Emergency Specialty Cleaning Services for Businesses
Whether you have a dedicated janitorial staff or divide cleaning tasks among your workforce generally, you probably feel that you have day-to-day cleaning under control at your business. Sometimes, though, a situation arises that requires more than your people can handle. When you are facing a difficult, potentially dangerous mess, you need the help of someone with the skills and tools to handle it properly.
This is where FLEET Response’s local companies can help. They are experts in dealing with numerous types of difficult and potentially dangerous cleaning tasks, such as chemical spills, biohazards, crime scenes, even graffiti cleanup. With 24/7 emergency response services, they can be at your location quickly, and they can begin work right away with the skills and equipment to properly deal with whatever your cleaning needs.
At FLEET Response, we know that these difficult cleaning tasks can be urgent and sensitive. Some chemical spills cause immediate and ongoing damage if not properly managed. They may also give off toxic fumes that can be dangerous to your employees and customers. Some of these cleaning tasks also come with significant trauma, such as the scene of a crime or an unattended death. You may have witnessed the crime or discovered the body and cannot bear to see the scene again.
Our local companies know that these specialty cleaning services require not just professionalism, but tact, respect, and discretion. We understand that not only your property, but your reputation may be at stake. In these cases, specialty cleaning services can do more than remove a stain or an odor, they can contribute to your healing process.
All our local companies are fully licensed, bonded, and insured according to the requirements of their communities. They have the training, experience, and equipment to safely and thoroughly handle the most complicated cleaning tasks. As soon as you contact them, they will respond rapidly and efficiently. They can also help in another way: dealing with your insurance company. Our local companies deal with insurance every day, so they know how to document the damage and cleanup so you can get compensation for covered expenses.
When You Need a Restoration Company for Cleaning
Your cleaning staff can handle most normal cleaning tasks, but there are some situations where you should bring in a specialty cleaning service. You need a specialty cleaning service when you are dealing with:
- Hazardous biological materials (like blood, tissues, or sewage)
- Hazardous chemicals (like gasoline, oil, solvents, or drugs)
- Structural risks (potential damage related to fires or flooding)
- More than superficial mold
- Contagious viruses or pathogens
- Materials saturated with odors
- Dangerous fumes
- Hard-to-clean substances
In these situations, your typical cleaning staff might not be able to handle the situation without risk to themselves or spreading damage and risk beyond the original contamination. You may not have the equipment or knowledge to safely and effectively remove contaminants. For example, adding certain cleaners to some chemicals may give off hazardous fumes, create a more dangerous substance, or even spark a fire.
Failure to properly clean spills of these types can lead to ongoing damage or risk. For example, fumes saturating objects can contaminate the air in your building. Improper isolation at a site of contagion can spread disease through the area – it may even infect the HVAC system, which can be hard to eradicate. In addition, when liquids soak into the structure of the building, it must be investigated to determine if the building is dangerously weakened.
Plus, if you lack the safety gear to protect your staff while cleaning up dangerous materials, they may suffer from exposure. You might be held responsible for injuries or illnesses that result. It’s best to work with someone who can safely handle the contamination.
Crime Scene and Unattended Death Cleanup
We don’t like to think of the possibility that our business could be the location of a violent crime or a death, but sometimes the unthinkable happens. Unfortunately, then it is time for you, the property owner, to clean up the results. Sometimes, insurance may help cover the costs of cleaning, and in the case of violent crimes, it’s common for cities to provide cleaning support. FLEET Response’s local companies understand the community resources that might help you to deal with these challenging situations.
Violent Crime Scene Cleanup
When a violent crime takes place on your commercial property, it can leave a large, dangerous mess behind. There is a high probability that there is a lot of biological waste at the site from multiple sources, increasing the risk of disease exposure.
In this situation, it’s important to work with someone who not only knows how to thoroughly clean up the contamination, but who also has the safety equipment necessary to protect themselves from exposure. The cleaners must also be able to thoroughly decontaminate the area to avoid the lingering risk to your employees and customers.
FLEET Response’s local companies are also capable of repairing damage to your property due to a break-in, gunfire, or struggle.
Unattended Death Cleanup
An unattended death is sadly common for multifamily dwellings. Depending on when the death was discovered, there can be a high potential for contamination. In addition, the contaminants, although likely concentrated in one area, might have seeped into flooring and even the building structure.
Thorough cleaning is important to make sure the structure is safe and pleasant for future inhabitants.
Drug Contaminated Structures
Places where drugs are manufactured, sold, or used can become contaminated by the drugs themselves. Some of these drugs can remain potent for a long time, and the resulting poison can either lead to mysterious symptoms or illness in a new tenant. Children are especially vulnerable to this type of exposure.
Currently, fentanyl is the primary drug contaminant of concern. Illegal fentanyl operations have popped up around the country, leading to contaminated structures, especially warehouses, industrial sites, and apartments. Because fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin, the presence of a fentanyl residue can affect first responders and future tenants.
