In the recently released "Sunshine Cleaning," Amy Adams and Emily Blunt star as sisters who start a crime-scene cleanup business. We talked to Vanessa Phearson, CEO of Cendecon, billed as a "suicide, death, trauma, body fluids, biohazard and accident decomposition" cleanup service about what it's really like to deal with the messiness of death for a living.

What is covered in your cleaning service?
Phearson: "Anything from roach poop, dead rats, fire and tear gas, blood and brain matter. All those sorts of cleanups that basically nobody knows how to do or nobody wants to do. That's where we come in."

How did you get started?
"I saw a dead animal on the road, and it got me thinking about who handles the leftovers when somebody dies. Like most, I assumed emergency people come in and take everything with them, but they don't. I figured, I have a strong stomach and I can do this."

What's the worst kind of cleanup?
"I'd say one of the worst cleanups would be a shotgun blow to the head, be it suicide or other. A decomp happens all in one place, but a shotgun goes everywhere. It's in bizarre places behind pictures, in drawers. Unfortunately, scraping brain off the wall and ceiling is very time-consuming."

Find out about the "decomp" experience as well as how Phearson handles the smell, after the jump.

What are some examples of the kind of job you do?
"We had a decomp this week and I don't quite know how it happened, but the guy was in his laundry room and it appeared as though he threw up into his washing machine, closed the washing machine and dropped dead. Based on everything we could find, he was there for over two weeks and started being absorbed by the house. Fortunately, he died on brand-new hard tile, so it didn't seep through.

"There was [also] a lady who started making piles of her blood-soaked maxi pads and tampons. I'd have to say that that job smelled much worse than any decomp I ever did. She had piled them up in her bathroom and then when that was full she started with the rest of the house. Amongst it there were maggots, rats and who knows what else?"

How is this kind of cleanup different from regular maid service?
"It's very different just because we have training and knowledge and blood-borne pathogens, airborne pathogens, diseases, and body fluids, and blood and all that. It's not surface cleaning. Hotel managers who want things to go under the radar send maids in there with tiny thin gloves, and that's a huge liability.

This line of work is very, very physical. It's not go in, spray some stuff, wipe it up and you're done. There are times you have to saw up flooring and sub-flooring and cut up mattresses and box springs."

How do you handle the smell?
"It's definitely not a job for somebody who gets queasy easily. I can talk about the more unpleasant things while eating. It just doesn't gross me out. But I'll be honest, the roach poop smell I smelt this week was worse than a decomp. The human body, I guess you kind of get used to it."

How do people react when they find out what you do?
"Some people don't view it as offering a service or being a solution they just look at it as gross. To them I would say, 'You've never been in that situation to have a loved one hurt badly or die and then find out, 'Hey, guess what, you just lost someone you loved dearly, and good luck cleaning it up.' We are a solution for people who don't know where else to turn."