What is Crime Scene Cleanup?
Crime scene cleanup, also known as biohazard remediation or trauma cleanup, is the specialized process of cleaning, sanitizing, and decontaminating areas where violent crimes, traumatic accidents, suicides, or unattended deaths have occurred. Unlike regular cleaning services that focus on dirt, dust, and general maintenance, crime scene cleanup addresses dangerous pathogens that can be left behind by bodily fluids.
This specialized field requires extensive training, professional-grade equipment, and strict adherence to health and safety protocols. Crime scene cleanup professionals handle situations that pose serious health risks to untrained individuals, making their expertise essential for protecting families and communities during their most difficult times.
Crime scene cleanup isn’t easy work. Companies have to adhere to strict cleaning standards and perform arduous, dirty work while considering loved ones’ emotions and fragile mental states.
Professional crime scene cleanup companies have exceptional composure in the most emotionally charged and horrific scenes. But what else do crime scene cleanups do and what sort of regulations do these companies have to abide by to do their jobs to their full potential?
A Common Misconception: Who Is Actually Responsible?
Many people assume that law enforcement or emergency responders handle crime scene cleanup as part of their duties. However, this is a widespread misconception. Police officers, detectives, and forensic teams focus exclusively on investigation, evidence collection, and case documentation. Once their work is complete and the scene is released, the responsibility for cleanup falls entirely on the property owner, whether that’s the family or landlord.
This reality often comes as a shock to grieving families who are already dealing with unimaginable loss. The burden of managing biohazardous cleanup shouldn’t fall on those who are emotionally vulnerable and lack the proper training or equipment to handle dangerous materials safely.
What Are the Crime Scene Cleanup Training and Background Requirements?
Most states don’t require people to have college degrees to become crime scene cleanup technicians. However, crime scene cleanup companies need to have a crime scene cleanup license, and crime scene cleanup technicians need to possess the following attributes to fulfill the positional requirements.
Training
Crime scene technicians work with biohazards, such as blood and bodily fluids. These materials can contain dangerous bloodborne pathogens including HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C, which can remain viable outside the body for extended periods. Exposure to these pathogens through cuts, mucous membranes, or improper handling can result in life-threatening infections. To become a crime scene technician, you must have adequate training in dealing with these components.
You may also be exposed to hazardous materials while on the job as a crime scene technician. For example, meth lab decontamination requires specific skills to avoid harmful chemicals. Understanding how to handle these hazardous materials is a critical component of the position. Technicians also need thorough training in personal protective equipment (PPE)
Physical Endurance
Crime scene technician duties are physically demanding and often require biohazard suits, respirators, and multiple sets of protective gear. Not only is the job physically demanding, it can also take a mental toll on professionals.
Wearing a gas mask for eight hours out of your day is tiresome, non matter your physical shape. Thus, crime scene technicians need both physical and mental toughness and a commitment to their work.
Empathy
Crime scene cleanup technicians interact with victims’ families and loved ones of tragic happenings. It’s not within the technician’s scope to console the bereaved. However, technicians must show empathy to the horrible situations to which they are responding.
Technicians respond to murders, suicides, horrific accidents, and unattended deaths. People who lack empathy can’t fulfill their responsibility to respect these casualties’ family and loved ones.
Flexibility
There’s no telling when and where tragedy will strike. Crime scene technicians need to be ready to respond at any given moment. Thus, technicians have to keep their nights, weekends, and holidays open to accommodate a challenging schedule.
The Critical Importance of Quick Response
Time is a crucial factor in crime scene cleanup situations. The longer biohazardous materials remain untreated, the greater the risk of:
- Permanent property damage: Blood and bodily fluids can seep into porous materials like wood subflooring, drywall, and carpet, requiring extensive reconstruction if not addressed promptly
- Odor penetration: Decomposition odors can become permanently embedded in building materials
- Health hazards: Bacteria and pathogens multiply rapidly, increasing contamination risks
- Secondary damage: Moisture from cleaning attempts by untrained individuals can lead to mold growth and structural issues
Professional crime scene cleanup companies such as Valor understand this urgency and provide 24/7 emergency response services. Quick action not only protects property value but also helps families begin the healing process sooner by removing constant reminders of their trauma.
How Do Crime Scene Cleanup Technicians Differ From Regular Cleaning Services?
Crime scene cleanup companies do more than simply provide cleaning services. They sanitize the area and have to make it safe for other people. Typical cleanup services don’t have the capabilities to do so. The situations that technical cleaning services respond to require special cleaning agents that average cleaning services don’t provide.
What Do Crime Scene Technicians Do?
