Bio-Recovery: The R&R Interview

by Jeffrey Stouffer editor
July 19, 2010

A continually evolving and expanding segment of the remediation industry, bio-recovery – better known as “crime scene cleanup” or “trauma cleaning” – has made great strides since it first came into being as an organized segment of the business almost two decades ago. Recently, R&R spoke with Kent Berg, director of the National Institute of Decontamination Specialists and founder of the American Bio-Recovery Association, to get his take on where the industry stands today and where it’s headed in the future.

Restoration & Remediation: Briefly, what falls under the scope of work when people talk about “bio-recovery”?

Kent Berg: Bio-recovery is actually a term that was derived from the words BioHazard Cleanup and Scene Recovery. We chose that term because our industry’s scope of work is actually much broader than cleaning crime scenes. We are often thought of as the guys that will clean up anything that is nasty, repulsive, or gross, so people naturally call us to clean up human feces, animal feces, dead animals – usually rotten ones – and gross filth, as in rotting food, poor hygiene, and piles and piles of garbage. Then there’s the decomposed human body scenes, meth labs, the occasional disease outbreak, and anything else that would cause a normal person to stay a hundred feet away to keep from puking.

R&R: You’ve been part of the bio-recovery profession pretty much since before it became a profession. Since that time, what are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen, both positive and negative?

KB: When I first started, very few people in this business knew anything about cleaning and disinfecting. They just wanted to make the visible contamination go away. No one in the insurance industry had ever heard of a crime scene cleanup company, and many adjusters argued that our services were not covered. Today, the biggest changes have been in our profile. What I mean by that is the public, who had never heard of our services, now see us in TV shows, documentaries, movies, magazines, and newspaper articles. We have recognition now, and families are more aware that these services exist.

Another change has been in the performance of the cleanup itself. We as an industry are much more aware of the antimicrobials we are using, the techniques and knowledge related to home construction, vehicle dismantling, and being able to actually render a property safe on a microscopic level.

R&R: From a purely objective point of view, bio-recovery would seem to be about as “recession-proof” as any remediation specialty out there. There will always be accidents, suicides and other traumas that require a professional remediator. What are some of the pros and cons that come along with that?

KB: We know that our services will always be needed, but with a higher profile, we are seeing more and more companies starting up, and more and more fire/water restoration companies adding this service to their menus. Although the demand for our services is increasing, the individual companies’ call volumes aren’t growing as fast because there is more competition for that finite number of incidents.

The pros are that the public will have resources to respond if they need them, and that companies will have to step up their game in service quality and marketing. The cons are that the majority of these new companies are not attending training, not getting any type of certification beyond a half-day OSHA bloodborne pathogen course. It’s these companies that are dragging the good companies down when the public hears about a company throwing a bloody mattress in a dumpster, etc.


R&R: Since hindsight is 20/20, if there was one thing you would go back and change, as far as how you operated your business, what is it, and what would you do differently?

KB: I would have marketed harder. I assumed that people would need my service and seek me out. That was true for a while, but when competitors popped up with their marketing programs, the public chose who was freshest in their minds. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but one I will never forget.

R&R: Technologically speaking, what areas have seen the greatest advances? Chemicals? PPE? Containment?

KB: One of the advancements has been our recognition as a legitimate industry. Today, vendors of specialty restoration products are targeting our industry. Kimberly-Clark markets their suits with the “Recommended by the American Bio-Recovery Association” seal on them. Other products used in our industry have similar tie-ins with our trade association or at the very least mention in their advertising that their product is great for cleaning crime and trauma scenes. Even the insurance industry no longer recognizes us under their “janitorial service” heading, opting now for a “crime scene cleanup” designation for insurance coverage.

We are also seeing new technology in the form of new disinfectants, odor-remediation technology, and devices to actually measure how clean a surface really is. The National Organization for Victim Assistance is putting on a training program this fall for teaching all interested bio-recovery technicians how to better interact with victims and their families. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has sought out input so they may better understand our industry.

However, I believe the most important advancement for the industry has been the formation of training centers. Legitimate training programs help make sure that any technician who wants to be the best at their profession can attend a school that specializes in that field. By establishing a standard training and certification program, students graduate far ahead of their competitors and benefit from years of experience from seasoned industry professionals, scientists, chemists, and pathologists that helped to design the curriculum.


Jeffrey Stouffer editor
stoufferj@bnpmedia.com

Jeffrey Stouffer is editor of Restoration & Remediation magazine

6 reasons why people commit suicide

by Alex Lickerman, MD

Though I’ve never lost a friend or family member to suicide, I have lost a patient.

I have known a number of people left behind by the suicide of people close to them, however. Given how much losing my patient affected me, I’ve only been able to guess at the devastation these people have experienced. Pain mixed with guilt, anger, and regret makes for a bitter drink, the taste of which I’ve seen take many months or even years to wash out of some mouths.

The one question everyone has asked without exception, that they ache to have answered more than any other, is simply, why?


Why did their friend, child, parent, spouse, or sibling take their own life? Even when a note explaining the reasons is found, lingering questions usually remain: yes, they felt enough despair to want to die, but why did they feel that? A person’s suicide often takes the people it leaves behind by surprise (only accentuating survivor’s guilt for failing to see it coming).

