I Clean Up After Murders, Meth Labs & Serial Killers

The Informer is a Crime Scene Cleaner who cleans up multiple homicides per week and has been called to shootings, stabbings, machete attacks and meth labs. She is on call 24 hours a day six days a week and says there’s no job that gets the adrenaline going like this one. One of her first shocking experiences was of a woman who fell and died from intense head trauma. Once she started decomposing, her cat started eating some of her brains which then also killed the cat from all the bacteria - despite there being plenty of cat food left over in the bowl. She just can’t ever look at cats the same way. The Informer says the hardest part of the job is dealing with survivors at the scene without causing secondary trauma. She once had to deal with the wife of a man who had shot himself. He had spent all his savings fixing up his house and then when the house flooded, it had just pushed him over. The Informer also clears out hoarder homes that are equally shocking. She once cleaned an upscale apartment where the man had been cooking meth and shooting porn. On another occasion, she cleaned a serial killer’s house and whilst going through each room - there were cameras facing every direction that made her feel uneasy. In reflection, the Informer says this job makes her see the world differently, “you’d think this job would make you more of an empathetic person, but it doesn’t, it just desensitizes you”. Check out the VICE World News playlist for global reporting you won't find elsewhere: