⋅Crime Scene Cleanup – The Inside Story⋅
Everybody has a morbid fascination with the job of a crime-scene cleaner. Some people think it’s a glamorous job, thanks to the unrealistic depiction of popular TV shows. Other people think it’s a thrilling and mysterious Broadway production to which we have coveted first-row seats.
“Do you do ride-alongs?” they’ll ask.
“Never,” I answer. “This isn’t a movie set. This is a business. The business of death. We are witnesses to the absolute worst day of a person’s entire life.”
Today, we will take you inside Crime Scene Cleanup, the people, the job and the raw, unfiltered reality of the scene.
Who Are Crime Scene Cleaners?
What kinds of people take a job as a crime-scene cleaner?
Mostly crime-scene cleaners have a military background or are former police officers, ER nurses, and paramedics.
These folks have seen it all, done it all, and smelled it all.
Exposure to gore and its accompanying trauma have acclimated them well to this job. They come to this job with iron-clad stomachs and the ability to balance their emotions, and they come with training in the greatest risk of this job, which is the handling of blood-borne pathogens.
What Is It Really Like Inside Crime Scene Cleanup?
You’re on call 24/7. Sometimes you work for 24 or more hours straight.
You never know how long you’ll be on a job. Jobs range from a few hours to a few days.
You don’t know how to prepare for the job because you don’t know how much blood and gore there will be, how unbearable the odor will be, how emotionally draining the experience will be.
The medical examiner takes the body itself but leaves all the small pieces, all the grisly remnants, behind.
You clean up blood, body parts, tissue, bodily fluids, feces, urine, vomit, and maggots from accidents, murders, and suicides. You scrape brain matter off walls and floors. You clean blood and other biological material from every surface and every furnishing in a home or business.
You rip out and package blood-soaked carpet and padding. You package blood- and gore-soaked mattresses and linens. You use enzymes to soften cement-hard brain matter and dried blood so that you can scrape, clean, and decontaminate the area. If you’re called to a decomp (decomposed body), you do all this in an environment permeated with an unbearable stench. If you’re called to a level-3 hoarding site, you clean up feces, urine, rodent droppings, maggots, other insects, asbestos, mold, dead and decaying animals, and rotting food in an environment saturated with an equally unbearable stench.
You do all this dressed in a hazmat suit, double-filter respirator, and chemical-spill boots even when the ambient temperature is 90 degrees or higher.
These biological materials are toxic bio-hazards. If you don’t handle them carefully and skillfully, they can infect you with HIV, Hepatitis, and a host of other nasty diseases. On a meth-lab call, you often deal with all this AND combustible-chemical residue used to make the drug. And a meth-lab environment is never air-conditioned or heated because the HVAC system in a former meth lab has to be decontaminated and shut down until the entire environment is cleaned.
You comfort devastated loved ones. You answer their questions carefully and compassionately. You deal with your own raw emotions as you see and touch the tragically ended life of a real person whose blood and gore you are now removing from pictures, decorations, and personal items.
And you force yourself to keep a professional demeanor no matter how you’re feeling.
Occasionally, especially in a small town, you get called to the death scene of someone you knew.
Sometimes you talk to a counselor because a job can be too much to handle emotionally. It takes a toll on you and on your personal life.
What Draws People to This Kind of Job?
The pay ranges anywhere from $35,000 to upwards of $100,000, depending on where you work. Of course, big, crime-ridden cities like Chicago and New York pay the most money. Experience in the field is also a factor. The longer you work in crime-scene cleanup, the more money you can command. But pay is rarely the motivating factor in taking this kind of job.
Most of the people we interview for jobs tell us that they are motivated most by a desire to help people and to make a difference during a tragedy in a survivor’s life.
Some people drawn to this job have experienced trauma in their own lives and feel compelled to spare others a similar experience.
“The first job I ever did was this little 13-year-old girl,” one of my colleagues recently told me. “Her drug-addict mom traded her to a dealer for a fix and the dealer stabbed the kid to death. When I walked in there, I thought, ‘Man, if this happened to my kid, I’d kill myself.’ I make it where survivors never have to see something like that. Sometimes the families actually walk up and hug me or cry and thank me. That’s why I do what I do.”
How Do Crime-Scene Cleanup Companies Get Business?
Most of the time, police or homeowners call us. Individuals find us on the Web and call us, and sometimes friends or relatives refer survivors to us.
What Qualifications Do Crime-Scene Cleaners Need?
Other than a very strong stomach, emotional control, compassion, and empathy—none.
The industry of crime-scene cleanup is essentially unregulated. Many companies train their own employees; other companies require that their employees get outside training and certification.
The industry strongly encourages six weeks of training in which employees learn how to handle and dispose of hazardous materials, learn how to protect themselves and others against hazardous materials, and learn all OSHA and state guidelines.
Because the industry is unregulated, you should be very careful when you hire a company. Advanced Bio Tech professionals are certified in all areas recommended by OSHA and the EPA, and we strictly adhere to all OSHA, EPA, and state guidelines.
We take no chances with our safety or with yours.
We are Advanced Bio Treatment. We are here for you every hour of every day. We provide emergency service, free quotes, and assistance filing an insurance claim. We respond to your call immediately and are on site within an hour in most cases. Please call us at 800-295-1684.