People who’ve survived suicide attempts have reported wanting not so much to die as to stop living, a strange dichotomy but a valid one nevertheless. If some in-between state existed, some other alternative to death, I suspect many suicidal people would take it. For the sake of all those reading this who might have been left behind by someone’s suicide, I wanted to describe how I was trained to think about the reasons people kill themselves. They’re not as intuitive as most think.

In general, people try to kill themselves for six reasons:

1. They’re depressed. This is without question the most common reason people commit suicide. Severe depression is always accompanied by a pervasive sense of suffering as well as the belief that escape from it is hopeless. The pain of existence often becomes too much for severely depressed people to bear. The state of depression warps their thinking, allowing ideas like “Everyone would all be better off without me” to make rational sense. They shouldn’t be blamed for falling prey to such distorted thoughts any more than a heart patient should be blamed for experiencing chest pain: it’s simply the nature of their disease.

Because depression, as we all know, is almost always treatable, we should all seek to recognize its presence in our close friends and loved ones. Often people suffer with it silently, planning suicide without anyone ever knowing. Despite making both parties uncomfortable, inquiring directly about suicidal thoughts in my experience almost always yields an honest response. If you suspect someone might be depressed, don’t allow your tendency to deny the possibility of suicidal ideation prevent you from asking about it.

2. They’re psychotic. Malevolent inner voices often command self-destruction for unintelligible reasons. Psychosis is much harder to mask than depression — and arguably even more tragic. The worldwide incidence of schizophrenia is 1% and often strikes otherwise healthy, high-performing individuals, whose lives, though manageable with medication, never fulfill their original promise.

Schizophrenics are just as likely to talk freely about the voices commanding them to kill themselves as not, and also, in my experience, give honest answers about thoughts of suicide when asked directly. Psychosis, too, is treatable, and usually must be for a schizophrenic to be able to function at all. Untreated or poorly treated psychosis almost always requires hospital admission to a locked ward until the voices lose their commanding power.

3. They’re impulsive. Often related to drugs and alcohol, some people become maudlin and impulsively attempt to end their own lives. Once sobered and calmed, these people usually feel emphatically ashamed. The remorse is usually genuine, and whether or not they’ll ever attempt suicide again is unpredictable. They may try it again the very next time they become drunk or high, or never again in their lifetime. Hospital admission is therefore not usually indicated. Substance abuse and the underlying reasons for it are generally a greater concern in these people and should be addressed as aggressively as possible.

4. They’re crying out for help, and don’t know how else to get it. These people don’t usually want to die but do want to alert those around them that something is seriously wrong. They often don’t believe they will die, frequently choosing methods they don’t think can kill them in order to strike out at someone who’s hurt them—but are sometimes tragically misinformed. The prototypical example of this is a young teenage girl suffering genuine angst because of a relationship, either with a friend, boyfriend, or parent who swallows a bottle of Tylenol—not realizing that in high enough doses Tylenol causes irreversible liver damage.

I’ve watched more than one teenager die a horrible death in an ICU days after such an ingestion when remorse has already cured them of their desire to die and their true goal of alerting those close to them of their distress has been achieved.

5. They have a philosophical desire to die. The decision to commit suicide for some is based on a reasoned decision often motivated by the presence of a painful terminal illness from which little to no hope of reprieve exists. These people aren’t depressed, psychotic, maudlin, or crying out for help. They’re trying to take control of their destiny and alleviate their own suffering, which usually can only be done in death. They often look at their choice to commit suicide as a way to shorten a dying that will happen regardless. In my personal view, if such people are evaluated by a qualified professional who can reliably exclude the other possibilities for why suicide is desired, these people should be allowed to die at their own hands.

6. They’ve made a mistake. This is a recent, tragic phenomenon in which typically young people flirt with oxygen deprivation for the high it brings and simply go too far. The only defense against this, it seems to me, is education.

The wounds suicide leaves in the lives of those left behind by it are often deep and long lasting. The apparent senselessness of suicide often fuels the most significant pain survivors feel. Thinking we all deal better with tragedy when we understand its underpinnings, I’ve offered the preceding paragraphs in hopes that anyone reading this who’s been left behind by a suicide might be able to more easily find a way to move on, to relinquish their guilt and anger, and find closure. Despite the abrupt way you may have been left, those don’t have to be the only two emotions you’re doomed to feel about the one who left you.

Alex Lickerman is an internal medicine physician at the University of Chicago who blogs at Happiness in this World.

Violent crimes happen every day; sometimes leaving behind a brutal mess.

Violent crimes happen every day; sometimes leaving behind a brutal mess.

When the investigation is over, whose job is it to clean it up?

It’s not your ordinary cleaning job, nor your average clients and not for the faint of heart.

80-year-old Walter Eastwood was beaten and robbed during a frightening home invasion earlier this month. Three men broke into Eastwood’s home, beat him, tied him up and stole thousands of dollars and jewelry from his safe. The attack left blood stains on the couch and floor as painful reminders of a brutal attack.

The criminals ran off leaving Eastwood and his wife emotionally scarred and their home a bloody mess. That's where crime scene cleaners come into play.

CBS47 talked with crime scene cleaner Paul Duvivier. Duvivier said, "Blood and body fluids contain lots and lots, over 250diff bacteria and viruses."

It's gruesome work but when a violent crime occurs and someone has to clean up the blood and body fluids the right way. "Somebody untrained, the guy with a mop bucket and bottle of bleach unfortunately that doesn't do it, Duvivier said.

