Speaker 5: to do, the hardest issue is when you go into
Speaker 5: a hoarder situation and you're not, so, why, what's the
Speaker 5: level of difficulty there? That's above everything else.
Speaker 6: Porting is difficult because it so often overlaps with issues
Speaker 6: like biohazard and death, and they don't often even know,
Speaker 6: you know, it's just like, well, the what you see
Speaker 6: on the TV shows are generally accurate in the sense
Speaker 6: that they are absolutely out of control. Every family member
Speaker 6: involved is hysterical, none of them has any money. That's
Speaker 6: the hardest part for a business because it's a terribly sensitive,
Speaker 6: slow situation. The psychological aspect is very very difficult, so
Speaker 6: it takes so long, so eventually you start to you
Speaker 6: just start to lose all your profit. Eventually you can
Speaker 6: kind of make some progress, get the material out of there,
Speaker 6: and then you often find a dead cat or a
Speaker 6: dead dog that's been decomposing. Now that may not sound
Speaker 6: like a big deal. We've all had dead mice, dead rats.
Speaker 6: But if you have decomposition of an organism, it is
Speaker 6: a health hazard. It's a severe one. And if you have
Speaker 6: like rats, I just cleaned up rats, exploding rats.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, they got into it. Well, back
Speaker 1: up another bell.
Speaker 5: I think it's time for exploding rats.
Speaker 4: Really do it?
Speaker 5: Wait? What are exploding rats? Right? By? Realized the rat
Speaker 5: looks at you and boom.
Speaker 6: I wish they just ate insulation inside of a transform
Speaker 6: and they blew up so there's guts.
Speaker 1: But tell us no.
Speaker 6: The point for hoarding is if you have a build
Speaker 6: up of a film of rat feces it produced, it's
Speaker 6: a significant hazard of haunted virus, and haunta virus has
Speaker 6: like a thirty percent death rate.
Speaker 1: It's no joke.
Speaker 5: I got to tell you, it's almost like firefighters. When
Speaker 5: I went into the house first time, I had on
Speaker 5: one of those papers just to keep clean whatever. And
Speaker 5: I had on a mask respirator I think loves in
Speaker 5: the booties, and I'm trying to just do minor stuff
Speaker 5: and I'm sweating like I've never seen I got and
Speaker 5: I've never sweated before, so I can't And I was
Speaker 5: only in there for a short time. But I got
Speaker 5: to tell you, I don't know how you do it. Well.
Speaker 5: You must lose forty pounds of weight every job you do,
Speaker 5: because it's forget the emotionality of dealing with human beings
Speaker 5: that are in a state that they're so sad. But
Speaker 5: the work, it's one thing do in lifting car and
Speaker 5: cleaning when you're not wearing that. When you're wearing that,
Speaker 5: isn't it almost impossible? It's real, very difficult.
Speaker 6: You can't breathe, you can't see anything, You're respirator's fog up.
Speaker 6: It's it's scary, especially when you're an environment that is
Speaker 6: surrounded by potential danger, very scary.
Speaker 1: Do you ever get to a place and go Nope, No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not that smart.
Speaker 4: There's never been where you go my pay right doing.
Speaker 5: It, But thanks for showing us in. It's interesting. Also,
Speaker 5: you know, be careful with high pressure, high sales, because
Speaker 5: there are a lot of people who run into this stuff.
Speaker 5: Whether it's this or you're listening in North Carolina or
Speaker 5: whatever tragedy you deal with, you look for somebody who's
Speaker 5: certified and registered. Yes, yes, always always to do the work.
Speaker 5: Don't don't sign anything or do anything with somebody who's
Speaker 5: not not registered for disaster work. Correct and what kind
Speaker 5: of what kind of certification is it?
Speaker 6: So is the case with the Palisades clean up? Has
Speaker 6: Matt contractors only, so not restoration, not just demolition. All
Speaker 6: these people coming out of the woodwork has Matt contractors
Speaker 6: only only. We have the insurance and the training to
Speaker 6: protect our men. They're paid well, they're insured. That's how
Speaker 6: they can mitigate the contaminants from spreading and to protect
Speaker 6: the family and themselves well.
Speaker 5: And there's a lot of miss information, So just be
Speaker 5: careful right and ask the right questions and get somebody
Speaker 5: who's certified.
Speaker 3: And thank you for coming in and once again, ladies
Speaker 3: and gentlemen may Field Environmental, Thanks James than.
Speaker 4: So U you feel better. I feel worse, you know what.
Speaker 5: I'll be okay, And it's it's just it's what it is.
Speaker 5: But I really the people who've lost their home and
Speaker 5: trying to deal with that. I don't know how you
Speaker 5: do that where you lost.
Speaker 3: Everything, But you know, Peter, in some ways, and we
Speaker 3: were talking about this a little bit before the show.
Speaker 3: In some ways, for some kinds of people, not everybody,
Speaker 3: the complete wipeout is a cleaner break than what you're
Speaker 3: left with because you've got one foot in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you know what, we'll be We'll be okay,
Speaker 5: So yeah, we'll we'll It's tough for me to talk
Speaker 5: about still because I'm in it, but I'm very cognizant
Speaker 5: that we were. We're not in it to the extent
Speaker 5: so many.
Speaker 3: Before understood, well, here's a man whose house is never
Speaker 3: on fire, but it's always in the path of a hurricane.
Speaker 5: David Googan, Right right, Doc, we're talking to here. Comfortable,
Speaker 5: I've been, don't jinx me.
