Biohazard cleaners found highly toxic mushrooms they had never seen before in an abandoned bingo hall.
Megan Johnstone and Jack Tozer of Pro Clean Commercials removed dangerous mould and fungi from Bournemouth's Grand Cinema. Megan, 23, said she had never seen anything like those mushrooms, called Serpula lacrymans – a species of fungus known for causing dry rot.
The fungus present themselves in large and smaller shapes and often have a brown and white colour. Megan said: "I have never seen anything like it before so it was new to me. I had to do a bit of research and asking around other people in the same industry that I know just to get a bit of feedback on it.
"Even people that I know that deal with a similar sort of thing and a course leader that I did the biohazard training with they all said they've never seen anything like it."
On November 5 they were called in by the management company to clean the abandoned hall so that contractors can go in and work on a safe environment. But when Megan and her business partner Jack got it they were shocked to find the "weird-looking" mushrooms.
She said: "The process to remove them was pretty straightforward. We used shovels, a garden trowel just to try and get underneath it and really scrape it all up. Then we put it in waste and we have to deal with the residue that was there from where it's grown from. We put a treatment on it to block the mould and any hazardous components that are in the building."
She believe that a leak in the roof caused the fungus to grow in there as well as lack of ventilation because the building is boarded up. She continued: "Where it is such a big open space with no ventilation it's just really moist in there and where the wood has started to rot has created this fungus Serpula lacrymans."
Megan started the business based in Dorset nearly five years ago as commercial cleaning specialists. Only recently they started doing biohazard cleaning – and this was the first job of that kind. She said: "It was a really good job for us to start off with. Essentially we've made it all safe again so that maybe someone can come in and rip out all the wood and redo it."
Megan's initial idea was to join the police but became involved in the industry while studying to earn some extra money. She also felt her job was almost like an emergency services role – as she is often tasked with entering dangerous sites where every job comes with life-threatening risks.
Soon she is hoping to expand her business and open a training academy for biohazard cleaning and take on many larger jobs to expand her business. She said: "I feel like I'm doing my policing career a little bit through the biohazard work. We go up to trauma clean and emergency cleaning. In a way I feel like I still get to live out that dream to get to help people and work with people who really need it and to make things safe for them."
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