The smell of death is not as
bad as I'd imagined. It's not much
worse than a house overrun with cats,
or a shed of rotting grain. There are
not that many maggots either, just a
few small wrigglers feasting on the
body fluids that have seeped into the
carpet. "They say that he's been dead
for three weeks, but I don't reckon
it's been that long - especially after
all these hot days," says Gabrielle
Simpson, 38, as she pulls her large
frame into a set of disposable white
overalls. "The smell is not foul
enough. Just a four out of 10." She
checks the use-by date of a carton of
milk sitting on a bench - it's only 10
days out of date. There's a half-eaten
packet of Tasty Toobs on a coffee
table, next to where the man died.
"Here, try these," says her sister
Sheridan, jokingly. "We should be able
to tell how long he's been dead by how
stale they are." They check for other
details. Wrappers beside the couch
indicate that his last supper was a
Four'N Twenty pie and a packet of Tim
Tams.
The Simpson sisters are the
daughters of a coalminer who also
worked as a butcher. Their work as
forensic cleaners, they reckon, is
somewhere in-between. Gabby's company,
Clean
Queens, is one of a number
of firms that specialise in the extreme
end of the cleaning market - gross
filth, crime scenes, suicides, violent
deaths, sharps retrievals, police
station cells, bio-hazards and morgues.
As the company website says, with
accompanying before and after
photographs: "After a violent death in
your home ... Clean Queens will remove
the body, blood and brain tissue safely
[and] save you the painstaking
effort of doing the job yourself."
There is no brain tissue today, but
there are dangerous biohazards. The
dead man, the sisters have been told by
the housing authority, was HIV
positive. He had apparently taken an
overdose of heroin on his couch, in a
flat near Sydney's Taylor Square, then
slumped dead onto the floor where he
remained undiscovered for several
weeks. Earlier in the day the police
came and deemed the death unsuspicious,
the government contractors removed the
body and a local housing authority
called in the Clean Queens.
An officious neighbour hovers
outside, demanding to know when they'll
be finished and if they will be taking
up the carpet. Gabby tells him it is
none of his business and that if he'd
shut up and let them get on with their
work they'd be finished a lot quicker,
and then closes the door. "Nosy
neighbours are the bane of my life,"
she says as she adjusts her protective
goggles and face mask.
After a quick initial clean-up of
the rubbish, they spray the carpet with
a solution to highlight the body
fluids, which reveals they are largely
restricted to the lounge room. There
are a few tiny spots leading into the
bedroom, but these can be steam-cleaned
after being disinfected, they decide.
They place all the couch pillows and
anything else that may be contaminated
into heavy yellow-plastic bags,
carefully checking for hidden needles.
Next, the couch is wrapped and sealed
in heavy black plastic - a sort of
death-grade cling-wrap - so it can be
transported safely to a
deep-burial-location. "I wonder if
those Carlton Draughts are still on
special," says Sheridan. "I will need
one after this." It's heavy work,
particularly in their plastic overalls
and, with the couch wrapped, they stop
for a breather, a cigarette, a Diet
Coke and to change their sweaty
disposable gloves.
The pair chat about some of the
bizarre jobs they've been called to
this year. There was one in May, says
Gabby, where a woman in her mid-60s had
died "of natural causes" in a unit and
her husband did not report the death.
He had a job as a sales rep, but just
stopped going to work. He kept her in
the flat for three weeks and then went
on a drinking binge - keeping the news
of her death to himself, not even
telling their children. "He somehow got
through Mother's Day," she says. "It
was pretty bizarre." The man moved his
wife to various locations around the
flat, changed her clothes and the
sheets on her bed and kept a fan on
her, to keep her cool. "I think he just
couldn't bear the thought of living
without her," says Gabby, as she and
her sister move the couch into a
corner. "You get to learn a lot about
people, cleaning up after they've
gone."
They then get to work on the carpet.
As soon as they cut into it and lift
it, the smell in the room increases
dramatically. "This is where I have to
be especially careful," Gabby says. "If
I cut myself now I am in big trouble."
In about half an hour they have the
soiled patch of carpet removed and
wrapped, but the underlay is a problem
as the fluids have seeped into the
glue. They remove the underlay and
apply a strong disinfectant, leaving it
to soak overnight.
By 8pm, the Simpson girls are
heading off into the night in search of
cheap Carlton Draught, pleased with
their day's work. They'll be back to
finish up tomorrow and collect all the
contaminated material. "We have to get
in our relaxation when we can," says
Gabby. "The phone can, and does, go
24/7."
