Jake Richie says he and a colleague considered “giving up” when they were called to a home in Sunderland after the landlord reported piles of rubbish and a “horrible stench” in the property
A professional cleaner has shared incredible before and after pictures of a job he dubbed a "house of horrors" which took three days and three skips to clear.
Jake Richie was called to a property in Sunderland after the distraught landlord found the tenant had filled the home with a sea of litter, rotten waste and human faeces.
The 27-year-old says the clean-up was the worst job he has encountered, describing it as "a few days of hell" as he and a colleague had to shovel their way into the home to be faced with a mess they – and the landlord – had never expected.
Jake, who runs J.R Cleaning & Property Services, said: "Every single room was three foot deep with rubbish and we had to shovel our way through it.
"There were shopping bags full of faeces hung on the door handles all round the house – never again will I be dealing with human faeces.
"I can only guess that it was so hard to move around the house because of the litter that they just stopped going to the bathroom, you couldn't even get up the stairs.
"It was the worst job I've ever done."
Jake, whose cleaning services include grave maintenance, valets and deep cleans, explained that he had been contacted by a landlord who had reported overflowing litter and a "horrible stench" coming from the property, but he hadn't dared battle his way in and didn't realise the extent of the job.
They cleared out the house and ripped up the soiled carpets, but Jake believes there's still a lot of work to be done before the landlord will be able to rent it out again.
He said: "Me and the lad I had working for me spent three eight-hour days cleaning it and a fourth waiting for another skip to turn up – we filled three skips in the end.
"The smell was awful and while we were working in one of the bedrooms the lad I was working with knocked a pan full of something rotten over and the smell was so bad he threw up.
"We had a break outside after that and I contemplated giving the job up because it was so bad but we got on with it and the client was over the moon with the results."
The cleaner posted pictures of their work on his Facebook business page to advertise his services and, while mainly receiving praise, says he was also accused of being "unprofessional" for posting details of the job.
Others came to his defence by pointing out that he had kept the tenant and the home anonymous to avoid shaming anybody and was sharing pictures to demonstrate what his company is capable of achieving.
Jake added: "I started off trying to defend myself and edited the post to say that I'm not here to shame anyone and I'm simply advertising my work.
"I just left it in the end because you can't please everybody and I got a lot more positive than negative comments."
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