Mike Nicholoson opened the apartment door and a wave of stench like that of rotting vegetables assailed his nostrils.  He strides down the entry way to the one room living area and sets down the large rubber trash can imprinted with the words BIO HAZARD. 
 With hands on his hips, he casually glances at the stain of decayed flesh on the mattress located in a corner of the room. 
"This is very minor," he said. 
 Mike Nicholson, 33, is the owner and operator of Clean Scene Services, a company that cleans up after crime scenes and when decomposed bodies are discovered.  The amount of clean up involved depends on how the person died and if the body was decomposing. 
Clean Scene Services averages 15-20 jobs per month.  "We'll do four suicides, then three decomps," he said.  "It doesn't seem like we get a suicide then a decomp, they go in spurts 100%."
 Right after high school Nicholson started in the mortuary business working for a transportation service that picks up human remains.  He later went to work for the coroners office.
 The cleaning service began on the side at first to help grieving families.  He would be there picking up the body and with the family crying and wondering how they are going to clean up the mess. "I'll come back after work and give you a hand," he would tell them.  That was the starting point, he said. 
 "Every job is different," said Carol Nicholson, wife and partner in the business.  "You really don't know what you're in store for until you actually get in and look at what's involved."  And she said ìin every job there is a story you could put together.î 
 Carol Nicholson is the detective of the duo.  "I try to figure out exactly what happened first and how it actually happened," she said.  "Once I figure it out, it's kind of like a puzzle that I can put aside and say 'O.K., I'm done with it.'"  This is what helps her deal with it and gives her peace of mind she said. 
 When he met her, she was studying to be a nurse.  "I thought he was crazy," she said with an affectionate smile in his direction.  "In my family, death was taboo."
 However, since her pregnancy and the birth of their daughter Natalie four months ago, Carol Nicholson doesn't go out on the jobs anymore.  "I stay home and do the paperwork," she said.  Her brother helps with the business now, she said.

    Mike Nicholson (left) and his brother-in-law Louie
   Garcia cleaning up after a job.

The couple also has a 9 year old son Nicky who said he likes the fact that his parents don't have a regular job and are able to be home with him a lot.  They also share their home with two rats, two monstrous dogs and a tempestuous cat named Sally.  "We're homebodies," she said.  "We don't get out much." 
 At his most recent clean up assignment, he slides his hands into opaque surgical gloves with a snap and whips out an exacto knife.  Jabbing it into the mattress, he starts slicing through the layers around the dark-red gooey stain.  The bedding had already been removed and shoved in a bag and discarded on the floor. 
 Taking a look around the apartment, a story comes together of a life cut short.   Pornographic videos were piled on the floor under the counter that divides the living room from the kitchen.  A crucifix with rosary beads dangled from a tack above the counter.  Taped to the wall were reminder notes saying 'smell good - attract' and smell bad  repel.'  An open box of condoms was also tacked against the wall for easy access.  Size 10 1/2 EE tennis shoes were tucked neatly in the closet. 
 The bookcase in a corner of the room contains various English grammar books, an English/Spanish dictionary and a Valley College folder.  Inside contained the deceased's homework assignments for a spring 1999 semester computer class at Los Angeles City College.  An ASU card from Valley College dated back to 1992 was on the desk next to the brand new computer was. 
 After finishing with the mattress, he moves to the floor to cut out the carpet that contains more stains of what he calls decomp juice.  The contaminated carpet and pad is tossed into the garbage can along with the mattress material.  "I'm getting hungry," he said as he is cleaning the 'juice' from the concrete with a special disinfectant.  "I missed breakfast." 
 Each job is difficult in different ways.  A shot gun suicide like the one last month at the Big Five store in Costa Mesa required them to be up all night and the following day cleaning body fluids off the merchandise he said.  Skull fragments in the ceiling also needed to be removed and the drywall sanded.
 There was a job of a guy who lived in an upstairs apartment who was decomposed real bad Mike Nicholson said.  "So bad that they didn't find him until he was dripping from upstairs to downstairs, going right through the floor."  That job required the floor boards to be cut out and replaced along with the ceiling in the downstairs apartment to be cut out and replaced he said. 
 At Kyser Century in Saugus there was an industrial accident where "a guy was changing some kind of a hoist or a chain and it got caught and threw him in and chewed him up," he said.  "It took a long time just looking for parts and we ended up finding a piece of a finger 50 or 60 yards away."
 Then there are the homicides.  There was a job in Montebello where a guy murdered the mother of two children.  He broke all the windows and punched holes in the walls with blood soaked hands.  He then took the blood of the woman and smeared it all over the walls, mixing the blood from his cuts with hers. 
   "It was in both bedrooms, the living room, hallway and bathroom," he said. 
   Coming home from a job there is an adrenaline rush, Carol Nicholson said. 
  ìBy talking it over about particular circumstances of a job helps calm them down,î she said. 
  "I come home real hyper," he said 
  "We met a lot of different people," she said. 
   Regarding her experience with the mother of the mother of a suicide victim, "after we were done, we were hugging and crying," she said.  "It was very emotional, very touching and I felt very close to them for being at a part of their lives that was so devastating for them." 
 Many of the families from their jobs have also become their friends.  But after all the paperwork is done and the fee collected, the most common comment made to them was the one from his latest job, when the apartment manager of the building told him,  "you have been very pleasant, but I hope we don't have to use you again."