Ok, I have to come clean.

It's been a month now, I got a good mp3 recorder and I got one of those headphone double-jack things, as well as working out how to get two microphones plugged in to work simultaneously.

A week and a half ago I made the call and the number was disconnected.

I know how lame this sounds and I'm really sorry. This totally undermines my credibility on a story that is mostly grounded on my paranoia. I need you all to understand that if it weren't for my paranoia then this story wouldn't exist, and that it isn't closed off yet. I still have a new lead.

If someone were to walk past shitrags block right now they would see that it is currently up for sale.

I'm going to call up and ask them about the shitrags, but I can't help but feel that I'll just be harrassing some salesperson that doesn't know anything about it.

I'll still try, for all of you. I've just been a bit busy and sheepish about things. I hope you understand.

I have read through my ealier posts and realised that I really haven't established who Johnny homeless is to anyone who hasn't spoken to me outside of this blog. I've also come to realise that most of the earlier moments have passed and I should just talk about who johnny homeless is now.

I've seen him all over that block lately, walking in and out of that small shed. He stinks like shitrags. There was one point a month or so ago that I was chasing this fucker all over sydney. It was like some sort of personal mission. I can get why I was so paranoid at the time.

Johnny homeless is playing a similar game with me.

Johnny homeless isn't homeless. He lives in shitrag shed and as far as I can tell he shits and pisses into a bucket, which then gets dumped in his wheelie bin.

Johnny homeless is selling his shitrag shed. I have no idea how to approach him and ask how he got to be owning a half-million dollar site and living how he does. I don't know if even I can deal with whatever his answers may be.

Up until now I've tried to post pictures etc, but now I feel a bit guilty. If you want to buy shitrag shed (and own a prime development site about 2 minutes walk from central station), let me know but I don't want to post the sign. I've still got photos for people that want to believe, but please, don't demand shit like that unless you want to help johnny homeless out.

He's a scary fucker who needs an even break. He knows me, we have a solemn moment of eye contact on most mornings. He knew I was watching him and he took me on a wild goose chase. I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I tried to confront him about it.

It's going to be a couple of weeks until I can get a decent mp3 recorder

but I really want to make that phone call now. Aside from not having a decent recording device, my only real problem is staying anonymous to this person. I guess posting a blog about it isn't really going to help, but I think I should make this call from a payphone in the city. If I'm completely honest I'm still more than a bit paranoid about it all. I'm not sure how to record the earpiece and my voice at the same time either, so if anyone has an idea on that let me know.

Given that I get paid monthly and my cousin got married last week, I won't be able to buy a decent mp3 player for another couple of weeks.

Instead, I'll tell you about a story I only remembered because of an off-hand comment my dad said a few days ago. He was talking about boy racers waking him up at night. Everywhere I go there seems to be a different name for these kids, but I'm talking about kids that will spend $5000 on a second hand honda civic then spend $15000 "improving" it. Then they'll find a carpark in the city to show off their fully sick subwoofers and shitty new turbo exhaust. UHHNNNNNTSCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. UHHNNNNNTSCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. You get the idea.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was woken up at about three in the morning by a boy racer in the alleyway behind my house (which I should show you more of now that I think about it - it's all connected to shitrag block), who had pulled over just so he could rev his car as hard as possible. I don't even think there was anyone in his car that he was trying to impress. The mind of a boy racer is a complex one.

I heard a few of my neighbours shouting at him and he was shouting back, so I got up and went out to the balcony to see what was happening. By this stage he had got out of his car and was just kinda shouting at the sky as five voices shouted back. I heard him shout "What the fuck are ya gonna do about it?", so I went inside.

I went to my fridge and got a couple of eggs. I only got a couple because I wanted some eggs for breakfast. I like eggs. Eggs are versatile.

I went back out and chucked the eggs at his car, one hit the windshield and one hit the doorframe. I stood there for a minute as he looked around wildly to see where the eggs had come from before I realised that I was naked and it was cold. I heard him shout "WHERE THE FUCK DID THOSE EGGS COME FROM?" and I was tempted to yell back, but I didn't.

I went back in to get some pants because I was awake now and needed some closure before I could go to bed happy. I got back outside to see one of the greatest moments of mob justice I have ever experienced. There were eggs flying from at least eight directions. Someone chucked a whole carton. This dickhead was just standing there screaming at the sky. It was a perfect moment where time almost stood still. It was serene. Eventually the eggs stopped and he shouted "I'm gonna call the cops".

