When You Need a Crime Scene Cleanup
Crime scene cleanup describes any cleanup that deals with the difficult contamination that comes from criminal activity or violent, traumatic death. Some of the most common situations where you might need a crime scene cleanup service include:
- Violent crimes
- Drug crimes
- Accidental death
- Industrial accidents
- Suicide
In these situations, crime scene cleanup can be essential to your business resuming operation. In some cases, it might be necessary to allow you to lease your property to a new tenant.
Violent Crime Scene Cleanup
When a violent crime takes place on your commercial property, the mess it leaves behind likely contains numerous biohazards. Blood, other bodily fluids, and flesh debris can make the scene hard to face, let alone clean up.
FLEET Response’s local companies are trained, qualified, and properly equipped to deal with these biohazards. Not only can they clean up the mess, but they can also repair any damage related to a break-in, struggle, or other violent confrontation.
Drug Crime Scene Cleanup
Violent crimes aren’t the only ones that require specialty cleaning services. Drug crimes can also contaminate your property. When someone uses your apartment, warehouse, or industrial space to manufacture, store, or distribute drugs, it can leave behind a potentially dangerous residue that requires specialized equipment to properly handle. If you don’t clean up a drug crime scene, it could cause problems for the next tenant, including serious risks to children.
Fentanyl is currently the drug of greatest concern. Because it is readily absorbed through the skin, fentanyl residues are very dangerous. However, other drug residues can also be dangerous for future tenants, including meth, cocaine, crack, and bath salts.
Accidental Death
Although an accidental death isn’t necessarily a crime scene, it shares many similar characteristics. The traumatic nature of the event can spread blood, flesh, and other biohazards around the area. In addition, investigators may need time to properly examine the scene to determine what really happened and whether it is a crime. This delay can make cleanup more challenging.
Industrial Accident
Industrial machinery is very dangerous, and it can cause serious injuries or death in the event of an accident. In addition, when these accidents occur, they can spread biohazards around the area. Industrial accidents may require that the scene remain undisturbed until investigators finish their inspection.
Cleaning up after industrial accidents can be challenging, as biohazards may mix with grease and other mechanical fluids. Bones, flesh, and other residue may be in hard-to-reach places. In addition, many people in your organization may be traumatized and unwilling to clean up their friends’ remains.
FLEET Response’s local companies are well-equipped to handle this type of cleanup. They can deal with the cleaning challenges while approaching the site with sensitivity and compassion.
Suicide
Although a suicide isn’t a crime scene, it may be initially investigated to determine if it is actually suicide. A suicide is also an unattended death, and this can add more cleaning challenges, depending on how long the suicide went undiscovered. Some suicides are violent, too, and the suicide method can spread biohazardous materials.
FLEET Response’s local companies can handle the challenges of cleaning up after a suicide.
Don’t Ask Employees to Clean Up a Crime Scene
You might count on your employees to do a lot of the janitorial work at your business. However, when it comes to crime scene cleanup, there are many reasons why you shouldn’t ask them to do it. Having employees clean up crime scenes is a bad idea because:
- It’s not fair to them
- It might be an OSHA violation
- You may be liable for the results
- They might not know how to do it properly
Employees Shouldn’t Be Expected to Clean Crime Scenes
Unless you explicitly hire your employees as crime scene cleaners, asking them to take on this duty can be seen by them as an unfair expansion of their job duties. In addition, your employees might have trauma or distress related to the crime itself, and asking them to clean up the mess can worsen these negative emotions. Crime scene cleanup is different from normal janitorial work, and if you ask people to do it, they are likely to rebel.
As a result, you may experience multiple instances of people quitting or “quiet quitting,” becoming much less productive than they had been. This kind of imposition can also make employees talk in a negative way about your workplace practices. These disgruntled employees might even report you to OSHA.
OSHA Standards
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has strict rules about asking employees to handle dangerous substances, such as biohazards and hazardous chemicals at crime scenes. The rules state that employees should receive proper training and have access to appropriate safety equipment for dealing with these materials. If you don’t give your employees the support they need to properly handle crime scene cleanup, this can be an OSHA violation, which may lead to fines and other penalties.
Liability for Crime Scene Cleanup
Having employees clean up a crime scene can expose you to potential lawsuits. Although worker’s compensation laws will likely protect you if your employee is injured, the complicated legal landscape can create several negative scenarios that could be disastrous for your company.
Your Employees Don’t Have the Training to Handle Crime Scene Cleanup
However, the best reason not to have your employees clean up a crime scene is that they’re not qualified to do it. They don’t have the training, the experience, or the proper equipment to do it right. When a biohazard isn’t cleaned up properly, it can lead to multiple instances of sickness, as well as the potential for persistent odors and even damage to the building.
Trust FLEET Response with Your Crime Scene Cleanup
Instead of making your employees or regular janitors clean up your crime scene, trust FLEET Response’s local companies to handle it. With our local companies, you will appreciate:
- A rapid response
- Complete discretion
- Compassion and empathy
- Thorough handling of the entire cleanup
- Assistance with insurance claims
The Rapid Response You Desire
An uncleaned crime scene is a continuous detriment to your business. Every hour it’s not cleaned up can put people at risk, may damage your building and furnishings, and impact your reputation.