In the Eastwood's case, the left over blood in the carpet may seem like small stains but what lies beneath is hazardous and can be a heath risk. “We will be removing a great deal of the carpet checking out underneath the carpet and treat the cement that's underneath that,” said Duvivier.

Duvivier sees himself as more than cleaning man; he's part of the healing process, helping families get thought emotionally hard times. Duvivier said, “They have gone through something that was tragic or horrendous for them and we want the help them."

It's a tough job. Duvivier works with families that have experienced suicides, murders, and violent accident scenes… it's more than most people can handle. Duvivier said, "What a horrendous situation where a family has to be the ones cleaning up a relative."

Duvivier and his team understand a family needs help that few can provide. It's more than just clean up; it's a shoulder to cry on, or setting up a place to stay while the painful memories are washed away.

After removing and disposing all the heartbreaking signs of the attack, the Eastwood family can finally feel comfortable going back into their home, even if memories of the attack remain.

Death rides a pale horse and these guys ride in a pale van, cleaning up after him.

By John Guenther

It's getting late on Michael Nicholson's driveway, when Nicholson's friend and employee Johnny Grant asks if he'd seen the show "1,000 Ways To Die." Nicholson responds that he doesn't watch TV. They're standing next to the Clean Scene Services van which is packed with cleaning equipment and bio-hazard containers.

The two are on call 24/7 and their job is to clean and disinfect the things other people aren't willing to, from mold to the aftereffects of a shotgun suicide.

When asked what it's like waiting for death night and day, Nicholson said he's more concerned with assisting the families left behind.

"Pretty much it's not that we're waiting for it to happen. It's happening all the time," said Nicholson. "It's just whether or not we'll be there to be able to help them."

A few nights earlier, inside the Clean Scene offices on Valley Boulevard, owner-operator Nicholson described each one of photos of past jobs hanging on the wall: train crashes, suicides and car accidents. News stories profiling Clean Scene with headlines like "The Death Squads" hang on another wall. Nicholson said the building used to be the clubhouse and meth lab of the Mongols motorcycle club.

Even though every job they do does not involve death, it seems it is always not too far away. The building space next to Clean Scene is taken up by an artist who fabricates couches out of caskets.

Nicholson got started in the industry while picking up bodies for the L.A. County Coroner's office which he did since he was 17. While doing pickups, people would ask him about who was going clean up once they were gone. Nicholson and his friends started coming back and providing cleaning services as a side job.

"It was rewarding as far as helping people," Nicholson said. "But if there was no money in it, we wouldn't have kept doing it, I'll tell you that."

After 14 years in business, he said he now charges a minimum of around $1,000 per job, depending on damage done and size of the cleanup area. But for labor-intensive jobs their services can cost between $4,000 and $6,000, especially for one of those shotgun jobs which can run well into the night. Nicholson describes the blast as similar to a bomb going off, with remains even landing two rooms away.

Grant said his salary is "kind of hourly," working as a trauma scene technician for Clean Scene. When asked about waiting for something terrible to happen, he agreed with Nicholson's assessment.

"Actually this is L.A.," Grant said. "There's like 20 million plus people here. There usually isn't a whole lot of waiting."

The Los Angeles County vital records office estimates that there were 53,794 deaths in the county in 2009, not including Long Beach or Pasadena. Around 42 percent of those occurred from dusk until dawn or 6PM to 5AM.

Nicholson said his business has an up-and-down cycle with more jobs coming in during the summer.

"Bodies decompose in the quicker in the summer in the heat, said Nicholson." More people are out. There's more action."

When asked about working nighttime jobs, he said there's a similar pattern.

"Sometimes, it'll be four times and we have a month where we don't go out at all at night."

The types of jobs that drag the Clean Scene crew out at night include train and car accidents which require their services in order to get the trains and traffic running again.

Grant said their job cleaning up after shootings can get a lot more interesting in certain parts of the city at night. "It depends on what happened down there and who's watching you clean up the mess," he added. "Sometimes it almost appears that the ones watching are the ones who committed the crime."

"There are a lot more nuts at night," Nicholson simply said.

"We've had calls that are just mundane but because it's at night, it's actually scary." said Carol Nicholson, wife of Michael and who started the business with him out of the back of their Toyota. "You're in places you don't know and with people you don't know."

Carol Nicholson is now the office manager for the company. Sitting in her office in their Agua Dulce home and surrounded by pictures of family and hazardous material cleanup manuals, she said they've talked about moving the service in other states and cities but decided against it.

"L.A.'s the place to be," she added. "The people here are one of a kind. At nighttime, the city comes alive and you see people that you ordinarily don't see especially in this type of work."

One nighttime job that seems to have gained a legendary status among the family is a suicide which took place in a sporting goods store. A homeless man came in to the store, asked to see a shotgun, loaded it with his own bullet and shot himself. The first Clean Scene crew on site had to work all night, call in reinforcements later on and hire a truck to haul the huge amount of damaged merchandise away.

"It was just spread out so bad and there was so much merchandise affected," said Michael Nicholson. "They had their loss prevention people there and deciding what level they wanted to do things. They actually opened [the store] before it was completed. They all do that."
The job even inspired an opening scene in the 2008 movie "Sunshine Cleaning" which featured a family that got into the same business. Michael Nicholson said it goes vice versa and Hollywood sometimes inspires real life in the industry.