Someone from across the alley shouted in a voice that hurts my throat to imitate, even quietly, "WE'VE ALREADY FUCKIN CALLED THEM YOU LITTLE CUUUUUNT". It's really hard to convey in text just how much venom there was in this guy's voice. He sounded like he was choking while he screamed. I can honestly say that I am not capable of shouting like that, and I'm a pretty loud person.

Boy racer just got back in his car and drove away. Quietly.

I guess I didn't remember it the next day because I slept so well afterwards.

It's been a while.

I have to admit that since I stopped feeling threatened by it all, I've lost a lot of my drive to solve the mystery.

I still wake up in the middle of the night with a whole lot of questions running through my head, I just don't feel like I have to do anything to save my life now. I'm comfortable again.

I've had a couple of leads from the wall, but as one reader put it, "That wall is like a rosetta stone for methheads". The main lead is the most obvious - "Barton St". I don't know of any Barton streets near me so I had a look on google maps. There are five different Barton streets in Sydney, plus a mysterious one. Obviously I have a predisposition to explore the mysterious postcode 2150 first but I'll probably only visit one place per weekend and I might not find anything worth talking about.

Anyway, there has been a small development down at ground zero:


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I've hidden the number because I don't want whoever did this to get the veritable FLOOD of phone calls that might originate from readers of this blog, but there are a few things about this that make me think it might all be a part of the same thing.

- It was written on luggage
- The brick shed on shitrag block seems to be blocked in with garbage
- I took the photo on a quick stop in at home to drop some things off, and when I came back out about ten minutes later the bag was gone

I'm going to call the number and hopefully record it for all of you. Maybe I can get some answers.

I'm sorry if I caused any undue concern.

I'm ok. I've been on my mission, and I've got some interesting photos. I've come to realise that I'm not in any real danger so I've relaxed a bit. I forgot to mention it here, so I've had some very concerned messages. I had no idea that so many people were concerned. Thanks.

It was a pretty easy mission. It was a really bright day so I decided to walk rather than taking a bus. It was nice to just put my headphones on and go for a walk. I don't do it enough and walks like that make me wonder why.

When I got into Newtown I decided to grab a coffee. I used to live nearby so I knew where to get a good one. I got a takeaway and kept walking, headphones on, smoking a cigarette while I drank it through the lid. It was the best feeling I've had in a long time. Even before the shitrags.

When I got to the park, I knew that my search would be worthwhile:




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I was expecting a wave of horror to flow over me. I thought that I'd be stopped dead in my tracks by what I saw. I finished off my coffee and started giggling. HERION=EVIL.

I wasn't scared any more.

I followed the wall around a couple of corners, and the graffiti just got more and more fascinating. I felt a small connection with whatever it is that's trying to communicate with me. I was supposed to be here. It felt good to have this connection. It was almost like I was coming home after a long holiday.

I don't know how much time passed while I was just standing there, taking it all in. I was interrupted when someone's labrador tackled me to the ground and started licking my face. Normally I would have been pretty pissed off by that, but I was in a good mood. The grass was soft.

The dog's owner came over and apologised. She was pretty cute. We spoke for a minute or two about how awesome all of the writing on the wall was. I noticed a pram a little way behind her - the dog was standing next to it, almost guarding it. We kept talking and I was thinking I should ask for her number. Single mothers are great. They don't have time for bullshit.

Then I noticed a guy walk over and start playing with the baby. She blushed, said goodbye and walked back to the pram. He looked like the kind of guy that sits around in a yacht all weekend. He was wearing pastels and white shoes and had a jumper tied around his neck, even though it was a beautiful sunny day. I felt a sudden flash of anger at this perfect bitch and her perfect fucking life with her quiet kid and her awesome dog and her meal-ticket fucknut of a husband. I was about to shout after her and chase them down the road before I realised that I came here for a reason.

I tried to get a long run of photos of this wall, but my phone was running out of batteries. I got all the important bits (I think), and I might go back another time. It was a pretty sweet walk, after all.

I have a few theories about what these pictures contain, but I'd really like to hear what an outsider with an unclouded mind has to think about them.

Here are a couple of pictures so you know what I'm talking about, the rest are available as an 8MB zipfile.





