Cleaning up after death

Cleaning up the remains of decomposed bodies is all in a day's work for Mr Rahman Razali, a trauma cleaner.

The 40-year-old has cleaned up murder, suicide and accident scenes, but most often deals with cases involving seniors who have died alone.

Squeamish readers may want to skip the next four paragraphs of this story.

Trauma cleaning, also known as forensic cleaning, involves removing the waste produced by a decomposed body, cleaning up the space and disposing of personal belongings and furniture that have been contaminated.

During the decomposition process, which occurs within 24 hours of death, fluids such as blood and urine leak from the body, seeping into floors or mattresses.

Mr Rahman recalled having to hack away contaminated parquet flooring in a condominium unit after a middle-aged man living alone in it died without anyone knowing for three months.

This happened during the Covid-19 circuit breaker in 2020.

Mr Rahman did not know who found the body, but said the man's boss contacted him to do the cleaning.

Mr Rahman said individuals, especially the elderly, who live alone and die without anyone knowing make up 80 per cent of the cases he deals with.

Almost always, the bodies are discovered only when the stench of decomposition invades neighbours' homes, he added.

"It's saddening to see the state of bodies... and no one realising they are dead."

Data from the Singapore Department of Statistics shows that more than 60,000 seniors aged 65 and above lived alone in Singapore in 2020.

"The numbers will only increase with the ageing population," said Mr Rahman, who has been a trauma cleaner since 2015.

He knows of only one other company in Singapore doing trauma cleaning as it is a very specialised type of work and he thinks not many people can deal with the level of gore.

Mr Rahman, who is self-taught, got into the work by chance.

He owns a company called DDQ Services which provides cleaning and disinfecting services at residential and office spaces.

Three years into the business, he was contacted by a relative of an elderly woman who had died after a fall. She was living alone and her body was discovered only a month later.

Upon reaching the location, he recalled his shock on seeing police cordon tape and blood on the ground. "It was the first time I experienced the smell of a dead body and seeing the blood was traumatising. I poured bleach on the area, told the relatives and police to leave it there for 24 hours, and then went home to google how to clean up the remains of a dead body," he said.

Since then, the father of six has refined and improved his cleaning methods. His children are aged 10 months to 18 years old.

Mr Rahman now leads a team of four trauma cleaners, including his eldest daughter, 18, who works full-time at his company.

They get to work after investigations by the police are completed and the body is taken away by the undertaker.

"I see a side of society that not many get to see," said Mr Rahman, who gets such jobs by word of mouth and charges between $2,000 and $4,000 for each assignment, depending on its complexity.

"We are going in to dignify the place, to clean and make sure there is no more smell... no more traces of the remains," he added.

Mr Rahman said he often wonders what the dead person was like as a person. "But we have to remain composed and brush off all emotion," he said.

"My job reminds me that death cannot be avoided. So everything that you have right now, you just have to cherish it."