If you suspect that your property was used as a drug factory, distribution center, or warehouse, you should contact specialty cleaners capable of safely eliminating dangerous residues.
Structural Cleaning
Most specialty cleaning services focus on the surface of materials: countertops, walls, and floors. That’s because most of the time our surfaces resist penetration by standard contaminants. However, there are situations where contamination may penetrate deep into a structure, which requires a deeper cleaning approach – what we call structural cleaning.
This is common in disasters like floods and fires, which can affect the structural parts of your building, including the foundation, wall studs, and joists in the floor and ceiling. Properly cleaning these structural components may require the removal of damaged walls and floors in order to inspect, repair, and/or replace structural supports.
Structural Cleaning After a Flood
When you have flood damage in your building, the water can penetrate deeply into the walls, floors, and even the ceiling. The prolonged saturation of these structures requires a deep cleaning that not only removes the water, but eliminates the risk that these structures may be degraded by water exposure.
When water gets into the walls, it can trigger the growth of mold and other microorganisms. These can attack your building’s wooden supports, weakening them. This can lead to a risk of collapse in the future. In addition, the presence of moisture inside the walls can contribute to infestation by insects and rodents, as well as the spread of disease. Metal supports aren’t immune to water, either. Often, these can start to corrode after just a few days of exposure to water.
If you didn’t initially get professional water remediation after a flood or if the response was too delayed after the flood, you may need structural cleaning to finally get the water and its contamination out of the walls.
Structural Cleaning After a Fire
When a fire tears through your building, you might initially count yourself lucky that there wasn’t more damage. However, even when the fire didn’t burn up much of the building, dangerous contamination may linger for a long time. Smoke and soot can drift through the air and even force itself into the walls where it can saturate drywall, ceiling tiles, and insulation. This can lead to lingering odors and fumes unless the space within the walls is treated.
Structural cleaning is important after a fire because it allows for inspection of the structural supports, which might have been weakened by the heat of the fire, even if they weren’t directly exposed to the flame.
Mold Remediation
Mold is a common organism, and its spores are found in all the dust in your property. However, it will remain dormant until it gets exposed to enough water. The water source could be anything: a leaky pipe, damaged roof, or drips from an air conditioner or walk-in cooler. Depending on where the water is coming from, mold can grow for a long time before becoming visible.
When you notice mold, it may already have grown through the wall. Superficial cleaning of mold growth doesn’t stop the problem, which will persist as long as there is water. Eliminating the mold in your business at this point will require professional mold remediation.
Our local companies are skilled at mold remediation. They know how to track down the source of water to stop mold growth. They can then isolate the contaminated area to remove contaminated materials that can’t be cleaned and disinfect the areas that can be cleaned. They will then treat the affected area to suppress future mold growth.
Disinfection
When sickness spreads through your building, normal cleaning may not stop the spread of disease. Sometimes, your property may require thorough disinfection. This may be especially important for restaurants and commercial kitchens preparing ready-to-eat products. The problem isn’t always human pathogens, either.
FLEET Response’s local companies are experts at dealing with biological hazards of all types. They can disinfect your space to eliminate all harmful organisms. In addition, they have the safety equipment to protect their teams from harm in the process.
Odor Removal
Odors in your commercial property can hurt its value and interfere with your daily business. These odors might be the result of long-term use from a previous tenant, including the smell of pets, smoking, and cooking. Other times, your property might pick up strong odors from a sudden event, such as a flood, backed up sewer, fire, or unattended death.
Odors that you smell are chemicals floating in the air from the original source. Often, these chemicals can penetrate walls, ceiling tiles, and fabrics. Eventually, these chemicals will be released from their sources over time. Superficial cleaning after a disaster or when a tenant moves out will remove surface odors, but it can’t reach saturated materials inside the walls.
Our local companies have multiple techniques for dealing with these persistent smells. Sometimes, it’s possible to eliminate the odors by injecting special chemicals into walls or ceilings to break down the odor molecules. Other times, the only way to eliminate the odor might be to remove the saturated materials and restore the area.
HVAC Cleaning
Your business depends on its HVAC system for the safety and comfort of your employees and customers. By ensuring clean airflow throughout the building, it helps avoid sickness and suffocation due to hazardous fumes. However, it’s also possible for your HVAC system to be contaminated. In this case, the system can become a source of danger, spreading harmful microorganisms, toxic fumes, or unpleasant odors to the entire building.
Vandalism Repair and Graffiti Removal
Depending on where your business is located, vandalism and graffiti can be a regular nuisance. This can hamper the success of your business as people may avoid visiting your location if put off by the damage. To keep your business looking professional and appealing, you need to respond to graffiti and vandalism quickly.
FLEET Response’s local companies can respond quickly to any graffiti or vandalism on your property. With 24/7 emergency response services, they can be at your location quickly to immediately board up a damaged window, securing your property after vandalism. Since they can also clean graffiti, it makes it more convenient for you – there’s just one company to work with to get the situation resolved completely.