Why we are undertakers as well as cleaners

It is an unusual combination and people ask about it, usually carefully, as though it might be something we would rather not discuss. It is not.

It is not a marketing line

We came to this work from that one rather than the other way round. That order matters, because it means nothing about a home after a death is unfamiliar, and it means the families were there first.

What it actually changes

• Nobody reacts. The person who walks into the room has been in rooms like it before and will not add anything to your day by how they respond to it.
• The sequence is familiar. We know what has usually already happened by the time somebody calls us, and what has not, which means fewer questions you have to answer twice.
• Belongings are treated as belongings. Documents, photographs and keepsakes are set aside as a matter of course, because that is how we were taught to be in somebody’s home.
• Discretion is assumed rather than requested. Corridors, timing, vehicles and what is carried. It is not an upgrade, it is just the job.
• We know what we are not. We are not counsellors and we are not going to behave as though we are.

You are not going to shock us, and you are not going to have to explain what happened. Tell us as much or as little as you want.

What it does not mean

It does not mean we handle funeral arrangements as part of a cleaning job, and it does not mean the two are bundled. They are separate, and a cleaning enquiry is a cleaning enquiry.

It also does not replace the practical checks. Ask us where the waste goes, whether somebody attends before quoting, and what happens if an odour returns, exactly as you would ask anybody.

Who comes

We are a family of four and we do this work ourselves. The people who answer the phone are the people who come, which on a job like this is most of what people are actually asking about when they ask who we are.

More about us is on About, and the shape of a job is on What happens now.

What we will not use it for

It would be easy to turn this into a sales line, and it is worth saying plainly where the limits are.

We do not use it to imply that we are the only people who can do this work properly. We do not bundle funeral arrangements into a cleaning enquiry, or the reverse. And we do not tell families what they should be feeling or doing, because being around this work regularly does not qualify anybody for that.

What it gives us is a manner and a familiarity. That is worth something on a day like this and it is not worth everything, and the practical checks still apply to us exactly as they do to anybody else.

What we have learned from it that is actually useful

That people ask permission to grieve in their own homes. That families apologise to strangers for the state of a room. That the person holding everything together on the day is usually the one who will struggle most a month later.

None of that changes how a floor is treated. It changes how a day is run, how quickly we move, and what we ask of people who are already carrying as much as they can carry. There is more on who actually turns up in the people who answer the phone are the people who come.