"Every time a movie comes out, there's always a few new companies," he said. "'The Cleaner,' 'Sunshine Cleaning.' Any of those movies. But most of them are not very long-lasting."

When people ask about his job, Michael Nicholson said they often ask if it's like "CSI." He said TV shows usually get things mostly right since the shows tend to have crime scene advisers, something his company has done before. But, like most entertainment, it's a little off from reality. "To me it's just not real," he commented.

Carol Nicholson said the crime scene cleanup characters in movies are often portrayed negatively and are based on Michael. "It's not based on me," retorted Michael Nicholson.

"When you're watching it, you know they're talking about Michael and he's always portrayed as an asshole," said Carol Nicholson. "It never fails."

Michael Nicholson reconsidered a moment and said, "I must be an asshole," and laughed.

Because of the on call nature of the business, the Nicholsons have found that making personal plans is like tempting fate.

"When you're ready and willing, nothing will happen," said Michael Nicholson. "As soon as you start doing something and get occupied...that's when you'll get a call at night."

The calls can affect not only their outlook on life and death but their social lives as well.

"People think we're flaky because they'll invite us to parties or invite us somewhere and we can't make it because--guarantee it--that's when the phone rings," said Carol Nicholson.

Carol added that nighttime is when the prank calls come rolling in. She said they can tell most calls are bogus right off the bat. But she said she is fully expecting someone to force them onto a dry run call. "They'll give us an address...and when we show up, they'll be off in the corner laughing at us."

"I've had people call up and say 'I'm going to kill somebody,'" said Michael Nicholson. "'Can you come clean it?' Just stupid stuff really."

Despite the uneven schedule and pranksters, the Nicholsons and crewmembers recognize they have an opportunity to provide some aid to those going through a trying time.

"We found people that have been looking for days for someone to help them and then when they finally find us, they're very relieved," said Michael Nicholson.

He recounted how, on their second job ever, they were called in to clean the living room of a man who had committed suicide on a couch. His daughter could not make herself enter the house. It wasn't until the crew finished when the woman was comfortable enough to come in and sit in the living room. Carol Nicholson said they aren't necessarily leaving grieving clients happy, but at least ready to take care of what's next.

Grant said what happens to clients once the crews finish a job does go across his mind from time to time. But Grant mostly has a yeoman's attitude towards the rewards of the job.

"The reward is just getting the job done right and not having to go back and not having anybody complaining and not having people feel like they've been ripped off," said Grant.

When asked about passing on lessons to those without the stomach for the job, he became more practical than philosophical for a moment.

"Maybe how to clean stains once in awhile," he joked. "That could come in handy."

After completing a job at night, Michael Nicholson said he usually is just looking forward to getting something to eat. But he also has thought about how most people are unaware of a lot of what happens while they sleep.

"We'll be finishing up a job just as the sun is coming up and traffic starting to come back starting to come out for the morning and you think that they don't even know what happened prior to them getting out there this morning," he said.

Carol Nicholson said the whole experience of working the trauma scene beat has left her sometimes feeling apart from other moms at her children's school.

"I'm nothing like them because of what we deal with," she said. While talking about certain stores where their crews have worked, she has a distinctly different perspective from others. "All I can see is brains in sporting goods."

But she believes her children have ultimately benefited from the family business, and not just financially. She said all of their children have been very aware of that they do.

"Most kids think about death whenever a loved one dies and they go to a funeral and they have to be explained what is death," she said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. "My kids grow up knowing that death is just there."

Their 20-year-old son has been working with them for a couple years and has joined one of the crews full-time. Michael Nicholson has found an additional benefit to the arrangement: He now has someone who can go out at night.

"He can't wait until his dad retires so he can take over," Carol Nicholson mentions. "The littlest one is eight and he can't wait to be at his dad's side in the Clean Scene van."

As I drove away from the Nicholsons' house and down a winding darkened road toward the lights of L.A., a small, furry rodent darted in front of my car, far too close for me to avoid it. The unfortunate meeting of car and animal reminded me of something Michael Nicholson said back at his office.

"Life's very valuable...precious and you never know what will happen. We've taught our kids that. There's no guarantees that you'll be here tomorrow. Nobody's promised tomorrow and a lot of people don't get it."

Companies tackle mess a corpse can leave behind

Published on October 1, 2009
Angie's List
by Staci Giordullo

What happens to those who die alone — and no one notices? Welcome to the business of biohazard remediation. Originally limited to crime and trauma scene cleaning, the industry's scope has grown to include decontamination of homes soiled by human waste, tissue and body fluids, and other toxins associated with a decomposing body.


Ronald Gospodarski, owner of Bio-Recovery Corp. in New York City, started his business in 1988 after spending years as a paramedic and realizing no company was offering these types of services.

"No one is prepared for this type of thing," he says. "I come in and solve the problem."

According to Gospodarski, approximately 75 percent of his business is cleaning up after decompositions.

"I get calls from family, police, landlords — a lot of times it's the property manager," he says.

Stacie Salerno of Bradford, Pa., recently hired Gospodarski to clean her brother's apartment after he was stabbed to death, reportedly by a stranger police believe he likely met online. "I never knew this kind of company even existed," Salerno says. "But they took care of everything. You never would know there was a murder in that apartment."

