Huge job cleaning a big mess

LAST week a local company was tasked with cleaning a Mildura house, which had rubbish covering nearly every inch of the floor.

The property was so cluttered that even walking through the building was a challenge.

Jim’s Mowing Mildura South franchise owner Mark Beggs was approached to clean the house and said he was up for the challenge.

“When I was a young fella, a bloke gave me some life advice, bite off more than you can chew and chew like crazy, so that’s what I did,” he said.

“I didn’t look at it as one big job, I broke it up into the front yard, driveway, entry, et cetra., and just focused on one bit at a time instead of seeing it as a whole.

“It just makes each job smaller instead of one massive task.”

A Bobcat loader was used to scoop up a haul of rubbish from the driveway, and Mr Beggs also hired five backpackers to help with the cleanup.

“Logistics were just a nightmare,” he said. “It wasn’t as simple as looking at it and saying, ‘Yeah, we’ll just pick the rubbish up’.

“You have to organise bins get staff trained and organised, and arrange PPE.”

Mr Beggs filmed the process, which garnered attention online.

His video received more than 1000 reactions on Facebook and 40,000 views on TikTok.

“I basically do a yard cleanup every week or so, and I always post a TikTok and share it on my Facebook page and the Mildura community group page as a bit of advertising,” he said.

“I normally get 20 to 100 likes, and I’m stoked with that.

“But this one just blew up, and I couldn’t believe it.”

Mr Beggs said the publicity was nice, but that wasn’t his primary motivation.

“At the end of the day, I don’t do this for internet clout,” he said, “I do it to help people.

“I didn’t just help the client, I helped the neighbours on three sides because they had to live with that for years.

“And on a broader level, I helped the community of Mildura.

“The ethos of the business is that we don’t just mow lawns, we help people.”