Simply Cleaning your crime and trauma scene cleaning company

Death, people say, can be messy. But death can be literally messy, and shockingly so. As in blood on the living room walls.

Most of us, if we’re lucky, only know this from TV. “CSI” and “Law & Order” show us all the post-death activity. Police officers, paramedics, crime-scene investigators and coroners are at the scene of a violent incident, checking the victim, questioning, collecting evidence, recording the scene and finally removing the body.

What you seldom see on TV is what happens after that: All those professionals gone, family members standing in a room still covered in blood, facing the prospect of living, even temporarily, with that scene. One thing these professionals do not do is clean it up.

Removing the evidence of a violent death is the responsibility of the victim’s family – an almost unimaginable task for the shocked and grieving.

Crime or not, mopping up after a traumatic death is not only a potentially horrific task. It also requires a significant amount of training and special knowledge. The job is hazardous, grueling and not for the faint-of-heart. Or stomach.

Crime and Trauma Scene –  The Basics

When a violent death occurs in someone’s home, the family typically doesn’t move out. Simply Cleaning’s team will remove any sign of what happened and any biohazards that resulted from it.

The HSE regulations deem all bodily fluids to be biohazards, so any blood or tissue at a crime scene is considered a potential source of infection.

Simply Cleaning have specialist knowledge to safely handle bio-hazardous material and to know what to look for at the scene – for instance, if there’s a thumbnail-size bloodstain on the carpet, there’s a good chance that there’s a 2-foot-diameter bloodstain on the floorboards underneath it. You can’t just clean the carpet and call it a day.

Simply Cleaning  – The clean-up operation and equipment

Whilst Simply Cleaning clean up practically anything, the most common scenes that we are called into address are suicides, accidents and “unattended deaths” (a.k.a. decomposing bodies), once we assess the damage, we decide which tools will help us to return the room, the house or business to its pre-incident state.

• PPE Personal protective equipment: a non-porous, one-time-use suit; gloves; filtered respirators and chemical-spill boots
• Biohazard waste containers: 55-gallon (208 liter) heavy duty bags and sealed, hard plastic containers
• Traditional cleaning supplies: mops, buckets, spray bottles, sponges, brushes
• Ozone machine (to remove odors)
• Hospital-grade disinfectants
• Industrial-strength deodorizers
• Enzyme solvent (to kill bacteria and viruses and liquefy dried blood)
• No-touch cleaning system (to clean blood-coated surfaces from a safe distance – includes heavy-duty sprayer, long scrubbing brush, wet vacuum)
• Razor blades (to cut out portions of carpet)
• Truck-mounted steam-injection machine
• Chemical treatment tank (to disinfect and store matter sucked up by vacuum systems)
• Carpentry/restoration tools: sledgehammers, saws and paint brushes
• Ladders
• Camera (to take before-and-after shots for insurance purposes)
• Van for transporting all of the tools and for hauling waste to a disposal site

Each type of clean-up scene comes with its own unique horrors. In the case of a violent death, there are bodily fluids to deal with, each tiny drop carrying the possibility of infectious disease.

 The Hazards

The site of a messy death poses dangers not everyone can see. In addition to the infection that can result from bloodborne pathogens, any bodily fluids that remain in floors, floorboards or walls can end up making people sick months or years later. The area has to be truly clean, not just apparently clean.

Cleaning up after a violent death can take anywhere from one hour to 40 hours or more. It all depends on the type of trauma and the amount of biohazardous material at the site. Simply Cleaning use hospital-grade disinfectant to wipe or scrub every drop of blood from all surfaces, including counters, ceilings, walls, light fixtures, glass trinkets, family pictures, artwork and appliances. They rip out and discard blood-soaked carpeting and remove blood-soaked upholstery, window treatments or rugs.

Effective trauma scene management requires a specialist level of cleaning. Simply Cleanings’ experienced trauma scene cleaning team will work discreetly with respect to effectively remove all bio waste materials, sanitise and disinfect all contaminated areas.

Simply Cleaning are experienced in handling natural and violent death clean-ups, suicide clean ups and cleaning up after undiscovered deaths. All potentially infectious materials are disposed in line with current medical and environmental legislation and full blood cleaning and stains removal is carried out as part of our trauma scene cleaning service.

Simply Cleanings team will work with compassion and professionalism to provide a swift conclusion, whatever the circumstances.

Call Simply Cleaning we have the most professional and skilled emergency cleaning team and use the latest in cleaning technology, cleaning products and cleaning services to provide your staff and clients with a balanced and healthy environment.

Simply cleaning can carry out a one-off deep clean or regular scheduled contract cleaning on a daily, weekly or monthly basis built around the individual needs of your situation.

Call our cleaning team on: 01454 260600

Email our cleaning services on: info@simply-cleaning-uk.com