Imagine living in a place where every night when you fall asleep you are literally attacked by insects that have infested your living space and made it their own.  Most of us can’t imagine such a horrific scenario, but for people like Ms. M and Stephanie this is a part of their daily routine.  This audio feature was in part good because of its subject matter, but also because of the tools used by the interviewer and editor to truly put it together into a piece that tells a story.  I was there with Ms. M when she had to go to the hospital and I could feel the bed bugs hopping around my body as Stephanie talks about how her blue polka dotted sheets used to feel as though they were crawling.

This feature does several things very well.  First and foremost the interviews themselves flow with a sense of purpose and are constantly driving us as listeners to the big WHY question.  Like Ira Glass said if you string along a bunch of steps in a story in a descriptive and interesting tone in order to get to the reflection you have a good story even with the most boring of subjects.  This subject matter was by no means boring on its own accord and was in fact made even more interesting and “hang on the edge of your seat” by the way the narrator spoke and the like ability of the interviewees.  Right at the beginning–22:20 to be exact–the interview gets us with the hook: ” Ms. M has some very bad nighttime experiences *pause, build suspense* with roaches.”  BOOM! Right away the listener is involved.

 

Another well used component is the noise used in the background during the interviews.  From 22:20 to 23:05 while Ms. M is discussing her roach infested apartment there is screeching in the background…the screeching of hungry roaches.  At 27 while Stephanie is describing how she sees bed bugs with “bellies full of blood” the hum of a fluorescent light punctuates the shocked silence that follows.  Each sound is used to remind the listener of the squalor these people live in…the pain they go through every night that to them is just a part of life.  The narrator says it all at the end of the piece “Stephanie had grown a colony if bed bugs, in an apartment of bed bugs, in a building of,bed bugs.”

So why tell these stories?  Why delve into these horrific living situations?  Again the reason comes at the end: the moment if reflection.  A week after the Stephanie’s story aired the landlord hired an exterminator and they are now bug free and happy.  This is the why: people need to know that other peop,e live every day in these conditions and nothing is being done so that something HAS to be done.