We have several old houses on campus.  These have been converted into offices over the years, but they retain certain historical charming features.  Some of these features are good.  Some of them are not.

In one house where some math faculty have offices, there were ongoing complaints about unpleasant smells.  Someone finally investigated, and found a colony of feral cats in the basement. (Basements in Charleston are rare because of the danger of flooding.  I don’t know what the deal is with this one…)  It turns out that in this basement there was a deep layer of poop and other “cat residue.” I heard “10 inches” mentioned, which is something you never want to hear in the same sentence with “cat residue.”  Furthermore, there was a container full of some noxious chemical stored down there, and somehow it had leaked or turned over or something, and spilled into the heap of cat residue.  Once all of this was discovered, they evacuated the house for some time while a haz-mat team cleaned it up.  This was going on while the math department had a job candidate on campus for an interview.  He declined our offer of a job.  I can’t help but wonder if his decision had something to do with this.

In another old house used for offices, they discovered a colony of bats nesting in the walls.  The story here is that a clean up crew was sent in to open up the walls and clean out the bat guano (=bat poop) which is very noxious because of the amonia content.  A fragile ceiling in a closet caved in on top of some poor guy working on the cleanup, burying him in it.  Shovels were involed.  I heard “100 pounds” mentioned, which is something you never want to hear in the same sentence with “bat guano.”  But there it is.