Should I Delete That? - I clean hoarder houses for a living

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

It’s one of those episodes where we dive into a TikTok curiosity hole - and we end up learning something quite profound on the way. It turns out cleaning is about a lot more than just mess...Today, we’re speaking to Vicki - who is a biohazard cleaning specialist. You might know her from her TikTok videos - where she shows us what she does for a living - cleaning hoarder houses, crime scenes and anything which involves bodily fluids.We explore the mental health reasons why someone might become a hoarder, how Vicki copes with the mental strain of her job - and why she choses to use her TikTok income to finance free cleans for those in need. Follow Vicki on TikTok @pocketrocketscleaningYou can find out more about Vicki’s company - Pocket Rockets Cleaning Rescue on their website: https://www.pocketrocketcleaningrescue.co.uk/ Email us on [e-mail] us on Instagram:@shouldideletethat@em_clarkson@alexlight_ldnShould I Delete That? is produced by Faye Lawrence Music by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm a biohazard cleaner, the umbrella of biohazard covers everything from crime scenes, trauma and everything right through to needle sweeps, hoard houses, and if there is bodily fluids there, it comes under the remit of biohazard. There's nothing we won't do under that umbrella only. Hello, I'm welcome back to Should I Delete That. I'm Alex Light. And I'm Ann Clarkson. How are you? I'm fine. That sounded really aggressive. I'm fine. I'm Absolutely fine. I'm fine. You're not fine, and you're scared to tell us that you're not fine, because when you said you weren't fun on Instagram,

everyone gave you a hard time. Honestly, the internet. People are mean. People are mean. I think it's time for us to address our expectations when it comes to everybody else. I think we need to stop holding people to our standards, because overwhelmingly they're proving unworthy.

Agreed. Agreed. It's an absolute dumpster fire on the end. internet. I don't know what's going on. I don't know. Is Mercury in the microwave? I can't even blame that. We did have a full moon this week, the beginning of the week. Did we? We did. We had a big boy. I wonder why I started howling. As for Mercury, I can't comment this to its whereabouts. Are you really all right? Yeah, no, I'm fine. What is it about saying I'm fine that never sounds fine? This is I'm remotely fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. You do get, I'm just, you know,

oh God, it's just, I don't even want to talk about it. You get used to. You get used to it. It's fine. You get used to it. Get used to being invalidated and made to feel like a loser for telling everyone how you feel. Like an ungrateful piece of shit. To be honest, I'm actually on the opposite side. I am so struck. I will start with my good. I am so struck by, and this isn't really what you need to hear after everyone. I've been not very nice to you. Oh, come on. Sorry. But I have been really struck by the compassion that I've had over the last few weeks. I've been very scared to talk about, I mean, I know I've taught loads about HG, but never comfortably. Like, every time I'm like, oh, God, I'm the worst. I've got to stop moaning. Like, and I caveat it and I feel bad about it.

And I, I'm dealing with it in therapy, but I realize I do not care for, like, I'm not very good at being sick in, like, terms of, like, burdeny. Like, I don't, I don't want to be a burden and I don't want to be difficult. And, like, I've got some stuff to unpack there. But anyway, I'm so surprised I think I've kept expecting the internet to like tell me that like just to shut up and like get on with it and no one's doing that and it's so nice everyone's being so nice to me it's hilarious that we're shocked by that isn't I know I sent it to the video I was like oh god like this post has done really well like as in reach wise you know it's gone everywhere and there's not one bad comment and we were like you're like really don't believe you are you sure have you looked hard enough. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? It's so funny that I'm surprised by that, but it's just, it's, I mean, there's bad comments on everything. You could literally be like, oh, look at how lovely the sky looks. And then there'll be like people being like, some people don't have

sky. Yeah, that's so lucky you can see that. Like, imagine if you were in prison. There are blind people. Well, there are. Yeah. It's a very good point. So I'm genuinely surprised, which is horrible, but also very pleased for you because why should people be mean? You're super sick. I know, I know. It's weird, isn't it? I mean, there are a couple of borderlines coming in now, but like what? Well, it's fine. It's fine. They make good points. They're saying, you know, like, well, as someone with a chronic illness, this content isn't very helpful because mine doesn't end at nine months and like it's quite invalidating for me. I get that. That must actually be really annoying. Like, I'm like, oh, I'm super sick, but at least it ends.

Because if you're super sick and it doesn't end, that's, like, I do understand that. But also, I'm not claiming to have a chronic illness or be the voice of chronic illnesses. Right. So it's, I'm like, I'm like, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry that mine's going to end. That doesn't seem fair. But it doesn't seem fair that they've got a chronic illness either. You know, so life's not fair.

I'm all right with it. I'm all right with it. It's fine. Of course. Of course it's not. But it's not, it's, that's not yours to ferry. Well, I'll carry it anyway. Now, what, what?

have you got for me. I'm going to give you my awkward. It's actually Dave's awkward. It should be Dave's bad actually. It's a bit of both. When Betty first came to us from Cyprus, and I put it on the internet, on Instagram, a brand, and I'm really sorry that I can't remember who it is, but a brand very kindly sent her as a toothbrush for her, very sweet. That's adorable. I know, it's so adorable, but I already bought her one, but I was like, do you know what? That's a great one to, that's a great toothbrush to clean my ring with, my engagement ring with, because, you know, gets dirty dirt gets trapped so since then i've been using that toothbrush as my engagement ring cleaner and also like if i can't get like stubborn stains like marks off the stink sink stink

of the sink or something right oh no the other day i walked into the bathroom who's using that toothbrush no no no david standing there proud very proudly toothbrush in mouth i was like what are you doing was like oh mine's on child Oh, did you tell it? You told him, obviously, you told him. I didn't tell him. You didn't tell him. I was like, you know what? He'll never know. And I was like, I was like, I can't be bothered with this conversation. I can't be bothered to witness your horror. I was like, cool. Good dental, good dental hygiene there,

I was like, he's already balls deep in this teeth cleaning session. I'm not. I can't. I don't need to involve myself in this. Well, fair enough. I mean, his teeth will be very clean. whatever can clean a diamond, if they can clean a diamond, they can clean an animal. That's all I know. I don't even use anything. I just scrub it like sometimes. I don't even put anything on it. Well, that's not even like it's been.

