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

Murder-Suicide on the rise nationwide

In less than a week there has been a rise in cases of murder suicide. Nationwide there's reports of murder suicides, where the people had either made an attempt to kill their family then themselves, or successfully committed the act.

What drives a person to want to kill themselves and their family?

Is it the stress from the plummeted economy?

Whatever the case may be, in the pass four-days this has been the case. In Michigan alone there's been three cases involving people that killed their family and then themselves. The most recent killing involved a South Lyon mother who gave her 13- year-old daughter prescription drugs, killing the child and then the mother tried to kill herself. The mother survived and is in critical condition at a local hospital.
Questions surfaced whether the mother was stressed about caring for the girl because the teenager suffered from mental disabilities and health problems. Police say on two recent occasions the teen became violent, by assaulted her mother.

Michigan
In another Michigan story, a mother shot her 14 year-old daughter in the back, then turned the gun on herself. In this case the mother didn't survive, but the child did.

Texas
In Texas, a mayor of a Dallas suburb killed her teen daughter before turning the gun on herself, according to the county medical examiner. Police found the bodies of Jayne Peters, 55, and her 19-year-old daughter Corrine at their home after being sent to investigate the Coppell mayor's absence from a council meeting. Police found notes throughout the house, none of the notes explained what led to the shootings – only instructions about the care of the family pets. Two dogs were also found in the house.

California
In California, a horrific scene was discovered when a co-worker of a man went to his house only to find that the man had shot his wife and 3 year-old son. The child hid himself inside a trash dumpster for 12 hours until police discovered him there. The police found the boy bleeding from 3 gunshot wounds to his shoulder, stomach and chest. His parents were found dead on lawn chairs outside the Anaheim home, and his uninjured 5-year-old brother was hiding elsewhere in the house. The older boy told police he could hear his baby brother "screaming and hollering," but didn't know where he was.
A friend said the family had financial problems. Police are continuing to investigate. "It's very difficult to determine a motive for killing your own kids," the police spokesman said. In another case, a 58-year-old woman and 81-year-old man were found dead in a San Rafael hotel Saturday afternoon in an apparent murder-suicide.

Chicago
A man identified as Eugene Robertson, 27, walked into a Old Navy store and shot and killed, Tranesha Palms in her 20s. According to reports from the Chicago Tribune, the couple lived together in an apartment in the 10200 block of South Walden Parkway in the Beverly neighborhood on the South Side.
A police said that the two arrived at the store at the same time, the gunman followed his girlfriend through a State Street door that led to the restricted area for employees. Once inside, the shooting happened quickly, with no signs of a prolonged fight or struggle.

Connecticut
A man and a women were shot to death in a car late Sunday morning in what police believe is a murder-suicide. The shooting happened in the Rite Aid parking lot on Hazard Avenue. When police arrived they found the two slumped over in the car, both people suffering from bullet wounds.The pair was rushed to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield by ambulance, and later died. The couple drove in separate cars and met in the parking lot. Police are still investigating to find out what led to the killing.

Georgia
Matthew Justice, 37, his wife Amy, 36, two children ages 14 and 11 years-old were discovered shot. The man apparently shot his family and turned the gun on himself. The 14-year-old male was transported to Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan where he remains in critical condition, the 11 year-old female who was also taken to the same medical center, got treated and released.

A shooting in Augusta, Georgia left one dead and one injured.

GROWING OLD ALONE Cleanup after unnoticed death now a growing industry

By MIZUHO AOKI

Yoshinori Ishimi could hear a high-pitched whine coming from the apartment in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, he was about to enter. When he went inside, he saw black "mini-twister" clouds of flies.

The last tenant had been a 60-year-old divorced man whose body was not found until a month after he had died.

"Every time I encounter such scenes, I hesitate to step inside. But someone has to clean up these flats . . . and be professional about it," said Ishimi of Anshin Net, a cleaning service that is part of R-Cube Co. in Ota Ward, Tokyo.

The Nerima man's case was not unique, and such unnoticed departures are only expected to increase.