If you have any ideas, let me know by leaving a comment. It'll really help me to get some fresh perspectives here. I'll try and cover off some of the last few weeks to give you all a bit more context, but to be honest I think you're better off looking at these without knowing. I need to see if it isn't just me finding all these things.

I was hoping that I could tell a lot more of the story before I got to this part.

I've been hoping for a lot of things, but enough of those hopes have been dashed in the last few weeks.

Everything I've posted so far has been about three weeks in the past. It's taking me a while to process all the events that are unfolding around me. Almost a month has passed since I first smelled shitrags and if I knew where I'd be at right now, I would have moved to another country.

The last few nights I've found myself staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, trying to decide which country I would have gone to. Guatemala always comes to mind, but I've never been there and reading about the place makes me think I'd have a hard time making much of a life for myself. I just really like saying it. Guatemala.

Maybe I'll come back to what's been happening in the last few weeks later. Maybe I'll write all about it. Maybe I'll "die in my sleep" tonight and this blog will be the only clue anyone has when they find me 6 weeks later, starting to melt into my bed, stinking of shitrags.

Suffice it to say that I've been through a lot more than I can handle. I don't want to write every little thing that I'm scared of because I don't want to just lay all my neuroses out on the table like that. I might be wrong about more than a few things. For a while there I wanted to prove that the shed was an entrance to an underground city. I guess I just really wanted it to be true. That was the first time I really questioned what was a reality and what I was imagining. I'll leave that to another time and get to the present.

I know where I'll be able to find some answers about all of this. I have followed Johnny Homeless on more than a couple of nights. I don't want to post his pictures right now. It would be a really bad move for me if I did that.

The place I need to go is the Camperdown Memorial Rest Park:

View Larger Map

I will explain why on the weekend, I just need to make sure that if I disappear before then that someone, somewhere will try and work out what happened. For the record, the shitrags were over here:

View Larger Map

I've spent a lot of time looking at this. There were cars when the picture was taken. I've never seen cars in that place. All I've seen there are shitrags and Johnny Homeless. I've been paying a lot of attention to the place for a month now.

I have a mission this weekend and I hope to post the results. You will understand if I manage to get there. Like I said before I don't want to put my paranoia on show for all the internet to laugh at, but if I haven't posted anything by Monday expect the worst.

Allow me explain myself before I detail my adventure.

I can understand why people might think I'm being a bit weird here. If me from last month had a conversation with me now, he'd probably walk away. I can't expect any more from you, so I think I should clear up any confusion about what my motivation is here.

The short answer is that I'm curious. Really, really fucking curious. There is a small building on this vacant block:


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I have a few questions about this building:

What the fuck is in there? I guess this is a pretty obvious question, but it's a driving force for me so I'm including it.

What's that giant satellite dish all about? I mean really, it's a small brick shed with a massive satellite dish on top. And a couple of air conditioner units that aren't plugged in to anything. There's something that just isn't right here.

I've been waking up in the middle of the night with this question going through my head. It's starting to affect my work.

My third important question (there are plenty more, but I'm trying to keep things readable here): What's that metal thing on top? I got another photo, but it didn't come out very well. I get the shakes whenever I stand around there now. More on that later.


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Looking back over my posts, I realise that I've failed to mention the homeless guy I've seen scrabbling about in there. I'm starting to think he sleeps in that metal thing up there, but I haven't seen him do it.

I've had more than a few moments where I've just thought to myself that it's an old block that maybe had satellite tv and air-con at some point and there's just some homeless guy that filled a bin with shitrags then forgot to peg down his tent. I like to think this, it calms me down. Sometimes it makes me giggle.

I probably would have believed it too, but there's something sucking me in. I can't help but think that this block is just a facade for something much more sinister. I've said it before, but someone or something is trying to communicate with me here. I can only think that the shitrags were just a way of getting my undivided attention. They succeeded.

My family has a history of depression but I've always been fairly stable. I hope I'm not losing it.

I just don't know any more.

The day after the shitrags

I didn't completely realise how feverishly single minded I would become with the whole experience.

From what I can gather, they got cleaned up within a couple of hours. I guess the council really can act fast if there are shitrags involved. Maybe a little too fast. Sydney council aren't exactly famous for their expedient service. It took them 20 years to change the 80-year-old sewerage pipes near my dad's house. The more I think about it the more sinister things become. I digress.

