What I do - -

Crime scenes cause pain and anxiety for those closely involved with the victims of crime, suicide, unattended deaths, accidents involving vehicles, and other scenes.

My job is to relieve others from these horrific tasks and some part of the emotional trauma associated with recovering the scene. I respond within the hour and often complete cleaning on the same day called upon to recover a biologically safe environment. My job entails a strong sense for common decency, and a willingness to work night and day, 24/7/365.

I do not charge additional fees for "off-hours" service. Trauma cleanup has no set hours, and neither do I.

Why I Clean Crime Scenes

(Othello and Desdemona - Wikipedia)

I am a professional cleaner, which means that I earn my living by cleaning crime and trauma scenes - - "niche cleaning." In this field of biohazard recovery, I clean trauma (blood soiled scenes) for money. There are other reasons that I clean bloody scenes, less material reasons.

Trauma cleaning challenges my imagination at times, and at times my Will to move forward. Cleaning trauma as a small business also gives me a sense of ownership few occupations bestow. I suppose an artist shares some of this sense of control. Unlike the artist, I have control over the object of my labor from beginning to end. I do not have the pressures placed upon my labor like an artist's customers demand.

In philosophical terms, I am not alienated from my labor. My type of labor predates the Golden Age. It is ageless.

I do not need to sell my crystallized labor to survive. I need to dispose of it, legally. I often ask myself, "Where do I begin and how should I move forward as I remove bloody debris?". "Can this be cleaned?".

It is best to first make some sense out of the violent act that lead to the crime scene's distortion of the "normal." This way I can map out where I know that I need to clean. I can then anticipate the breadth and depth of blood and other human effluents to be cleaned. I know too that in the last hours of cleaning, I will find debris previously missed and out of the scope of my initial survey of the debris field. It is not that I "miss" any blood or such, but that cleaning means to clean and re-clean, and to revisit the scene from different perspectives and with "new eyes" after taking some time out for a personal debriefing.

This process helps me to recognize and clean blood contaminated furnishings, mattresses, walls, clothing, fans, books, electronics, dishes, and more. Knowing the whereabouts and movement of the perpetrator and victim(s) helps to at least limit the scope of cleaning, usually.

Yes, at times the screams of the victim come to mind, the horrendous agony of foreseeing impending death by the victim comes to mind. The loss of relationships to relatives and friends comes to mind, all of which may pass through the victim's mind in those terrorizing last moments. Every Desdemona suffers the torment of impending death, emotional trauma cutting deeper than physical trauma. There is nothing that I can do to call back the past, to save the victim, to reduce those agonizing moments of stark terror. I can only imagine.

In a sense, I can honor the victim by cleaning his/her remains from the scene. I can nod my head in respect for the lost humanity as one might nod their head in respect for victims of a Macbeth or Othello. I can take a moment for sorrow in recognition of this earliest of all human aberrations and source of archetypes.

Cleaning trauma, like art, challanges the imagination.

Crime Scene

Rumsfield and you know who. Click HERE for more crime scenes.

Freedom

Freedom: Measured by an individual's participation in power, as used by Ralph Nader when quoting Cisero. The idea of the "wild" or wildnerness comes to mind in another context of "freedom." It is thought that with expanses of wilderness, viable bioregions in which species-populations may survive for the long-term (10,000 years, plus), one has the option, choice, to escape civilization. To be free from others.
Of course, human consciousness cannot be abandoned (short of injury or surgery), but the intent to withdraw does in some sense afford an option to be "free" from others or the State. Without the choice of wilderness, there can be no "freedom" in this sense of the term. Thoreau's efforts at Waldon Pond come to mind, but in a shallow-environmental sense of "freedom" used here in the context of wilderness.

The Drug War

How many crimes are committed for drugs, drug sales, and everything related to the illegal use of drugs? A bunch are committed, for sure, and innocent people die and are hurt and are crippled for life because of this manufactured war. The drug war as social policy destroys more lives than it could ever possibly benefit. It also destroys habitat and species-populations.

There was no drug war until Richard Nixon ran for president. He needed an issue, so bingo! The drug war was created and Nixon became chief crook, ah, burglar.

In terms of damage to individuals and their families, drug abuse does not even come close to alcohol abuse or the use of tobacco, not close at all. There seems to be something wrong here.

There is no excusing drug abuse when it hurts others, that is for certain. But how did we get here, "here" meaning the creation of a near-police state spending billions on a problem that could easily disappear over night? Major pharmaceutical corporations spend billions every year promoting their drugs to cure so many problems. TV, radio, billboards, and peer pressure promote the use of legal and illegal drugs. Gads, look at the spread of legal "energy" drinks!

Need I say more than this: Children grow up in homes where their parents model drug and alcohol use. Is it any wonder that children grow up to expect pills and such to cure their growing pains as they fail to cope with the agonies of failed consumerism?

And look no farther than Afghanistan for living proof of a war gone utterly wrong. More heroin comes out of Afghanistan today than before the US and friends went in to dislodge the evil Talaban, which is another story in itself. Look to the corruption of governments from Mexico and down and plenty of examples will come up. The extinction of rain forests continues because of the growth of cocaine.