Oh, God, so it's just dirt. It's just dirt. It's just dirt. And then whatever's on the sink. Oh, gross. Oh, God. Well, probably toothpaste, probably residue of toothpaste. At least it wasn't the toilet.

I think God it wasn't a toilet. I do think that, you know, ignorance is bliss. And what you don't know, can't hurt you. 100%. Famously it can. But in this situation, I think he's fine, unless he gets sick. That sounds more of a bad than an awkward for Dave, but I'll leave you to work that one out. My own awkward, I intercepted a compliment meant for a toddler. I felt incredibly uncomfortable about two percent. I walked downstairs every day and I was wearing a jumper and Alex said, in an admittedly quite childish voice,

oh, I like your jumper. And I went, oh, nice, babe. And then I looked down. It wasn't even my child whose compliment I had intercepted. We had friends over. But the kid was three. And he did have on a very nice jumper with his own name, embroidered into it.

And you took a compliment for yourself. You took it from a toddler. The child's dad just looked at me, just like, what's he doing? I was like, you're right, his jump is way nicer than my jumper. I'm sorry. It was horrible. What jumper were you wearing? Was it even a nice one? Yes, I was wearing a very nice jumper, thank you. Sorry, that was just not that nice, not as nice as it is. And normally it's not so bad in the context of your own marriage. You know what I mean? You've seen each other at your worst. It was the awkwardness of the child because they've got nowhere to put it. They've got no decency. They don't know. they don't know to pretend nothing's happened

he was like he was talking about my jumper I'm like yeah fair enough fair enough yes he was nothing more humiliating than taking a compliment that wasn't meant for you nothing more humiliating a thousand percent quicker every time I think about it my toes curl don't

um your toes will curl at this one too good my bad we had a studio day the other day which was great and we had some amazing guess I was not on form at all never felt worse in my entire life just tired and I just reached a point where I just felt like I actually can't live anymore

like I'm going to have to put myself in hospital because they're going to have to do something I can't do this anyway I just felt like the day like I was just felt like I was so shit all day this isn't like me fishing right just let me say it you don't need something

I felt like I was shit all day like I was crap in the interviews I felt like I didn't do them Justin blah blah. Anyway, I left and I rang my mom and I started crying and I was in Waterloo Station and I was at this point like kind of inconsolable but still like making my way to the to the platform obviously and then I just heard excuse me excuse me and I was like fuck I can't do this she was like oh my god I listen to the podcast I love the podcast and it was one of our very lovely listeners who and I just feel so bad because

we had about a five minute conversation and I couldn't stop crying that hot you know when you just can't you can't stop and you're like you're very mortified but I just couldn't I couldn't keep the tears in and she gave me a hug and she was like oh my god I'm and I was like no I'm absolutely fine so how what's your name like

oh where do you live you know I'm saying this through like tears streaming down my face it's the most uncomfortable conversation for her so I have to apologise to her and say hi she's called Kerry one day they're going to go back and they're going to do a profile of your life they're going to do a like a like a like a Netflix something or rather it'll be a bittery style I imagine you'll be dead and they'll start talking about this period of your life and there will be on record anecdotes of every time you met anyone that listened to the podcast and the fact that you were sobbing

Because this happened two weeks ago with someone else. We know, we know, we know. And I didn't want to bring it up because I was like, oh, just makes me sound really sad. And like, it just, you know, I don't, I don't, it's just very depressing. But it is becoming a pattern. Crying in public is an occupational hazard. I can't, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need, a hat.

I'm too famous for this. I am. Lindsay Lowhan, circa, mid-naughties. We can't handle it. You're like, Amanda, you're like, you're like, you're like, the UK's Amanda Burns. We're all going to be, everyone's going to be worrying. Every time you're seen in public, you're looking in a straight of distress.

I'm a fucking star. You're a fucking mess. You're a mess. I'm a mess. No, I don't need sunglasses. But for that moment, I did need sunglasses. And I felt really bad for her, but hi Kerry. I'm so sorry.

But we love you. And next time I see you, I promise I'll be more together, hell together. Hopefully you just meet M instead. You could just redeem it. redeem it for the both of us. I can't comment as to whether I'm... No, you know what? I don't meet anyone anymore.

I don't meet anyone anymore because I don't... I realize I very, very rarely leave the house. When I come to work, it's house, car, car, studio, studio, car. I am a lonely person. And I've actually noticed that because you, when you were out and about, because when pre-sickness, you were out and about all the time, you're famously out and about.

And you were to text to me so many times saying, Oh my God, I just met someone who loves the podcast. And that's kind of stopped. Yes. Either they don't love the podcast. There was a very blunt end to that. Yeah. Yeah, there's no listeners or you have not left the house.

I have not left the house. That's obviously the bad. I think I had another one, but I've forgotten it, which is probably no bad thing. My bad's the same as always. Sickness. Well, yeah, I guess so. You know, just sort of general despair at the state of everything. Can't get it together.

But I'm fine. I'm fine. We are a week closer to due date. Yeah, yeah, flying through it. Excellent. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, it's fine. I'm fine.