Gabrielle Simpson got started in the
cleaning game in 2000 when she became
disillusioned with the rag trade where
she worked in "children's wear, the
budget end" as a pattern maker. "Same
old story," she says of her last job.
"Put three of us on. They had record
sales and they put us all off the day
before our three-month probation."
She decided to set up her own
cleaning business and drifted towards
the more macabre side when she was
subcontracted to clean stolen vehicles
and was trained in dealing with
biohazards. "A lot of cars are stolen
by junkies and they sometimes leave
behind needles after they've scored -
so all the cars have to be checked
thoroughly, especially after an
assessor got a needle-stick injury,"
she says. "You wouldn't believe where
needles have been found - up under
seats, hidden in the dash."
Since then she has done more
training, even a course in the US, but
she won't tell me with whom, claiming
it's a trade secret. "There are a lot
of cowboys out there," she says. "A lot
of people think it's just a
get-rich-quick scheme. And then there
are others who, because of shows like
CSI and all that, think it's just
glamour."
She would like to see more
regulation of the industry. "I saw a
picture in the paper recently where one
of these cowboys was cleaning blood
from a footpath outside a pub, after a
fight or a stabbing, with a scrubbing
brush and no protective clothing. If
that blood was infected and it flicked
into his eyes - well, he'd be a
goner."
Just how many people are employed in
the field is hard to gauge. There is no
real regulation of the industry and no
peak body. "In this day and age of
infectious diseases I think that's
wrong," says Gabby. "Sometimes I will
go into the police cells where there is
blood all over the walls and the
regular cleaners will ask me why I have
a mask and gloves and protective
clothing on. They have no idea of the
dangers involved and, on occasions,
they have put themselves at risk,
cleaning potentially hazardous
situations."
And just how lucrative is it? Gabby
won't say. It pays better than simple
office cleaning, but rates are a
carefully guarded secret and they
differ from job to job.
Clean Queens employ seven casual
staff, mainly foreign students who fit
the work in around their study. Gabby's
sister, Sheridan, 29, gave up a job as
a chef to work full-time for the
company. The pair recently moved into a
house together "We have always been
very close," reflects Gabby. "We used
to live together years ago, but she had
a pet ferret and I couldn't stand
it."
It's not all about death. "I mean,
at least 50 per cent of our clients are
still alive," Gabby says. "I guess it
would be a bit depressing if you were
dealing with death 100 per cent of the
time. But we get to meet a lot of the
clients, who are often very sweet." One
of these is a 64-year-old
obsessive-compulsive alcoholic who
lives in a flat overlooking the harbour
- he's been put into care while the
sisters go about the monumental task of
cleaning his flat.
The man was made redundant from his
job in 1988 and has not taken out the
recycling, or cleaned the house, since.
A plumber was called in to fix a leak
and when he saw the state of the flat
he alerted the local council, which
contacted the UnitingCare charity. The
Clean Queens were then contracted.
"One of my staff looked at a use-by
date on a tin in the cupboard and said,
'Oh, that was the year I was born,' "
Gabby tells me on the drive to the
flat. Each day the man would go to the
local pub, have a few beers and a meal
and then head home with a takeaway
bottle, or two, of booze. The bottles
went in, but never came out.
When we arrive, Sheridan and the
team are lowering bags of rubbish from
the balcony of the third-floor flat by
rope. The condition inside the unit is
unbelievable - like a tour of the
bottom shelf of any Australian grog
shop from the past 20 years. In the
living room, bottles labelled
Heather Mist Scotch, VAT
69, Pleasant Valley Cream
Sherry and Tawny Port,
Queen Adelaide wine, Black
and White Scotch and various shades
of McWilliams are neatly lined
up on the floor, -according to brand.
There is an alley through the bottles,
allowing access to the couch, where the
man slept, and to the bathroom and
kitchen.
Wine casks are stacked neatly in
another corner. Both bedrooms are full
of empty beer bottles. The hall is
stacked to the roof with cartons of
empty beer cans. All the cans have been
washed and placed neatly back in the
cartons. In the bathroom, butter
containers have been washed and
stacked, along with aerosol cans, in
the bath.
"Each day he would come home from
the pub and write down exactly what he
had spent on beer and food on the back
of the brown takeaway grog bag, and
that would be subtracted from how much
money he had left in his account," says
Sheridan. "These brown paper bags were
all neatly folded and stacked." It's a
bizarre but meticulous record of 20
years' drinking.
The team is midway through the clean
when we arrive. It will take five of
them a week to finish the job.
Excluding the casks and the beer cans,
there are more than 6000 plonk and beer
bottles, requiring 24 wheelie bins and
220 crates. "He won't know himself by
the time we have finished," says
Gabby.