Ironically, because of the drug war we are denied the use of hemp for creating wondrous, benign goods and services. Oils, paper, fuel, and medicine are a few of its uses, not to forget its important ecological affects. Hemp holds soil and slow or stops erosion, an important by-product of its wild or cultivated use.

We have the power to stop the killing, to stop the maiming, to stop the corruption, to stop the manipulation over night. So why do we continue to jail people for self-medicating? The answer is social control. One part of society believes that it must control those it does not understand. What if we allowed people to suffer the consequences of their own actions? What if we treated addictions like we treat diseases and medicate accordingly, rather than continue this anarchy of self-medicating at the expense of innocent police officers and other victims of the drug war?

Carpet Cleaners

Carpet cleaning was my second adulthood business endeavor. It didn't last long because of the competition. What a joke that was!

I once did an analysis of my competitors, and the first lesson that I learned is that there were far too many. Yahoo! showed me that I have over 40 carpet cleaners within 4 miles of my front door. Now how was I to compete with all of these guys?

No wonder customers were trying to drag my prices down to nowhere. And once on the job, husbands and wives would start adding on more and more and shirked at my suggestion that they should pay more.
No, my customers wanted a personal slave and came to believe that I was their personal slave once they had me indoors. I even had one old guy pointing to places on his carpet that he believed needed more cleaning. I had brought his carpet back from the floor of a motorcycle shop, literally, to a rather clean surface. He still persisted. Enough!

So I came to the field of Crime Scene Cleanup because there was "virtually no competition." Well, I learned again that there is plenty of competition and it is growing by the day, literally. In fact, I probably receive about 5 to 10 calls per week from people looking for work. And I don't blame them. I am just making a point.

Once I wrote at the crime scene cleanup email list at Yahoo!, "Will clean for food" as a title to my complaint about the competition, and the owner of a so-called "Crime Scene Cleanup School" personally attacked me by slandering me as a liar and worse.
And if you were thinking ahead, you are not going to be surprised to read that this guy is a tow-truck driver. So what does he know? He's a tow truck driver!

What can I say, other than the truth. There are far too many companies in this business for the amount of work.

Sometimes I get calls from people asking how they will do if they go into this business, so now I'm going to refer them to this page in this blog: http://crime-scene-cleanup.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-will-i-do-in-this-business.html

I have my recommendations for those interested in starting a business, but I will save those recommendations for later. I will not be recommending carpet cleaning or crime scene cleanup as a business to enter because of the intense competition for far too few customers. In the meantime, learn to live simply.

Universal Precautions for the professional cleaner

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) sets standards for "Universal blood and body-fluid precautions" or "universal precautions." It does so to help prevent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and other bloodborne pathogens in health-care settings. Under universal precautions, blood and certain body fluids of all patients are considered potentially infectious for HIV, HBV and other bloodborne pathogens.

Because these standards are expected to work in the healthcare environment, we use them in the trauma cleanup environment.

When thinking about “universal,” think that it includes ANYTHING which might contain human blood. Among ANYTHING are blood, cerebrospinal, synovial, pleural, peritoneal, pericardial, and amniotic fluids. Semen and vaginal secretions belong to the list of ANYTHING that might contain blood. In trauma cleaning, expect that these fluids will be present while working on a death scene. If the scene is moist, consider that it is deadly dangerous. Getting stuck, splashed, or splattered on the eyes, nose, mouth, or open wounds is an “exposure.”

Treat an exposure as an emergency. Stop everything and go to an emergency room. This is part of the protocol for Universal Precautions.

How dangerous is an exposure to the eyes, nose, mouth, or open wounds?

It would be irresponsible to try to quantify a level of hazard for such exposures. Every person, every situation is different. What I can say is that these types of exposures pale in comparison to needle stick incidents.

So visible blood is dangerous in this way of thinking. Whether blood or body fluids, treat it like it is a pathogen.

What is the most dangerous of all while cleaning?

Needle stick is the most deadly injury known for transferring pathogens; Hollow-core needles used for injecting medication and drugs have the highest known incidence of causing illness. Needless to say, when working a death scene where needles may be found, work slowly. Needless to say, professional cleaners are at less risk than nurses, doctors, and other medical personnel.

Still, injecting pathogens might also occur from broken glass, bed springs, and other pointed, sharp objects, which professional cleaners work around every day on the job.

Not all secretions require universal precautions, unless they contain visible blood:

Feces
Nasal secretions
Sputum
Sweat
Tears
Urine
Vomitus

Visible blood in anything requires the use of protective barriers. These barriers include gloves, gowns, aprons, masks or protective eye-wear. They must reduce the risk of an exposure.

Gloves should be worn for touching blood and body fluids. If blood might come into contact with your mucous membranes, or non-intact skin (open sores or scabs), wear gloves and bandages. A full-body protection suite with gloves and full-face respirator is often required. We call this PPE for “personal protective equipment.”

Gloves should be changed often and disposed of as bio-waste when they have had contact with blood. If they have been used to clean a bloody scene, but have had no blood contact, dispose of them as solid waste.

Hands should be washed immediately after gloves are removed.

For information about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed rule on occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens, call 202-523-7157. The last time I called this number it did not work. It is all that I have at this writing.