Like many other industries, the prerequisites to be a bio-recovery technician vary greatly by state. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires proper training in order to handle blood-borne pathogens. In addition, companies should hold the proper permits for biohazard waste disposal as well as general liability and pollution liability insurance.

What happens to those who die alone? Welcome to the business of biohazard remediation. See examples of biohazard remediation >>Dale Cillian, president of the American Bio-Recovery Association, says the lack of a nationwide standard is unnerving because there are companies that grossly overcharge customers and don't thoroughly clean or properly dispose of the waste.

"Some of these companies will rob people blind," Cillian says. "They're hurting families at the worst time of their lives." Gospodarski, who's certified with the ABRA, agrees and says his average job costs between $1,500 and $3,500. "Customers need to do their due diligence before hiring a company like mine," he says.

Industry experts recommend verifying companies with ABRA — which has 80 members — Angie's List and the BBB.

While a coroner typically removes the body before the biohazard remediation team arrives, there are a number of threats left behind — many of which go unnoticed by the untrained eye.

"We see marks of contamination affected during the removal of the body such as fluid from the body bag touching walls and furniture," says John DiGulio, co-founder of USA Decon in Houston. "Light switches and door handles are usually left unclean."

Hiring a professional to clean up such a mess can lift an emotional burden from grieving family members. "There aren't many jobs in which you can provide unimaginable relief for someone," DiGulio says.

Originally limited to crime and trauma scene cleaning, the scope of biohazard remediation has grown to include the cleanup and decontamination associated with mold, human waste, tissue and body fluids, animal waste and other toxins.

If a body is left undiscovered in a home for any period of time, a bio-recovery technician is needed to remove the unpleasant consequences of that decomposition.

The Final Scene

A Rancho Cucamonga company pioneers the science—and emotional art—of cleaning up a crime scene

By: Nate Jackson

On his hands and knees, clothed head-to-toe in biohazard gear, Chris King uses a white rag to mop up a puddle of viscous red/brown blood clots and pink spinal fluid from the floor of an Anaheim garage. It’s 9:30PM on a summer Sunday; the temperature is still only in the 70s. King is a native of Upland, a former restaurant server. Sweat forms rivulets from his scalp, drips off his clear protective face mask, onto the concrete floor, mingling with the muck and ooze, which harbors a stale perfume of iron and rotting fruit.

“You have to work in stages so you don’t miss anything,” says King, working in tight circles, tossing each sopping red rag into a biohazard waste bin. He rarely looks up at his clients, three mid-sized men standing sullenly amid the usual flotsam and jetsam of a California garage— clothing racks, a treadmill, two bicycles, yellow and pink, leaning against a book shelf. Tonight they have improbably lost a family member—a father of three young children who had fatally shot himself in the head several hours earlier.

For King and the crew at Crime Scene Steri-Clean, cleaning up the worst remnants of human nature is a way of life. But after 15 years in business, these pioneers of the private crime scene/ biohazard disposal industry believe that their ability to handle both the physical mess and emotional wreckage of everyday tragedy is what continues to keep them unique—and in business.

“Who’s gonna clean this?”
“That’s the hardest part, having to see [clients] going through such a painful situation,” whispers King behind the company van after offering a second round of condolences to the men inspecting his work. Next to body decompositions, suicide clean ups are the most common. Three years after finding the job on a Craigslist posting, King can still remember the details of every clean up he’s ever done; suicides, murders, rat-infested houses.

Founded in 1995 by husband and wife Cory and Tammy Chalmers, Rancho Cucamonga-based CSSC is probably one of the last businesses you would think even existed. That is, until you need them.

Servicing over 30 cities including most of the Inland Empire, L.A., Orange County and parts of Northern California, the 24-hour clean up crew handles everything from blood and brain matter, to body decompositions and cluttered houses that would send an ordinary maid service screaming for the hills.

As CEO of the company, Chalmers and his wife, the company’s CFO, have laid enough ground work with surrounding CHP, fire department and law enforcement agencies to ensure that they’re never short on calls. At this point, getting woken up by a call of a car accident, a shooting or a stabbing is nothing new.

Besides doing his part to run the company, Chalmers is also a firefighter for the city of Garden Grove. But it was what he saw before that—during his days as a paramedic, running in and out of grisly scenes and leaving families to clean up the mess—that inspired him to start a side business.

“I would see the family all distraught and crying and emotional,” he recalls. “And I wondered: Who’s gonna clean this?”

One haunting scene finally inspired him to go home to his wife and propose the idea of a crime scene clean up company. He had walked into a bathroom where a man with hemophilia had committed suicide with a shot gun.

“You couldn’t see any of the tile floor,” says Chalmers, who remembers standing in front of a lake of red and violence splattered on the walls. The sound of the man’s wife screaming hysterically in front of the house added to the horror. He knew once the police and paramedics left with the body, she would be left to clean the bathroom.

A decade and a half later, CSSC finds itself in an industry bordering on over-saturation in California. They are now one of 315 crime scene clean up companies in the state.

“There’s not enough business to go around,’ says Cory Chalmers, adding that many of these newly-licensed companies tend to cycle out of business in six months because the inability to snag consistent work.

“It’s not like you can just advertise in the yellow pages and people will call you,” he says. “Who thinks when their mom kills herself to grab the yellow pages? Nobody.”

