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What’s the worst thing you’ve ever had to clean

Saul Goodman said:
Not me cleaning but... About 20 years ago I gave my boss' son a lift home from the pub. He was sat in the back seat of the car, and suddenly projectile vomited everywhere. He even filled one of the door pockets. The following morning I left early for work, and was banging on his door at 7:30. His mother answered the door and I explained what had happened and asked if she'd wake him to clean the puke from my car, but rather than that, she suggested that I clean it myself, as her poor son wasn't feeling well :eek: I was having none of it, so I handed her the keys and told her I'd be back at lunchtime to collect the car, then walked across the road to work. About an hour later a professional valeter arrived and cleaned the car.
If that'd been my son, he'd have been made to clean up his own puke.
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Seems there are some hefty fines for puking in cabs, which is right obvs. Am very glad that this was a one off and my own puke, and i'm not the person who gets called out to clean other people's puke off other people's cars.
 
Going camping a few years ago with husband and son (aged about 8). We stopped of in a small town in Oxfordshire to pick up so drinks and snacks, and when I got back I found son had spewed drastically in the back of the car - he'd basically filled a footwell with the stuff, though miraculously not the one which had all the sleeping bags in it thank God.

I went into 'Mum' mode, went to Waitrose opposite and got a big kitchen roll, rubber gloves, a load of antibac wipes and binbags and we got to work in the car park. Did a remarkably good job in the space of about half an hour
 
Working in a large inner city public health facility dealing with visitors, patients, staff etc on a front desk. Once a week would be a 'safe clinic', providing GP services to patients who had been banned from their local GP surgery for a range of behaviours not conducive to safety (violence, threats of violence etc).

The bulk of patients for this would attend (or fail to attend due to chaotic lifestyle) for scripts of a certain nature. Many would attend on the wrong day, or at the wrong time, and kick off demanding to get their script (sorry chief, we don't keep scripts here, as well you know). You get to know your regulars, and mostly, whilst they had the capacity to be dicks or arseholes (like everyone else coming through the doors of a big acute hospital), they were pussy cats.

But there was an older guy, who whilst fine up until about lunchtime, past that would become increasingly nightmarish due to brew. And obviously the brew played havoc with things like personal admin and diary management, so virtually never would he ever turn up for his safe clinic appointment at the right time, or even the right day, meaning he would surface, totally blitzed, in the evening, generally on a non-clinic day, demanding his green genie juice, and kick off in an ever-escalating fashion until getting distracted by seeing pals outside or something.

But one night he just sank his heels in - not too many people in the lobby - and just kept on and on and on, demanding his script. Until... "If you don't give me my script I'm going to take my trousers down and do a shit on the floor!"

You'll Never Guess What Happened Next!

The only saving grace was that where he was standing in front of me was a big rug. Just as well because we are talking proper drinker's squits - as in, Guinness shit would be the upmarket brand to which he could only aspire. This was sticky, semi-liquid, evil-smelling and plentiful. Due to lifestyle he was not a washer, either, so their were wafts of every nausea-triggering human body scent under the sun released at the same time as he unfurled his undercarriage. I'm still kind of surprised that the whole thing didn't cause the few civilians in the waiting area to spontaneously hurl themselves, I certainly felt like it.

Anyway, I think he managed to get security shit-smeared as they tried to bundle him outside ready for the cops. Only saving grace was that we could fold up the rug and bin it as it was somehow fully contained on it. Area still needed a deep clean though. Happy days.
 
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Not me but my dad, back in the 60s had a brief job at a zoo. Lowest of all the jobs was 'hippo day'. They had two hippos kept in what was basically a big hole in the ground, and over time the hole would start to fill up to the point where there was a significant risk that the hippos were crapping their way to freedom. Hippo day meant relocating the hippos, shovelling a gigantic amount of compacted hippo shit, then returning the hippos to their confinement.

Not sure it counts as 'cleaning' exactly.
 
JimW said:
Looby reminded me how grim rotten food is, old spuds gone completely liquid was one of the worst.
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Remember the horrendous smell of a pan that had some cooked rice and a bit of cooking water that had somehow fallen down behind a fridge at an angle, and festered over a few days against the fridge heat exchange grill. It was probably the worst smell I've ever experienced - the pan and it's foetid contents went straight in the bin.
 
farmerbarleymow said:
Remember the horrendous smell of a pan that had some cooked rice and a bit of cooking water that had somehow fallen down behind a fridge at an angle, and festered over a few days against the fridge heat exchange grill. It was probably the worst smell I've ever experienced - the pan and it's foetid contents went straight in the bin.
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and the bin? did you dispose of that too?
 
More than a couple of decades ago now.

Saturday morning, Carriage Cleaner in chief {team was just me !] I was doing what would be my train the following day, plus all the spares.
Washed the outside of over 15 carriages after oiling the three plain bearing coaches.
Thought that was OK so went and had a coffee break after coiling up the hoses etc.

After coffee it was time to do the insides. Brush out & pick up any litter, mop down any muddy footprints and clean windows and brass. Normally, not problem.

This day, as I worked my way towards the far end of the corridor coaches, I began to get a whiff or three.
By the time I finished the one before last, the "smell" was obviously from the last one.

Took a deep breath, dashed in and opened all the windows & doors. Left it to "air" whilst I did the attached non-corridors.
By the time I had done those three, the stench had somewhat - but not much - abated ...
The cause - spilt soft drinks, a couple of used nappies - plus additional contents on a seat, and a good sized dollop of dog poop. There was also a tremendous amount of part eaten sandwiches, crisps and sweets liberally spread about. Having established the state of it, that was not going into service that afternoon.
Went up to control and asked for a shunt to get the offending coach into the back of the spares siding.
Control were a bit sceptical so were invited to inspect for themselves.
I got my shunter.

