CleanSafe Services has been supporting social care agencies in carrying out highly sensitive environmental cleaning at the home of a mother and her daughter.
The women, aged 90 and 70, had been experiencing difficulties with their personal care, resulting in the apartment they live in needing a deep clean.
A team of trained and qualified CleanSafe bio-containment cleaning specialists carried out the environmental clean.
CleanSafe Account Manager Colin Williams said: “This kind of work is very sensitive and is approach by our teams with a great deal of respect for the occupants of the homes that need environmental cleaning.
“As people are living for longer and remain for longer in their homes, they can get into difficulties which can result in the conditions they live in deteriorating quite significantly before social care agencies get the chance to intervene.
“In this case, one of the occupants was incontinent which had added significantly to the cleaning challenge throughout the apartment.”
The mother and daughter, who live in Kent, had filled their apartment with belongings, including hundreds of copies of old newspapers, plus a collection of toys, which made the environmental cleaning operation more difficult.
The elderly women were persuaded to move out of their two-bedroom home temporarily to receive respite care, and allow the CleanSafe team to carry out the environmental clean.
A team of three extreme cleaning operatives were deployed to carry out the deep clean. The process was coordinated carefully with the lead care agency to ensure the wishes of the home owners were considered at all times.
All cleaning operatives wore full-body protective clothing, face masks and eye protection, to protect them against potential infection.
First they had to fumigate the property because the waste matter that had built up in the apartment had caused a fly infestation.
They then worked their way through the property, cleaning a room at a time. Belongings and items of furniture that the owners wanted to keep were tagged by the care agency.
However, items that had become badly contaminated had to be disposed of, with the agreement of the care agency.
A powerful anti-bacterial cleaning agent was used during the environmental cleaning process. Once decontamination was complete, an odour neutralising agent was used to wipe over all surfaces.
Colin Williams said: “The whole process took five days, which is an indication of the challenges faced when carrying out an environmental deep clean, and the meticulous care taken by our operatives.
“We approach these projects with sympathy and discretion. Though environmental cleaning like this can be a complicated and time-consuming process, we do our work discreetly to attract as little interest from neighbours and the wider community as possible.”
Supporting elderly people in the community is an issue of growing importance, and is expected to result in increasing demand for CleanSafe’s environmental cleaning services.
The Alzheimer’s Society quotes research from 2010 which found that one third of all people with dementia live alone. Government figures state that, by 2033, the number of people aged 75 to 84 living alone will increase by 38 percent.
The Alzheimer’s Society says that, with the right support, people with dementia can live in the community. But there is a high risk of people with dementia suffering social isolation and loneliness.
