The Smell-o-metre 👃

Hello, I'm Artsimone. I stand out everywhere I go because I'm gorgeous, clearly, but not everyone is like me. A lot of the time we're surrounded by people that seem a bit bland dull. I'm interesting, even so I'm taking upon myself to find the colorful characters among us, even if they seem a bit beige at first glance. I don't know what characters I'll be meeting with or what they're keeping concealed. All I know is that they're interesting enough to be talking to me. Welcome to Conceal It

My name's Jerry, I'm fifty three. I'm a business owner from Queensland, Sonny, Queensland. I've got twenty acres love animals, also doing up a couple of old cars with my son. But it's the work that I do that's particularly interesting. It could be considered essential work. You probably don't know who does it or never seen anyone do it before.

Hey, hello, Jarn, how are you good. Welcome to the studio and welcome to Concealed Now. I've never met you before. In my love you know, you could have just pulled off the street. I have heard some facts about you. Okay, so you're from Queensland. Yes, you live in Queensland.

I do.

So you're here in studio with me when you live in Queensland. Yes, oh my god. It's like interstate is not exciting. I'm so happy I'd enough to do this through zoom though. Okay, sive in Queensland. You live on lots of land. Okay, doesn't give me much information. But maybe you just like getting out in the boosh. I don't know, is there anything exciting on your land?

It's behind a zoo.

It's behind a zoo. Wow, that's such a very clever because if they need to expand the size of the zoo, you can say, come on, name your prob always a possibility. That's pretty good. Okay, hopefully they invent some more animals, can edit up because I feel like actually running out of animals. Maybe maybe, but maybe I don't know. Maybe get in the future where they start making cyborg animals and they need a new wing to the zoo. Yeah, your place is the one to go. Okay, and you like to do up cars?

Yes, love old cars.

Yeah, what type of cars do you old Holden's You answered that so quick. Yeah, it would be nothing else at all, old hold nothing else. What makes an old Holden?

Oh it's strong, it's heavy strong. Yeah, when you slam the door.

Brander profile strong heavy Yeah, keep going yeap strong heavy. So I'm going to ask you three questions, and from the answers to those three questions, I have to try and decide and determine what you were concealing from me. Sometimes I get it right, most times I get it wrong.

You can only try.

I'm going to try. Okay, So question number one, what was a weird obsession you had as a kid.

So when I was young, like late teens, I had a little bit a session with obviously cars. I'm very particular, and I was very can I say this word anal? I was just like, yeah, yeah, it was.

Anal safe space here, Okay, you can use that word around me.

It's signe. I actually had a a Gemini panel van and the interior.

The language Gemini panel.

Van, and I did all the inside up, and I was very particular. I had containers and shelving and buckets and organization. Yeah, it was very organized. A lot of cloths and yeah, a few buckets and a few bits and pieces.

And okay, it's a very organized interior of your Gemini Gemini panel Van. See you've always loved cars. Yeah, okay, do you like the show? Right? I feel like all can't be But do you like it West Coast Customs?

Yeah? No, not for me?

Okay, all right, Gemini panel Van. But ain't all about the car interior organization? Okay? Question number two. Out of the five senses, which one would you struggle with the most if you lost it? Don't ask me what the farther are I've forgotten?

No, that's okay. If I lost it, probably my smell. Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to lose that.

You don't want to lose you?

No?

No, okay, I feel like I'm just saying about myself now. I think I could. I couldn't lose my sight, although I could lose it later in life because I've seen everything now you can just describe it to me. Okay. And fintal question, Yeah, what are you most fearful of?

Okay, there was a couple. Yeah, well okay, let me there's probably my own blood.

Yeah, your own blood.

Yeah, and you're like getting needles and things like that. That's my own.

Needles, okay. All right, so let's recap okay, all right, So you live in coins, and you got a lot of land. You love cars okay, and you did all lots of organization buckets containers okay. And you wouldn't want to lose your smell. No, And you're fearful of blood, my own, your own blood. That is the very big difference. Yeah, difference, yes, especially in my career. Okay, So they still could be a vampire. I'm running that down, all right. So I feel like I know this one, and sometimes I don't.

I am a trauma and crime scene cleaner. I own my own company called National Trauma and Crime Scene Cleaning. We specialize in murders murder scenes trauma, decomposition, sewerage and hoarding and we cover all of Australia.

