Gross Filth Clean Up-Hoarding Cleanup

Gross Filth Cleanup or Hoarding Cleanup is a very common job in the bio-hazard industry. We have has many gross filth jobs in a month as we do homicides and suicides combined. Gross filth/hoarding what is it? The is a condition called hoarding or hoarder syndrome. This is where a person or persons keep or pack rat everything, I mean everything. For instance; a person buys cat litter uses 3/4 of the bag then saves the bag for a later date and buys a new one instead of finishing the first bag. This process happens for years. This process will happen for everything purchased. Some hoarders will actually pack themselves into corners having little paths to walk through the house or apartment. In lots of cases the restrooms are not in working order or they can't access them, so they urinate and deficate in buckets, sinks, tubs, pales, bags and keep it or try and dump it in the toliet missing most of the time.

Recently; TDI had a job where a person had placed the mattress in the dining area to sleep, the bedroom was full. After we began to clean we found a nest with over 20 rats and thousands of roaches living in her mattress. Roach nest were so think that we had to remove the paint on the walls to get them off. One of my techs asked me what the coffee grounds all over the floor was for? I told him that it wasn't coffee but roach eggs. The rate nests under the dishwasher were so large it took 2 giant black bags to get all the debris. We also have a new nick name for one of our techs "Caleb" is now known as "Roach". Caleb was cleaning the kitchen wall, when he picked up one of the pictures on the wall, at least 300 roaches ran all over his body, he did have a suit on, but he never flinched, just kept on cleaning. Five techs saw his ability to stand his ground and he earned a new level of respect.

Chicken Truck

Since the double homicide inside that apartment, many jobs have come and gone. None more satisfying then a serious bio hazard located in South Texas. When we received the first call the gentleman was in a serious panic and was saying the "health department was going to do this and that; FINES FINES. Was about all he could get out of his mouth. After he calmed down, he told me that he was the manager of an auto auction that had taken in a wrecked refrigeration trailer to an 18 wheeler. He was told that ALL the contents had been removed and parked it in the back of the lot awaiting repair and auction. Needless to say; I wouldn't be writing this if they had gotten everything out of the trailer. They left 8,000lbs of 7 week old boneless skinless (pilgrim pride)chicken breast still in the boxes and bags. The neighbors (apartments) called the health department on the auction because of the serious fowl odor and the flies. The HD was pending a cancellation of a large (bio hazardous) fine pending our cleanup and disposal of such a hazard.

I went down the afternoon we got the call,I met with my father and headed to give an estimate. I figured I would need a full face respirator just to stand the odor. I also took some decontamination solution to clean off with after I looked it over. As we turned toward the auction, I could begin to smell the truck about 4 blocks down the road. As we pulled in, my father refused to park anywhere close, he was afraid the smell would get in the truck. I walked over and climbed up into the truck, I was shocked at how little I could see. It was pitch black in that trailer even with the two doors almost ripped off. I asked for the mag lite and turned it on. It was very apparent why it was so dark in about 2 seconds after I turned the light on. Flies Flies Flies Flies, is all I can say. When I hit that light, millions of flies flew off of the walls and made the entire truck light up. The walls were covered thick, I couldn't even tell where the walls stopped and started. It was a blizzard of flies. Thank goodness I had the full face respirator on. They basically covered me in about 20 seconds. The auction manager started gagging and jumped out looking at me covered from head to toe in flies. I have to admit; I didn't think I would ever experience something like that, but I did and I loved it.... I managed to get back to the pallets that were dumped over. I pulled a box open and opened the plastic bag. To my surprise, the chicken breasts in the top boxes were completely gone!!! It was digested by the maggots and was nothing more then liquid maggot poop. We did fine actual chicken breast in the bottom boxes were the flies were unable to get too. I also noticed that the truck was sitting on an incline so ALL the pallets and boxes were sitting in fluid, condensation and maggots from the chicken has it decomposed. The guy and my father started yelling wanting to know if I passed out, so I exited. I gave my bid and the guy accepted it right there on the spot. I made a call to the health offical and let him know we would take care of it in a professional fashion. After we left I promised to buy my father lunch at a local Whataburger. As we stood in line, I noticed folks wrinkling their noses starring at me and my father. I heard one man that had just stepped up tell his wife look st the back of his shirt, he cleans up dead people. Just then I stepped up to pay for my fathers lunch. When I pulled out my wallet out of my back pocket, at least 30 flies took flight out of my pocket, I guess they had gotten stuck. The woman began gagging and ran for the door, followed by her husband cussing me. Sorry folks can't help it, we will use the drive thru next time=-).