According to a report by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, the number of single-person households is expected to rise from 14.46 million in 2005 to 18.24 million in 2030, or nearly 40 percent of all households.

With the growing number of single households in this graying nation, businesses specializing in dealing in what has been dubbed "lonely death" have become a fixture.

Anshin Net is one such example.

Founded in 2004, the company handles about 450 requests a year, about half of them dealing with cleaning out dwellings after the occupant has died.

The requests generally come from close relatives. But when people die alone and their corpses are not discovered for weeks or even months — the requests may also come from landlords, as well as more distant kin, because many people die childless and without a partner, Ishimi said.

"We receive about four to eight requests a month asking us to clean dwellings where the residents were found a week, a month, or, in extreme cases, a year after they passed away," Ishimi said.

Police process solitary deaths by carrying out autopsies and, if relatives can't be traced, municipalities cremate the body and inter the ashes in a shared grave, Ishimi said.

Ishimi and other specialist cleaners come in afterward and make dwellings clean again.

Although no figures are available, with the increasing media coverage about people dying lonely deaths, both the number of people engaged in this business and job requests have surged in the past two or three years, said Atsushi Takaesu, 38, an Okinawan who has run a special cleaning business in Kanagawa Prefecture since 2003.

"I had only about 10 cases a year about seven years ago. But this year, the number is likely to surpass 400. I received about 40 requests this June alone," said Takaesu, who recently published "Jiken Genba Seisonin ga Iku ("Here Comes a Crime Scene Cleaner"), a nonfiction book on his specialty of cleaning housing where people died lonely deaths, including suicides.

Takaesu said he is proud of his job but admits that at times it is heart-wrenching.

Pointing to a picture of a bathtub one-third full of a dark reddish liquid, Takaesu explained: "This is not ramen. This is a dead lady's body fluid and skin. I actually had to step into the bath to clean it."

Apart from the flies, maggots and pupae, crawling, sticking to windows and flying around, there is the hair of the dead, looking like a wig.

Also, bodily fluids and blood soak into tatami mats, and there is the stench of death that many in the business find difficult to totally remove, according to Takaesu.

"It is hard to pick up someone's hair with my own hands, but if you ask me whether I can do it, I can. But the appreciation I get after I clean up those rooms, totally removing the lingering smell of death, is the biggest thing that keeps me going," he said.

Ishimi of Anshin Net said people who die alone often share the same circumstances, and he strongly believes many can avoid this fate by changing their lifestyles.

"Many were men in their 50s or 60s, divorced, and with no job. They had not been in contact with their friends or families and they often were diabetic," Ishimi said, adding that when he goes inside their dwellings he often finds the curtains drawn and piles of empty food boxes from convenience stores, cans or bottles of alcohol, and insulin vials.

"It's sad. And to be honest with you, I ask them (the deceased), 'Why?' Because (in many cases) if they had changed their lifestyle, they could have avoided dying (in the way they did). They shut out the sunlight and fresh air with curtains, and isolated themselves from everyone," Ishimi said.

After seeing so many residences long after the occupant's death, Anshin Net is now shifting its focus on what it calls "welfare cleaning."

About half of the requests the company receives today are from care managers, helpers or sometimes municipalities asking for help cleaning the dwellings of elderly people who live alone and have huge garbage accumulations.

These people call first because they can't enter the elderly person's house unless the waste is removed, or, in some cases, following complaints made to municipalities from neighbors, Ishimi noted.

"In recent years, the number of elderly who live alone buried under a mountain of garbage has surged. Some have dementia and some are physically unable to take out the garbage. It is these people who are the ones most likely to die alone," Ishimi said.

"We want to minimize cases in which elderly people die alone. I believe cleaning their housing will act as a deterrence."

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.

Spike in killings and shootings around the city has New Yorkers worried

BY Jonathan Lemire
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU


Murders are up sharply in the city this year, with startling increases in gunplay across the five boroughs, a Daily News study of NYPD statistics shows.