Once you are cleared to clean up a crime scene, you want cleaners who are ready to respond 24/7 and can get to work right away. Our local companies offer 24/7 emergency response services and will arrive at your business shortly after receiving your call to begin the crime scene cleanup process.
In addition, FLEET Response’s local companies have extensive training and experience with crime scene cleanup, allowing them to work efficiently to minimize the cleanup time required. Plus, because they can handle the entire process, you won’t lose time by having to contact a separate restoration company.
Complete Discretion
We understand that your business will likely not benefit from connection to a messy crime scene. Even assurances of thorough cleaning may not be enough to stop some people from feeling uncomfortable at going to your business after a crime. That’s why FLEET Response’s local companies operate with complete discretion.
Our local company’s team will arrive discreetly and work efficiently. They won’t talk about the job outside the work site or publicize that they did work for you unless you authorize them to. Working with a restoration company also makes it easy to represent the work in a neutral way if you want. Water damage, a forklift dinging a wall, or a small fire are reasonable cover stories for neighbors with excess curiosity.
Compassion and Empathy
The aftermath of a crime on your property can lead to heavy emotional fallout. Having quick and thorough cleanup can help. In addition, the teams from our local companies will be professional and respectful when they arrive. They will be understanding of your feelings and will avoid triggering difficult emotions.
Thorough Handling of the Entire Cleanup
Another benefit of working with FLEET Response is that our local companies can handle the entire crime scene cleanup, from the initial inspection to the final finishing work. Our local companies know not only how to clean up the mess and safely handle biohazards, but they can also repair any damage to your business related to the crime, including broken windows, damaged walls, and carpets that might need to be removed because they can’t be cleaned.
In addition, our local companies can handle restoration of the contents of the space. They can retrieve valuable possessions from the crime scene and perform restoration of dirty or damaged valuables, including electronics and paperwork. Don’t waste time and money calling a separate restoration company: work with one company that can handle it all.
Assistance with Insurance Claims
In addition, FLEET Response’s local companies can smooth the process for you by helping you with insurance claims. Our local companies work with insurance companies on a daily basis. They can help you understand your insurance policies, and whether certain types of damage are likely to be covered. With complete documentation of the damage and repairs and thorough communication with your insurance company, FLEET Response’s local companies can help you get prompt payment of claims to the full extent covered by your policies.
In addition, they can direct you to other sources of funding to deal with this type of damage, such as if your local community will help pay for crime scene cleanup.
The Crime Scene Cleanup Process
At FLEET Response, we’ve worked with our local companies to ensure that everyone follows a thorough, complete approach to crime scene cleanup. Our comprehensive process will ensure that the entire scene is made completely suitable and safe for you to reoccupy it. There will be nothing you can see, smell, touch, or taste to indicate that a crime happened. Here’s how that process might happen, though not all cleanups follow exactly this sequence.
1. Inspection and Assessment
Before cleanup starts, a team from FLEET Response’s local company will perform a thorough inspection of the crime scene. They will determine the extent of the cleanup required, and what challenges are present, including biohazards and hazardous chemicals. They will also identify whether the crime scene has damaged materials like drywall and furnishings. At this time, you will get an accurate estimate of the cost and timeframe of cleanup.
2. Isolation and Safety
Depending on the type of crime scene, there might be a risk that cleanup could spread hazardous materials. If this is the case, our local companies will isolate the crime scene from the rest of the building. It may be sufficient to close the door to a contaminated area, but it may be necessary to create a contained environment and/or shut off the HVAC system until the cleanup restores safe levels of contaminants.
3. Cleanup of Biohazards and Hazardous Chemicals
Once the area is safely isolated, our local companies will clean up the hazardous materials. They will use cleaners that are effective at dealing with the particular type of contaminants associated with your crime scene. These materials will be safely stored for transport to appropriate disposal sites.
4. Removal of Materials That Can’t Be Cleaned
FLEET Response’s local companies are experts at restoration. They know which materials can be safely cleaned, and which can’t. When materials are too saturated to be effectively cleaned, they will have to be removed. This may include drywall, flooring, studs, and other structural components.
5. Disinfection
Next, our local companies will eliminate any risk of infection from biohazards at the site. Thorough disinfection will kill microorganisms or viruses at the crime scene. By the time you are allowed to return to the building, there will be no risk of infection at the location.
6. Deodorization
Typically, thorough cleaning and disinfection of the crime scene is enough to eliminate odors. However, in some cases, our local companies may need to take additional steps to eliminate odors. They have the tools to breakdown the source of persistent odors at the crime scene, including those that seeped, soaked, or infiltrated walls, floors, and ceilings.
7. Restoration
With dirt, infection risk, and odors eliminated, it’s time to restore the crime scene to its former condition. This may include replacing insulation, repairing drywall, painting, laying carpet, and more. These are all steps that FLEET Response’s local companies can handle quickly and efficiently.
8. Disposal of Contaminants
The last step in crime scene cleanup is disposing of the contaminants from the site. Most biohazardous materials will go to a medical waste disposal facility. Hazardous chemicals will likely go to a different disposal facility. Our cleanup process includes thorough documentation of disposal for these materials to help you get compensation from insurance and to avoid problems with local laws.
