WHEN LANDLORDS FACE DEATH … WHILE CLEANING A HOUSE
The UK’s estimated one million residential landlords are facing a growing, potentially killer threat …
… HOUSE CLEANING.
But this is no ordinary hour of tidying, dusting and vacuuming. This is seriously life-threatening cleaning.
And the problem is growing so fast that the Residential Landlords Association is drawing the special attention of its members who own over 100,000 private rented properties throughout the UK.
For many of them regularly have to clean houses where tenants have died … sometimes been murdered … or have simply been left behind in a state that could leave an amateur cleaner seriously ill. Or dead.
“This new growth industry, known as ‘extreme cleaning’ is sweeping in from the United States,” says Alan Ward, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association. “Fortunately it’s not an everyday need but it’s becoming more common than we want to think about.”
That’s why the new issue of the RLA magazine, the ‘Residential Property Investor’ is running a two-page feature on what can be the dangerous, high-risk hazard of cleaning up.
Tenants who live and die alone can often stay undiscovered for days or weeks – with decomposition leading to leakage of bodily fluids and potentially dangerous ‘bio-hazard waste’
Murder scenes can leave even more horrific problems behind.
That’s when specialist techniques and equipment are necessary to deal with infectious material, potentially lethal viruses, dangerously discarded hypodermic needles, vermin infestations and associated diseases.
“Property owners should never do this cleaning work themselves - this is a potentially deadly
job,” says specialist Peter Jones who runs the Lancashire-based extreme cleaning business ‘999 Cleaners’.
No overalls for his staff. They wear disposable biohazard protection suits, respirators, disposable face shields, over-boots and special needle-stick resistant gloves.
“These forensically trained professionals are equipped to deal with levels of risk that we don’t want our members to even think about tackling themselves,” says Alan Ward.
“We regularly have to clean up the mess of departing tenants in order to get a house ready for the next ones to move in … and our properties are often left in a state that most people would not even step into.
“But with death, criminal trauma and various extreme cases, we are talking about a whole different level where even getting pricked by a discarded hypodermic needle can have fatal consequences.
“Extreme cleaning services are, sadly, becoming an essential part of our professional lives.”