After I got back to Elgin, I started calling all my techs, I actually had one quit, to keep from having to do the job. When it was all said and done we had myself (John), my wife and partner (Suzanne), our now Tech Supervisor (Ella) and my 73 year old father (Cecil). We started early the next morning, the first job was to remove ALL the debris, boxes, broken pallets, plastic bags etc. We had a 40 yard dumpster pulled right up to the back of the truck. Of course everything was at the opposite end of the trailer. The floor was slick with chicken fat and maggot waste. I had to fog the flies just so we could see to get into the truck. There were jagged edges where the truck had jacked knifed and torn the doors from the aluminum siding creating very dangerous edges and points. No only was there physical danger but, we also had to deal with fatigue. Each Bio-hazard technician could only be in the truck no more than 20 minutes at a time. Once we would get out we had to completely sanitize ALL of the equipment that we had on each and every time. The odor was so bad that you couldn't get away from it. I placed a "LARGE" air mover in front of us so the odor was blowing off of us the other way. 17 Hours of pure delight, when we finished the Health Department took back the ticket cleared the lot and we went home. To this day there has not been a decomposition nor any other job that has held a candle to that "Chicken Truck".

Double Stabbing Homicide Apartment

It was mid-summer the company was brand new, when we first saw an early morning news broadcast of a very brutal double homicide (stabbing) in a local apartment complex. TDI got on the road and we made contact with in 3o mins of the broadcast. When we arrived at the complex the police were talking to an office girl. When they were finished I stepped up and offered my card and brochure assuring them that we can handle the situation for them. She took the information and I left. I wasn't in the car for more then 2 mins (I was still in the parking lot) when our Total Decon Inc. emergency number rang 888-411-DCON, it was the office manager. We spoke briefly about the situation, she was a mess. You could tell as with us; this was her first rodeo. We decided to meet a little later that day when she had time to think, and the police and media were hopefully gone.

That second meeting me and my Vice President/wife met with the manager and her assistant. We all decided that it would be best to compare notes of what we had learned from the police and the media. One thing we learned was that the killer had run from the apartment(homicide) across the complex to the (killers) neighbors apartment which was located in the same complex. It was the neighbor across the breezeway from the killers apartment that he went to at about 4am. That is where we all assumed the police caught up with the killer. The next thing that we all decided was that we needed to talk to that neighbor and make sure that he didn't need anything or that any biological threat was present in his apartment. The second thing that we learned; is it was a hispanic man that had killed two other hispanic men with a butcher knife and that the neighbor was HIV+. My wife and I knew we were in for a great first ride.
After all was said and done here was the low down. The three men had known each other and had issues in the recent past. We are not sure to this day if drugs were a reason for the attack, we do know that the killer was high. Witnesses told us that the killer was on the phone with one of the two victims yelling cussing and then ran out the door around 3:45am. Neither witness said they saw the knife, but later we find out the killer was a culinary student. He aparantly ran across the complex and walked right in the unlocked front door of the victims apartment. I don't think either guy thought or knew he came in the door. One of the guys was in the love sit with his back to the door playing playstation. The other guy was on the couch across the room asleep. We think that he walked in and stabbed the first guy in the head and then repeatedly on the floor. Brian matter was present all over the floor. I also think he died very quickly. The other guy on the other hand, I don't think was so lucky. They think that the killer cut his throat to wake him up. Then they fought all over that apartment, on every piece of furniture in the place. The killer was so enraged he was stabbing the guy in the chest and stomach going through the victim and sticking the butcher knife in the wall behind the victim. While in his rage the killer jimmyed down his own knife and cut his fingers off.

The sad thing is that a young lady with her 7 year old son witnessed the murders and then ran for their lives. We find out later the victims were her brother and finacee. She told me that she ran out into the living room where the killer had her boyfriend pushed against the wall stabbing him in the chest. She said she thought at first he was just punching him, but then she realized blood was everywhere. She turned around and ran into the bedroom; turned shut and locked the door. (I think it saved her life) She grabbed her son opened the slidding glass door and threw her son over the balcony and ran for her life. The killer realizing that someone was in the bedroom knocked down the door and hopped the rail and chased them up a set of stairs while yalling he would kill her, if she told anyone. He then ran across the complex dropping his shirt, knife and some other items. He stepped his right foot in a pool of blood and made one foot print for every step all the way across the complex up to his neighbors apartment. I think that is how the police caught him so quickly.