I left it untouched until after I had done the "spares" and had had my lunch break - by which time a fume mask and decent gloves, apron etc had been procured.
Cleaning the coach took several hours extra and a lot of disinfectant.
It wasn't used for several days ...

I had "words" with the guard, who claimed not to be aware just how dirty that coach was [the last journey had a booked party from one of the local campsites/B&Bs].
 
I was going to say dog vomit out of a tent while camping.

But there are so many excellent examples above mine just don't compete.

Shit from a blanket

Dog shit from the sole of your shoe ..

see, just not serious ..
 
Badgers said:
Another gem springs to mind. Cheffing at a hotel I dropped/burst one of these bad boys.

View attachment 295649

Cleaning up the best part of 20 litres of oil spread over a kitchen about the size of a midsized flat is not a good day.

Luckily it was the end of shift (10pm ish) so the kitchen was closed.

Unluckily and the other staff said it was my mess to clear up and all fucked off leaving me to deal with it.
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OK Badgers you won the thread with your first post there is no need to gloat
 
While working in a pub as a teenager I once had to clean up what can only have been the result of someone putting their ringpiece directly up against the wall of the toilet cubicle and pushing out a big sloppy shit. This was in the middle of a shift too, so I had to do the best I could with it and then, after scrubbing my hands and arms in scalding water, go back to serving people their food.

Pretty sure I lifted myself a 20 quid tip out of the till for that one.
 
quimcunx said:
'The jungle' in calais. Sacks of rotten potatoes were worst.
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Once in Calais we had to clean up a midden heap in one of the Calais jungles because it was an obvious health hazard. There was food and broken furniture and general rubbish but most of it was unwanted clothes that some 'helpful' Germans had brought down in several van loads a couple of weeks earlier, then dropped off in a place with no indoor storage in the middle of a particularly wet and unpleasant winter. No effort had been made to bring stuff people might actually want; young East African guys living in tents don't really need suit trousers with a 44 inch waist, or childrens' fancy dress items; so it had all been chucked in a heap. All this stuff was sodden wet, freezing cold, rat-eaten, stinking and unreasonably heavy and awkward to shift. On top of the work itself you had to deal with the ever-growing fury at the people who created the problem in the first place by trying to do 'help for migrants' with the lowest possible input of effort or brain power.

e2a: We also had to clear out a van full of donated clothes that had been drenched in pepper spray by the CRS, because we'd borrowed the van from some christian charity and they needed it back the next day. Again, miserable agonising work but the worst part was constantly thinking about the people who had created the problem, in this case some of the absolute worst subhuman filth it has ever been my misfortune to deal with.
 
A railway station platform. Had to clean up the bits of the head, face and right hand side of a 27 year old dead man who had tried to jump in front of a train but missed and instead was dragged down the platform for about 50 meters at 80 mph instead.

I did have some plastic gloves though.
 
Reading these posts it's obvious just how sheltered a life I've led, clearing up at a party before my mate's parents got home or cleaning up after sick kids in later life really can't compare.
When we collected Son Q after his first year at Uni, I looked at the mess he and his fellow students had left in the halls and thought whoever gets paid to clean this isn't being paid enough, this thread has just proved that I was right.
 
About ten years ago at a festival my then partner and I each took a heroic dose of liquid LSD which culminated in a 36 hour trip, the nadir of which was her shitting everywhere in the inside of our tent. So I had to clean up her and the tent while also trying to console her while tripping my face off, in the middle of a festival. So glad she brought wet wipes but just try using them when you can barely see your own hands.
 
Birth is very messy. So as a student midwife - over a decade ago I had plenty of amniotic fluid/blood/shit/ vomit mess to clean....but obviously was prepared. It's when it happens elsewhere and by suprise that is the difficulty.

Delivery rooms smell just like a butchers....and I weirdly like that smell.

I'm a HCA (Health Care Assistant) and have to clean up foul messes all the time.

On a personal note :oops: the worst ime was coming up on mdma at a festival and having a huge coming up mdma shit and having to take quite a bit of time cleaning myself up (luckily there was a proper indoor bathroom) and having to make sure I didn't block the loo with the amount of loo paper. I also had to wait for other people using the sink to leave before I emerged from the cubicle to wash my shit covered hands 🤣:oops:
 
I once worked in an aerosol factory where this kid left a six pack of No More Nails in the hot shrink-wrapping machine by accident over a break time, turning the line off before he went. When he came back it had exploded and solidified. Remaining four hours of his shift the line was down with him chiselling lumps of glue and shards of metal off the inside of the machine.
 
2 situations come to mind - both dog-related. Probably the most appalling was being woken by an eye-watering stench which was so chokingly dense as to be almost visible. It was my daughter's bf's mastiff - apparently known for her dodgy digestive system (but not then, by us, when we agreed to dog-sit for the weekend). She had shat out a lake of foul, greenish liquid - over 5 feet long and wide, seeping between the floorboards. Sweetheart and I had to take turns, in between bouts of gagging, retching and almost passing out from extended breath-holding, mopping up with every item of ragged clothing we could muster. We actually had to replaster the kitchen ceiling (the floor below the catastrophe). as we had to pour jugs of disinfectant to mitigate the dribbling effluent.
The 2nd occasion, while not as actively stinky, was much worse, in terms of ultimate damage and horror. The thieving , runaway lurcher had come upon a cache of disposed cooking oil, from round the back of a local KFC. The dog evidently slurped up an amazing quantity - seemed like at least a litre - which he then proceeded to regurgitate...on my bed. We made no attempt to rescue quilt, sheets or, to my misery, our lovely (and fabulously comfortable) feather mattress, bundling the lot into the back of the truck and hauling it off to the tip.
 
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