Post-Harvey Debris
Written, reported and produced for the Houston Press, September 2017
The pile of trash outside Mark Urbach’s home in Meyerland stands more than five feet high and covers nearly every inch of grass on his front lawn.
It has the standard collection of debris seen on curbsides and lawns in thousands of homes in Houston and on the Texas Gulf Coast – chairs, moldy couches, drywall mixed with pink insulation – but also decades of memorabilia from Urbach’s Disney collection. Urbach, who runs a pediatric dentist’s office with his son, Alan, is known to his clients as “Dr. Mickey” and has cultivated his entire practice, and life, around that image. His home, a few hundred feet south of Brays Bayou, was lined top to bottom with Mickey Mouse-themed lamps, posters, board games and even cutlery.