Crime scene cleanup companies typically provide more services than crime scene cleanups. They also take care of biohazardous materials, COVID-19 decontamination, emergency board-up, hoarding cleanup, unattended death cleanup, and suicide cleanups.
Biohazard Cleanup
Biohazard cleaning is more thorough than average cleaning jobs. Technicians must clean, sanitize, and deodorize the site where a violent crime, suicide, or traumatic accident occurred. Technicians deal with biohazardous materials such as blood and body parts, so they must understand proper handling protocol.
COVID-19 Decontamination
There are two types of COVID-19 decontamination: proactive decontamination and confirmed exposure response.
Proactive decontamination: It’s logical to want to protect yourself and your employees against contamination. There might be no evidence of contamination, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Proactive decontamination can be your first defense against COVID-19 contamination.
Confirmed Exposure Approach: If someone in your company tests positive, you need to act fast. You have to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone involved in your company. On-site crews show up to clean, decontaminate, and disinfect your facility. After completing the cleanup, most companies also offer post-cleaning verification to ensure that your space stays clean.
Crime Scene Cleanup
A crime scene cleanup technician’s primary job is to sanitize the area where a violent crime has taken place. These cleans often include hazardous materials such as blood and bodily fluids, so technicians must have thorough training in dealing with hazardous materials of all kinds.
Technicians may also be required to interact with the family or loved ones of the victim. Because of this, they need to have composure in difficult emotional settings and offer empathy to those experiencing their darkest hours.
Emergency Board-Up
Emergency board-ups protect homes from sustaining further damage when calamities such as fires or storms damage properties. If spaces experience fire, storm, or any other calamity damage, emergency board-up services arrive that day to board up your space and minimize structural damage.
These services protect residences from mold, moisture, precipitation damage, and poor insulation by patching holes and other breathable locations following a storm or fire.
Hoarding Cleanup
Hoarding cleanup may seem like a simple solution. However, due to the severity of hoarding disorder, several health risks can be present, such as bacteria growth, animal feces, and rodent infestation. Hiring hoarding cleanup services protects the hoarder and their loved ones from these health hazards.
Unattended Death Cleanup
Unattended death occurs when a person passes away and no one notices. If someone dies without witnesses, commits suicide without anyone knowing, or does not have friends or family nearby when they pass, unattended death cleaning services are required.
It can take up to months for someone to discover the body, which gives ample time for hazardous conditions to settle into the premises. Because of the inherent health risks involved, cleaning after death situations requires special cleaning measures.
Suicide Cleanup
Suicide cleanups, particularly gunshot suicides, require extensive cleanups due to the many hazardous materials present in these situations. Suicide cleanups require special PPE, biohazard bags, and a particular 1:10 ratio registered disinfectant product with a broad-spectrum kill claim.
Additionally, the cleanups after suicides can be emotionally taxing on the family and loved ones involved, and the technicians cleaning the space. Technicians should provide efficient, compassionate cleanups, remaining sensitive to the family or loved ones’ grief.
What Health and Safety Guidelines Do Crime Scene Cleanups Have to Follow?
Crime scene cleanup is not an officially regulated industry. However, there are regulations and restrictions that all crime scene cleanup personnel must follow. These rules and regulations are in place for public safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the National Institute of Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the Department of Transportation (DOT) issue ongoing directives for crime scene cleanup companies to follow.
Crime scene cleanup companies should adhere to these organizations for all of their standards and regulations. You can visit this PDF for more information regarding blood pathogen protocols and other safety measures.
Conclusion- What Do Crime Scene Clean Up Companies Do?
Because of crime scene cleanups’ sensitive nature, It’s the cleaning company’s responsibility to ensure efficient, thorough biohazard remediation while staying sensitive to loved ones’ fragile emotional state. However, crime scene cleanups typically aren’t the only service these companies provide. These companies respond to the dirtiest, most hazardous situations one can imagine.
Because of the nature of the services technical cleaning companies provide (suicide cleanups, meth lab decontamination, unattended deaths, etc), these companies also need to commit to stringent standards and protocols to ensure their customers’ safety. Dedication to these principles sets the most trusted companies apart in the industry.
Valor Technical Cleaning Services is a Colorado veteran-owned and operated company that understands the emotional burden and demanding conditions of crime scenes, trauma, biohazards, and other technical decontamination jobs. Our team of GBAC certified cleaners will treat you with compassion and respect while giving you access to expert technical cleaning services that keep you and your loved ones safe. If you find yourself in an unfortunate situation like those described in this blog, contact Valor today. We can help ease your emotional and logistical burden and return your environment to a place of comfort and safety.