Yeah. I love this Jerry. He cleans up blood and gutsy. I've just revealed give opened your jacket and there is national trauma and crime scene cleaning with lots of things for the wale. So we have just found out that Jerry is a crime scene cleaner. I got it right, yes, But the real question is can he help me clean up my life? Help? Jerry is about to speak about some confronting themes around death. Do you think you need

It's fine friends of clean?

Yeah? Friends or that's men. Put that down. Actually forensic. That's good. That's very good for all the CSR people. I love that. Okay, So I have to preface this with I'm so fascinated by this world. I tell you what I've watched documentaries, I've watched TV shows. There's even this YouTube channel of this, like the American group of people that like they show a lot they show Oh my god, make I don't think this should be on YouTube, but I still watch it. So I am so fascinated

Okay, come with me.

Watch them afar. Okay, although I have been in some dressing rooms that do look like crime scene, so I don't know. But first question obviously is how did you get into this line of work?

So I started off commercial cleaning, so right when I was very young, when I had my Gemini panel van, I actually first started off as a forklift driver and they did some nighttime cleaning doing pubs and clubs and vomit and spew and finding sharps and you name it. We did it, the dirtiest things, we did it.

So you know, you start working with slightly more icky things from its pew, filthy things.

Vargus, veins all over car put all over the house.

Now, but you start with that, and then how do you then get into the full forensic.

As you get more experienced and do there's a lot of courses out there you can do, which we've done, and then you're obviously more experience, and then you know, it just goes from there and it builds up and builds up.

Okay, and did you is this your company?

My company?

So did you start working? We're working with someone else.

So back then I was working for another company. They didn't actually solely do forensically. Their main was like carper cleaning and pest control and remediation work and flood work. So we do a lot of flood remediation where houses got flooded with sewage or with water. One of the agents I was doing work for, the person had passed away from the dining room and lound room. The people that used to deliver the old yellow pages actually discovered it.

Okay, So before we get to the degreety details to a degree, what is the kind of spectrum of forensic cleaning, Like you can go in there and clear up some blood or you can go in there and I don't.

Know, they all differ a lot. So depending on the degree of let's just say someone's passed away in a property, yes, and all depends on how long they've been there for. So if it's a what a one day decomposition, we're going to do a stage one clean and the odor will probably be fairly low. Where then the spectrum is you can go from a one day to a six weeker. So then you've got you blowflies and maggots and you've

Have you ever watched into a place in me? Like, just knock it down, love?

So we've had a couple.

It's so soaked into everything, and what do you do.

We had one in a different I won't name the state, but a different state from here, where the body was there for six weeks and passed away on carpet in the hallway, and so we had to remove the carpet

Human go everything.

It was under like four or five walls, so it made a hell of a mess. So then, of course, and we can only do all the surface cleaning because we're not builders, so the builders got to be involved. But it was a very very old, missed treated house. So he was part order, part gross filth, yes, very recluse, and you didn't want much to do with the world. So it wasn't a good property. And then the poor family had deal with the cleanup.

So talk me through the process of you get a phone call and then do you go out and assess the property first.

So we've got a few girls in the office answer the phones twenty four to seven yes, so we don't have answering services or other companies that do our phone calls. And they then discretely get as much information as possible so we can go from obviously where the property is, describe the property, was there an ode? Is there animals in the property? Because that can make a big difference if there was a dog a cat while they were passed away, so they've made a mess urine feces from them.

I guess to degree you have to kind of be a one stop shop. We're dealing with death a lot of the time here, right, lots of thing. It's a very sensitive time for all those involved. So I guess if you know, they want to come to someone who can just kind of you deal with this and then we'll go back when it's fresh and lovely.

Happens a lot.

Yeah, do you find you have to train your staff anyway, just in terms of dealing with high emotion like that.

Yeah. Yeah, We've got all walks of life with our stuff X you know ambos, We've got X nurses, X age care, so a lot of them have got life experiences. We've got a few young ones aboard the little learning. But obviously they're then with always someone that's been fully trained and by myself, a lot of them have done courses, yes, some haven't. They come to us and there as you say, green, but they've got to learn. You know, I'm fifty three and I'm still learning.

You know.

The more they can learn, the better, and the more I can learn and bring to the family is great because that way they're more stronger for the job. The job is very very sensitive and very very hard at some times, but we believe in debriefing after every job, talk with our office staff and if they need more than counseling. But yeah, do you.

Have to weed out some people that are a bit too into the area of crime scene cleaning.

