The intruder - who was high on the drug ice - then climbed through the window, cutting himself on large shards of glass. Blood was everywhere.

Thankfully, nothing was stolen. The intruder had mistaken the house for his own, thinking he had locked himself out.

For homeowners, incidents such as these are rare and traumatic. But biological cleaners deal with the aftermath of destruction, blood and death on a daily basis.

After a crime has been committed in a home and police have gathered all their evidence, the officers pack up and leave, with ACT Policing having no formal crime scene clean up team.

Responsibility for that, however gruesome, falls to the property owners. Many enlist the help of private companies to do the dirty work.

Enter Byran Norris.

Mr Norris has worked as a biological cleaner for 15 years and is the director of Biosite Cleanup.

Based in Goulburn and operating in Canberra and the south coast, Mr Norris says he's seen an explosion of callouts in recent years, and not just for crime scenes.

"As a forensic cleaner, there's a lot of variation to the role. It's surprising at how many times people might need one. I've been noticing we're being called out a lot more," Mr Norris says.

"Obviously you have things like murder and high-profile crimes, but then you have unattended deaths and suicides and even sewerage overflows."

While the most common call out he receives in Canberra is sewerage related, Mr Norris says there's a high number of unattended deaths that also need to be cleaned up.

"We did an unattended death recently where the person passed away and wasn't found for six weeks because they were living by themselves. The smell was one of the worst smells I have ever come across," he says.

"They had passed away upstairs and so we had to cut the floor out downstairs."

Before starting in the biological cleaning industry, Mr Norris worked in water and fire damage restoration and was an undertaker for several years.

While many may view his career as peculiar, he sees himself as a regular cleaner who goes an extra step with specialist gear.

"There was one example where there was a murder clean up where the family of the victim wanted to keep a table that had blood over it," he says.

"We had to spray it to bring all the blood out of the table and it took 40 minutes until it was no longer bubbling out."

Josh Marsden admits you need a strong stomach to be in his line of work.

As managing director of multiple biological cleaning services including Australian Forensic Cleaning and Biohazard Trauma and Crime Scene Clean Up, he says the market is growing, and he's acquired multiple businesses in cities across the country since he began the work in 2010.

"We've been in Canberra for the past three years and there's been growth everywhere. We got busy everywhere," Mr Marsden says

"It was a bit of a niche market to start... but it's been a gradual growth."

With more people looking to outsource the clean up of their homes, Mr Marsden says offices of his biological cleaning services have sprung up in almost every capital city in Australia.

"Suicides and unattended deaths make up half of the business," he says.

"There's a significant odour if there's been a death and they've been there for a week or two. We won't even go in there without respirators and full body suits."

Mr Marsden says jobs are undertaken after he's contacted by the homeowners or through insurance companies. In some instances, police have recommended the service of private cleaners, although no formal agreements are made.

On most jobs, crime scene cleaners work in small teams of up to four people, depending on the complexity of the task.

"It can take anywhere from a day to a week. If there's been an unattended death for several weeks, there's usually lots of damage to the property structure," Mr Marsden says.

"A lot of the materials and contents are salvaged if they have insurance on them. The homeowners might draw up a list of contents, and it's normally lots of fabric-based items.

"There are some items or spaces, though, that we don't even try and clean and we dispose them in a medical grade waste bin, and then try to clean the hard surfaces."

Biological cleaners enter the spaces of homes too grisly or too traumatic for homeowners to face, and while they may be protected by hazmat suits and breathing masks, they still experience scenarios most people won't have to deal with in their lifetime.

"You get used to the sights and smell. It's just part of the job really," Mr Marsden says.

"On most days, there's usually a bit of obstruction to the property and there'll be blood all over the floor and surfaces. If there's weapons involved, you might find bullet holes in the walls and ceilings or bloodied knives. Basically we deal with a lot of blood scattered around the house."

Bryan Norris says the hardest part of the job is dealing with the smell, although the respirators he uses go a long way to help. However, he seeks regular support.

"I'm starting to get used to it more. I do speak to psychiatrists and doctors regularly," he says.

"It hasn't affected me yet, but you'll have to ask me again in 10 years."

Mr Norris says he got into the industry after a seeing a shortage of people working in the field, saying it was roughly similar to his previous work doing property restorations after water damage.

Yet while he underwent retraining to branch out into the crime scene clean up industry, Mr Norris still sees people attempting to clean up biological messes themselves, usually to no avail.

"More and more people are saying they can do it themselves, but they have to be careful about it because forensic cleaning isn't like regular cleaning," he says

"A normal cleaner will clean the visual mess, but not get rid of all the contaminants," he says.

Mr Norris says while it may be a tough job and a difficult mess to clean up, someone has to do it.

"There's always going to be lots of reasons why people will need a forensic cleaner," he says.

"You don't want regular cleaners going anywhere near it."