The Audio Long Read The human stain remover: what Britain’s greatest extreme cleaner learned from 25 years on the job
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Oct 31, 2025 Ben Giles, an extreme cleaner, shares his wild adventures, from cleaning murder scenes to tackling whale carcasses. He recounts a hectic cleanup at the Dominion Theatre after a messy incident, and his journey from window cleaner to entrepreneur with Ultima. Giles provides laugh-out-loud stories about memorable jobs and the nicknames they inspire. With practical stain-removal tips, emotional resilience strategies, and tales of challenging clean-ups, he offers a fascinating glimpse into a profession few dare to embrace.
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Rise Of A Specialist Cleaner
- Ben Giles built a career cleaning extreme scenes from a bathtub full of faeces to theatre doors smeared with human waste.
- He grew Ultima from window-cleaning roots into a rapid-response team of trained cleaners across the UK.
Scaling Through Training
- Giles built a training academy producing around 600 freelance cleaners for rapid deployment.
- He kept consulting, bought businesses and entered partial retirement after selling to Atlas.
Don’t Sand Dried Biological Matter
- Avoid sanding dried biological matter because it makes particles airborne and hazardous.
- Use a fogger with Biotrol 4 to soften phlegm, then wipe it away gently with a scourer or scraper.