There's about forty things that they have to pass before they even get into the first step, and one of the main thing is they have to have a clean record. Oh yeah, okay, well you imagine the situation they're in and those it has to be clean. No, they've got to be very trustworthy. That's the main thing. Yes, yeah, when you're going to a house there's potential jewelry, money, Yeah, very much, there's a lot a lot of trust.

You should have a metal detector before that.

Before they got a right arms out, arms out, Yeah, there.

You're good to go.

Yep. And there's all these things that ever got to be how they with odors, how they with blood and outs, how they with vomit, you know, how they with feces. We've had a couple of cases where they've come in all bells and whistles and bend. I can do this, I can do this, And the next minute they are either spewing or the game. That's they can't stomach it. And you know that it's not for you because and then that one wasn't bad. You know, out of ten,

Can you smell smell like outside of property?

Yes? All the time?

Wow? Do you sometimes walk down there and go dead? Person? Does it happen you just like walking your dog? You're like, I know, that's why you're on the property with all the acres. You don't have to smell it.

I got plenty of fresh air.

And does it all just kind of smell the same or you're like, no, that's blood.

You can see there's a big difference between fresh blood and someone that's been decomposed for a long period of time. Yeah, that's why I do not want to lose my sense of smell.

Rah.

Yeah. Yeah. And not only that, you want when you're doing your job, you want to make sure that you've got it all and when you walk into property and after you've done, you know full clear of this and the full clean and down to the nitty gritties, and all the furniture's gone, all the fixtures are gone. You want to make sure that property has got no decomposition smell at all.

How do you put up with the smell? She just put like a little like tree shaped car.

So you can have we can have you can have P three masks with the right fielders and then you don't smell. I think just great. Or sometimes you can have a P two mask with a little bit of mix, yes, and your little finger. It's a little bit up here to depending on the odor levels and the extreme. If it's only a one day decomposition, you can get away with a P two and a little bit of vixed and it's not there's hardly no smell at all. There's

Is that the airs thick? Right?

It's oh yeah.

So obviously some of these situations are things like you were saying, oh that it could be like a Hordo's house. I doubt they call you themselves, though, So who hires you to clean it up?

Social workers, next of kin, A lot of next to kin get to the point where they've just had enough and they call us and they'll speak to the girls office and say, I'm old, what do I do? How do I They don't want to throw nothing away and on family, they're telling me to go and get you

It's almost like you need to have like a councilor with you. Oh.

In some cases we've had yeah, yeah, they've been really good.

I've watched those really TV shows. Not really into those. They sit they sit on the grass and everyone's pulling out this stuff and you're like, no, that's my good spoon. You've got three hundred other spoons, but it's the good one.

Sometimes we can only do half days. I've had one of the last of two hours and we had to say, no, she's getting choupset. This is what we're going to do. You do your sister's here. You talk your sister and we'll say we're going to come back tomorrow. Give it another okay, And the sister goes, well, hang on, I think we're going to have to take her back to our place and these guys can do your bid and

Oh you're surrounded by mountains of their things? Is that weird? Well?

No, I love it. I absolutely love it. Bring it on the bigger the better.

Because how do you navigate something like that.

On our secret what you start from the air and work your way in slowly, very slowly?

Do you just chuck it all out?

Oh? It all depends on the client. But you've got to be very respectful because.

Someone that's like, oh, there's something nice in there, it's like a needle in a haystack.

Can you find there's some companies out there to get there to shovel and you know, a skip and just go for their jollys. We're not like that. We like to be very careful we've found. You know, obviously they'll say, look, just get rid of it. All stinks. I don't want

Fine? You're going to go Discovery Indian Jones and the Templar Doom.

We found a lot of money, a lot of jewelry and a lot of valuables.

How do you stay honest?

I get the kick out of it. When then they can pay my bill, and I've found thirty thousand dollars in cash under the vinyl. Yeah, we found we had one in a different state where it was under the dining table under some old vinyl, and there was thirty three and a half thousand dollars to be precise, and as I found just the first thousand, and I ring the client style, I found money under here. We knew she was Horty buddy she was. It was so funny.

Just to take it out of that, I think we did.

I don't know if you know Skip Bins, but this is one of the largest, big walking ones. It's a thirty cubic met I think we did six massive, but it was a big home. It was a lovely It was a lovely home. Yeah, they're fun.

