Everybody’s seen crime scenes depicted on TV; there’s yellow crime scene tape everywhere, a chalk line showing where the body was, lots of blood splattered everywhere, and police investigators tromping about looking for evidence, oblivious to potential biohazards. Shows like CSI, Law and Order, and True Detective portray crime scenes as gruesome and often chaotic, with no one wearing personal protective equipment and everyone swarming around randomly looking for clues. In reality, investigators enter a scene fully protected from biohazards, down to the plastic booties. They do their jobs quiet ..read more

Crime scene cleaners have the unenviable job of walking onto the scene of a violent act, cleaning up the mess, sterilizing the space, and making it look impeccable. Even for fans of the goriest horror movies, it’s hard to imagine the reality crime scene cleaners endure every day. Blood, body parts, brain matter, and all manner of bodily fluids and waste are part of their daily life. And no horror movie can convey the fetid reek of decomposition. How hard is it? Sometimes retired firemen or police officers take up the career and last only a day. While they’re used to seeing the aftermath of cri ..read more

How Is Hoarding Different from Just Plain Messiness? Hoarding disorder is a cruel mental illness. It causes the sufferer to believe possessions–however worthless–are valuable and must be kept. The thought of parting with things can be upsetting and stressful, so they are allowed to accumulate. The average messy person can get fed up with clutter and do a clean sweep, tidying and throwing away or donating things they don’t use anymore. Hoarders simply cannot do this. Hoarding begins with a home that is generally clean and maintained but beginning to be on the cluttered side, with piles of cloth ..read more

Facing the awful job of dealing with a biohazard cleanup? Most people don’t have a clue where to start, but fortunately there are cleaning companies that specialize in biohazards. It’s better to leave the smell, the mess, and the pathogens to professionals. They’re called biohazards for a good reason – the same reason the people who handle them wear PPE: they can make you very sick or even kill you. Biohazard cleanup is not a DIY kind of situation. How to Make Sure You’re Getting the Best Cleanup Team When it comes to choosing the right biohazard cleaning company, there are several things to c ..read more

People are fascinated by hoarders. A & E’s reality series “Hoarders” first aired in 2009, treating viewers to a glimpse inside the world of people who suffer from compulsive hoarding disorder. The show is still going strong; the latest season was released in May, 2023. As entertaining as audiences find the show, however, it documents an excruciating mental illness that causes its victims to live in filth and clutter, unable to stop themselves from piling up mounds of stuff that most people would consider garbage.  Friends and family members and property owners frequently find that hel ..read more

Password Protected To view this protected post, enter the password below: Password: Submit The post Protected: The Truth About Crime Scene Cleaning in California – Myth vs Reality appeared first on Sterile Pros ..read more

Crime scene cleaners spend their working lives surrounded by trauma. Day after day they receive frantic calls made by people essentially in shock with no idea how to handle the mess left behind after police,  E.M.S., and the coroner have gone. Most people don’t understand that the responsibility of cleaning up a crime scene falls to the property owner. It’s hard to document a typical day in the life of a crime scene cleanup technician because no two days are the same. There are so many variables, and each crime scene is different. Sometimes there are only a few drops of blood; sometimes e ..read more

To the average person, the life of a crime scene cleaner seems extremely gruesome. Dealing with the aftermath of a violent crime requires crime scene cleanup teams to spend their working lives dealing with blood, bodily fluids, tissue, and other biohazards. Cleaning up after someone has lost his or her life is hard on multiple levels. This is definitely not a job for the faint of heart. If you are curious about the profession, though, here are some secrets about crime scene cleanup that might interest you. 1 – Crime scene cleaners are affected by what they see. The emotional toll is hard to de ..read more

Most people who are faced with a significant blood spill do not know how to deal with cleanup properly. They may instinctively reach for a mop bucket or a few rolls of paper towels and the 409 spray bottle. This, however, is the last thing you should do. First of all, tackling a blood spill-anyone’s blood spill-without protective equipment is an incredibly risky thing to do. Second, in addition to not providing adequate disinfection, such action just spreads the contamination further.  Accidents in the workplace that involve blood spills or other biological material create a potential haz ..read more

The Grieving Process for Suicide Survivors Is Unique The unique grief process that survivors go through after a suicide sets them apart from survivors of other means of death. Suicide deaths often come with no warning and can be sudden and violent. This alone makes them traumatic. But there’s another element that sets suicides apart from other losses: they leave so many unanswered questions in their wake. Survivors may experience deep feelings of regret and guilt.  PTSD is not uncommon among suicide survivors as they replay images in their mindes and suffer extreme anxiety. Compounding th ..read more