I'm absolutely, we're fine, guys. Now. Look at me. I wish people could see me. I look horrendous. Also, your t-shirt... I look about 80. The only thing I can see on your t-shirt is that it says elder.

It says elder emo. Well, that applies to... But in the context of you and I, she is the elder. Now, this is not, this is, oh, this is why I love our job, right? I have always had a very curious mind. I know you have to, Al, that it's something of the, I don't know if it's the ADHD. I don't know if it's like the journalism interest. I don't know what it is, but you and I are prone to rabbit holes and to extensive research into things

that don't necessarily, at first glance, warrant that much attention, but... Or impact our lives. No, not at all. We insert ourselves where we needn't. But genuinely, with that in mind, the best part of this job, the podcasting job, is that we can have these conversations with people legitimately. 100%. And this was one of those moments.

For as long as we've had the list, which is just like the long notes list of people that we would like to speak to, we've had this general like hoarding, cleaner, dream. I have had so many questions for the people that I see on TikTok who go into people's houses, hoarders houses and clean them. And today was the day we got to meet one of those people. It was very exciting. We learn so much about this, but also it was really interesting, but I think it was very good at like opening up to show us like the compassionate side of this and like how it ties into mental health. It was such an eye-opening thing because, yes, when you see these videos on TikTok, you do kind of have this whole narrative and idea of what like a hoarder's life is like.

And obviously we have judgments when it comes to mess. And it was such an amazing conversation to have with a cleaning professional kind of about the wider issue or like the wider topic of cleaning and of dirty houses and of mess because it ended up being a lot more of a mental health conversation than I think we anticipated. But it was great. It was just, it was just great. It satisfied a lot of the curiosity that I've been harboring for a great many years now. And I hope it does the same for you guys too. Without further ado, here is Vicki. How are you doing? I'm really good. Thank you. I'm beside myself. This is an episode that we have wanted to do for such a long time. I'm so flattered. Thank you so much for coming down.

I have followed your TikTok videos for such a long time. I was saying before we started recording, I actually had to take a little bit of a break from them in this pregnancy because it's been sending me a bit funny, some of them. But the jobs you do are so phenomenal. And it's such an incredible thing that you've been able to share something on TikTok that I think that's obviously a service that so many people need.

It's such a huge job. But it's not really been spoken about before. And I just, we have a thousand questions, like literally a million questions. Oh, let's get into it. Please. Can you start by explaining what it is that you do? My business is a biohazard cleaner. The umbrella of biohazard covers everything from crime scenes, trauma and everything right through to needle sweeps,

hoard houses and everything in between. If there is bodily fluids there, it comes under the remit of biohazard. and we do there's nothing we won't do under that umbrella really I mean the ones that we see on TikTok are the hoarding ones and I imagine that's because

you can't share a lot of the work we can't share yeah of course are we allowed to ask you questions anyway yeah go for it yeah yeah God okay I mean I don't even know where to start the

the hoarding jobs I mean to start with those I'm sure some I'm sure everybody listening has probably seen one of your videos by this point because they do circulate so far and wide online. I mean, it's such a huge job, some of these jobs that you're doing. Can you talk us through kind of what that process is like

and what kind of houses you're going to to do this job? Yeah, definitely. So quite often by the time we're contacted, it's like a multi-agency intervention whereby somebody else has already involved. Very, very rarely. In fact, I don't think it's ever happened where the hoarder themselves contact us for help.

Very rarely do they are they on board with it and they quite often are being forced to have the work done because of health and safety concerns. It could be even that environmental health or the fire brigade are involved, adult social services, etc. So a huge part of the initial task is to gain their trust and to let us help them

which is it can take weeks and weeks That's a lot of the stuff that you don't necessarily see on the TikTok of all the background work, visits, building trusts and getting to know the person. Sometimes it's quite simple. Maybe if the hoarder's passed away and we're doing a house clearance for the family, it's a little bit less delicate. But if the hoarder is in situ, it can be extremely traumatic for them, especially if they are being forced to have the work done because a lot of the time they don't want it done. They are more than happy in their own environment that they've created. are they? Yeah. That's interesting because I thought that it was more, it was something that kind of has spiraled out of control than it no longer had control of it, but they just didn't

know, they're kind of paralysed with it. They didn't know what to do. So sometimes that is the case. I mean, to somebody who's sort of thinking logically, then that obviously is the case. And as you've probably seen, some of the houses we go into are clearly not safe to be lived in. They're not always very, very dirty. They can be. Sometimes it's a fire risk. There's, you know, floor to ceiling piles of flammable materials. It might be newspapers or clothes. Sometimes there's tiny little tunnels for them to walk through. The risk of just being literally buried alive is huge.

Quite often they're elderly, so they haven't got good mobility anyway, so they're sort of shuffling around. And quite often they get found out. They've hidden themselves away. They're in their own little world. They tend to isolate themselves from family and neighbours. Don't let people in.

deep down they know they shouldn't really be living like that and it's not quite right which is why they tend to isolate themselves but um they're also in a bit of denial as well they don't kind of see the severity of what we would see and and usually um they've had to call an ambulance or a neighbour has or you know if it's a council property the council's gone round to check the boiler or something like that and that somebody has raised the alarm to adult social services or other local authorities. And then that's when the process starts. They get assessed. Other people get bought in, you know, mental health teams, like I say, fire brigade do assessments, environmental health. And if it's warranted, and then an intervention can be forced for their own health and safety. Sometimes at that point, they're relieved and they're like, actually, yeah, I do want it done. Like, I don't want to live like this anymore. It's overwhelming and I do need help. Sometimes they absolutely point blank. do not want the work done and that's when it's really difficult because everybody can see how in danger they are but as far as they're concerned it's their home it's their life and if they want to live like that and they've got the capacity to make the decision why shouldn't they so it is really tough it's a really really delicate process across the board there's so much that like tv and culture and society has to answer for when it comes to mental health ailments and I think shows like is it the hoarder next door and stuff probably doesn't do a lot for the

kind of rhetoric surrounding the mental health side of this. Because it is, I mean, it sounds like in most cases this is a mental health. A hundred percent. And people don't realize, I think people think that people that, it's not just hoarders, we do a lot of welfare cleans where people are living in extremely unsanitary environments and it's easy to think people are just lazy or they can't be bothered or if they're a hoarder, they're just, you know, dirty or whatever. And nobody is choosing to live like that.

