Jess Hardiman
A cleaner has revealed how she was reduced to tears after tackling a ‘pizza-obsessed’ hoarder’s home, having had to clear the house of hundreds of takeaway boxes – and even bottles of urine.
Rayann McMullan spotted a landlord’s Facebook post pleading someone to clear out rubbish left by a former tenant at a flat in Droylesdon, Greater Manchester.
The self-employed cleaner’s jaw dropped when she stepped inside the one-bedroom apartment to find pizza boxes, stale food, plastic bags... and worse.
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McMullan, 25, said it took two days to clear out the flat last month, and found herself crying several times as she tackled the jam-packed bedroom – saying clearing the pizza boxes took four hours alone.
The mum-of-three was ‘scarred’ by the experience and now gets ‘flashbacks’ whenever she sees a pizza box, recalling: “I got really excited when I was offered the job and then the landlord sent me a video.
"So I thought, 'right okay, that is a different job to what I would normally do'.
"When I got down to doing the dirty part, and all of the clear out, I thought, 'oh no, what have I got myself into?'
"It was really, really bad. I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it alone.
"There was stale food everywhere, and thousands and thousands of pizza boxes.
"They were like some kind of pizza-obsessed hoarder.
"There were so many of them that I couldn't bag them all up. There were [already] so many bags outside.
"I had to leave a stack of boxes and explain to the landlord that I can't keep moving them [the pizza boxes] up and down the stairs because there were so many of them.
"When I got to the bedroom part I thought, 'oh my God'. I kept looking at it and going to start, I kept stopping and starting.
"I can't tell you how many times I started crying because I didn't want to do it.
"That job has scarred me, all I can picture in my head is pizza boxes. Whenever I see a pizza box now it's like, 'oh no, flashbacks'."
Despite the stressful experience, McMullan, from Collyhurst, was delighted with the end result, saying she’s since been inundated with job offers from others who have seen photos of her efforts.
She added: "I've had a lot of people message and ring me for cleans - I can't keep up with it.
"Since posting and sharing it into other pages on Facebook, another landlord has reached out with another property like that.
"I did think, 'Oh no, not another one', but I'm determined to do it.
"The first time with [the original hoarder house] I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it, but now that I've cleaned it I feel like I can do a lot more.
"It made me more determined.
"I am happy I did it. I am really pleased with the transformation that I've done, so I can give myself a pat on the back for that."