Welcome to Cleanliness Guaranteed*, a lighthearted tale series reimagining the SCP Foundation as the Safe Cleanup Professionals Foundation, a small, struggling janitorial business that's stumbled into the chaotic trade of "cleaning up" the things that go bump in the night.
Season 1
Sanitize, Cleanse, Polish
The Safe Cleanup Professionals need to figure out how to deal with their piling up debt. Just when the amount of odd jobs increases more and more, Fritz makes himself scarce from his employees.
Standalone Episodes
Scenes from the Cleanliness Guaranteed* universe.
Cleanliness Guaranteed* is a lighthearted, character-driven, and down-to-earth comedy about the day-to-day lives of people in a world where the things that go bump in the night, while extremely rare, are very real. It's a simple, small world with inefficient bureaucracies, where the lines between madness and magic are blurred, and with ordinary people trying to navigate themselves through it.
In Cleanliness Guaranteed*, the universe is ripped out of the ground to its very roots — the SCP Foundation, a globe-spanning shadow organization, is now a small, quasi-professional janitorial business of a dozen-or-so employees called the "Safe Cleanup Professionals Foundation," headquartered in Pierre, South Dakota. The business is struggling to keep itself afloat as it contends with all sorts of unusual creatures, eldritch horrors, liminal hellscapes, and stacks upon stacks of paperwork.
This series is largely rooted in the original SCP-173 post, with all of its typos and quasi-professionalism. While these most likely weren't intentional, taking them as such presents us with a different lens into the Foundation. It portrays a small, mundane, somewhat bureaucratic group dedicated to the unexplainable — though their concern is less with how dangerous it is, and more with how they're going to keep it cleaned up. The headquarters of this group appear to be at a location named “Site 19," which is, in this setting, a medium-size warehouse converted into an office and storage space.
This group, the SCP Foundation, is genuinely afraid of whatever they have in storage, as even they don’t know where it came from. They clearly don't want to deal with these things, but they have no other choice but to do so. Cleanliness Guaranteed* is based all around the absurdism and dark comedy of working for a lousy, floundering organization tasked with containing all these horrors that lurk in the dark. Most importantly, the Safe Cleanup Professionals, while certainly flawed, are ultimately good people, who are just trying to go about their lives and pay the bills. There is no containment, there is no conspiracy, and there is no doctrine of normalcy. The "Veil of Secrecy" in this universe is not maintained by any omnipresent shadow organization or world government; instead, the anomalous world is a self-preserving secret, as paranormal events are rare enough for people to go their whole lives without thinking twice if they really exist.
Anomalies in this setting don't have to be murder statues, but they have to be on the edge of weird enough that the world isn't immediately ending because of them. It's urban intrusion fantasy; more crank calls about UFOs or ghosts haunting someone's house rather than entire magical civilizations and worlds. In the main series, the overarching theme among many of the anomalies is the piling up of filth and trash, ignored by people who are unconcerned.
To sum it all up, the setting is as grounded as it can be in a world with anomalies. Think a mixture between slice-of-life, dark comedy, mild horror, and low urban fantasy.