Speaker 4: I've I've been lucky so far.
Speaker 7: Just one thing I want to mention about Peter situation.
Speaker 7: The house that burns down. I think people understand right,
Speaker 7: it's it's gone, everything is gone. But I had mentioned
Speaker 7: someone to someone about the toxic dust that and They're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 7: but you know.
Speaker 1: You you but that's outside.
Speaker 4: You just I was down that and I'm like, no, it's.
Speaker 8: Not outside the house, it's inside the house, right, everything
Speaker 8: in the refrigerator you open.
Speaker 5: You know a point, David, we have a friend who
Speaker 5: you know, and I'll tell you later who it is.
Speaker 5: It's not that far from me. He's a very nice house.
Speaker 5: But if your windows weren't one hundred percent secure, there
Speaker 5: was a ninety mile Parliament. I never felt anything like that.
Speaker 5: He basically had me laughed and he left. He said,
Speaker 5: my neighbor's tesla basically blew into my living room. He said,
Speaker 5: it's not full, but the cars in there because the
Speaker 5: wind just got in. And there's so much good and
Speaker 5: ash like he said, my neighbor literally, my neighbor's is
Speaker 5: in my living So, yeah, way has been. I'm thinking
Speaker 5: a segway out of there.
Speaker 4: The cheery, the cheery episode. This should be the Christmas episode.
Speaker 3: Don't you think it's the holiday episode?
Speaker 5: It's a horse, it's a harsh. Yeah, So all those
Speaker 5: people lost their homes. Man, you don't know, you just
Speaker 5: don't even know what to say in both of those fires,
Speaker 5: and and I hope there, I hope they get the
Speaker 5: help they need.
Speaker 3: But you know, somebody's house burns down every day, and
Speaker 3: it's just as devastating, it's just as awful. And this
Speaker 3: is the thing we always try and sound the show,
Speaker 3: and we always, Peter and I try.
Speaker 4: And make a point of it all the time.
Speaker 3: Although we joke a lot, we could all be a
Speaker 3: lot nicer to each other.
Speaker 4: We could take care of it.
Speaker 3: Always checked a little bit more because everybody is going
Speaker 3: through something.
Speaker 5: And I wish dinner because everybody's got a fifty pound
Speaker 5: back of spent on your shoulder. You don't know if
Speaker 5: the kids cancer, you don't know what's going on. But
Speaker 5: I got to tell you, the kindness and the outreak
Speaker 5: was insane. I think everybody so yep, well I'll get
Speaker 5: through it, you know we will. And and like I said,
Speaker 5: my heart goes out to people who were really really lost,
Speaker 5: lost their memories and their houses and family.
Speaker 9: Do you know what they have in this show? Oh
Speaker 9: that I'm gonna throw up. I just threw up my mouth.
Speaker 9: Really no, really, I can clean that up. James. It's
Speaker 9: an out of the park.
Speaker 2: That's another episode of really no really comes to a close.
Speaker 2: I know you're wondering what the hell is actually in
Speaker 2: all that soot and ash spread over Los Angeles County.
Speaker 2: That answer in a moment verse, Let's thank our guest,
Speaker 2: James Mayfield. You can contact his business at their website
Speaker 2: mayfieldeanv dot com. On x they are at Mayfield and Viral.
Speaker 2: On Yelp they are Mayfield Environmental Solutions, and on Facebook
Speaker 2: there Mayfield Environmental Engineering. Find all pertinent links in our
Speaker 2: show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
Speaker 2: and threads at Really No Really podcast, And of course
Speaker 2: you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online
Speaker 2: at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some
Speaker 2: amazing factor story that boggles your mind, share it with
Speaker 2: us and if we use it, we will send you
Speaker 2: a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the
Speaker 2: thought that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube,
Speaker 2: hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're
Speaker 2: updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we
Speaker 2: do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: And now the answer to the question, what is actually
Speaker 2: in all that soot and ash spread across LA? While
Speaker 2: the ash dispersed over Los Angeles following the January twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five wildfires consists of a complex mixture of substances,
Speaker 2: primarily due to the combustion of both natural vegetation and
Speaker 2: urban structures. Key components include one particulate matter or PM
Speaker 2: two point five. These fine particles measuring two point five
Speaker 2: microns or smaller can penetrate deep into the lungs and
Speaker 2: even enter the bloodstream, posing significant health risks.
Speaker 4: Two toxic metals.
Speaker 2: The burning of urban infrastructure releases heavy metals such as
Speaker 2: lead and zinc into the environment. Three carcinogenic compounds. Smoke
Speaker 2: from urban fires contains carcinogens, posing long term health risks
Speaker 2: to those who inhale it. And four volatile organic compounds
Speaker 2: or voceeds. Combustion releases VOCs like formaldehyde, which are harmful
Speaker 2: when inhaled. These components contribute to hazardous air quality, with
Speaker 2: particulate matter levels reaching thirty six point eight times the
Speaker 2: World Health Organization guideline value during the fires. This noxious
Speaker 2: mix gets into the soil, the air, the water tables,
Speaker 2: and swimming pools, imposes significant health risks, particularly to vulnerable
Speaker 2: populations and emergency responders. To everyone whose lives have been
Speaker 2: upended by the LA fires, we wish you speedy recovery
Speaker 2: and better days ahead. And to all our listeners, please
Speaker 2: go online and search for how.
Speaker 4: You can help.
Speaker 2: Thank you really doing a really is production of Blase Entertainment.