And actually, there's not enough awareness about hoarding disorder. It is a standalone diagnosable mental health condition now. It's quite a recent thing. It's actually quite heavily linked to OCD, the compulsion to hoard, to keep things, the emotional attachment. It can be triggered by all sorts of things, trauma, grief, quite often people that have lived in poverty as a child in adulthood want to keep everything because they didn't have a lot when they were growing up

all sorts of reasons and it does escalate and you know as we all know mental health can deteriorate if it's not dealt with and it just gets to the point where they're so overwhelmed and it becomes the norm to them they don't really know any different but they are the shame and the stigma around around hoarding and people that live in, you know, what most people would consider to be a squalor environment or unsanitary, unclean environment.

It's like a dirty little secret. People don't want to talk about it. You judged for it. Whereas if you had a different form of OCD where you had to turn the light switch on and on 52 times before you left the house, nobody would judge you for that. They would just accept that that's part of a condition.

But if your tendency is to hoard everything, including rubbish and rotten food, it's seen as laziness or something bad that should be judged and I think that's why people shut themselves away and they don't want to ask for help they don't want to be found out or for it to be discussed which is why with the permission of the people we are trying to raise awareness on our social medias

because it's so important that must be really difficult for you I know you said like you had there's a period beforehand where you work to build up trust with someone but that must be very difficult for you to go in there and you have to throw away a lot of stuff that these people have a real emotional connection to. Are they allowed to be there at the time of the clean?

So we have in our sort of safeguarding policy and our contract that our recommendation is that they are not there. It's much easier for us if they're not there and it's much less traumatic for them if they're not there. That's their home, that's where they live and as far as they're concerned, And, you know, they've got a team of people, probably the full white has mats and everything coming in, chucking everything away and cleaning everything up.

And that to them is, it's not nice and it can be very traumatic. Yeah. Yeah. So nine times out of ten, they refuse to leave. They, even if they say that they will on the day, we get there and they're just not going anywhere. And we know that now. Right.

The first couple of jobs, we were like, oh, don't really know how to deal with this. And we have to kind of navigate that. And now we're fully expecting them to be there. If they're not, it's a bonus. It does immensely slow the process down there because you're negotiating everything with them. Really? Even things that are obviously not say that's salvageable

or if it's obviously, you know, of no monetary value or, you know, you can be negotiating to throw away piles of newspapers that are decades old or I remember one house we went to, there was everything in the kitchen was mouldy and rusty and covered in black sludge and it was just, and we ended up going to the supermarket as to live in to buy a load of new everything all the utensils pots and pans everything needed for a kitchen so that I could try and bribe the lady to let us throw away the old stuff and I remember

I stood there with a really rusty sort of moldy tin opener saying and then a brand new one with the tag on and sort of saying this is the one that I'm trying to get rid of this is the one that I would like to give you are you happy and it was like a 20 minute conversation about this rusty old tin opener so you can end up being in somebody's house for weeks um if they're kind of really resistant yeah you imagine or one imagines i imagine when i think of hoarding it's like a really jam-packed attic or it's like you say like newspapers or boxes like you have this quite like sanitary but chaotic like perception of it like i imagine like an old professor or like whatever kind of you know can never find anything in their house but the reality isn't like that at all.

is it the reality is a lot of the time what you're describing in the kitchen there yeah that's that must be a really intense part of your yeah so a lot of the time it's it's so far gone it starts probably with a collection that's got out of hand it can be that they have an emotional attachment to like something so sometimes you can you can clearly see what the hoarder is hoarding like they'll be happy for you to throw away certain things but then there's other things that you're not to touch and sometimes it is just rooms floor to ceiling with stuff and it's not rubbish it is actual things that need sorting through

sometimes it is literally rubbish floor to ceiling takeaway boxes cans rotten food just packets they've not thrown rubbish away for decades It's quite common that they hoard urine and feces. They don't want to even like hoover up cobwebs. They, you know, rotten food. It just gets to the point where they don't want to throw anything away. And then obviously most of them have rat and mice infestations, other insect infestations,

because the area becomes so unsanitary. They don't, obviously, there's no, they can't clean because there's no surfaces available to clean. and everything's just piled up. If it goes on long enough, like people live like that for decades sometimes before they get found out and that is when it gets to the point where, you know, we would be brought in at that point probably.

The stuff that is clearly meant for the bin, like piles of rubbish and the kitchen stuff that was just full of mould. Yeah. Like that's quite like a done deal. Like that stuff's got to go. Yeah. But what about the stuff like the old,

newspapers like the decades long you know decades old newspapers like you could make a case for keeping things like that yeah how do you so do you make an executive decision it's a bit of negotiating sometimes we have to barter um if it's it's knowing you know where the limits are so for example if there was something that we think oh you know we could barter for this we'll let the let the lady keep this and we'll say to look if we're we can get rid of all these newspapers and we can make room for this to go there. And if you start to use words like fire hazard,

or actually it's not safe for that to be there, usually you can win them round. But sometimes they say, oh, you just go through all the newspapers and keep anything with a picture of the queen in or something like that. I'm a bit like, yeah, we'll do. And then when the back's turned.