The citywide murder rate has increased 22.8% in the first 11 weeks of the year over the same period in 2009, from 79 homicides to 97 as of Sunday, the most recent day for which statistics are available.

Shootings in general are also up citywide, with 293 people hit by bullets this year, a 16.3% change from the total of 252 recorded by March 21 last year.

Coming after a year in which New York saw the fewest number of homicides on record, the spike in crime rattled residents trying to go about their lives.

"There's always new problems," said Shirley Mercedes, 15, who lives in the South Bronx's gang-riddled 40th precinct, where the crime rise has been steepest.

Seventeen people have been shot in the precinct this year, compared with five over the same period last year.

"[It] is getting worse," Shirley said. "I shouldn't be used to it, but it's where I live."

There were 466 slayings in New York in 2009, the lowest year-end total since the NYPD started its tracking method in 1963.

"The NYPD is fighting its own success," said Paul Browne, the Police Department's top spokesman.

Browne pointed out that this year's murder rate is still 14% lower than 2008 and 39% lower than the murder rate in 2001.

The dramatic 2009 drop came despite harder economic times and a smaller police force stretched thin by counter-terrorism operations.

That big success is losing some ground, the statistics show.

Murders in Manhattan have risen from 9 to 16, a 77.8% increase, and they are up 28.6% in Queens, from 14 to 18.

Brooklyn and the Bronx have also suffered an increase in the murder rate - both at about 15%. Only Staten Island has seen another decrease in the homicide rate.

The overall city crime rate, comprised of seven major felonies, dropped 2% in the first three months of the year. And even among the increases, the raw numbers are still very low.

Some neighborhoods feel under siege.

"It's like war [and] it's getting worse every day," said Joel Araujo, 19, who works at a clothing store in Port Morris, Bronx.

In tree-lined Queens Village, murders have gone from 1 to 5 through Sunday - and the medical examiner confirmed a sixth yesterday - while shootings in the neighborhood have increased from 2 to 9, a 450% jump.

The 88th Precinct in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, has already had six shootings this year, after having none in the first months of 2009.

Police officials have long credited the dramatic recent drop in crime to Operation Impact, which floods felony-prone areas with uniformed rookies.

Proposed budget cuts could further imperil its effectiveness by reducing NYPD manpower, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has warned.

Browne partially attributed the increase in murders to a rise in arson deaths, from zero to six, and in homicides among family members, from 12 to 14.

Woman Sues NYPD For Leaving Crime Scene A Bloody Mess - New York Post

It is bad enough when a man is murdered in your backyard - but it is worse when the city leaves you to mop up the mess, the New York Post reported Sunday.

That was the lament of three Queens, N.Y., women suing the city for failing to clean up a crime scene or keep a promise to advise them on how to safely scrub bodily fluids from their driveways and walkways.

Grace Scott, 56, was in her home with a friend when shots rang out Nov. 28, 2008.

Police told Scott and her family to stay inside as they investigated the murder of Sheldon Francis, 31.

Authorities said at the time that they would go back to talk to the homeowners about the cleanup.

No one ever did.

"I don't know how to clean up blood," said Scott, shuddering at the memory of being unable to remove the stains. "It was embedded."

Scott tried using peroxide and bleach before finally paying $4,000 to replace the concrete.

The NYPD, which is being sued for $120,000, said it does not clean up crime scenes.

After 3 Suspected Suicides, Cornell Reaches Out

By TRIP GABRIEL
ITHACA, N.Y. — All weekend, Cornell University’s residential advisers knocked on dorm rooms to inquire how students were coping.

On Monday and Tuesday, the start of a stressful exam week before spring break, professors interrupted classes to tell students they cared for them not just academically, but personally. Both days, the university president, Dr. David J. Skorton, took out a full-page ad in the campus paper, The Cornell Daily Sun, saying: “Your well-being is the foundation on which your success is built. If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help.”

The university is on high alert about the mental health of its students after the apparent suicides of three of them in less than a month in the deep gorges rending the campus. The deaths, two on successive days last week, have cast a pall over the university and revived talk of Cornell’s reputation — unsupported, say officials — as a high-stress “suicide school.”

