The scene of a death can be dangerous and traumatic.
Untrained individuals should never attempt to handle unattended death cleanup efforts. Body fluids and biological tissues create biohazards that the untrained are unprepared to clean up. But there is help… the professional cleanup specialists at Advanced Bio Treatment can save your property and restore your peace of mind.
Unattended deaths, as they’re called in the business, involve the deceased person going unaccounted for for a period of time which can be a few days, few weeks or even, a few months. As you might imagine, these scenes can be particularly difficult to clean up after… bodily fluids have often seeped into sub flooring, and a large number of insects can be present, drawn in by the unforgettable odor of death.
A short time ago we were called to remediate a residence which had been the site of a unnoticed passing. The client was a homeowner who had been renting out the home to large man in his forties, who had been found dead in the property only a few days prior. Like many of our calls, this job would involve a complete decontamination and restoration of the rental to allow it to be put back on the market.
Grabbing our gear, we headed out to the scene. The house was situated towards the end of a dead end street, in a very quiet neighborhood outside of the city limits of San Jose, California, and the caller, a woman in her mid 60s, met us at the front door to lead us into the home.
Immediately, the ungodly stench was overwhelming, despite every window in the house having been opened in a desperate attempt to air out the indescribable foul-ness. We had to get to work quickly to avoid the odor from becoming worse. Inside the master bedroom, the smell was the most intense.
It was clear that whatever had taken place in the home prior to his death, it had culminated on the dirty, stained bed in the middle of the room… in the center of the filthy mattress, a huge, brownish red stain, the source of the tremendous smell, pooled in an ink blotter type pattern on the linens, often described by my technicians as an enormous Rorschach test. Maggots, some having fallen off the corpse, others feeding solely on the bodily fluids that saturated the bedding, squirmed and wriggled in the goo, and hundreds of dead flies and odd looking earwigs clung to the crusty linens.
According to the homeowner, the man had a very pious individual, so much so that when an open wound on his scalp refused to heal and became putrid to the point that he could push through the skull like an overripe spot on a melon, he had simply continued as he had always done… pray.
But even when he was banned from church because parishioners complained about the terrible odor coming from the diseased site, he refused to see a doctor, instead insisting that God Almighty would heal his mysterious affliction through devout prayer.
It didn’t appear to occur to him that maybe God was trying to send him sign after sign to GO TO THE HOSPITAL, but eventually, the inevitable happened.
While lying in bed asleep, it seemed that his dog had leaped up on to the mattress, but misjudged his footing and stepped back onto, and into, his master’s weakened skull. The dog, a white husky, was found with one red paw, up to the dog’s wrist.
Turns out that the dog’s paw tore through the soft tissue, smashing in the soft spongy brain, however, the dog’s owner had been found in a contorted position, suggesting that he hadn’t died instantaneously from the intrusion, but must’ve sat up as the dog struggled to free its foot, before collapsing face down.
It wasn’t until two weeks had passed when a concerned neighbor heard the husky howling and scratching at the window, and went snooping around the back of the home.
That was when they caught the unmistakable aroma of death and called the authorities. Now we were cleaning away the evidence of this man’s strange ending… he apparently believed in paying away toilet breaks, because he had soiled sheets that didn’t include the death poop. Sweat and drool stained pillows, two teddy bears of questionable origin, and of course, the rancid mattress, which was soaked in nearly 20 lbs of extra body fluid and infested with lice and bedbugs, had to be carefully removed after totally wrapped in layer after layer of thick plastic, to prevent cross contamination and ensure the safety of future tenants.
Then, we had to totally sanitized and deodorize the entire home, down to the molecular level, to thoroughly remove any pathogens and eliminate that absolutely awful odor of liquefied human remains, some of which I was told ended up sustaining the dog during his ordeal.
At the end, my favorite part is handing back the keys… seeing our client’s face light up, as a burden is taken off their shoulders, is a very gratifying feeling… and in this case, I was never so happy to be able to hand them over and wave goodbye. Later on, we happened to bump into a member of the deceased man’s church, who informed us that the autopsy had concluded that the man had a bone cancer which had been literally eating away his skull… only skin and hair had separated the man’s brain from the outside world, at least, until his dog closed the gap.
You don’t want to try and attempt to clean up a crime scene or accident scene. Blood and other bodily fluids can contain dangerous pathogens which pose a significant risk to human health. Our scene clean up technicians will decontaminate and remove any blood, tissue or bodily fluids a crime and trauma scene has left behind. Advanced Bio Treatment is a professional scene cleaning company.
Regardless of whether the scene is at your home and personal property, a commercial business, or industrial site, we’ll strictly adhere to OSHA regulations and API Worksafe guidelines in our cleanup efforts. We only deploy EPA registered hospital grade cleansers and disinfectants.
If you need trauma or accidental death clean-up guidance, have questions about your payment options or current insurance policy covers don’t hesitate to give Advanced Bio Treatment a call at:800-295-1684