So how does CSSC continue thriving in the midst of so many fly-by-night companies? Several years ago, Tammy Chalmers took a step that changed the face of the company from blood scrubbing vendor to viable resource.

Using her expertise in the field of bloodborne pathogens and hoarders (or pack rats), Tammy Chalmers teaches free classes to law enforcement and firefighters on how to effectively protect themselves against blood-transmitted diseases like hepatitis and other biohazard on behalf of CSSC. Though the classes aren’t for profit, it’s a marketing strategy that gives their name and number to agencies that require their services. These days, her skills are put to the test daily as she trains classes all over California. Currently the company carries three major services: crime scene clean up, hoarder clean up and the Home Again Foundation, which provides government-funded assistance to those in need of the company’s services.

“All of us as a team do amazing work and you leave the job exhausted most of the time, not just some of the time,” says the upbeat, blonde-haired former wedding coordinator. There was a time early on in the business where she found herself plucking skull fragments out of walls as she cleaned crime scenes side by side with her husband. She calls them “the old knee pad and scrub brush days.”

Staring down death
Besides being on call 24 hours a day, it’s an employee’s ability to deal with distraught clients on a daily basis that determines how they will fair in the company. The ability to deal with people at the worst time in their lives is a mission that never gets easier.

Despite, or maybe because of the gruesome nature of their business, CSSC has no shortage of media interest in what they do. The company has been the subject of several TV pilots and magazine articles. Even Samuel L. Jackson came down for a training session to prepare for a movie role in the 2008 film Cleaner. On a daily basis, Chalmers fields emails and phone calls from people who want a job, chasing gory TV fantasies.

“It’s not glamorous, not CSI,” says Tammy Chalmers. “It’s hard, back-breaking, emotional, difficult—everything you could possibly say about a job.”

For workers like King, who’ve spent countless nights erasing blood and bad memories for clients, the job has taught lessons that sometimes only a stare down with death can provide.

“When you’re cleaning up a 19-year-old kid who just got hit by a car, it makes you realize that you don’t have a predetermined amount of time. So it’s within our best interest as human beings to kind of embrace every single minute as if it is going to be the last one and that’s what I try to live by everyday and just be a very pleasant, happy person.”

Berkeley Man’s Suicide Leads to Discovery of Body Buried Behind Wall

By Richard Brenneman

The dramatic suicide of a Berkeley man late Monday afternoon led police to a second gruesome discovery two days later, a badly decomposed male corpse walled up inside the a first floor laundry room.

A caller’s report of a loud argument brought officers to the building at 2235 Ashby Ave. Monday night, and they were directed to the apartment of Hassan Bin Ali.

Once the officers were inside the apartment, Bin Ali “pulled a handgun, put it to his head and subsequently took his own life,” said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Andrew Frankel.

The police daily bulletin for Monday lists the time of the shot as 5:55 p.m.

Mortally wounded, he was rushed to Highland Hospital by a Berkeley Fire Department ambulance, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Frankel said the dead man had lived alone, and officers don’t know who he was arguing with at the time they were called. “We haven’t heard any reports of anyone seen coming or going, so it could have been an argument over the telephone,” he said.

During the subsequent investigation, “officers on the scene found evidence that led them to believe another crime may have been committed.”

Based on that evidence, detectives obtained a search warrant and began a thorough search of the building, leading to the discovery of the body entombed behind a wall on the first floor.

“I have no idea how long the body had been there,” he said. The body was in a state of advanced decomposition, and it was only the following day that forensic examiners were able to determine that the corpse was that of a male.

While one published account cited a neighbor who had described Bin Ali as paranoid before his suicide, Frankel said he had spoken to a neighbor who had been shocked that the man had taken his own life.

The Alameda County Coroner’s office is currently conducting an examination to determine what killed the concealed corpse, and until a finding is made, Frankel said the cause is being listed as “suspicious,” rather than as a homicide.

“We’re still aggressively working the case,” he said.

In a statement to the press released Friday afternoon, Berkeley Police Sgt Mary Kusmiss said “the Alameda County Coroner completed an autopsy yesterday. Due to decomposition of the body, the coroner will have to rely on dental records to confirm and/or rule out an identity.”

Bin Ali is known to have had a son, and officers have been unable to locate him, “though we are in contact with other members of the family,” Frankel said.

He asked anyone with any information about Bin Ali and the case to call police at 981-6900.

Berkeley firefighters were called to the scene after the body was discovered to assist with biohazard containment, said Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong.

Berkeley police were responsible for retrieving the remains, which were contained in a large coffin-sized wooden box.

“We provided tools and equipment,” said Deputy Chief Dong.

Once police and firefighters had completed their phase of the removal, Arturo Sopon and his private cleanup team Morgan Environmental Service, an Oakland firm licensed by the state to handle hazardous waste and trauma scenes, arrived to finish the job, donning Tyvek suits, protective masks, boots and gloves, taping over the seams to prevent exposure.

“We clean up bodily fluids,” Sopon said, adding that work often spiked over the Christmas season and during summer months.

Why you need crime scene cleanup services

By Alex Thomson

Crime scene cleanup or trauma scene cleanup after the death of someone either violently or naturally is by and large the responsibility of the victim’s family. Even till few years ago, there were a handful of cleaning companies that specialized in trauma cleaning service. But today this niche service has emerged as a lucrative business and there are many companies who provide this service.