“I think everybody’s kind of shaken. I know I am,” said Nicole Wagner, a 19-year-old freshman from Newport Beach, Calif. “I wanted to go home.”

She was crossing the Thurston Avenue Bridge, which was strewn with red carnations and affixed with fresh stickers for a suicide prevention telephone line.

On Thursday, the body of a sophomore engineering student, William Sinclair, of Chevy Chase, Md., was recovered from the rugged gorge more than 70 feet below the bridge, where the fierce waters of Fall Creek sluice through a narrow corridor. The body of Bradley Ginsburg, a freshman from Boca Raton, Fla., was found in the same vicinity on Feb. 17.

Then on Friday, Matthew Zika, a junior engineering student from Lafayette, Ind., died when he dropped from a suspension foot bridge a short distance downstream, according to the university. Rescue workers have yet to recover his body in the rain-swollen creek.

The Ithaca Police Department is investigating both of last week’s deaths, but the university is responding as if they were suicides. Besides aggressive mental health outreach, Cornell has stationed guards on the bridges through the end of the week.

“While we know that our gorges are beautiful features of our campus, they can be scary places at times like this,” Susan Murphy, the vice president for student and academic services, said in a video message posted on a new Web site,caringcommunity.cornell.edu.

As disturbing as the recent deaths are, they are just the latest of 10 by enrolled students this academic year, including deaths from illness, accident and no fewer than six ruled as suicides by the county medical examiner or still under investigation, according to campus officials.

Last Thursday, e-mail blasts went out to 35,000 students and faculty and staff members acknowledging Mr. Sinclair’s death, followed by a message to parents and one from the college president.

“Unbelievably, shockingly, we had to do the same thing the next day,” said Thomas Bruce, the vice president for communications.

Despite the half-dozen known or suspected suicides this year, Timothy Marchell, a clinical psychologist in Cornell’s campus health services whose specialties include suicide, said that, historically, Cornell suicides have not been higher than what national statistics predict for a university population of 20,000 students: about two per year.

Between 2000 and 2005, there were 10 confirmed suicides, Dr. Marchell said, and from the beginning of 2006 through the beginning of this academic year, there were none.

Dr. Marchell said he was “well acquainted with the perception of Cornell as a suicide school,” having grown up in Ithaca and graduated from Cornell. But it is an urban legend, he said, largely fueled by the fact that suicides there are often shockingly public.

“When someone dies by suicide in a gorge, it’s a very visible public act,” he said.

Cornell’s mental health outreach in recent years, which has attracted national attention, is intended to bring students who are at risk, and who might not seek help, into counseling. Custodians are trained to look for signs of emotional trouble when cleaning out dorms; therapists hold open-door hours at 10 campus locations; and a faculty handbook advises professors about how to spot students’ distress in its many contemporary forms, from disturbing artwork to clothes that disguise self-mutilation.

Despite these efforts, Dr. Skorton said in an interview, “We are not getting the job done,” adding that suicide among young people is a national health crisis and is not specific to one campus. Administrators at Cornell have been “very intensively reassessing” existing programs in recent weeks, he said.

Around campus, students and staff wondered whether some combination of familiar stresses — the long upstate New York winter, classroom demands of an Ivy League university — and new factors, like the evaporation of internships and jobs for graduates during a bleak recession, had provoked the recent deaths.

Dr. Marchell cautioned that it is almost impossible to link broad causes to suicide rates, that “the psychology of suicide can be very individual.”

He and others, however, are concerned that students’ deaths may lower barriers for others who are contemplating it. “We have to be thinking about the potential influence on the collective psychology,” he said.

Mr. Zika, the most recent to die, was remembered by friends not as lonely and stressed-out, but as quick to laugh and a caring friend — he drove for hours during the recent winter break from New York to Indiana visiting friends, recalled Deirdre Mulligan, one of those he dropped in on.