So you have to be quite strategic for one of a better word with it. Yeah. You have to be very careful and, yeah. Definitely. Tread a fine line. Yeah, it's really, really doing if it works. And I think that's a misconception I had was that you were employed by them,

which kind of makes you, which would have led me to believe that it's, you're kind of doing it with them quite cooperatively. Yeah. I hadn't really imagined that it would be, I hadn't imagined the complication of having to do it against their will. Yeah. And make the call yourself. Because I mean, like, you know, not a whole. order and I'm not I don't have any like as a as a person with a regular attachment to

things I still sometimes find things yeah so it must be incredibly painful to have some to be the person throwing away the thing that matters to the person yeah who it belongs to but then you've got a job to I honestly I don't know how you do it it's it is it can be heavy on the heart you know sometimes you're driving away and you think you feel you feel sad you know like the logical side of you knows that you've helped and you've made the area safer but you also know that the process has been really upsetting for the person

and that can be and in turn distressing for you as well yeah do you often find that once you're done with the clean and you leave I mean is there any like follow up do you I'm wondering

do we ever go back yeah and it's it has happened it has it has happened so the issue is us going in and doing the obvious is putting a sticky plaster over the severed artery. That is the actual mental health condition that they are not having any help with

quite often because we're brought in by maybe social services or a well-being organisation they will be offered help to stay under a well-being organisation. They'll be offered therapy or other support quite often they just don't want it.

They may be forced to have the work done from the safety point of view but actually the issue's not really being dealt with, you're just giving them a clean slate. We have had it where we've gone back and it's reverted back quite quickly. Sometimes it's a self-sabotage. They don't, for whatever reason,

they don't feel like they deserve to have a clean, safe environment. So even though we go in and clean it all up for them and make it nice and safe, they don't want that, they feel like they don't deserve to live in that way and they will destroy it very quickly. and we've seen that a few times.

That is really sad. So sad. Do you ever have to go to properties where children are living? We have done properties where children are living or have been living. More often than not, it's older people that we do. So that's not as common and quite often, to be fair, if social services were involved in the type of work we do, the children would probably not be there anymore.

Because it's not a setting like the environment, aren't physically safe. How do you not judge people? Do you know what? There would have been a time where I would have judged. It's so easy to judge. It's so easy to think, just clean your house, just tidy up like you've got kids

or you've got, you know, why are you living like this? Can you not see there's rats running around? It's so obvious to somebody that hasn't got the same mindset or the same issues. But doing the job for a few years now and I've done some mental health awareness training some, you know, qualifications around hoarding just so that I can be better at my own job.

What you find is there's always a reason. You talk to the people, you know, you hear different stories and there's usually trauma involved. We did a free clean for a lady who was actually down in the Cotswolds, which was quite a long way to go in a day. And she had children and she reached out to us and she'd got herself into a bit of a state and we gave her a whole house reset.

It wasn't a horde of situation, although we did clear out a bit. It was more of a sort of clean tidy, but it was well needed. She was abused as a child, but the abuse was around cleaning. So she'd be made to scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush while her mum beat her.

So now she had this immense PTSD, really, around cleaning. And it was a physical barrier for her. understandably but obviously us going in and doing a reset on her house it's a very very temporary measure she would have needed ongoing support therapy that we just did the little bit that we could do in a few hours and we felt that we'd helped a little bit but really the issue wasn't dealt with but again it's so sad and there is always a reason so it's easy to judge and I do understand why people do judge but that's again why I want to put it on tick

and other socials to raise the awareness. Nobody's waking up in the morning thinking, oh, do you know what? I'm just going to live in swallor. I'm not going to clean my house for months and see what happens. No one's making that decision in a sound mind. Yeah.

You know, so. There are reasons behind them. Yeah, yeah, there always is. It strikes me that you wouldn't be able to do this job if you didn't have that level of compassion and empathy. Yeah. It would be very difficult. I feel like if no cleaners should be judging anybody

for the state of their home that is like we're literally the job the industry that we're in even if you're just a normal domestic cleaner doing sort of normal houses you still shouldn't be judging anyone's state of the house that's the same as you know being a personal trainer judging somebody for needing to lose weight it doesn't make sense like that is the that is the role as a cleaner to clean somebody's house so if you're a judgy cleaner find a different industry like you're in the wrong place and obviously the work we do is a bit more Yeah, but it goes for like people with depression and often one of the first things to, you know, to fall by the wayside or to suffer when you have depression is like your cleanliness and the environment around you, it's just impossible to upkeep. Exactly. That's how it's, that's very often how it starts. People are in a deep depression and they struggle to get out of bed and like, as you say, have a shower or do their own self-care.

The last thing they're thinking about is deep clean in the bathroom. They physically can't do it. But unfortunately, Unfortunately, dirt is ever accumulating. It doesn't just stop because you have a down period or you have a mental health issue. Tadying up and cleaning up a mess is always going to be being accumulated in people's houses. So unless they're doing it or paying a cleaner to do it, it's going to get out of hand and overwhelming very, very quickly. Like, you just think of your own houses.

It wouldn't take many weeks of you to just literally do nothing before it became a mammoth task. It's like days. Yeah. Especially if you've got family, you've got kids, you've got pets. It's the dirt and the mess soon, very soon accumulates and it can then just become so overwhelming. You have to be in a constant mindset of cleaning up as you go along.

And not everyone's got it. On a practical level when it comes to the cleaning, I imagine there are tougher things to do, like in terms of what you can actually salvage like how much is destroyed by this like I don't know but I imagine moths eat carpets yeah yeah yeah yeah and then I don't know how if you've got rats

I don't know like how does that on the practical level how do you restore a house that's literally been destroyed yeah so sometimes I mean sometimes something just cannot be cleaned if it can be cleaned we will trying to clean it but as you said I mean, the perfect example of if you've got a rodent infestation, the damage that they will do is unreal. They'll chew through things.