Trauma cleaning service requires special experience, skills, equipment and expertise to deal with different types of bio-hazardous waste and dispose them efficiently with the minimum possible emotional stress to the victim’s family.

The most traumatic form of death is violent death and leaves the victim’s family feeling both victimized and traumatized. Coming to terms with the unnatural death of a loved one is in itself an uphill task for the bereaved family, and to top it they have to deal with other practical matters like making funeral arrangements, dealing with insurance issues, contacting surviving family and friends and locating wills. Furthermore, in case of violent crimes the police and the media are also involved. This can really overwhelm any family. Here is where trauma cleaning service comes to your rescue. They lighten one of the heaviest burdens, that is of dealing with the horrid murder cleanup. They will take care of the crime scene cleanup, ensuring that the scene is restored to its pre-incidental state as far as possible and in the most quick and efficient manner thus allowing you to deal with other important matters. Most service providers work discreetly and protect the confidentiality of the sufferer and family.

Most of the times, the crime scenes are so ghastly that they can induce additional emotional trauma in victim’s friends and family. By hiring professionals for cleanup, you can reduce this emotional stress. Immediately after death the nature begins its process of breaking down the body. Unattended death scene and dead bodies can be dangerous as it gives rise to blood borne pathogens, mold spores and bacteria. You may try to clean the area by yourself but the exposure may result in flu-like diseases or direct attack on the respiratory system. So it is advisable to leave this job to professionals who specialize in bio fluid and blood remediation.

The total cost involving a trauma scene cleanup will depend on a number of factors. One of the most major factors is that how many technicians will be needed for the job, how long will the job take and the quantity of hazardous material that needs to be treated and disposed of. It can range anywhere in the range of $100 to $1000 per hour. Some people might call this business as capitalizing on death but it is still essential and indispensable in case of a death.

Crime Scene Cleanup: What It Involves

A crime scene cleanup service is not without its complications. Crime scene cleaning encompasses restoring the crime scene to its original state. When a crime is usually discovered, crime scene cleaners are not called until after officers of the law, like the crime scene investigators, have done their jobs first and have given the go ahead for the cleaners to come in. If you intend to hire a crime scene cleanup company, you must make sure that they are well equipped and fit right to get the job done. A crime scene presents challenging conditions.

The Use Of Protective Gears:
Crime scenes can very well involve the use of hazardous or deadly substances. For safety reasons then, it has become imperative that crime scene cleaners use protective clothing, in addition to protective tools and gadgets. You must see to it that they have all the necessary protective gears and gadgets. The protective clothing can consist of disposable gloves and suits. A disposable gear is preferred nowadays since it offers the best protection against contamination. You use it one time and get rid of it. That way, the dangers of contamination is virtually brought down to zero percent. Protective clothing extends to respirators and the use of heavy-duty industrial or chemical-spill protective boots.

Among the gadgets that a crime scene cleaning company must have are special brushes, special sprayers, and wet vacuum. These special tools ensure added protection against getting into contact with the hazard could very well be present in the crime scene. There is large, special equipment such as a mounted steam injection tool that is designed to sanitize dried up biohazard materials such as scattered flesh and brain. You would also need to check if they have the specialized tank for chemical treatments and industrial strength waste containers to collect biohazard waste.

Of course, any crime scene clean up must have the usual cleaning supplies common to all cleaning service companies. There are the buckets, mops, brushes and spray bottles. For cleaning products, you should check if they use industrial cleaning products. A crime scene cleaning company must have these on their lists:

1 - Disinfectants including hydrogen peroxide and bleaches - The kinds that the hospitals used are commonly acceptable.

2 - Enzyme solvers for cleaning blood stains. It also kills viruses and bacteria.

3 - Odor removers such as foggers, ozone machines, and deodorizers

4 - Handy tools for breaking and extending such as saws, sledgehammers, and ladders

Established crime scene operators also equip themselves with cameras and take pictures of the crime scene before commencing work which. The pictures taken may prove useful for legal matters and insurance purposes. You never know which.

Needless to say, a specially fitted form of transportation and proper waste disposal is also needed. These requirements are specific. As you can imagine, crime scene cleaning is in a different category on its own. A home cleaning or janitorial service company may not be able to cope up with the demands of a crime scene. A crime scene cleanup service requires many special gears and tools that a home cleaning or a janitorial service company does not usually have or does not require. Crime scene cleaning if not done correctly can expose the public to untold hazards.

What Else To Look For In A Crime Scene Cleanup Company
You may also want to hire a company that has established itself. An experienced company with a strong reputation is always a plus but it could be expensive too. You will do well to balance your needs with what is your budget. There are several companies that offer specific prices such as for death scene clean up categories and suicide clean up categories. Most companies own a website and have round the clock customer service as receptionists.

When looking for a suitable crime scene cleaning service, among the first things you need to do is to scout for price quotes. Crime scene cleanup services usually provide quote after they have examined the crime scene and then they give you a definite quote. Factors that are usually considered include the number of personnel that will be needed to get the job done. It also includes the amount of time that might be needed. The nature and amount of the waste materials that need to be disposed will also be factored in. You can be sure that the more sophisticated equipments needed the more expensive it will get.