Mr. Zika, who had been a star baseball player in high school, played Ultimate Frisbee with Cornell friends, wrote poetry on his Facebook page and had a tattoo with a lyric from the rock band Incubus: “If the wind blew me in the right direction, would I even care? I would.”

Nicole Huynh, a freshman who began dating Mr. Zika last semester, said in an e-mail message: “During this current semester, some who knew him more than others could see he was having a rough time. He’d talk, but it wasn’t as much. He slept more than usual. Didn’t feel motivated about some things. Tried distancing himself, little by little.”

She does not think the stress of studies pushed him to the edge, but rather troubles he carried from early in life. She suspected he was having suicidal thoughts, and both she and Ms. Mulligan said close friends had urged him to seek counseling, but they did not know if he did. The university declined to comment, citing privacy laws.

Ms. Huynh said she and Mr. Zika agreed to suspend their relationship a few weeks ago as he pushed her away.

“Many people listened and cared a lot about him,” Ms. Huynh said. “But no matter how great his support system was, his mind was set, and he was going to do whatever he wanted to do.”

An insight into crime scenes clean up services

Crime scene cleanup companies also clean unattended deaths, damaged environments due to tear gas, and other crime and distress scenes. The larger crime scenes that involve mass murder scenes, terrorist attacks and anthrax and other biochemical damage is also taken care by these companies. Crime Scene Cleanup services may also include bird and rodent infested areas. The cleaners in this case require special experience and equipment than a typical cleaning company’s experience and equipment.

Typically, crime scene cleanups start taking place only after the coroner’s office and other government bodies releases the “scene” back to the owner or some other responsible person concerned with it. The cleaning task can not begin till the police investigation is completely finished on the contaminated scene.

In most cases crime scene cleanup is a small business activity. Mostly, small cleaning services like carpet cleaning or water damage companies add services for Crime Scene Cleanup for diversifying their activities. The prominent and recognized organizations in this field of cleaning consist of the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning, and Restoration Certification (IICRC) and the American Bio-recovery Association (ABRA).

Earlier crime scene cleanup was a loathsome job but today it has become a lucrative business. Crime scene cleanup companies can charge anywhere between $100 to $600 per hour depending on the “level of trauma” and the quantity of hazardous material that the cleaners have to deal with and dispose of.

While a crime clean up service is ultimately a business like any other, advertising and marketing your services can be tricky. In a job that involves tragic death; most companies avoid mainstream methods of advertisement. Some choose the standard phone-book route while many others advertise on the side of their vans. Most of these companies largely depend on discreet options like passing out their business cards at service-industry gatherings, police stations and funeral homes.

An important requirement for success in this industry involves being considerate towards the sensitive nature of the work. There are certain crime scene clean-up companies that provide a grief counselor to the families at no cost while others offer discount to needy people. There are many countries where this type of service is funded by government or by religious organizations.

While some people call this emerging field a social trend of commercializing death, others call it plain capitalism. But for many others it still remains an essential service, a godsend. The fact is that whether you like it or loathe it but if you ever end up with blood and brains splashed all over your bedroom walls, you will definitely be relieved that there is someone you can call to clean it up.

Trauma Cleaning: Without Standards, The Pain Can Keep Coming

by Kent Berg

As an instructor in crime and trauma-scene recovery and a board member of the American Bio-Recovery Association, I am often approached by attorneys, the public and insurance adjusters to evaluate the service they or their clients received from other crime-scene cleanup companies.

For the most part, these are just routine questions from people who want to make sure that the service they received was within the normal parameters of good practice. But a few times each month I receive calls that just cause my stomach to knot up and my blood to boil.

With the bio-recovery industry in its 14th year, it is mind-boggling to find individuals who still decide that they are going to start-up a new company and declare themselves “experts” in crime and trauma scene cleanup without any research or training.

It is even more outrageous to find that, although they know almost nothing about the science, chemistry, biology or laws of our industry, they are charging fees that are often four or five times the industry average.

The majority of those operating in the industry today are honest, ethical professionals. It’s the few bad apples in the bio-recovery barrel, so to speak, that amplify the problems tainting our industry.