She has arranged to get some
second-hand furniture, as most of what
was in the flat needed replacing. When
he returns home, the man will receive
regular visits from welfare staff and
Meals on Wheels, while UnitingCare have
organised for someone to come in and
clean regularly.
"Look, he's an old piss-pot," says
Gabby, "and no one forces him to drink.
But no one should live like that. It is
great to be able to help make his life
a little better." This sort of work
used to be done by charities or nuns or
concerned people in the community. It
is now done by cleaning contractors
such as Gabby Simpson.
On a miserable afternoon I travel
with Gabby to Wollongong, where a
28-year-old woman has hanged herself in
a cupboard at a seaside motel. The
police have come and gone and the body
has been removed. Without much
chitchat, the receptionist leads us
upstairs to the room, overlooking a car
park of sorry palms and Mitsubishi
Magnas.
Simpson slides herself into her
disposable overalls, ties a tea towel
around her hair, pulls on a pair of
goggles and a face mask and we enter
the room. There is blood on the
mattress and in the cupboard. In the
bathroom, blood has congealed in the
sink and there are splashes in the
toilet and on the floor. An iron, with
its cord neatly cut, sits on a bedside
table. "Looks like she's had a go at
her wrists and, when that didn't work,
it seems she has hung herself in the
cupboard with the cord of the iron,"
Simpson says. I wonder how it was
possible. The rail is only about 150
centimetres from the ground. If at any
time she wanted to change her mind, the
woman need only have stood up. Simpson
takes some photographs with a small
camera.
On a desk in the room there are two
empty packets of Winfield Blue, a pile
of screwed-up tissues, a packet of 25
envelopes, a broken glass and two motel
writing pads. If there was a note, she
says, the police have taken it. On the
balcony a chair sits next to a full
ashtray. The woman must have sat here
for hours, not all that long ago,
contemplating what to do. We turn on
the TV - it's tuned to Fox News.
Simpson works meticulously, cleaning
all the blood from the bathroom using
disposable wipes - nothing that will
flick blood. When it appears clean, she
sprays "a special solution" on all the
surfaces to ensure there are no minute
traces left. The solution bubbles in a
couple of spots and she then re-cleans
those areas. I ask what the solution
is. "Can't say," she says. "Trade
secret."
She cleans the blood out of the
cupboard and off the floor and bundles
the blankets and sheets and any
remaining soiled material into a
sealable bag, along with her disposable
garments. She then does a final check
of the room and takes a few more
"cleaned-up" snaps. "These are for the
before and after shots for my website,"
she says.
It has taken less than an hour. She
won't tell me how much she has
charged.
What does she think of while
cleaning in such a situation? "Well,
there's no emotional attachment for
this one," she says. "It's sad but ...
there are some jobs that you go to, say
in a boarding house, where you get to
know a bit about the person from the
other residents and that is a bit more
emotional. It would be difficult for me
if it was someone I was emotionally
attached to. There was one we did a
little while ago where a guy died in
the bath - it was just an accident. He
slipped and hit his head on the glass.
You think, 'What were his thoughts when
this happened?' Did he think, 'Uh-oh, I
am gonna die.' So you sort of do think
about those things."
She grades jobs by three factors -
mess, smell and emotion. On all three
scales, today's job was an easy
one.
We lug her cleaning gear and the bag
of contaminants downstairs, past the
receptionist, who thanks her for the
job. She loads all the gear into the
van and lights a cigarette. On the side
of the van, next to the Clean Queens
signage, is a cartoon character: a sexy
red-headed woman with large bosoms, a
tiny waist and a crisp white uniform -
Gabby's avatar. "Yeah," says Simpson,
motioning towards the woman. "Sex
sells. Even in this game, sex sells."
She stamps on the fag end and we head
back to Sydney.
Along the way we talk of glaziers
who've bled to death after slipping
with a piece of glass ("You would be
surprised how quickly you can bleed to
death"); about an old guy who shot
himself in the bath and the landlady
who refused to pay for the clean-up
(Simpson spends a lot of time chasing
money in the Small Claims Tribunal); a
stabbing at an apartment where the
Clean Queens did such a good job that,
when there was a suicide in the same
building a month later, the owners
called her back.
She makes a living from death and
squalor, blood and brains. Does she
enjoy her work? "I love it," she says
without hesitation. "I wish I had
started doing this when I was 21. You
are not set to a nine-to-five routine,
no one tells you what to do. It is -
always different, never the same stuff.
I think I have found my calling in
life."
Partners in grime by Greg Bearup,
The Good Weekend, Sydney Morning
Herald, Saturday 24th of November
2007
