She Cleans For Free. In a Hazmat Suit!
Plus! CAFÉ ANNE recipe contest!! I survived my silent retreat!!!
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Issue #196 of CAFÉ ANNE!
Did you miss me? I missed you! I was off the grid for a week-long silent retreat at a Buddhist temple in the Catskills. I didn’t talk or internet or newspaper or magazine. I didn’t listen to podcasts or read novels or watch anything on a screen. What I did do: meditate, walk around in the snow and drink coffee. I also spent a lot of time contemplating the nature of reality. But more often than that, I was envisioning my next meal or making up stories about the monks and nuns.
And what did I learn? When it comes to what’s going on in my mind, I am even more of a goofball than I suspected. Good to know!
In other news, huge I’m-talking-again shoutouts to our newest paid subscribers Sam C., Dale K., James J., Kara K., and Patty. That’s enough $$$ for 63 lattes at the World Peace Café!
I am very excited for this week’s issue, of course. We’ve got the very first CAFÉ ANNE recipe contest, plus a Q&A with Davina Furbert, a Queens entrepreneur with an unusual hobby. Please enjoy.
Regards!
Anne Wolf the Wolf Wolf
CULINARY CORNER
CAFÉ ANNE RECIPE CONTEST!
As readers who memorize this newsletter shall recall, last month I wrote about Brooklyn’s Byron Sorrells and his genius new snack, the Unhinged caffeinated protein bar, available in local bodegas. The $4 bar packs 75 milligrams of caffeine and eleven grams of protein.
This inspired me, of course, to invent my own caffeinated protein snack: a cup of cottage cheese mixed with two teaspoons of instant coffee, which I dubbed the Anne-ergy Bowl. The ingredients cost just $2.30 and pack twice the caffeine and protein of the Unhinged bar. As for the taste? I ate it, and did not die.
And then, just when I thought my culinary caffeine adventures were finished, My “friend” Aharon sent a mysterious link. It directed me to an online outfit selling…whoa! Caffeine powder!!!
That’s right. Anyone can buy pure granulated caffeine and sprinkle it over anything and everything! You could stir it into your oatmeal instead of sugar, add it to your lunchtime PB&J to create a zippy sandwich or make an energizing dinner soup that will keep you going all night long.
For just $100, you can buy a one kilo jar—that’s 1,000,000 milligrams of caffeine. I did a little research and learned that one teaspoon of this stuff is equivalent to 28 cups of coffee. The whole jar equates to 10,000 cups. This purchase could really change your life—or even end it!
So now it’s your turn: please create a new recipe incorporating caffeine powder. It could be a beverage, entree, snack, dessert—or an entirely new food category you imagined in last night’s dream.
Please post your recipe in the comments or email it to me at annekadet@yahoo.com. I will judge the entries based on originality plus whatever mood I’m in. The winner will get their recipe published in a future issue, plus I will send you a beautiful CAFÉ ANNE coffee mug!
Please submit your recipe by Friday. But if you send it in over the weekend and it is the best, you could still win!!!
DEPT. OF WEIRD VOLUNTEERING
She Cleans For Free. In a Hazmat Suit.
If you could create your ideal volunteer job, what would you be doing? For Davina Furbert, a 34-year-old mom living in Queens, it’s donning a hazmat suit and cleaning out New York City’s trashiest apartments.
I love this lady’s story! For years, she worked a bunch of minimum wage retail and service jobs. Then a chance encounter inspired her to launch her own business, Compassionate Cleaning. Accompanied by her intrepid crew, she handles extreme residential cleanup jobs that other cleaning services won’t touch—apartments occupied by folks living in total squalor.
Many such folks can’t afford a cleaning crew, of course. So last year, Ms. Furbert launched a nonprofit, Do It With Compassion, offering free three-hour clean-outs to anyone who requests one.
On Instagram, where she has 133,000 followers, she posts videos of her cleaning adventures—wearing a gas mask and narrating the action as she wades through mounds of trash, clothing, petrified mice and food scraps. Typical remark: “There’s roaches everywhere, and something just crawled up my leg!” By the end of each reel, the apartment is clean and tidy. It is extremely satisfying to watch.
