Cleaning a mark of respect for volunteers

CLEAN UP CREW: Trudie Jones (front middle) and her dedicated team of volunteers and cleaners.

The Wairarapa Resource Centre is reaching out to the region's lonely, grieving and forgotten -- with the help of a mop and bucket and several trips to the dump.

This year, the resource centre has taken on a new community project, cleaning the homes and units of people who have died or are about to enter residential care on behalf of their families or landlords.

When not running the centre's busy op-shop, manager Trudie Jones and her team of volunteers can be found furiously scrubbing skirting boards, moving broken furniture, carting decades worth of scrap metal collections, and rescuing antique ornaments.

One particular estate, their first, in Eketahuna took two days to clean and required 17 trips to the rubbish tip.

A draining job at times -- especially as, in some cases, the deceased person either had no living relatives or was abandoned by their family.

"It is very sad to think about," Mrs Jones said.

"But we see it as our way of paying that person our respects.

"We're acknowledging that person existed, they had a story and they haven't been forgotten.

"It's not about house cleaning, it's about giving back to our community."

Since their first job, Mrs Jones and her team have cleaned out at least five more estates, four rest home units, a garage full of items the previous home owners had left behind, and the flats of two men with mental illness.

She recalls a time when her crew cleaned out one man's unit at a rest home within the space of two hours -- while his family were at the funeral.

Straight afterwards, his family members were on a plane back to the UK.

"They were blown away, just rapt," Mrs Jones said.

"A lot of family are coming from overseas, as they have so much to organise -- and they haven't time to think about cleaning."

Also rewarding was cleaning for the two mental health patients, who were living in "bad situations" and being transferred to a community facility.

"Their parents were elderly, and no-one was prepared to help them with their boys.

"One of the mums came to us in tears, and just said 'help'."

There have been some tragic cases -- such as retrieving a stack of scrap metal a man had spent 10 years collecting, after his family refused to come from Wellington to help.

Then there was the home in Eketahuna, referred to the centre by Lands Trust Masterton, where a man had lived alone for many years. Mrs Jones said the property was in poor condition, with no electricity and rooms boarded up and piled high with dilapidated furniture and old heirlooms.

"He had just about everything under the sun. His family didn't want to come near the place -- they just wanted the money, and none of the things which contained memories or meant something."

The volunteers were, however, able to salvage the man's collection of 300-plus salt and pepper shakers, currently on sale at the resource centre.

Mrs Jones said the job can be upsetting, especially for the younger volunteers.

"But they stay focussed. It's very satisfying -- it's helping them build confidence and gain job skills."