After cleaning a 91-year-old's bondage gear, I couldn't look at him the same way again
fter cleaning for over 10 years, nothing shocks me any more. Once, I was cleaning for a 91-year-old man. When I went into his bedroom, the bed was covered in bondage gear: restraints, whips, gags, handcuffs, you name it. It made Christian Grey look like an amateur. I was initially unsure what to do, but after spotting some questionable stains, I decided to put on my rubber gloves and change the sheets. This man was paying me to clean, and clean is what I did. I couldn’t work out where the items were usually kept, so I placed them neatly, in size order, on the newly made bed. I even dusted them. I never said anything to my client about it. What he gets up to is his own business, but it was difficult to look at him in the same way again.
Cleaning people’s possessions often feels like a huge invasion of privacy, but that’s not what I struggle with most. Unblocking toilets is without a doubt the worst part of the job. I have witnessed unspeakable things: it’s really quite astonishing what the human body is capable of. Sometimes you have to just get on with it and try to think of a happy place. This is much harder if it happens in a small office or private home, because you can usually figure out who the culprit is.
At first, cleaning was something I only did when I was between temporary contracts in arts administration and needed to supplement my income, but now it’s essentially my full-time job. I work between 10 and 40 hours a week, depending on the demand. I try to always have another work project on the go to hide the shame of being “just” a cleaner. This shame stems from other people, including certain friends, viewing me as a failure. Some voice their views whereas others don’t need to say anything – I can see the look of pity in their faces. I work hard and make an honest living but to them I have made nothing of myself and have let my degree in film and theatre go to waste. I can see their point.
This might not be what I want to do for ever, but in a strange way I actually enjoy it. Ironically I’m not a tidy person and do not have a particularly clean house. I guess nobody likes to bring their work home with them and cleaners are no exception. It’s not just my house that can become a mess; let’s just say I don’t do my job to find men. Gym clothes drenched in sweat from carrying a hoover up four flights of stairs while stinking of bleach doesn’t exactly scream dating material.
I’ve cleaned homes, offices, schools, shops and cafes, finding work through local agencies and word of mouth. It’s quite good money; I earn a minimum of £8 an hour, which is more than friends get working in retail and hospitality. I also have the luxury of not having to deal with customers, which for anyone who has ever had to work in customer service will know is a godsend. I do have to deal with my employers, but luckily most are polite and just grateful that they’re not the ones doing the cleaning. However, as a naturally awkward person, I constantly find myself in all kinds of embarrassing situations with them.
I’ll never forget the time I was cleaning in an office late one evening and thought all the staff had gone home. I was mopping in a corridor when all of a sudden I heard a strange noise. It was coming from within a large meeting room and I was convinced that it was an intruder. Terrified and armed only with Windolene, I edged slowly towards the meeting room door. I peered through the small glass panel in the door and looked inside.
What I discovered wasn’t an intruder but two people going at it on the table. Before I had fully taken in what was happening they had stopped mid-action and were staring at me with horrified looks on their faces. Suddenly, through sheer panic and embarrassment, I started spraying the glass panel in the door. I cleaned it with a blank expression on my face, trying to act as nonchalant as possible, before walking off and finishing the rest of my work. I don’t know if they were mortified that I had caught them, probably having an extra-marital affair, or if they thought I was a total pervert for watching them. Either way, I never saw them again.
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