Mysterious Terrible Odor
Our highly trained technicians at Advanced Bio Treatment see a lot of interesting things in the field and often become an interwoven piece of the recovery story for the families and businesses involved. It’s just the nature of the industry, and it’s exactly why compassion and discretion are so essential. Discovering the remains of a loved one can be a tragic and confusing time, but what about when the unattended death discovery isn’t that of a loved one, but a stranger instead? What happens when the unattended death you discover is that of an intruder? Occasionally, Advanced Bio Treatment encounters these situations, and they’re often surrounded by strange and surprising circumstances.
Ted and Sienna were never expecting to make the gruesome discovery in their attic that they did last fall in their beautiful home in Wilmington, Delaware. It all started with a terrible odor that Sienna would smell occasionally. She ignored it for the first couple of weeks, excusing it for something outside or simply a mystery. But when she and Ted left for a week and returned to find their home saturated in stench, they knew something had to be done. First, they had a contractor take a look at their HVAC system, suspecting that a rodent died in their air vents, but this suspicion was quickly dismissed. They realized that the odor seemed strongest in their master bedroom, so they had another contractor come out to see if a mouse or rodent had crawled between the walls and died. Again, no resolution.
Unattended Death of an Intruder
It wasn’t until they hired an animal removal company that someone took a look in their attic. But by this time, almost two weeks after they’d returned from their trip, there was obvious staining on the ceiling of their master bedroom. Some sort of liquid was seeping through due to the decomposition of what Ted and Sienna imagined was a raccoon or opossum. What the animal removal technician found in there was beyond disturbing, and he advised Ted to call the police immediately. The technician found a badly decomposed human body. So badly decomposed, in fact, that some of the facial bones were exposed and the eye sockets appeared eaten away and void of eyeballs.
Even more disturbing than the unattended death they found in the attic were the other strange items. Police found evidence that led them to believe the intruder was watching Ted and Sienna through a peephole and videotaping them as well. They pieced all the evident together and determined that the intruder may have been watching to see when Ted and Sienna would be out of town so that he could empty their house of the valuables. The intruder had had easy access to the attic since the stairs in the garage were left permanently down in addition to the garage door always left open.
Not only did Ted and Sienna have a mess to recover from, but they were traumatized by the knowledge that someone had been watching them and living among them in their private lives. There were many questions that the couple desperately wanted answers to, one of which was how did the man end up dead in their attic.
Advanced Bio Treatment stepped in to support Ted and Sienna in their physical recovery needs. Several rafters needed replacing due to the rotting flesh embedded in them and a large portion of the drywall ceiling in their bedroom was replaced as well. Most of the insulation in the portion of the attic where the unattended death remains were was removed and replaced because maggots and other insects had infested the flesh of the decaying body and had facilitated in the spread of the fluids and biological matter.
More than Cleanup
In a thank you letter to our Advanced Bio Treatment team of technicians, the couple shared with us their immense gratitude for our compassion, discretion, and professionalism throughout the clean up process. They also informed us that the intruder’s autopsy results had determined the cause of death was a heart-attack. Our team was well aware of the importance of this seemingly insignificant bit of information. We understood the relief that Ted and Sienna felt by understanding even just one more little piece of this strange puzzle.
Advanced Bio Treatment is the “obvious choice in emergency biohazard cleanup“, according to Sienna and Ted. We are honored to have helped them in their moment of need along with many other families businesses in Delaware. Advanced Bio Treatment offers its services across the United States and has operators standing by to answer your questions and schedule a team of our highly trained technicians to help you recover from the discovery of an unattended death or a tragic trauma scene.
Simply call 1-800-295-1684, and we’ll lead the way.
