Experience: I am a trauma scene cleaner
Istarted off selling showers, then got offered an interview by chance for a sales job at a specialist cleaning company. They put me on a cleaning job for two days just to try it out – I was cleaningoil spills, sewage and mould. As soon as I did it, I realised that this type of work didn’t really faze me. Eventually I went on to start my own specialist cleaning business.
My business partner, George, and I started our company in 2020 from our bedrooms. Now we have an office, more than 15 staff and five vans on the road at all times. You’ve got to love what you do in this industry.
Our days can be hectic. Every call is different, from graffiti removal to property clean-ups and what we call “trauma cleans”, which usually happen after someone has died at a property or a crime has taken place. For those calls, it might be a relative who gets in touch, or an estate agent or solicitor.
There have certainly been a few memorable trauma jobs. We had a situation where someone had died and been left in the property for four months before anyone realised. We suited up and put on our PPE, with full face masks. When we went in, there were flies everywhere.
Our masks were smell-proof, so we weren’t aware of anything when we were actually cleaning the place. After we’d finished the job and bagged everything up, though, we de-suited outside the property. It’s hard to explain, but I will remember that smell for the rest of my life.
I went to a property where an ex-partner had broken in and written messages in blood on the walls. That was very strange. We’ve been to properties where we opened the front door and waste was piled up so far above our heads that we couldn’t even get through. A while ago George walked into a house and all we could hear was a huge crunch. When we pulled up the carpet, we saw loads of maggots underneath. It ended up with us cutting out the floorboards.
The first time I cleaned a trauma job, there were a lot of body fluids and I wondered if I really wanted to do this.
The colleague I was with told me to imagine how the person’sfamily must be feeling. I often think about what the client is going through – they’ve trusted us to do something and we need to carry that out. It’s about putting the rest to the back of your mind. Now, it doesn’t bother me, I just see it as a job.
There’s always a sense of remorse, though, when you’re in a property and thinking about what that person must have experienced. Imagining the panic in a room is quite a hard pill to swallow.
The reason we’re there is to get the property to a standard so that when someone returns, they won’t feel traumatised. We’ve had to clear body fluids, smashed glass and damaged furniture, and the trauma doesn’t only affect the client – it can also affect the people carrying out our type of work. George and I will contact our technicians before jobs to make sure they’re OK to go in.
Afterwards, we’ll phone and ask whether they need to talk through anything. There have been a few times when staff have come to us and said, “That was quite an upsetting job today” but they’re all very strong within themselves. People often say, “I don’t know how you do it.” My family are very supportive of what I do, but they are often shocked that I’m able to manage it. Sometimes I do come home and jump straight in the shower, not wanting anything for dinner, and they’ll ask if I’m
OK.
I’ve never been one to watch crime programmes, though my partner loves them. There was one on the BBC called The Cleaner. She said, “You do that, do you wanna watch it?” I thought, “Not really, because I do it near enough every other day.”
You feel relief, because you know you’re helping people. We’ve had many clients contact us afterwards, thanking us for the clean-up, saying they can finally go back into their properties and feel comfortable. That’s the nicest thing about it, when you get that email at the end, despite all the trauma they’ve been through. That is the most rewarding part.
• As told to Zahra Manji
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