Essay by Tristan Marshall, Forbidden Media Investigator
I'm afraid I've been lying to you these past couple of weeks regarding my injury. I figured "pinched nerve from sitting weird" was less embarrassing than the truth of "I was injured during an investigation", for some reason. What I'm going to be talking about today was filmed not 20 miles from my hometown. And now that I'm healed and have some test results back, I'm ready to discuss it.
Kitchen Blitz was the 2013 pilot of a home improvement TV show that was pitched to HGTV. As the name might suggest, the show focuses on trying to renovate the kitchen specifically. It makes sense: a house can exist without a TV room, a breakfast nook, a ‘man cave’, etc. But the kitchen is the third-most important room in the house, after the bathroom and bedroom, and it’s also the most complex to maintain. You have to deal with gas lines, electricity, plumbing, waterproofing, managing storage space, dealing with pests, and so much more, so of course some people would find entertainment value in it.
Like a lot of media I deal with, the episode is made up of a bunch of unedited takes from various cameras. I’ve managed to create together a coherent narrative with the help of my colleague ‘Azula’ (pseudonym), who is the editing guru in the Institute; she helped cobble together the Money for Nothing tape. But before we get to the episode, let’s discuss the house itself.
The house it was filmed in-- which still stands to this day, abandoned-- was built in the 1850s. It used to be a farmhouse, before all the land around it was bought up and developed into something that would be called suburbs, if it were closer to a major city. It’s the oldest house on the block, and it’s falling apart. Part of the roof has collapsed on the north side, rendering the attic inaccessible. The debris from that has crushed the carport on the house's north side. The front porch was torn up by the police, exposing the crawlspace beneath. The front door is about three feet off of the "ground" as a result, covered in faded yellow crime scene tape.
Supposedly, you can get anywhere with a clipboard, a tie, and a lot of confidence. The same is true of Institute research, but the props are different. When I went to investigate the house, I wore a set of white nylon coveralls, along with gloves, goggles, and a face mask, with a bag in one hand and a clipboard in the other. To most people, I’ll look like either a CSI tech or someone who’s coming to inspect the house for mold; either of those were welcome sights when it came to this ruin. Properties on either side were put up for sale years ago, and remain vacant.
Negotiating the crawlspace was easy enough; jump down, walk across, crawl under the police tape. There's no condemned notice, for some reason; I think the city considers this a landmark because of how old the house is, so they're reluctant to tear it down, but people don't want to move in because of its history.
On my way in, I left some Institute tech by the door; it's a laser tripwire that goes up at ankle level. It should have sent an alert to my phone if anyone crossed it. That way, I'd have advanced warning if anyone comes in after me.
The kitchen was at the back of the house; between me and that was a lot of rotten carpet and disintegrating floorboards. Thankful for my boots, I stepped across the moist rug, and once I was somewhere dry and stable, I began comparing my observations to the notes I had made on the pilot earlier that day.
