We specialize in the unpleasant tasks that you need to have taken care of. Her work, in short, is a catalog of the ways we die physically and emotionally, and the strength and delicacy needed to lift the things we leave behind. Grieving families also hire Sandra to help them sort, disperse, and dispose of their loved ones’ belongings. In addition, government housing and mental health agencies, real estate agents, community organizations, executors of deceased estates, and private individuals all call on Sandra to deal with unattended deaths, suicides, or cases of long-term property neglect where homes have, in her words, “fallen into disrepute” due to the occupier’s mental illness, aging, or physical disability. This is why Sandra’s trauma work is varied and includes crime scenes, floods, and fires. Neither do firefighters or ambulances or other emergency services. Most people will never turn their minds to the notion of trauma cleaning, but once they realize that it exists-that it obviously has to-they will probably be surprised to learn that the police do not do trauma cleanup. Each day for the past twenty years, her job has led her into dark homes where death, sickness, and madness have suddenly abbreviated the lives inside. Sandra is the founder of Specialized Trauma Cleaning (STC) Services Pty. I did, however, pick up one of her brochures, which I read compulsively for the remainder of the day. Hypnotized by her smile and her large blue eyes and the oxygen mask she wore like jewelry and the images on her TV, I haltingly explained that I don’t have business cards. Sitting behind the table, a very tall woman, perfectly coiffed and tethered to an oxygen tank, fanned her hand out and invited me to enter my card. Next to the ice bucket-silver, with a stag’s head on either side-a tiny TV played scenes of before and after trauma-cleaning jobs (which brought to mind the words feces and explosion). I passed a card table in the lobby, where brochures were spread out next to a sign inviting you to drop your business card into an ice bucket for a chance to win a bottle of shiraz. A gaggle of public servants, lawyers, and academics had just emerged from a session on offenders with acquired brain injuries to descend on urns of crappy coffee and plates of sweating cheese. I first saw Sandra at a conference for forensic support services.

Remediation * Methamphetamine Lab Cleanup * Home-Help Agencies to Attend * Odor Control * Hoarding and Pet Hoarding Cleanup * Squalor/Trashed This is what it says on the back of Sandra Pankhurst’s business card:

The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein