Cleaning Concerns

Well I escaped yesterday alive! I've had worse though. A co-worker of the non-jackass variety asked me if I have had worse days, and I told them of past jobs and experiences. One of which was hinted at in my post about wretched rental vehicles.

The sewage encrusted waste reference generated quite a few emails. You people are disgusting. I love it. So what did the reference point to? One of my many past careers involved working for a commercial cleaning and restoration company. I have cleaned everything from living rooms and couches to plane interiors. I have cleaned up simple foot traffic dirt to many more disgusting things including sewage and biohazardous waste.

Working in a job like this will expose you to not only interesting aromas and potentially lethal bacteria but people of a similar nature. I'll likely throw more of this at you over time, but today I shall regale you with a tale that proves the age old saying "appearances can be deceiving".

We were sitting at the shop waiting our job list for the day and we drew residential duty that day. I don't enjoy residential cleaning at the best of times. Commercial clients are quite understanding and despite spending hundreds, sometime thousands of dollars on their cleaning at a time they are very reasonable. Joe citizen is a whole other story. He spends $50-100 and is dismayed that you can't get his never before cleaned, 15 year old carpet to look like new again. Slob.

Today's list was short and we knocked off 3 jobs before heading to a job downtown. We arrived at the job site to meet a very nice old lady and her friendly dog. She wanted her living room carpet and her couch cleaned and was extremely polite. We proceeded to set up our gear and maneuvered around the dog as best we could. This poor beast was a little bulldog.....well he was supposed to be a little bulldog. While we were there she ordered her lunch from a local pizza shop. The delivery guy brought two medium pizzas, one for her and one for the dog!!! They both polished off their pizza in a heartbeat, which considering the dog wasn't a problem, but the little old lady looked like she weighed 80 pounds with her Depends all wet.

Once we set up we asked her if there were any special considerations before we started. She asked if we had the ability to clean urine from a carpet. Thinking we were dealing with a leaky pet we explained that once we got the carpet cleaned we would spray deodorizer on the floor to limit any odours. She was thrilled but proceeded to explain to us the dog was not the cause of her concern. She explained that at night, once snug in her bed, the aliens would come in to her home, levitate her sofa, and pee all over the carpet. They planned it to mess with her because she knew all about them and their doings. I pictured these extraterrestrial creatures holding meetings about this little old lady and her rotund doggie.

At this point I headed outside and laughed my ass off, leaving the crew chief inside to deal with this poor old thing. After a minute or two I was ready to head inside and not drop to the alien soaked carpet with laughter. I sidled around Jabba the hound and brushed aside the glare of death from the chief, who was getting a lesson on aliens and astrology. She said she had to head out for a few minutes but would return before we were done so we got started. Glad to be rid of this poor senile old dear we dragged the sofa aside and cleaned the floor then we proceeded to the levitating sofa.

Once I had the cushions off I was able to explain both the large scale lunch consumption and the alien invasion. This sweet old lady had copious amounts of marijuana poked into every nook and cranny of her couch. I had to believe that her dealer was mystified at how she could go through it all in such short time spans. She poked it in the couch and forgot all about its existence. We cleaned the couch, repacked her weed into it and rolled up our gear.

As we collected her money and said our goodbyes I good another death stare from the boss when I left with a parting comment of "Nice couch!" She smiled and said that she had it for years and it was very comfy, thank you for the comment.