The urine is extremely potent. It rots through. So if you've got piles of clothes that's got mice nests in and rat infestation in, all the clothing will just be rotten. It always is disintegrating. Right. We've been to a house before where they had house rabbits and guinea pigs just roaming around and the carpet was literally disintegrated.

there was no way of cleaning it. You touched it and it fell apart. So sometimes things just have to go. As well, if a wooden kitchen maybe has had an immense amount of things on the surfaces for years, not being cleaned for years. And it's just the weight of, that's another thing to take into consideration. I've been to houses where the floorboards have been bowing in. By the sheer weight, there's stuff in the house.

Physical weight. The physical weight. Yeah. Yeah, it's enormous, enormous. You said about being buried alive and I was like, that's never even occurred to me, but that's a potential room. We were in a house once and the lady, she was sat in the living room with us while we were doing,

and she said, I don't feel very well, girls, I'm going to go for a nap. So off she went. We obviously didn't see her for a while because we thought she'd gone for a nap. One of the team went to take some rubbish out to the skip, and she was at the bottom of the stairs under a pile of things. She'd stumbled on the stairs, fallen backwards, but she'd landed under just a huge pile of stuff that we'd not got around to yet.

And if we hadn't have been in the house, been in that, she would have probably passed away there because she would have literally laid there for days or weeks. Nobody would have found her. She was living alone. She was isolated. And that is just so common. Your forensic jobs and the sort of more that sort of thing,

is that the kind of situation that you would then come into? Is that when you, and do you, cleans like that in a situation if god forbid that'd gone the other way like an unattended death yeah yeah so we've done houses where someone's passed away on their own how do you mentally cope with that it is sad that's that's the thing that I struggle with um the thought of somebody passing away on their own and then not being found immediately because nobody's missing them that is what I find like the hardest thing for me to get my head round. Like I've been asked before as I've been sort of chatting to people

or doing the job you do, what's like the worst way to die, things like that. People just want to hear about the gore. And I'm like, for me, it's not about like the reason for the dying or, you know, the trauma or anything like that. It is for me, being lonely and passing away for any reason. and nobody knows it's happened and that is just so sad and they're tough

they're tough to deal with but sometimes you have to just kind of zone out a little bit I feel like there's a lot of occupations at paramedics, police that you know people like that just see everything I feel like if you think too much about it and take it home with you

you will just never get up the next day and do it it's definitely not for everyone I think it's a certain type of person you cannot let yourself go there sometimes you have to just pretend that you're not cleaning up what you're cleaning up if that makes sense yeah I have to suspend your own emotions for a while yeah do you ever walk in somewhere and go oh this is too much I can't do this in my kitchen every morning um I've never walked into somewhere and thought I can't do this I've walked

into a few and I've been like okay wow this is a lot let's think about this where do we start but it's like how do you eat an elephant isn't it one bite at a time can you tell us about some of those jobs the the the ones that are just like oh my god where do I start yeah um there was one in particular um actually the lady had passed away so we were dealing with the family which was much easier because we weren't there weren't precious necessarily but it was the fullest hoarder house I've ever seen every room was you literally climbing into the room and walking on piles of stuff because there was no pathways in any room some of the rooms you couldn't even get into you had to sort of dig your way in um one good thing was the family like I say they

weren't precious they sort of said like we know that most of this is going to be chucked away or donated but they did know that she was stashing paperwork and money hiding there'd been at some point in previous years

the lady had been burgled and it had made her hide valuables and important paperwork and everything needed checking and I can't I have it is on TikTok if you find it

I can't tell you it's really hard to describe the volume of stuff there was. But it took days and days and days just to sift through everything. She was hoarding papers, magazines, newspapers, books, CDs, old paracetamor boxes but every single thing needed checking because we were finding like thousands of pounds in like a little paracetamor box or, you know, notes in like inside a book or the family was saying like we don't know where the will is the wills the wills in here somewhere and it was quite a big house it was like four

bedrooms and every room was exactly the same she'd been ordering mail order from leaders digest and amazon and a lot of the parcels weren't even open so it's a brand new stuff that was just when we all got donated to charity shops and family but i mean i've been there the first day i was there for about eight hours and there was a hole about as big as this chair where i'd been and i was just thinking i'm never going to get to the end of this how did it take you so we there for about two weeks but luckily we were working with the family as well okay so it wasn't just us but it took all of us about two weeks to empty the house and then we cleaned it once it was empty it's like a massive treasure hunt but you didn't even get to keep the money yeah no i didn't get to

keep money because the family were there yeah no we um it was it was like a treasure hunt and some of the stuff that we were finding it was so nostalgic as well that's the that's the other thing i love It's my favourite thing about hoarder houses. The nostalgia, because you find what I call the buried treasure, doesn't necessarily have to be monetary value, but things from the 70s and 80s, like old knitting patterns and they have bank calendars without the chocolate in and just all the stuff from like decades ago

that just remind me of my childhood. And I can spend hours. You have to be careful not to get sidetracked because you can spend hours just looking at the things that you find. And you're like, oh, wow, look at this. Wow, look at that. You have to have no focus. We've got a mission.

but it's so interesting it's so fascinating you feel like you literally going through somebody's whole life we are really yeah I love that I'm because I'm quite naturally nosy as well so it's a dream job for someone knows it yeah yeah definitely do you worry about potential risk to yourself like you describing that woman's house you have to I mean there's no there's no even like pathways to enter the room yeah surely that's that's dangerous it is dangue you guys going in there is dangerous do you always enter wearing a hazmat suit yeah Yeah. Always. Yeah.

