Going up the stairs, it is impossible to suppress the retching. He rotten smell already faeces it mixes. The garbage bags they huddle on the landing. Despite the masks, the stench wafts through the nostrils and it’s hard not to succumb to the want to vomit when entering a flat in Barcelona’s Eixample where a ‘shock cleaning’ is being carried out.
“How can a person live like this?” the few wonder neighbors who are still on the block. One of them points out that the former tenant slept on the floor. There is no mattress. Like the neighbor of the Prat de Llobregat, the resident of this apartment lived among rubble. The smell is reminiscent of rotten fish from the fish market, or a landfill.
With the arrival of good weather and the rise in temperatures, the companies that are in charge of traumatic clean-ups in Catalonia skyrocket their work. People who live among huge amounts of garbage, who accumulate objects everywhere, who do without personal hygiene and who have normalized that lifestyle are an invisible reality. This is the case of this house in the Catalan capital, which was uncovered when the ownership of the apartment changed hands.
The ajar door allows a view of a plastic tray with rotten beef. There is dog droppings all over the house. The tiles are no longer visible: a cardboard layer of dust and dirt covers it all. On top, bags, papers, broken furniture and clothes. The atmosphere is unbreathable.
“First we take out the garbage, then the furniture and at the end we will clean the floor. We will be there for two days”
At nine in the morning, five cleaning employees enter with the challenge of leaving this house as new. The former tenant will not return, he has gone to another floor. “First We take out the garbagethen they will go furniture and at the end we will clean the floor. I think we’ll be two days“Say the employees, who prefer not to be identified. In less than an hour they have already used 50 extra-large garbage bags. They have 150 more. When they are full, they put them in a van heading to a waste destruction point.
“I slept on the floor”
“It’s not the most extreme case I’ve seen, but it’s serious,” says one of the workers. What has struck him the most, the toilet and the state of the kitchen. “The strong smell that it gives off… garbage, dog poo, pee and rotten food. But for now we just got into a room“, account.
He has been doing this for ten years and still remembers a man who left home in a suit, tie, jacket and perfume. “You entered his house and your heart sank,” he continues. She draws attention to the fact that on the floor that she now cleans there is not even a mattress. “She slept on the floor,” explains the only neighbor with whom the tenant had a good relationship.
“These are people who are exiled from the world, for them everything has value. It may be that they have some suffering… I prefer not to know”
The cleaners wear an ankle-to-forehead suit, an FFP2 mask and gloves. they throw chemical products to alleviate the bad smell. One of the conditions imposed by these companies to accept the job is that the tenant is not in the house. “These are people who are exiled from the world, for them everything has value. It may be that they have psychological falls, some suffering… but I prefer not to know their lives. Then I come home, I think about how they live… and I am traumatized, “explains the employee, with more than 10 years of experience. She cleans three floors like this a week.
Bullying and duels
But the photos, the trophies and her clothes, among the rubble, speak unintentionally of Eva’s life. She is over 50 years old and was a teacher at various institutes, although she now receives a disability.
Eva was not a stranger in the neighborhood. She has spent her whole life there. Neighbors and merchants know her story in detail. They say that his obesity He didn’t help him get out of the building, without an elevator, although he did. “she is a lovely womanalthough it’s been two years since I gave her two kisses, because of the strong smell she gave off,” explains a saleswoman, who prefers to remember her with her lips always painted red. During these years, the neighbors gave up eating on the balcony in summer by the smell that came out of his window and they still have recorded how hethe cockroaches had a free field.
Knowing their history helps to understand how complicated it is to care for these people and prevent the problem from escalating. People who knew her say that He left classes more than a decade ago because the students bullied him. “You have to imagine a teacher with stains on her clothes, or even holes. With greasy hair… and she gave off a very bad smell,” describes a neighbor. Eva’s mother died many years ago and her brothers were emancipated. She stayed in the care of her father until he passed away.
One of the problems in caring for those affected by these situations is that They don’t recognize that they have a problem.. Apart from the risk of pests, diseases and fires who stalk the neighbors with whom they live, family members also suffer the consequences. They all tried, in their own way, to help, but without success.
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Every tenant on this block cared about Eva. With some she did let herself be helped. “If I wasn’t there, did not open the door to social services“, continues one of them, who always tried to support her even though it was not easy. “She had many problems,” she continues. Five years ago, Barcelona’s social services visited her often.
Now, the block has changed hands, with all the tenants moving to other houses. It has also been the case with Eva. “Let’s hope that, now that he starts a new life, the situation will change”, she sighs around her. The truth is that in Catalonia there are dozens of people like her. She is corroborated by the dozens of calls that come to specialized cleaning companies.