Safe Cleanup Professionals:
| Name |
Description |
| Fritz Diedrich Williams |
Businessman, MBA graduate, and the founder and Administrator of the Safe Cleanup Professionals Foundation. Fritz is simultaneously charismatic and insufferable, with his laziness and apathy towards his company often alienating him from his employees. Despite being a slimy and mostly useless boss, Fritz's leadership skills do come out when they're needed. In addition to the Foundation, Fritz runs a number of other small businesses. |
| Francis "Dr. Alto Clef" Wojciechowski |
A disgruntled but generally upbeat British East Asian man in his 30s, working as a janitor for the Foundation. Clef usually takes the role of the comedic sillyman, with his antics often ending up causing more of a mess than was there to begin with. However, his abrasiveness can end up making the other employees feel annoyed or uncomfortable by him. Clef's life isn't all laughs — outside of work, he struggles to pay the bills on janitor wages while taking care of his teenage daughter. |
| Charles Ogden Gears |
A no-nonsense HMCL supervisor and accountant for the Foundation in his late 40s. He's unemotional, detached, and logical, to the point of being abrasive and unempathetic towards his coworkers. Gears is a stickler for the rules, because when the SCP Foundation gets into hot water, he has to do all the paperwork. But despite being the straight man of the group, Gears can be surprisingly witty and even badass at times, especially when in the field. |
| Tilda David Moose |
The director of Site 19, and Fritz's second-in-command. Fairly stern, level-headed, and has an obsession with the occult. Moose is sometimes neurotic and insecure on the inside, but being in their position, they often find themselves stepping up to the plate as the de facto leader. Moose is by far the sanest member of the Foundation, and knows how to get things done when it's needed. They're friends with Dee, with both of them bonding over being nonbinary. |
| Dee Camille Lass |
A long-suffering intern in their early 20s who is made to do the worst jobs. Dee acts as a parody of the standard Foundation's limitless and disposable D-Class, with them often being delegated nasty, unusual, or outright dangerous situations that they nonetheless walk out of alive. Dee is in some ways an everyman character, responding to their circumstances with a shrug and a sigh — after all, the hazard pay keeps them above the poverty line. Dee has a rival/mentor relationship with Clef, and friendly competition with Beau. |
| Maria Wesley Jones |
A fresh-out-of-college computer science graduate in her early 20s, who acts as the IT specialist for the Foundation. Maria struggles with workaholism and social anxiety, with her typically dwelling in the small, overcrowded RAISA office. She manages the unstable, rapidly failing database she inherited from her predecessors, motivated by excessive coffee and the prospect of one day detangling the Foundation's software infrastructure. |
| Beauregard 'Beau' Bartholomew Larkin |
A young new recruit and intern at the Foundation. Beau's gentle nature keeps him popular with the customers, but the chaos of his personal life is always banging at the door of his peace-of-mind. He usually ends up taking similar odd jobs to Dee, often going solo to strange businesses and locations in Pierre. With questionable decisions and a mental break under his belt, Beau is just trying to keep the rent paid while he clings to reality. |
| Radcliffe J. I. Gerald |
The Foundation's on-and-off getaway driver and heavy transportation guy, Gerald is the kind of asshole who drives at twice the speed limit and passes everyone without any regard for their safety. Results are all that matter. While he's by far most efficient driver on the team as far as speed goes, he will invariably break something upon reaching his destination, whether that be the vehicle, some cargo, or a pedestrian's femur. |
Other Characters:
| Jeremiah Cimmerian |
The cynical, perpetually disgruntled inspector and contact from the Foundation's employer: the UIU. He had half of his face burned off by a coffee during a Foundation inspection, and still holds a grudge against the Foundation for it. Still, he's one of the few at the UIU that don't want to have the Foundation immediately shut down — though whether that's from ulterior motive or kindness of heart is unclear. |
| Damien O'Connor |
Former head of IT and co-founder of the Foundation, who left in 2005 to form rival company C.A.O.S. Inc. Damien is less of an active threat and more of a background villain — much like Fritz, he's relatively uninvolved with what his subordinates do, besides translating orders from a cryptic natural-language generator known as "The Engine." |
| Dr. Daniel "Dan" Daniels |
An ex-military cryptozoologist, and the self-proclaimed greatest cryptid hunter in all of South Dakota. Dan has spent the last twenty years searching for the most elusive cryptid in North America, always one step behind being able to capture it. He crosses paths with the Safe Cleanup Professionals when the latter are contracted by the police to catch the cryptid in question — The Unseen That Lurks. |
| Robert Scranton |
CEO of Scranton Realty, a real estate company in Pierre that sold Site 19 to Fritz in 2003 for what seemed like a bargain at the time. Scranton and his company represent the largest threat to the Foundation yet — mortgage payments on the property. Scranton himself acts as a mentor-like figure to Fritz, with Fritz seeing him as the powerful and successful businessman he always dreamed of being. |
Keep in mind that there are more employees at the Foundation than just the ones listed here. Feel free to add your own — they're not all just old author avatars. There are also lots of people and places in Pierre and beyond that have yet to be explored!
