Home to an elderly widow, the one-bedroom flat had barely been cleaned in the nine years since the death of the owner's husband
TONIGHT'S episode of Call the Cleaners saw two professionals tackle the worst mess they'd ever seen in their 19-year careers as extreme cleaners.
Full of optimism, sisters Yvonne and Angela travelled to north London to get to work on a flat which had fallen into an unbelievable state.
But the heartbreaking sight which greeted them when they opened the door was enough to leave even the veteran cleaners feeling sick.
Home to an elderly widow, the one-bedroom flat had barely been cleaned in the nine years since the death of the owner's husband.
Alone in the flat with just her dog for company, the 76-year-old woman had been unable to keep on top of things, so she surrendered to the mould and let a decade's worth of grime build up in every room.
A leaking toilet had allowed water to seep throughout the flat, leaving the mould to creep over every surface.
Meanwhile, the living room was littered with gone-off food and rotting rubbish, with the broken light doing nothing to light up the squalid space.
In the bedroom, festering cat faeces had piled up in an old litter box, while insects crawled over every surface in the room, which hadn't been touched since the owner's husband died.
As she surveys the filthy flat, Yvonne says: "Nineteen years we've been doing this, and I think this is the worst... I've never seen anything like it."
The state of the home left the cleaners in tears, but the sisters weren't going to leave until they'd turned the place around.
The extreme cleaners started with the abandoned bedroom, where the grieving widow had kept her late husband's suits hung in the closet.
Everything in the spider-infested room was falling apart, leaving a disgusting layer of soil-like powder over the floor.
After the room had been emptied out, the cleaners turned their attention to the lounge, where the elderly lady used to sleep on a mouldy, damp sofa.
All the while, the bathroom was still leaking - leaving the floor slick with brown water where it had mixed with mud and dog faeces from around the flat.
Every single surface in the squalid home needed a thorough scrubbing, with the entire flat gutted so the cleaners could start over again.
But four days of intensive cleaning, litres of disinfectant, and four skips was enough for the cleaners to complete an unbelievable transformation.
Cleaned and tidied, the home no longer smelled, and the elderly lady finally had a bed she could sleep in.
"I'll never forget that job," Angela says as she shuts the door on the major clean.
Call the Cleaners returns next Tuesday on ITV at 8.30pm
Previously, we told how a hoarder who hadn't seen their floor in four years was forced to call in the pros after neighbours complained about the smell.
