75 Comments Posted by evilavatar

Lynn,

You also have to worry about aspiration pneumonia and all the other joys that can come with working in facilities like this. I have been in mental health for a while now and work in an out patient medical facility that serves under served populations so I don't have as many issues as you describe, but when I was doing my undergrad studies, I can remember working at a very well reputed nursing home for d.d. populations. Many times as an intern I was the only one there because they didn't have to pay me (ahh the joys of being young and foolish). We had a patient revolt at about 12:30 pm one night and there was always the risk of patients getting outside and freezing (many facilities have doors that lock behind you) and problems with people just plain not knowing where they were or needed to go if they get out of the place. A lot of places will have staff there for the overnight who are "sleeping staff", meaning they are mostly there for the emergency needs if the patients at the facility are fairly "high functioning". The facility I interned at was near a state college and a lot of the staff (including myself) were hired from the school. I can't tell you how many times I can remember people I was working with being under the influence on over night shifts. Often this was tolerated to some extent as the pay was low, the skills needed minimal most of the time, and the number of emergencies fairly low. In other words they were often just paying for a warm body to cover them legally should something happen or to take blame if something went wrong. After I left I know of at least 2 deaths due to issues with staffing. A lot of it is because with deinstitutionalization many of these facilities no longer have the medical facilities on site and the communities hospitals have had to pick up the slack (often farther away and not having doctors that have the experience with the patients.)

The glass stems with the blue tinge are crack pipes, the metal caps probably used as cookers to break down drugs for injection. Some of those clear container thing look like they could be ampules though, either way best to steer clear of a mess like that. "shooting galleries" are not uncommon among drug users and when you see stuff like that it usually means there is more than one user who has found this spot. best to steer clear as they may find your equipment pretty inviting.

Daniel,
It would depend on the type of film and how degraded it was.

Per the discussion on water towers, it was conidered a smart thing for many places to have their own power generation and water supply post WWII in the event there was a nuclear war. Prior to that most places needed to be self sufficient as the risk of epedemic or other factors could cut them off for extended periods and hospitals were often at the epicenter of epidemics. Many instiutions were taken over in time of war and great need for purposes other than their original design. I went to college at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and it had both it's own water supply and power generation facility on the campus and was listed as a formal fall out shelter zone for many years.

I have a couple of friends that work for the coroners office and the head coroner used to have a specialized kitchen set as the knife blades are longer, the hilts are better, and the blades are less likely to bind and slip than a scaplel, also there is no intention to put this person back together in the same fashion as a medical doctor in a hospital so it is not uncommon to see knives of this nature in morgues.

Psych hospitals used to do this because the underwire in bras can be used to injure ones.

Motts,

Cellulose film has a half life of 10-15 years if not properly stored, my best guess is this film is toast and you could not get a viewable image off it. It will begin to cloud and harden pretty quickly and does worst in hot, humid areas. You can usually tell by "sniffing" the film. If it has a vinegary smell the acetyl acids are proably starting to leach from the film. The acids from your fingers can also break it down, so films that got touched a lot fall apart pretty fast too.

there is more on the whole process here
http://en.wikipedia.or...llulose_acetate_film

Most of the stuff you find will fall into this category. If you find 35mm film it is probably also unusable if it is Kodachrome as the last shop developing it finally stopped this year.

If you see film like this places near the old reels it is probably cellulose film stock. There are tons of old movies that have disappeared because the cellulose film will break down eventually. It's a real shame, but if you can you should share the place you see film so it can be preserved.

Phones like the one on the wall were used a lot in old theaters that showed multi reel projections so that the reels were swapped correctly or the movies started at the correct time.

I used to work for a psychiatric nursing home and I have seen this one other place. It was used as a restrictive measure for patients that were violent when there was not a special segregated area for the patient. Most places stopped doing this because of the risk to patients being left alone in a locked room, fire, and other factors. It made sense though as they had toilet facilities and such.

Need to get shirts made up stating you work for an abatement company... built in excuse for being their with you camera. Make up some cards for an added touch and you are good to go.

If you see closed reels of film you may want to let someone know. Cellulose film will fall apart after a while and there is a lot of stuff that has been lost over the years due to lack of conservation :/

The MMY has been around since like 1938 or so and they are on the 18th edition now; I see a 3rd and fourth edition on that shelf. The earliest edition I found on a google search is the 9th ed. from 1985. upon further search the 3rd edition was published in 1949 and the 4th in 1953.

I think they covered the reasons for the safes above, I thought it interesting to note this safe company is still in business.
http://www.hallsafe.co...curityproseries.html

Newer safes with the glass re-lockers can be especially dangerous.

Motts,

They sued to segregate a facility I worked at by sex in the same fashion. Staff could use the basement which had laundering facilities, the main kitchen, and beds for overnight staff while patients had the upstairs halves of the building. IN this way you could still have men and women together in one building, but the modesty issues were smaller and you could use less staff to treat and care for more people. There was another facility on the site that had a famous tunnel that ran between the homes for storage and maintenance as well.