Last week, I chatted with Ms. Furbert about her work, her free service, and what the state of your home says about your state of mind. This Q&A has been edited and condensed. Please enjoy!
I just spent an hour watching your videos on Instagram. I can’t believe the conditions you encounter. There’s trash and food and bugs and clothes all mixed together, piled three feet high throughout the whole apartment.
Yes, all the free cleanings I do, that’s pretty much what they have going on.
I got the sense that you’re having a good time. In one video you saw advance photos of a difficult situation and said, “Yes! We can do this!”
It’s the fact that I get to help somebody that otherwise would have a really hard time finding somebody to help them. That’s the best part of it.
When I visit, I get to have a conversation with the client. We’re talking, we’re laughing, we’ll pick up something and it’s like, “Oh girl, I don’t even know what that is!” We’re listening to music, we’re having a really good time.
Sometimes things will jump out and we’re both scared. We’re tripping over each other, trying to run out the door. I’ll be like, “I don’t know if I want to open that closet. Do you want to open it?” And they’re like, “No.” And I’m like, “Alright, let’s open it and see what jumps out.” It’s so funny.
In your videos, you seem weirdly fond of mice and rats and cockroaches.
I think mice are really cute. I like animals. And then roaches—I never was a play-with-roaches kind of person, I felt the same way that everybody feels about roaches. But as I kept doing these jobs, seeing the different types of roaches—some of them have different patterns, that means they’re female or male. And I just thought that was really cool.
Have you ever encountered a situation that was too much?
Any human excretions. That’s where I kind of draw the line. Like, I can’t. I’ll probably just pass out at the smell.
I was really struck when you said, in one video, “Some people haven’t seen their floor in years, and they never thought they’d see their floor ever again.”
Because they know that they can’t do it. And they know the help that’s out there, the companies that do these jobs, it’s very expensive to get that remediated.
How expensive?
Like, $8,000 to $10,000 to clean it out. That’s between decluttering, junk removal, cleaning and pest remediation. It’s four jobs in one.
And who are the people that get your free services?
Geographically, a lot are in Brooklyn. They’re mostly living in the inner city, and mostly mid-20s to mid-50s. Plus some elderly clients. I’ll get men once in a blue moon, but it’s usually a woman booking for the man. It’s a mix of people who live in private and public housing. I’ve had people in fancy buildings in places like Soho and Williamsburg, New Jersey.
You’ve said it’s not always a hoarding situation—it’s often an executive function issue. What do you mean?
Sometimes people will see places like that and they’ll label it a hoarder problem because there’s so much stuff. But a lot of times, there’s no attachment to these things. A lot of people are just experiencing executive dysfunction. So it’s like, “I just can’t put this paper in the garbage where it belongs. I can’t hang these clothes back up. It’s easier for me to just drop it.” So things are getting dropped for years, and then this is what you get.
Why does that happen? Are they depressed?
A lot of things contribute to executive dysfunction: schizophrenia, bipolar, ADHD, autism—people on the spectrum.
How do clients find you?
Social media. When I post my videos, they see the way I handle the situations. It’s not, “Oh my god, I cleaned this disgusting place today.” I don’t use words like that. I just say, “Hey, guys, I’m here to do a free cleaning. We have some roaches! We have some mice!”
What are some interesting things you’ve discovered while cleaning?
I’ve had this cleaning where it was an elderly lady. It was a time capsule, items from different decades, from the 60s to the present day. Lottery tickets, clothes, magazines. I thought that was so cool.
Once we found a nest of baby rats instead of mice. I’ve never seen baby rats before in person. Oh gosh, it’s so cute. If I had a house, I would have took them home.
You recently posted a video where you found money all over the kitchen.
There was just money in the most random places. That’s why I always open stuff up and look through it. If it’s an elderly person, they usually have money just everywhere.
Do clients typically help during the clean-out?
A lot of the time, yes. I think that’s important, especially for people who have hoarding disorder. In their mind, it feels like you’re just throwing away everything. If you ask, “Hey, do you want this shirt?” you’re helping them feel they have some control. That’ll make the project way, way easier. You can throw things out on the side—just don’t let them see it.
How do they react when you’re finished?
