I’ve cleaned ‘dirty protests’ but they’re NOT the worst things I’ve seen – a hoarder died for a heartbreaking reason
NEXT time you moan about giving your home a quick polish or scrub, spare a thought for specialist cleaner Michelle Coulson, who’s called in to deal with the grim, grisly jobs no one else can handle.
Every day is different for the cleaning whizz, and the 46-year-old Rentokil specialist has quite literally seen – and cleaned – everything from ‘dirty protest’ prisons, hoarder homes to tragic death scenes.
Michelle, from Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland, used to work in a care home, but moved to Rentokil in September 2023 after deciding she wanted to take on a new challenge.
Now, the married mum says she never knows what her next eye-opening job might entail.
One moment she might be called on to clear up a load of pigeon poo, the next it might be a more tragic death scene she has to scrub down.
Here, Michelle lifts the (toilet) lid on the life of an ‘extreme’ cleaning specialist, and shares some of her most memorable tales.
The smell – or stink – of success
I do have a sense of smell – I can smell food and perfume for example.
But when it comes to the job I don’t know if I subconsciously shut it off, because I can do the job and not even flicker.
I’ve done dirty protest clean ups in prison and the officers say, ‘Oh, you can smell it from here, it stinks.’ And I’m thinking, ‘I can’t smell it.’
I might get the odd whiff, but nothing that turns my stomach.
I’ve done lots of dirty protest cleans – a phrase which typically refers to someone has chosen to defecate or urinate without using the facilities provided.
It’s usually the healthcare unit of the women’s prison. So they’re not always knowingly protesting something, they’re unwell. It’s sad.
Facing fears & phobias
I’ve also had to face my phobias.
I climb in places full of cobwebs and spiders and I’ve shuffled on my knees through maggots.
You get a lot of maggots in pigeon droppings, and grease traps.
Before, I was terrified of heights, I didn’t even like going up a ladder. I would go up three rungs and think, ‘This is too high.’
Then one day I was sent to clean up a roof and had to climb up scaffolding. I just thought, ‘I’ll have to’. I was terrified.
But once I got up there, I thought, ‘I’m alright!’. I told my colleague to take a picture as proof for my husband!
A messy business
Once a woman called about her sister who had a twisted bowel. If I’m honest with you, it was coming out of both ends. It was all over her white wool stair carpet.
The woman was in an awful state. She was worried about her sister, and also wanted to get the mess cleaned up quick.
She said, ‘I feel awful I’m getting you to do this’. I said, ‘Listen, this is my job. I’m happy to come and do it for you.’
She was so grateful. After I finished, she kept hugging us and saying, ‘Thank you so much. I didn’t know what I was going to do.’
She melted my heart.
Suicide shock
One of the saddest jobs was a trauma clean-up after someone stepped out in front of a train.
It was so shocking.
The worst thing is you are not cleaning up a whole body.
You are cleaning up what’s trapped in an undercarriage. And it belonged to somebody, it’s part of someone.
And it made me think, ‘What’s going through someone’s mind?’
You have to get on with the job, but it can be traumatic. You do your best to disassociate.
Colleagues who’ve cleaned a murder scene say they can’t forget how much blood there was.
We can talk to a counsellor after something like that. But thankfully my family are a great support.
Michelle’s top cleaning hacks
Get a Henry Hoover: We do have specialist equipment but for everyday cleaning Henry is the best – he’s lightweight, he’s got a carry handle, and he’s got a long hose that gets into lots of places.
Star Drops: Power Drops Spring Time is a disinfectant. Everyone comments it smells like clean washing when they came in the house after I’ve been mopping the floor and it’s 99p from Home Bargains.
Cleaning up blood: I’m not great with the sight or smell of blood. If it’s in soft furnishings or clothes, wash them as soon as you can. Don’t let it dry. Use a clean cloth and rather than rubbing just dab the spot with warm soapy water. Don’t spread it around.
Multi-task technique: If you’ve got five minutes in between chores and admin, do a quick job rather than letting it all build up to the point you have to get someone like me in. Once things get overwhelming, you’ve lost the battle.
Clean your tools: If you don’t look after your cleaning equipment, how do you think they are going to do a good job for you? You can’t have a clean home if you don’t have clean mops and buckets.
Hoarding horror
Once we were sent to clean a hoarder’s house after she died.
The cottage was beautiful, with a log burning stove, but it was rammed.
The lady had been trapped upstairs. She had to shout for help and the paramedics couldn’t open the front door.
By the time they got her out of the window she’d deteriorated so much she passed away in hospital.
We kept finding the same things. There were 20 slow cookers, and tens of hand blenders and sewing kits, some packages that she’d never opened. And, ironically, lots of cleaning products.
It was the fact she was alone with all that, it bothered us. You never know what’s going on behind closed doors.
‘Who poos on a window sill?’
On my first ever on-call shift, I went to a hospital in Newcastle and was confronted with faeces that had been left on a window sill in the A&E department.
Driving there, my first thought was: ‘Who poos on a window sill?’
When I got there, it was so busy. I stood there for ages and the staff were all so stressed no one took any notice.
I thought, ‘I’m just going to have to go and find it.’ And sure enough, there it was, a poo on a windowsill outside. I got it into a bag and sanitised the area.
It’s not the only poo related job I’ve dealt with, and I’ve done sewage spill clean-ups too. My three year old grandson loves to hear those stories!
It turns my stomach but if it needs doing, I’ll do it.
There aren’t many women in my role – I wish more would join the job – so I’m proud of what I do. I can point out things my male colleagues don’t see.
‘It’s so rewarding’
I often have to clean up black mould, usually on a large scale for army bases, hospitals.
One job I did however was for a couple. The husband was a wheelchair user, and they couldn’t manage it themselves.
When I went in, they had so much lovely art on the walls, and we ended up chatting.
It’s so rewarding when you can see they’re happy, and it’s genuine. It’s like, ‘We were struggling, we couldn’t have done it ourselves.’
Knowing that I’ve made people happy with my work, people who trust me to come into their home, makes my job worth it.
I always think, they’ve needed to book a specialist cleaning company and it’s a bonus that they’ve got me!
I like having nice conversations with them. It’s making a difference that makes it feel worthwhile – I hope that I’ve provided some comfort and taken the weight off their shoulders.
- Visit Rentokil-hygiene.co.uk for more information on their specialist cleaning services.