I'm sure it was once so lovely. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, what's some of the most interesting things you've found going through? Besides thirty three thousand dollars, which I don't think you can top that, some of the stuff.

That you find is absolutely you're just like I don't think I can hanahs over the client because it's a little bit, you know, some of the secrets that you uncover, you know, like they didn't know that she was tragged, he was dragged, you know, or toys and things like that, you know.

And yeah, I had this conversation actually recently with a friend and they're like, who is your friend that you've already organized that, like if you die, they're going and clean out the top drawer. And I said, that's a thing. Yeah, I guess I need to organize that, although I think my mum should be like whatever.

Well get we get called and we find that stuff, Wow, exciting people.

It doesn't real kinky shites that So does everyone have to sign like an NDA, because how do you stop you know, your staff going being little secret squills and we're very strict on Yeah, how do you something from leaking stuff? Have you had your shoes?

Oh, we've been pretty lucky over the last you know, thirty odd years, we've been very lucky. I've got good stuff.

Yeah.

I had the other little leak here and there, but.

Pun intended body fluid leak. Yeah, just a couple of leagues around what would be the most famous situation of like a cleanup you've done, you know, if you cleaned up the Queen's house. I don't know.

No, well, no, I can give you a scenario. I can't give you his acts, but yeah, we've done lots, lots and lots. We've got to be very discreet. Obviously, our sign rise. We cover it up because we don't want people following us back to where we are and all those phone numbers and things like that to contact us about that particular, especially if it's high media. They'll wait, they'll wait for us to finish up when there can tell Yeah, all the time, I've had guns to put to our staffs.

Oh yeah, well that's serious.

Yeah, when it comes to drug labs and things like that, we've had people pull out rifles to come get the rest of their goodies.

There, thank you.

Yeah. Ah, so that was quite a few years ago. We've learned since then, so now we make sure the police are on what's going on. And yes, yeah, if it's an insurance job, we do it. Work for insurance companies and they're just like, hey, listen, he's in jail, or he's not in jail, or he's he's out on bail or something like that.

Yes, so's sometimes you walk into a property and you go ah, and the police aren't really involved, and you go, oh, there's some stuff here, you guys to probably come and check it out. Does that happen?

Oh yeah, lots. Yeah, I'll probably every three or four weeks we'll get one we've got to call the police to come into Hey there's some three bags here of some really stuff that we should we shouldn't be throwing away or more. Yeah.

So all all the situations you deal with are all quite dark, a bit morbid. I know they have great outcomes in the end, but they all start off in that space in the situation. How is that for you? Because you're dealing with a lot of negative situations and you're walking into that almost daily.

I think a wi I have lasted time. I love that challenge of to turn that around. We've got clients who have gone back a year later to visit them and see how they're going. And some have done really, really well, and you know, you praise them, and some of them get on side with you and go, Jerry, look what I did. You know I've done this and I it's not all the rubbish anymore. And I've kept the spare room clean and it's not coming out of

It, changing lives, changing lives. How do you do that? It's so heartwarming? What do I do? Make people laugh? Boring?

You're just great?

But no, I'm very grateful that companies like yours exist and that there are people out there to help people in these situations.

Because see, I couldn't res up in drag.

That suggest you don't know. Well, people might be surprised. Maybe I do have what it takes to be a crime scene cleaner. So can you interview with me with some really key questions to see if I have what it takes to get down and clean things.

Do you have a criminal record? No? Right, okay, that's one.

That's one ticked out. All right, I'm almost through the door. Everyone.

How are you with odor? Well?

I don't smell that bad, so I think that's okay. I'm really good smelling odor. Yep, a big tick. Ye.

Have you got a clean license?

Yes?

Yeah, they have lost your license? No?

Never, Oh my god, it's good just getting now. I'm not a bad girl, am I I'm really good?

Actually, how would you think you would be wearing ppe? Well, I figure, full BioSuit and full mask.

Yeah, well I figure I wear a lot of things as a drag queen. I've already got like four stockings. Of course it's sweaty. Yes, I'm used to being covered, so tick yep.

And how is your attitude with people that are grieving? I'll laugh when people cry, don't dumn.

So that was Jerry the trauma and crime scene Clina and years. Do you get it right? But you better not go cutting my grass because body fluids their mind. You've been listening to an iHeart Australia production concealed with arts amone and to check me out? Do you out the socials? If this episode brought up any issues for you, call Lifeline on one three, one one four with the Mets