House cleaners reveal their most disgusting finds

The Hollywood film Maid in Manhattan may have glamourised the life of cleaners, but these confessionals reveal the far less ritzy side of scrubbing and scouring.

One Reddit user asked maids to reveal the most disgusting houses they'd ever cleaned and dozens of people came forward to tell their tales of woe.

One cleaner recounted finding "mouldy cheese and slime" in the fridge at her brother's house, mouse faeces in the oven, and "piles of poop" littering the living room.

She continued: "All of the bedrooms had clothes covering the floors. There were maggots in one room, and found a few dead mice in the drawers with no clothes in them", the Daily Mail reports.

"The garage was filled with trashbags. Literally. Filled almost to the ceiling. It was terrible.

"I mean, I'm really not the neatest person. I have piles of stuff, I'm disorganized, but that was just a new level of slob. I don't know how anyone could live with themselves, in that smelly, dirty, place, and not do something about it."

One man said he was employed to clean beach rentals for three summers in a row.

He recalled two instances where he was horrified by the state guests had left the apartments.

On one occasion he went in and found that everyone who stayed in the house that week decided to shave before they left.

He continued: "The bathrooms were all completely covered with pubic hair. It was disgusting and took forever to clean."

A second incident saw one of the houses completely trashed after guests had a wild party.

The man remembers walking in and finding beer cans, bottles, garbage and leftover food strewn all over the rooms and none of the toilets had been flushed.

One woman said she was horrified after agreeing to clean her cousin's house in return for $150.

It took her three days to clean the home with the help of her mother because of the cluttered state it was in.

Dirty nappies and animal faeces were scattered around and she recalled the children's bedrooms being littered with urine-soaked mattresses and mouldy food.

Cockroaches and fleas had also started nesting in the property amongst the filth.

The woman said that by the time she had broken through the dirt, she had used ten gallons of bleach, five boxes of latex gloves and more than 100 trash bags.

A former hotel maid also joined the Reddit chat thread.

The US-based worker said she worked in the hospitality industry for five years and during that time the worst thing she had to clean up was a room that had been coated with "puke".

Describing the event, she wrote: "There was so much [puke] that it clogged the sink and it was full.

"It was on the wall, in the hallway and in both beds. They had smoked in the room and ashed all over the floors and there were drinks spilled everywhere."

She said what topped it off, was the fact the hotel guests hadn't even tipped her.

One man said he only worked a cleaner for one summer to pay for a trip to Europe but the grim experience made him appreciate how much cleaners have to put up with and how "brilliant they are."

He concluded: "I had to take about three baths to even attempt to rid of the memory."