Tenant from hell trashes house with 3,000 empty Pepsi bottles

By Ed Chatterton

A cleaner was left shocked to discover a tenant from hell had littered their home with over 3,000 Pepsi bottles stacked up higher than the furniture.

The 35-year-old fizzy-pop addict dumped more than $6,200 worth of empty bottles across several rooms at the social housing property in south Cheshire.

Specialist deep cleaner Iain Watson was called in last week by the local authority to tackle the mess after the tenant was moved into temporary accommodation.

Iain said he was left stunned the find Pepsi bottles and cans as well as mountains of other waste piled almost as high as the ceiling before undertaking the mammoth task of cleaning it all up.

The 48-year-old spent three and a half days, working nine-and-a-half hour shifts, filling more than 140 bags with the rubbish which took up his entire Luton van.

Iain, who runs Specialist Cleaning Services, said: "We found the house in quite a state.

"I managed to stack a full Luton van from floor to ceiling with them and only finished on Monday (16/3).

"It took a team of three of us three days working from about 8.30am until 6pm each day and we filled more that 140 bags with empty Pepsi bottles and cans.

"He was a 35-year-old guy who has reached out to the housing association for help, and they moved into temporary accommodation while we cleaned up the mess.

"For some reason he just didn't recycle and didn't put anything in the bin. He also didn't cook anything, he just had pies by the looks of it as we found hundreds of pie foil trays.

"There was a leak in his ceiling so that might be what he reached out for help about but we found the place in some state.

"The local authority are also the ones who reach out to us. It involves deep cleaning and sanitising anything which social workers might come into contact with.

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"We did this property from top to bottom, some of the upstairs was bad too - he didn't have a bed and just slept on the floor in a duvet.

"There was no electric so all the food had gone off in the fridges and freezer, which was quite stifling, as food was decaying and putrefying.

"But we have done worse properties in terms of smell and we do have breathing apparatus for extreme cases.

"Due to so much being empty plastic bottles, it was actually quite a light load in terms of weight but we couldn't believe how many Pepsi bottles we were looking at.

"The property was cleared with the anticipation of him moving back in. You hope you've given them a second chance but you never know."

Iain is often called in to clean a range of properties - from the homes of hoarders, people who have died, crime scenes and properties vacated by squatters or those damaged by flood.

He admitted a strong stomach was needed for the job but also care, compassion and an open mind.

Iain, who works alongside his 16-year-old daughter Caitlin, added: "You have to treat each job with compassion.

"You don't know sometimes what these people are going through or have been through, so there's no judgment, you just get on with the job at hand.

"We do the jobs domestic cleaners will not go do and you see some right sights and the smells can be the worst part.

"I've been doing this six years and there's always a new smell that you get.

"We wear protective suits, gloves and shoes as well as breathing apparatus at times so we almost look like crime scene investigators ourselves.

"But we are always very proud of the work we do and it gives us satisfaction to see a customer happy after giving the properties back over to them in a much better condition."