And how do you cope with like the smell? I think you do get a bit nose blind to it in the end. I mean, obviously when you first walk into somewhere, there's, you know, some of the smells can be quite bad. The rotten food ones and the ones where they've obviously rodent infestations, for example, can be quite bad. And an unattended death as well. Decomposed bodies, there's a distinct smell to that.

if you're somewhere for days by the sort of third or fourth day you can't smell it anyway you can smell it on yourself as you're driving home you're like oh yeah actually really smell but we've got special masks that have got extra strong filters that you know block out a lot of the smell a bit of lavender oil around your nose or whatever there's ways and means but I think you do just get used to it with the jobs that aren't hoarding how do they how do they work who hires you to do those jobs because again I always thought it was like the hoarder but obviously if someone's died they they don't so if it's an unattended death it's usually the family so another thing that I'm trying to raise awareness about but it is a bit more of a sensitive subject is quite often

if somebody has died in a traumatic circumstance or passed away unattended and maybe not found immediately or even if they have been found straight away but sometimes obviously the cause of death can create a bit of a clean up use your imagination but you know someone could hit them a one of a colleague of mine um did a clean up a couple of weeks ago where an elderly gentleman had just put in a sock on had caught of arica's vein and bled out he was found the same day by a neighbour but that clean up was severe right so people don't necessarily think of who's dealing with that and quite often the family who is left to deal with it don't know that our services are available I mean there's other companies that obviously offer the service all over

the UK but it seems to be the people that should be given out the information like the funeral directors that will take the body or the police the family has on officers paramedic social services they are not giving the family the information that the service is available and quite often, they end up doing it themselves or trying to do it themselves. And that then causes them an immense amount of unnecessary trauma. It's the hardest time for them as it is. They've lost their family member, sometimes in really awful circumstances, especially if a crime's been committed or, you know, it is a traumatic incident.

The last thing that they should be doing, even if they knew how to do it safely with the correct kit, you shouldn't be doing that and they shouldn't have to do that. So we're trying to raise awareness and get it known that, you know, ours is a service, it's available. But a lot of the time families do it themselves, which is really sad. If they do know about us, it's the families that contact us. I kind of presumed, and I don't know why, I presumed it was the police that hired you for crime scene cleaners. So we haven't got the contract with Lincolnshire Police.

There will be forces that use companies the same as myself. We haven't got the contract for Lincolnshire Police yet, so we don't get any. direct work from the police yet um we get a lot of work from social services councils other local authorities we're getting our name out there we've currently got um a local funeral director that will pass our information to families um but like any business it's marketing and it's it's really hard to market yourselves because it's such a delicate subject right it's quite niche it's very very niche and it's such a delicate subject to talk about um obviously i do put a little bit on my socials but there's so much that you can't necessarily do you before and have to

pictures of every job and the TikTok side of things you were saying before but it's a lovely thing and anyone who follows you will know this already but you can make money on TikTok yeah and you're doing you're monetising your videos and then using that the money that you earn from your videos to fund free clean yeah we use any every penny that we earn from from TikTok just goes into the pot and it works out. We've got enough to do maybe like one a month or a couple a month.

How do you decide which ones are... Because I imagine with how viral your videos are going on TikTok like you've got a big reach on TikTok I imagine you get a lot of requests. We do get a lot of requests. Sometimes they're just physically too far to go. I'm such a sucker. Like I just want to help everyone that messages me

and it breaks my heart. If I'm like... They're like, oh, I live in Cornwall. Can you come and help? And I'm like, oh. really want to but like then you start delving in and you ask for some pictures and you realise that it's going to take a team of three people a week

and the money's just not in the pot to go and stay in Cornwall for a week and even though I don't pay myself for the free cleans I pay my team out of the TikTok money I wouldn't expect them to work for free and then it's travel costs and everything so it's hard it's hard to you know you just want to help everyone

I bet a lot of people are super grateful for the help that you give them And do you find that? Do you find that while you're doing, I guess this is specifically for like hoarder houses that you clean, but do you find that at the time they're quite resistant and they're distressed by everything happening and everything being thrown away? But at the end of it, they're super grateful. Yeah, yeah, they are. Yeah. They can always see at the end that it is so much better. Yeah. And then obviously, we can't help everybody from TikTok, but I get a lot of people message me to say that my page is helping them because their houses may be overwhelming

them and they don't, you know, then it's not how they want it to be, but they've had depression or the mental health issues. They've got themselves in a bit of a pickle. And they're saying, your page is helping me realise that I'm not alone. I shouldn't be ashamed. You're inspiring me to do a little bit at a time. So even if I can't physically be everywhere, just knowing that, you know, the content is making people feel a little bit less shame. that's good as well like you know yeah because that that is the worst thing about it it's like the shame of having a dirty house it seems to be like the worst the worst thing in the world like the worst thing you could possibly be but even messy you know like beyond you know before dirty

and before like anything like that and obviously you're dealing with the extremes people like I think we're a really weird time online where we see so much about everybody else's lives yeah and obviously when you go around your friend's houses they've obviously tried it and make it look nice for you before you got there. But you compare yourself to this all the time and it's like even like a slightly messy, you know, dirty or whatever environment can feel really like you're the only one. Yeah, definitely.