Ninety-eight percent are like, “Wow!” They’re grateful for it. They’re ready to start fresh. And then you have that two percent who think they’re ready but then at the end it’s like, “The chaos I’ve been functioning in so long is gone. Now I have to find a new way to function.” And that’s overwhelming and distressing for them. They get a little upset with you.
What do the happy ones say?
A lot of the times they start to cry, they don’t really have any words. It’s just like, “I never thought that the place could look like this again.”
And what happens after you leave?
Sometimes it goes back to square one. So I tell them, if you see it going back to square one, just call me. We can do a virtual session so I can hold you accountable. And sometimes they maintain it, and they’ll update me on what they’ve been able to do. And I’ll say, “I’m proud of you.” And I really am! So that keeps them going.
How did this all begin?
In 2019, I was majoring in psychology at Queens College and working Bath & Body Works. My mom didn’t have cable, so I was like, “Where can I go to watch Love & Hip Hop?”
There was a neighbor with cable but people said, “Oh no, don’t go to her house. You need a hazmat suit to go up there.” I ended up going into her place and I was shocked. There were roaches, there were maggots in the kitchen, there were mice nests literally everywhere. So I cleaned her place up for her. And I liked it. I said this, “This is cool. This is pretty nice.” I posted about it and people were like, “Come over. I have the same problem.”
So you did this for free for this lady?
Yeah, I did it for free.
And you were like, “This is pretty nice...”
Yeah, this is pretty cool. I like this!
I love it when someone loves to do something—and is really good at something—that no one else even wants to do. I think that’s when you know you found your calling. What happened next?
I started getting cleaning jobs, paid ones. Then last year, Nicholas Nuvon—he’s a YouTuber—he came to work with me and shared the experience with his followers. I was talking about how little I was charging for these extreme cleaning jobs. And people said, “We have to get her a crowdfund.” So I made a GoFundMe. That’s how I was able to fund the free cleanings.
You’ve said you spent some time in the shelter system.
In 2016. I was 24. I had an apartment, and it was an illegal apartment, and there were problems with mice running around. I told the landlord, “You got to fix this, or I’m not going to give you any money.” So I stopped paying rent, and eviction happened, and that’s when I went to the shelter.
Did that provoke a lot of empathy for the people you’re helping now?
Yeah, I know how it is. It’s like a hamster wheel. I know what it’s like being confused and not knowing what to listen to and what to not listen to until you gain experience.
What are some jobs you worked before starting your company?
I worked at JFK handling baggage. I’ve worked at IHOP as a server and at CVS as a cashier.
So until you started your business, you always had hourly wage jobs. I can see why you’d enjoy this a lot more.
I like having self autonomy. I think that’s the best part of this—being able to do what I want, when I want, how I want. And I have a son, so I’m able to be home a lot.
What’s the psychology connection?
Your home is a direct reflection of your mind and what’s going on with you. So when you have people who are tired from work, your place will just show, “tired from work.” It’s not going to show long years of executive dysfunction—it won’t show a whole entire mental disorder. So that was very interesting to me, how what’s going on your head will manifest on the outside. The closest you can get to being inside of somebody’s mind is being inside of their house. I thought that was really cool.
And what about people who are like, crazy, clean and tidy?
That can be normal. It can be okay. Then you’ll have some people’s who have OCD, and it really disrupts their everyday life. Sometimes you’ll be late for work because you have to move this thing five times before you leave, and then god forbid the intrusive thought comes in again and now you have to move it five more times.
What’s your long-term plan?
I want to do exactly what I do now, but taking it nationwide and then internationally.
Did offering your service for free help you feel even more motivated?
No, not so much. But I would say, if something keeps tugging at your heart, if it’s something you really can’t stop thinking about, just do it. A lot of people, they’re not in a position to just do things and not get paid for it, especially in this economy. But you don’t have to do it on a large scale. You can do small things. Whatever that thing is that’s pulling you, do it! Because it’s definitely needed.
You can donate to Ms. Furbert’s GoFundMe here. Or just buy her a box of trash bags!
CAFÉ ANNE, a free weekly newsletter about NYC, is created by Brooklyn journalist Anne Kadet. Subscribe to get the latest issue every Monday.
Such a fabulous read! I love Cafe Anne.
This story made me very happy. Davina is compassionate and generous and kind even to rat babies. She is my new favorite person!