No dream job, but forensic cleaner gets to help others

 

ArtClean supervisor Rosli Noor and his colleagues cleaning up an apartment where a body was found.

PETALING JAYA: The stench is usually the first thing that greets Rosli Noor whenever he is dispatched to clean up a gruesome scene after the police complete their investigations and remove the body.

At times, the putrid odour that lingers from the rotting corpse removed by the police is accompanied by the sight of crawling maggots.

There is also the punishing heat that the 43-year-old supervisor of ArtClean, a cleaning company that specialises in such macabre work, has to put up with.

“This is the complete package,” he said dryly, adding that the job required a strong stomach and stronger nerves.

Rosli Mohd Noor.

For Rosli, however, forensic cleaning is more than just a job. It is also a moral obligation of sorts to reduce the burden on the next of kin.

“It may not be a dream job, but to me, it’s one way of helping others.”

But despite the desire to help grieving families, dealing with the next of kin comes with its own challenges, including their refusal sometimes to divulge the cause of death which can put Rosli and his colleagues at risk of infection.

Apart from cleaning up the fluids produced by decaying bodies, crime scene or trauma or forensic cleaning is also carried out to remove traces of biological and chemical contaminants from the scene.

Ariff Yunos, who owns ArtClean, admitted that he would get emotional when thinking about the deceased’s final moments, especially if they had died alone.

“When you step into their house or the scene of their unattended death, you get a glimpse of how they lived,” the 39-year-old said.

One also gets a morbid peek into how they died, Ariff said, adding that the blood splattered on the walls or the manner in which the body was found often painted a grisly picture of a murder or sudden death.

Ariff’s most challenging assignment yet has been dealing with a victim who fell to his death from 50 storeys.

“We had to help find and pick up the pieces.” - FMT