This past Saturday, Eric’s housing unit was sent outside to have supervised showers in a trailer while people from the outside came to clean his unit. Eric expressed frustration that he believes this effort accomplished very little and mostly just served the purpose of SRJ being able to tell the public that they have professional cleaners coming in. Upon returning from the showers, Eric noted that the day room still appears dirty and has dust in many places. He told me that the vents still have lots of dust in them and the carpet still have stains and bacteria – everything looked and smelled the same. His cell floor even had dirty footprints on it when he returned. The pod showers still smell strongly of urine – they do not appear to have been cleaned since last Wednesday. Eric heard from a few pod workers who encountered the professional cleaning squad that this squad was wearing jumpsuits and told the pod workers that they would be using chlorine to clean the area. However, deputies had promised inmates that this cleaning squad would deep clean the unit using power washers and that they would spray down and sanitize their entire cells. Eric wishes he just had the chance to clean the cell himself with proper equipment. When Eric and his pod went to the outdoor showers, they received antibacterial bar soap and new masks, but deputies told them to throw the masks away after they used them and that inmates should also throw their used soaps in a box and couldn’t take them back to their cells. Today, the top tier of his pod received new masks and soap but the bottom tier (which Eric is in) did not. Eric has not seen hand wipes in almost 2 weeks. Yesterday, deputies said they would hand out cleaning supplies but they never did. Eric hasn’t seen cleaning supplies since last Thursday. Inmates mostly have to try and use their own body soap to clean the cell. When they do receive cleaning supplies, they receive a watered down sanitizer solution bottle (it doesn’t smell like anything), yet they do not pass out rags/towels. Inmates have to use their own materials as rags. They receive a mop, but the mop water is never changed as it is passed around the entire pod – it is very dark in appearance as well. The broom is also dirty, and Eric feels as though he’s just bringing more bacteria from other people’s floors into his own cell when he uses the supplies.
Eric has not seen hand wipes in almost 2 weeks. Yesterday, deputies said they would hand out cleaning supplies but they never did. Eric hasn’t seen cleaning supplies since last Thursday. Inmates mostly have to try and use their own body soap to clean the cell. When they do receive cleaning supplies, they receive a watered down sanitizer solution bottle (it doesn’t smell like anything), yet they do not pass out rags/towels. Inmates have to use their own materials as rags.
The toilet brush is also not sterilized or cleaned and it sits out on the table next to the inmates’ food sometimes. There is no toilet bowl cleaner. He notes that Deputy Caron and Wilson are not wearing their masks – Deputy Wilson’s mask was off all day Sunday. 6C pod next door is still yellow-tagged quarantined and D pod is not, yet deputies still walk through the door straight from C pod to D pod when they have the option to go around. Eric heard Deputy Caron saying that one person in C pod now has COVID-19. Today, breakfast was late – around 9 or 10 in the morning. This meant that Eric’s mail he wanted to send out this morning at breakfast was not accepted, since it was too late in the day. Today, an incident also happened with Deputy Whitlock, whom Eric believes is retaliating against inmates who are filing grievances. When Eric and fellow inmates asked for cleaning supplies today, Whitlock brought a broom that had no handle/stick on the end of it (just the brush) and a toilet brush. When inmates asked for a proper broom, Whitlock told them they could “get on their knees and wipe the floor” and that they could “just write it up, since that’s all they do anyway.” Later in that conversation, when Eric used a cuss word, Whitlock told him that he was going to write Eric up for using profanity, since all the inmates do is write him up.