Crime Scene Cleanup And Your Insurance
For homeowners, the best approach is always to make sure that crime scene cleanup services clauses and provisions are written down on the contracts or policies. The inclusion of crime cleanup services clauses is very common and has become standard clause in most homeowner’s policy. Make sure that you are covered for this unforeseen event. Make sure that your policy directs the crime scene cleaning company to transact directly with the homeowner insurance company. A crime scene cleaning service is usually a standard clause in many homeowners’ insurance clause. These companies often do the paperwork in behalf of clients.

If for some reason you do not have such coverage by any policies relating to crime scene cleanup on your home, there are ways to keep your expenses controlled.

Finding the right company can be very taxing, especially that you have to deal with the emotional stress stemming from the crime itself, especially with a crime scene involving death.

There are many crime scene cleanup companies in operation nowadays. There are reliable professionals that you can hire and prices are relatively competitive. As of recently, crime-scene cleanup services can cost up to $600 for an hour of their service. A homicide case alone involving a single room and a huge amount of blood can cost about $1,000 to $3,000.

In recent years, crime scene cleaning has come to be known as, "Crime and Trauma Scene Decontamination or CTS. Basically, CTS is a special form of crime scene cleaning focusing on decontamination of the crime scene from hazardous substances such as those resulting from violent crimes or those involving chemical contaminations such as methamphetamine labs or anthrax production. This type of service is particularly common when violent crimes are committed in a home. It is rare that the residents move out of the home after it has become a scene of a crime. Most often, the residents just opt to have it cleaned up. That is why, it is very important to hire the best crime scene cleaning company out there. The place needs to be totally free from contamination of any kind. You have to make sure that the company is able to remove all traces of the violent crime that took place. This includes cleaning biohazards that are sometimes invisible to the untrained eye.

Legally speaking, federal laws state that all bodily fluids are deemed biohazards and you should make sure that the cleanup service company you hire understands this and includes it in the cleanup. These things appear as blood or tissue splattered on a crime scene. You must be able to hire a company that is equipped with special knowledge to safely handle biohazard materials. The company must have the knowledge what to search for in any give biohazard crime scene. For instance, the company should be able to tell clues such that if there is a bloodstain the size of a thumbnail on a carpet, you can bet that there is about a huge bloodstain underneath. Federal and State laws have their own laws in terms of transport and disposal of biohazard waste. Make sure that the company you hire has all the permits necessary.

It will also be a huge plus if you could hire people who not only has the special trainings but also who have the nature to be sympathetic. If you are close to the victim and have the cleaning done at the behest of the victim’s relatives, it would matter that the cleaners tread the site with some level of respect. It is a common site that family members and loved ones are often there at scene. In general, when looking for a suitable crime scene cleaners, you would take into considerations the kind of situation that the crimes scene presents and the demands that it require. Crime scene cleaning companies handle a wide variety of crime scenes and prices may vary from one to the other crime scene and one to the other company.

Each type of scene requires its own particular demands not only to make the crime scene look clean and neat on the surface but to make it germ free, and clean inside and to make it free from all deadly and infectious substances. The cleanup cost for biohazards may vary depending on degree of the bio hazard(s) on the scene. There may even be a category that changes the cleanup pricing which usually involves decomposing bodies and carcasses. Likewise, a cleanup of chemical hazards vary, depending on the amount of chemical hazards as well as the grades i.e. how hazardous the substance is in terms of human contact. Prices are also determined by the number of hours and personnel that it would to get the crime scene cleaned. In addition, the "gross factor" from crime scene involving death and gore needs to be taken under consideration regarding the chemicals that will be used as opposed to those crimes' that do not have gore involved.

Custodian’s stress-disorder suit restored

Meghann M. Cuniff / Staff writer

A custodian who sued her school district after being forced to clean up the bloody scene of a student’s suicide had her lawsuit reinstated Tuesday by the Washington Court of Appeals.

Debbie Rothwell, who still works at Lakeside High School in Nine Mile Falls, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a lawsuit filed in May 2007 by her lawyer, William Powell, of Spokane. The 16-year-old student shot himself in the head inside the school’s main entrance in 2004. The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2008 by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt, who ruled the incident was covered by the Industrial Insurance Act.

But the Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, disagreed and reinstated the suit.

“There are people who do clean up the mess after one of these horrible murders or suicides happen,” Powell said Tuesday, referring to private professionals. “But the superintendent in this case chose not to do that. He should have known better.”

Along with former Superintendent Michael Green, now superintendent of the Woodland School District in Western Washington, the lawsuit names the Nine Miles Falls School District, Stevens County Sheriff Craig Thayer, two sheriff’s detectives and an unidentified man as defendants.

None was available for comment. Like most civil suits in Washington, the complaint seeks unspecified damages.

Rothwell’s complaints center around her task of cleaning up the suicide scene, then being asked to move a backpack she later learned belonged to the victim and contained a suspicious device that authorities detonated using a robot.

She stayed at work until after 4 a.m., cleaning the mess of blood, brain and bone alone, becoming “emotionally distraught and physically ill” before returning to the school less than four hours later at Green’s orders to serve cookies and coffee to grieving students and keep the media from the school, according to the suit.

At issue in the court decisions was whether Rothwell’s claim of post-traumatic stress disorder fell under the industrial injury act, which prohibits lawsuits based on industry injury or occupational disease.

Judges John A. Schultheis and Dennis J. Sweeney ruled it didn’t because it wasn’t the result of one work order. Her trauma grew over several days, according to their written opinion. Judge Teresa C. Kulik dissented.