Competitors, Benefactors, and Us:
| Name |
Description |
| Safe Cleanup Professionals Foundation (That's us!) |
An independent startup cleaning company consisting of about a dozen or so employees. The company was founded by Fritz Williams in 2003, and is headquartered in Pierre, South Dakota. Officially contracted by the Unusual Incidents Unit to clean up their dirty work, both figuratively and literally. Despite primarily doing cleanup and storage, the Foundation is flexible in what they do — as long as it gets them paid. |
| FBI, Unusual Incidents Unit |
A large division of the FBI that does the work of the US government beneath the public eye. Has almost no oversight by a government which would rather ignore the existence of the anomalous. The UIU is composed of normal people, for the most part — with a staff body of agents and pencil-pushers, but with a tinge of malice and power from the bureaucrats on top. |
| Cleanup and Optimizing Solutions, Incorporated |
A rival cleaning company competing with the Foundation. C.A.O.S. Inc. was founded by Damien O'Connor, one of Fritz's closest colleagues, along with several of his followers after a messy schism in the Foundation years ago. The company tries a much more aggressive approach to getting their revenue, taking orders from a mysterious natural-language computer known as "the Engine." |
Many Groups of Interest of the mainline Foundation are still around in Cleanliness Guaranteed*, and when including one in a story, make sure to scale it down while preserving the original idea or bringing something new to the table. Remember, in this setting, the Foundation is a small fish in a medium-sized pond — GoIs can (and probably should) outrank or outpace the Foundation, but there are no national agencies, global religions, or massive corporations dedicated to the anomalous.
Cleanliness Guaranteed* is always open to submissions from anyone. However, it's important to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of the setting before writing. The following entries give a good overview of the setting and its vibes:
Sanitize, Cleanse, Polish is the main storyline for Cleanliness Guaranteed*, and is currently open to new contributions. If you want to write for it, we'd like you to follow a few guidelines. Ideally, main series tales should focus on the main six characters of the Safe Cleanup Professionals (introduced in Welcome to Site 19). You're still free to feature your own original characters or adaptations of famous existing ones, as long as there's a focus on characters and slice-of-life. Furthermore, anomalies should typically feature cleaning or janitorial work, with elements of the overarching plot — that being the Foundation's financial problems with the UIU and Scranton Realty, and the slowly increasing number of filth-based anomalies in Pierre. Lastly, we ask that you get feedback from people on our contact list. As soon as the article has been approved, it can be added to the series!
You can also post standalone episodes outside of the main storyline. These can focus on any aspect of Pierre and its weirdness, and you generally have more freedom with what you want to write. You're also free to write about your own characters, groups, and settings — though we ask you to preserve the vibes by scaling things down. The setting also takes place in 2007, so while small anachronisms are okay, characters shouldn't have Instagram accounts or be investing in crypto. If you have a character you'd like to add to the Site 19 staff (or elsewhere), go ahead, but make sure they fit within the canon (e.g. no wizards). While we still suggest getting feedback from the contact list, approval isn't needed — you can add anything to the hub if it fits.
Additionally, if you'd like to start writing your own series within the Cleanliness Guaranteed* setting, you are welcome to do so! Just make sure that when writing anything for this series, you preserve the vibes and intent behind the the idea of a third-rate cleaning company in a small, weird city.
You can contact any of us in our Canonexus channel, linked at the bottom of this page. Feel free to ask about writing, characters, or lore!
These themes are used for Cleanliness Guaranteed* pages, made by
winkwonkboi.
Cleaning Services Theme — built on Black Highlighter
Janitor's Closet Theme — built on Sigma-9
Additionally, if it's part of a series (i.e. Sanitize, Cleanse, Polish) then include this Earthworm component at the top of the page.
[[include :scp-wiki:component:earthworm
| previous-url= url-goes-here
| previous-title= previous-page-name
| next-url= url-goes-here
| next-title= next-page-name
| hub-url=/
| hub-title= page-name
]]
Make sure to set this hub as the parent page!