And I think times have changed so much over the last few decades but the mentality hasn't caught up. Like it's not the 1950s anymore. The housewife role rarely exists. Most, you know, dual adult household now. need a dual income. The women, you know, the traditional sort of housewife role where you used to stay at home and clean and cook all day and look after the kids, that woman is working full time now

as well. So it makes total sense that people are going to need a little bit of, you know, extra help. Having a cleaner used to be the ultimate luxury and now it's just a necessity that everybody needs because life is so busy, it's so chaotic. So, and you're totally right, you know, you see people post on TikTok a video and they get absolutely annihilated in the comments because God forbid their house isn't a show home they're just living in it like we can't all live in a show home it's just not it's not realistic and not everyone can afford a cleaner so Instagram and doesn't help like people posting perfection

and it's like nobody is living like that even if your house looks like that for 10 minutes It definitely doesn't look like that unless you live alone. It's one corner as well. Yeah. Unless you live alone. Yeah. Then your house isn't staying pristine. Not even pristine, but to just keep it at like a decent level.

It takes constant upkeep. It's so annoying. You have to get on top of it. It's literally constant. You can't turn your back because it's all like it slips. It's clean as you go. Even if you're one of these people that thinks, oh, I'm going to like wait till the weekend. if you only clean your house once a week,

it will take a whole day to clean the whole house, every room. Most people don't want to spend the whole Saturday or weekend or day off cleaning their whole house. Clean as you go, that's my one tip. Everyone, clean as you go, clean as you go. The kids get toothed post all over the sink, wipe it. Don't wait a week because then you'll be chisily. That's how motherhood has changed me.

Clean as you go. Yeah, I now clean as I go. whereas I wouldn't I don't think I'd have because you had the time before you had the time to do a whole Saturday or whatever yeah you don't have that anymore clean as you go clean as you go you've got to but not everyone's got the mental or physical we talked a lot about mental health today but people have got physical health issues physically can't do it yeah they can't bend down or they'll get so fatigued or you know whatever there's a million and one reasons where someone physically is very very physically demanding right cleaning you know it's tiring so if you've got any health conditions you know especially ones that might stop me from working so then you don't have the money to like what you know sacrifice a takeaway or something pay for a cleaner like there's no stigma in having a cleaner anymore it's a necessity it's a valid expense a life expense the same as putting petrol in your car or having a takeaway or bottle of wine at the weekend or whatever just

It's a cleaner. Do you have a cleaner? No. Do you do it yourself? I'm a control freak. Gosh, you... So this is my issue. So talking about mental health, I don't suffer with mental health as such, but I get

quite anxious if my house is a tip, like real messy. And don't get me wrong, my house is not a show home. It's a lived-in family home. I've got a golden retriever, says it all. Three kids and a messy husband. So my house is very lived-in. but I cannot relax if it's messy and if it's, you know, chaos. So as part of my little wind down, little cathartic, you know,

if my kids are driving me nuts, I'll go into the bathroom and I'll just clean the bathroom for 10 minutes. That's my little decompress. Oh, we're not the same. Which is lucky for me, but that's lucky for me because some people go the other way. If they're feeling anxious, the last thing they can think about doing

is something productive like cleaning, that actually is pure look that that's the way that I relax that sounds ridiculous that's how I relax like if I'm having an office day or an admin day at home I can't do anything

until I've run the hoove around then I can go into my office I'm the same as you but we're tidying lessover cleaning but we're tidying up I feel like I can't start anything until my but I'm trying to change that about myself

but it's tidy house tidy mind it is it is but I do find that can be debilitating yeah because sometimes like I can't physically start something until the area that I'm in

or the house I feel like I'm on top of everything and often it's like I don't need to be on top of everything to just go write an article or something exactly the same it's a real fine line and that's the other extreme because there are people that

have the obsessive not necessarily diagnosed OCD but they have you know they want to be the perfection that everything's spotless and that can also be debilitating on the other end of the scale because it's stopping them doing other things.

And again, I don't think social media helps. Everyone's got this idea that they've got to live in. It's a perfect environment and it's all got to be pristine all the time and it's just not realistic. This has been great. Really lovely. It's really cool what you do. Oh, thank you.

You know, obviously the free claims that you do funded by the TikTok videos but in general what you do, you must make such a huge difference to so many people. Yeah, I do love it. And I like the variety. I get bored it really easily. I don't know how you get bored in your job. No, but that's what I mean.

I don't now. Yeah. When I was just doing purely domestic, it was the same house as week in, week out. I can't do that for a long time. So this is no day. It's the same. This is extreme cleaning. Yeah.

You know, we're on call as well. So when the phone goes, you don't know what you go into. It could be a sewage leak. It could be a needle sweep. Like there's all sorts of things we get called out to. prisons and all sorts of things frustrating a lot of it I can't post it on TikTok

I think oh this would go down a treat on TikTok but it's so inappropriate or I'm not allowed my phone in the prison or something so it's like ah what would you go to a prison for quickly sorry an unattended death or something like that because you don't think about

I just imagine the prison would clean it yeah but sometimes sometimes they do sometimes they train the prisoners in biohazard cleaning and if they make a mess by injuring each other they have to clean up after themselves oh my god um so that's that is a thing um but we did yeah we went to a prison a couple of weeks ago because somebody had died in the custody suite wow oh god yeah that's not great no oh no so god yeah that's such a like

you don't you don't think about these things it's like the james bomb thing like how he never has a wee like when he when it's like you just don't think of the practicalities of like yeah death and trauma you don't think afterwards you see like all the bad thing and then the blue lights go and then everyone leaves it's like well someone's got to clear that out I think when people hear crime scene cleaner they think it just must be like murders and things but it's not at all it's so much more common that people pass away and the cause of death just creates clean up like lots of bodily fluids can use your imagination yeah there are many many causes of death that create a biohazard glean and who's doing it yeah you thank you so much well thank you for having me

yeah it's been great to love it i've loved it i've loved it i'm sure everybody by this point already has seen your ticot videos but we will leave the links to your socials and business amazing thank you thank you thank you so much we can talk to us thank you thank you Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator network.