Didn't clean up the poo. WIU?

[YouLookNiceJackie]

I'm a cleaner and one of my jobs is at a large charity shop. I go in just before they shut and clean the staff only areas and then once the shop shuts I clean the shop floors. Tonight, there was a really bad smell as soon as you walked up the stairs. It smelt like someone had bad wind. I couldnt do anything about it as the shop was still open and I didn't want to offend/embarrass anyone by squirting airfreshener in case the culprit was still there! I cleaned the rest of the shop (3 floors) and the went back to that part to hoover, and the smell was even stronger. I sprayed around with airfreshener and went to get the hoover and found the biggest pile of diarrhoea hidden behind a suitcase and tshirt in a bit of an alcove on the shop floor. It was down the wall, all over the carpet, up the door frame and all over the skirting board. The smell was horrendous and made me feel ill. I tried to ring the manager but she is on leave and didn't answer. IMO it needs professional cleaners with protective gear on. This person was clearly quite unwell and I didn't want to risk contamination and then go and get in my car/go home to my children. The only thing available that I could have used to clean it up was paper towels. I covered it up and blocked off that area. After I got home the manager rang me and she did not sound happy that I had left it. She kept saying well someone needs to clean it up. I suggested a professional company and she said she "would consider this if one of the ladies at the shop who has her head on her shoulders and would probably just do it herself, thinks it's too big of an issue to deal with. If someone had made a mess in the toilet I would have dealt with it but this was another level! I am also concerned that this person could have covid or a stomach bug. I said I don't think this person should clean it up plus she'd be then handling things for sale and serving customers without going home to shower. Again the manager just said well someone needs to! Sorry for the long post, I'm just a worrier and work really hard so I'd be mortified if they all just think I just left it for someone at the shop to deal with. I also explained that I had to leave to pick my child up and I'd stayed a little bit over. Should I email headoffice tomorrow and explain?

@BoulangerieBabs
Sorry, it did say in my post. He works in Tesco as a cleaner but is subcontracted through a separate company, which is why he gets no benefits and is on minimum wage. No specialist equipment and I think they'd try and sack him if he recommended they call in someone else.
It is disgusting. And is the staff toilets as much as the customer ones.
He says its worse when its the staff toilets as its people who say good morning to him, who sit with him on his break, or he helps out when they ask, who are also shitting on the floors and wiping it up the walls.

While it was a child, there was on incident where a child dropped his trousers, shit on the floor in the middle of an aisle, then stood in the shit and ice skated up the aisle leaving a trail of shit behind him, the mother just said call a cleaner and put a basket on top of the worst area (which then meant the basket also needed cleaning).
There are used sanitary towels stuck on walls, people wipe bogies on the walls of cubicles and on the mirrors. Filthy animals.
Some things are accidents, lots of things are clearly deliberate.
He wants to keep his job as much as the next person, so while it becomes anecdotal and he complains about how disgusting people are, he gets on with it so he can keep his job.

@JaggedRag

Both YABU and YANBU YABU - you're a cleaner and it's your job. What do you mean "a professional cleaner should do it", you're a professional cleaner. YANBU - as a professional cleaner, you should be trained and equipped to clean up bodily fluids. If you're employed then that's their responsibility to do.

You’re absolutely wrong. Cleaners are t paid to clean up that amount of shit. Even cleaners in hospital settings are not actually allowed to clean up a mess like that. It needs specialist cleaners and anyone in an ordinary cleaning job that has been doing such a thing, needs to complain. I dread to think how some posters on here would treat any cleaners that go into their own homes.

I’m delighted you have been vindicated, OP. Well done for taking no shit from your manager, or whoever did it. 😆

I can even imagine how the shit would come off the carpet!
It does needs to recarpeted.

I meant I can’t even imagine

I don’t think you did anything wrong in leaving it and reporting it but as a carer I’m quite tickled by the “bodily fluids are a biohazard and require a specialist team in hazmat suits”.

