How to choose a biohazard cleanup company
Most people look for a biohazard cleanup company only once, after a death at home, a suicide, a violent crime, or the discovery that a relative's home has become unsafe. The work is regulated, physically demanding and emotionally heavy, and it is not something a family should take on alone. Blood and other bodily fluids can carry bloodborne pathogens, and the federal OSHA standard for that work requires trained crews, protective equipment and the disposal of contaminated material as regulated medical waste.
Two kinds of company do this work
Dedicated biohazard and trauma firms do little else: crime and accident scenes, unattended deaths, suicides, hoarding, and drug lab decontamination. Restoration companies, many of them SERVPRO, PuroClean or ServiceMaster locations, take biohazard jobs alongside water, fire and mold work. A restoration firm is often closer and can rebuild what has to be removed; a dedicated firm sees these scenes every week. Every city page lists both, and each listing shows the services the company names on its own website, so you can see which kind you are looking at.
What the services mean
Crime scene cleanup covers blood and bodily fluids after a homicide, assault or serious accident, once police have released the property. Unattended death cleanup deals with decomposition that has reached flooring and walls, and with the odor that comes with it. Hoarding cleanup clears a home that has become unsafe, often including animal waste, mold and pests. Meth lab decontamination removes chemical residue, and many states set the standard a property must meet before anyone lives there again.
State rules differ
A few states register or license trauma scene cleanup companies; California, for example, registers trauma scene waste management practitioners through its Department of Public Health. Several states certify meth lab cleanup contractors. Many state crime victim compensation programs pay for crime scene cleanup after a violent crime, up to a set amount. Each state page lists the rules that state publishes, with the agency behind each one.
Reading a listing
The services on a listing come from the company's own website. Where a site says nothing about a service, the listing shows "not enough info" rather than a guess. Ratings are Google's, shown with the number of reviews behind them: a 5.0 from three reviews tells you less than a 4.8 from four hundred. Insurance often covers biohazard cleanup in a home, and many companies on these pages say they work with insurers; whether a policy pays depends on the policy and the cause.