I walked past the cleaned up block and smiled. There was still a bit of eau de shitrag in the air, but it wasn't so bad. I figured that my brief adventure was over and went back to living my life.

If this whole experience had ended there, I would probably be a lot happier right now. God knows I would have had a lot more sleep. I should have left it alone, but something was drawing me in. Someone or something was trying to communicate with me.

The next morning was Sunday and for some reason my alarm went off at 8:00. I have to be ready for work and out of the house at 8:00 during the week. My alarm is never set to 8:00. I had a craving for some eggs, so I thought I'd beat the rush at the cafe down the road. I decided not to shower (which is pretty out of character for me) and went down the road. Past where the shitrags had been. It was a really nice sunny day.

I had a bit of a laugh to myself as I passed the block, and looked up at the sky for a minute because it was such a vivid blue. I was glad I'd woken up early, it was a beautiful morning in the city.

Then I noticed something. There was a tent hanging from the power lines.


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As I took the first photo, I noticed a police van. Their lights started flashing, almost in acknowledgement. I took a couple more pictures just for the hell of it and went for my eggs.


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I did a bit of shopping afterwards and headed back home at about midday. By this point the police had blocked off a lane of traffic and had somehow removed the poles from the tent. There were three policemen in that van, arms folded, staring daggers into the tent. I think they'd given up and were just waiting for it to fall in the wind.


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NICE POLICING THERE FELLAS

By this point I thought that this was all pretty funny. The gut wrenching trauma of yesterday was fading away into a great story. I posted some pictures on a messageboard and had a laugh with some friends about the whole thing.

I wish things stayed this funny. This was the last great day I've had.

It all began with the shitrags.

I've smelled a lot of things in my time. My first job out of school was to clean up operating theatres after surgery. I know what it smells like when a 70 year old man gets a trans-urethral resectioning of the prostate. It's like a more serious version of raw prawns that have been sitting in the sun for a few hours (if you're curious).

A few years on, I worked in a paternity testing lab. I know what it smells like when a man goes for three days without washing, changing their clothes or sobering up, while they wait for us to tell him if those kids he raised belong to him. It smells how you think it would, with added ammonia.

The week before last, I smelled a smell that could only be described as a dead body. It had been hot for a few days after a couple of weeks of rainy weather, and the air was constantly humid and still. I didn't know where the smell was coming from, but I got a waft of it whenever I was on my way home.

I didn't think too hard about it for the first couple of days, the council should find it and clean it up if there's anything too major, so I left it be.

On Friday night, a few friends came over for some drinks. One of them showed up, extremely pale, asking what the fuck that smell was. I jokingly said it was a dead body, and he made a mad dash for the toilet. He didn't come out for twenty minutes. I wouldn't have joked about it if I'd known what was coming.

The next day, I decided to check out the vacant block near my house. It seemed to be where the smell was coming from. The closer I got, the harder it was to breathe without retching. Holding my shirt over my face and breathing through my mouth just made it worse, I could feel raw filth particles landing on my tongue. I noticed a bin near the fence that had bricks on top of it. Despite my constant retching, my stomach managed to jump even further past my heart. I realised that maybe my jokes had been more than a little prophetic.

After talking to a few other people about it (should I call the cops? if it isn't a body I'm wasting their time, if it is a body I'll probably get questioned like a suspect), I decided to investigate. I found a stick nearby and held it over the fence, and pushed the bin over. I was dreading what I would find, but I knew that the only way to end this would be to tip the bin over, in broad daylight, surrounded by pedestrians. If the worst happened and the police thought I was involved, at least my story would get validated.

Despite my worst fears, however, nothing prepared me for what was actually inside.

SHITRAGS:


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I got my photo and got the hell out of there as soon as I could - once the bin fell over the street emptied in seconds. The pub on the corner was probably really happy when a bunch of people ran in there, but they would have only been happy for a few minutes. The smell must have got there too.

Looking back at the photo, I am struck by one thing more than any other: The canvas shopping bag that says "GO GREEN!" on it. I did, I can assure you.

I have experienced a lot of smells in my life. My current work requires that I have ongoing wine education. Throughout my working life I have had to communicate a broad range of flavours and scents.

I can only think of three words that could possibly be used to describe this smell: Thick, deathlike and heavy.