Example 1: The Hit-and-Run Guys
A husband argues with his wife in their kitchen. As she prepares supper, he grabs a shotgun and, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, blows his head off.

It is still daylight when the police arrive. In order to see better, they open the brain-splattered dining room drapes. Splatter is on the dining room and kitchen walls, but since the body fell onto the vinyl tile floor of the kitchen, the largest amount of blood pooled there.

The family asks the police about scene cleanup, and is directed to a local company. The company tells the family that payment will have to be made in cash prior to starting the job, and that the family will not be allowed inside of the house while the cleaning process takes place.

The family agrees and stays with relatives until they get the call that the job is complete and they can return. The company is long gone, and upon cursory inspection, the rooms look contaminant-free.

It is now night and, in an effort to keep neighbors from seeing into the dining room, the wife pulls the drapes closed. To the horror of the family, the drapes had apparently never been checked and still have blood and brain matter clinging to the material.

The kitchen floor appears to be clean but, when the wife walks across the floor, bright red blood spurts up between the tiles, making little puddles and polka-dotting her shoes.

If this isn’t enough to re-traumatize the family, the wife goes to remove the now-cold pot of chili from the stove and promptly throws up when she sees a 3-inch piece of her husband’s skull nestled neatly atop the pot.

The family contacted the attorney general for their state, who then called me to review the family’s statements prior to a decision on prosecution.


Example 2: The Little-Extra-on-the-Side Guys
A man who lived alone died in his bed of natural causes, but wasn’t found for several weeks. When the authorities were finally called, the decomposition could be smelled from the street.

When a crime-scene-cleanup company was called in, the man’s relatives were told that the odor had permeated everything in the house with disease. Their recommendation was that everything in the house should be removed and destroyed.

The family, already nauseated from the smell, relied on the “professional opinion” of the technicians and agreed to let them remove everything from the good silver and china to the appliances.

In short, every piece of furniture, appliance, electronic component and fixture was removed because they were declared “not salvageable.”

The relatives were then presented with a bill for approximately $40,000! If this wasn’t obscene enough, a few weeks later the family found many of the home’s contents that were supposedly “not salvageable” being sold at a local flea market.


Example 3: The Cutting-Down-on-Overhead Guys
It is standard practice for crime and trauma-scene cleanup companies to dispose of human-blood-contaminated items that can’t be salvaged. They do this by red-bagging and boxing these items and sending them to a medical waste processing facility. This includes dismantling recliners, mattresses, and other large items to fit in these containers.

In this case, a company responded to a gunshot suicide in an apartment. The victim had sat in his favorite recliner and put a pistol in his mouth. The subsequent wound bled profusely until there was no more blood for the heart to pump. This resulted in the complete saturation of the recliner.

In an apparent effort to save on labor and disposal fees, the crew decided that they would dispose of the recliner by wrapping it in plastic, putting it in the back of their truck and then dumping it in the woods of a neighboring county.

All seemed to go well until a few days later, when hunters found the chair and called police. Thinking that they had stumbled upon evidence of a homicide, the police launched a full-scale investigation that lasted for weeks and logged many detective hours before they were actually able to review the crime scene photos of every police department in the surrounding counties.

When the mystery was finally attributed to this particular crime-scene-cleanup company, not only were they slapped with fines for littering, they were saddled with reimbursing the cost of the investigation. Every law enforcement agency that heard about this dropped the company like a hot potato, and the subsequent media attention tarnished the reputation of crime-scene-cleanup companies everywhere.

I would like to emphasize the fact that these complaints are not clients disappointed with a poorly painted wall or an out-of-true vanity top. These are abuses by unscrupulous companies that are subjecting their clients to financial greed, improper disinfection, and re-traumatizing that no one should have to endure.

Could training and certification eliminate these types of abuse? Perhaps a good portion of them, but in the end, it is the honesty and character of the companies themselves that should be monitored. I believe the way to do that is to pursue standards, as well as meeting with our state legislators to create specific regulations for our industry.

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.