A former Pontins cleaner has dished the dirt on the "horrendous" sights she uncovered in some of the holiday camp's filthiest chalets.
The former agency worker, who asked not to be named, worked at the Southport site for 18 months in 2017 and 2018.
In her time working at the holiday camp, she claims saw chalet walls smeared with faeces, rooms littered with used condoms and plates covered in 'cocaine'.
Sharing photos of some of the sights she confronted at Pontins, the former cleaner wanted to raise awareness of the state a small minority of selfish guests leave their chalets in.
And while she stopped working at the site at the end of 2018, she fears staff are still occasionally faced with grim chalets left in a mess by careless guests with no regard for the hard working staff tasked with cleaning them up.
Speaking to the ECHO, the ex-agency worker said: "[Those photos] aren't even the worst. I went into one that had more than 20 dirty nappies scattered all over the floors. I've never smelt anything like it."
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She added: "Those pictures don't touch it. People would cut up straws to take cocaine through. We've opened doors and found faeces smeared on the walls. They had to get a specialist cleaning unit to clean that. People have used the sinks to go [to the toilet in].
"People complain the floors are sticky but we used to properly wash them - it was like the Grafton floor when you went in. The whole experience was an eye-opener."
During her time spent working for the cleaning agency, the woman says staff were brought in on Fridays to clean before guests arrived and also on Mondays or Tuesdays to tidy the chalets.
She claims agency staff were assigned nine chalets to clean in their shift, and that while many were left tidy and just needed a general clean, others were left in an abominable state.
Speaking to the ECHO, she said: "I went into one chalet and had never smelt anything like it in my life. I was cleaning the chalet and needed to move the beds and when I did there were 20 dirty nappies under the bed.
"How do you throw a dirty nappy on the floor anyway?! [Those guests] have been in there with the children and it was just horrendous.
"One of the two room chalets we had to clean we ended up taking 10 bin bags [of rubbish] out. The man came back and said he'd left his train ticket and I told him to go into the skip to look for it."
But despite the grim conditions cleaners were sometimes faced with, this former staff member still looks back at her time spent working at the camp with fond memories.
She said: "Some of the sights we saw, you did have a laugh. Every day there was something. The first day was a shock to the system."
And despite the criticism often lobbied at the holiday camp, the woman defended the 'hard working' staff who do their best to create an enjoyable stay for every guest.
She said: "I'll be honest, I've never been and stayed and I never will. It gets to me when people criticise [Pontins] because I know how hard [the staff] work.
"Even a tidy chalet, you still have to clean everything. That's without 10 bin bags [of rubbish to take out]."
She added: "We've seen [guests] turn up [at their chalets] and walk straight back out."
The former staff member claims she once worked during a police raid and continued cleaning rooms while the dogs unit were brought on site.
She also claimed cleaning staff would find white substances on the plates provided in the chalets and feared guests were using drugs at the site.
In one particularly grim incident, the woman claims she picked up 'a turkey baster full of a white substance', which she feared contained bodily fluids.
She said: "I got everyone in to look at it. We've gone into bedrooms and the floor was littered with condoms."
Looking back at her time spent working at Pontins, she added: "You couldn't wait to get back in the van to tell each other stories.
"We got told if you find anything in the chalets that isn't phones or money, you can keep it. Some people looked like they had done a week's shopping [when they got back into the van]."
Guests have contacted the ECHO on numerous occasions since 2018, which is when this former cleaner stopped working at Pontins, to claim they found their chalets in a grim state after the previous guests left it in a poor condition.
And while the woman's experiences at Pontins date back to 2018, she claims articles and social media posts shared in the following years lead her to fear staff are still occasionally faced with disgusting chalets that have been trashed by inconsiderate guests.
She said Pontins did make an effort to try to curtail this stomach-churning behaviour after speaking with the cleaning agency about the state of some rooms.
During her time spent working at Pontins, she claims the holiday camp started asking cleaners to place a notice in each of the chalets ready for check-in which informed guests that there would be a £30 charge for rooms left in a poor state.
Pictures shared with the ECHO, which were taken inside chalets at the holiday camp around two years ago, show a kitchen area piled high with dirty plates and saucepans.
In another photo, a table in a communal area of the chalet is littered with tobacco, straws, empty cans of Fosters and an empty bottle of Buckfast.
Piles of rubbish can be seen stacked up next to the bin, while the floor is covered.
One of the pictures shows someone's half-finished meal left out in a bowl while a multi-coloured party hat sits next to it on the table.
The ECHO contacted Britannia for comment in relation to the claims made by this former staff member.
Have you stayed at Southport Pontins and wish to share your experiences? Email emilia.bona@reachplc.com