I definitely like the idea that in a similar way that the police can call the armed squad us carers can call the “Poo Patrol” and a van of hunky blokes in hazmat suits will pile out and deal with our biohazard with a cheery smile and “your welcome mam - anytime”. My employers happily writing out the cheque.

To give you an idea how it actually works if you get a stomach upset cleaning up someone’s shit you won’t be paid for your first three days of sick leave.

IME Health care workers are provided with training, PPE and hepatitis jabs to prepare them for exposure to bodily fluids. If your job has not done any of this for you, then you were right not to touch it. Like you say, there are cleaning companies who deal with this sort of thing.

@Winter2020

I don’t think you did anything wrong in leaving it and reporting it but as a carer I’m quite tickled by the “bodily fluids are a biohazard and require a specialist team in hazmat suits”.

I definitely like the idea that in a similar way that the police can call the armed squad us carers can call the “Poo Patrol” and a van of hunky blokes in hazmat suits will pile out and deal with our biohazard with a cheery smile and “your welcome mam - anytime”. My employers happily writing out the cheque.

To give you an idea how it actually works if you get a stomach upset cleaning up someone’s shit you won’t be paid for your first three days of sick leave.

Big difference to what cleaners are expected to do. If there was shit on the floor of the toilets/bathroom, the care assistances would clean it up, because that is part of their job. A nurse would do it if no assistant was available. No hospital cleaner would be expected to do that. I’m actually surprised that working as a health care employee, you’re not aware of shit being classed as hazardous waste, after all, it goes into a yellow bag, to be collected for incineration.

DeliciouslyFemale

“I’m actually surprised that working as a health care employee, you’re not aware of shit being classed as hazardous waste, after all, it goes into a yellow bag, to be collected for incineration.“

Yes sure but I can’t see any health/danger differences between me putting shit in a bag wearing a pair of gloves/apron and someone else doing it.

Most definitely not. You didn’t have the correct equipment or PPE. I wouldn’t have done it either in that situation

@Winter2020 I take it you have had the hepatitis jab? Which might be the difference between you and a cleaner whose job description doesn’t include this level of exposure to bodily waste

@Winter2020

DeliciouslyFemale

“I’m actually surprised that working as a health care employee, you’re not aware of shit being classed as hazardous waste, after all, it goes into a yellow bag, to be collected for incineration.“

Yes sure but I can’t see any health/danger differences between me putting shit in a bag wearing a pair of gloves/apron and someone else doing it.

But that is part of your job. It’s not part of a cleaners job. These are staff that are already the lowest rate of pay in the health service, we could at least treat them with some respect and not demand that they do something they’re not trained for. I’m a bit concerned that you think it’s that simple. Do you mind if I ask if you’re NHS or private?

@YouLookNiceJackie

The manager of the whole charity has just rang me and she was really shocked and concerned how it's been dealt with. She thanked me for letting her know and said that no one else has raised it with them. She is organising a professional company to go in and is also having that area re carpeted

I hope she has a word with the manager who pressured that poor volunteer into cleaning it up.

Have a to make up for the bounty bar . You did the right thing and I hope the charity head makes a point of telling everyone what the proper procedures for dealing with incidents like that.

A volunteer cleaning it up?? Call me a cynic but wonder if they were responsible....

I used to part own a business, which had an alcove entry doorway in between shops. I was first in, very early, one day and was the lucky one to find diarrhoea all over the door mat, door and walls. I went and bought a bucket, gloves, cleaning stuff and begged a kettle of boiling water from a shop neighbour. And cleaned it up. It made me wretch. I would never in a million years have asked our cleaner to do it. She was employed to hoover, dust, clean office kitchen and loos. Not that.

Well done for sticking up for yourself. That poor volunteer!

I'm glad it all got sorted op. You definitely did the right thing and I'm glad the manager agrees. Sounds disgusting.