Once at the neighbors apartment, the killer tells him he was in a fight and that he needed help. The neighbor knowing him took him in and gave him a towel. He ran to the bathroom trying to

wash his hands and fingers. That is when the neighbor noticed his fingers actually gone at the finger tips. "He was bleeding everywhere." the neighbor said. Suddenly the door got kicked in and in runs SWAT. They hogged tied both of them and took them down stairs off to jail. The neighbor was relaesed and related part of this story to us. That is all that I know of the history of this homicide. Let's clean...
Once the contract was signed and we were off to clean, my first job was the outside. Yes, the outside. After we had followed the forensic spray paint and bloody foot prints for 150 yards across the complex. I realized that stranger blood was present every foot step for the entire 150 yards. The trail passed by the playground and the pool, through a couple breezeways and up 2 flights of stairs. To make things worse we were expecting rain and there were children everywhere.

We started decontaminating the walkways immediately. One of the techs was in front spraying decon and one behind with a high presure sprayer and decon going through as solution. Then we started with the neighbor's apartment, as he was still trying to live in that mess and the police had not released the primary murder scene. Noting that he was HIV+ we paid special attention to objects that were possibly tainted with blood or body fluids. We found a couple large veins in the sink and in the bathtub from the killer. The cleanup went very well in that apartment and it was a great starter, for what was up next. At that point we had know idea.

The main apartment was described to me as one of the worst slice and dice killings, one first reponder had ever seen. It took the police about 18 hours to release the scene. Approaching the apartment we started to notice finger print dust on all the outside wall as well as numbers and other forensic tools all over the 2 buildings next to the murder scene. Spray painted numbers were everywhere noting every step the killer took. Once the scene was released into my custody.
I made contact with the Young Lady and asked if she wanted anything out of the apartment? She stated she would like to come down with her family and get a few things. Before she arrived I knew I needed to get into the apartment and make it more presentable.

Once we had taken all the personal belongings out fo the house, the techs started to work. First we hd to clear a path way just in site the front door. Once we had enough space to work we started a path toward the bathroom next to the kitchen. We like to use the boath tube to clean and to decontaminate any items that may be trash before placing them in their perspective bags.

As soon as all the tools were in the apartment we began the process of getting the larger blood spots off of the floor. Any fresh or wet blood is a very serious bio-hazard and must be taken care of at the first safe moment available. All of the tech gathered around too learn and I began to rehydrate the blood. It is always much safer to clean wet blood then dry blood. Once the decontamination chemical was applied, I began to absorb and rehydrate until all the blood had been picked up. We lost one tech during this lesson, he left and never came back. I guess this job is not for everyone.

Now, we have a safe area to work we no longer have to worry about stepping in pure blood. At this point all the tools and vacumes are brought into the apartment to start the major cleaning process. One tech began to break down the furniture and the other began applying wet wads to dried blood spots on the wall. While one tech (clean) is outside retrieving any tools or chemcals that is needed by the techs inside working. On this scene we found eveidence, in such a case ALL techs stop immediately what they are doing stand up and walk straight out of the scene. The scene is now HOT again and we are not authorized to be in there at that point. The law enforcement offical that is handling the case is notified and we wait until the scene has been re-released. Once the homicide detective picked up the evidence we were able to start work again.

The trailer that we had to off load the trash and the bio-waste boxes was completely across the parking lot from the apartment. We had to haul them safely across the parking lot in front of spectators, so we blacked bagged everything. After the carpet had been pulled and the tile was disposed of we started decontaminating the walls. The walls had that cheap latex paint on them. So my wife had an incredible time getting the blood off the wall.
She didn't realize that you must keep your water very clean when washing latex walls, the paint and the blood both come off and contaminate the water very quickly. So, I was able to clean the wall in a fraction of the time. That is the difference between a "hands on training" class and a lecture class.

After we finished cleaning the walls we sealed them with a special sealer and then started clean the forensic residue. We started on the inside and worked out to the walkways. The finger print dust was a "new" type of dust that was very hard to remove with the older methods. We removed all of the stickers and the crime scene tape that was left. After everything was said and done we had 32 bags of black trash and 6 Bio-Hazardous Waste Boxes. 1 computer (special handling), 1 Love Seat, 1 Couch, 4 table chairs, Playstation, and numerous smaller personal objects that couldn't be saved. It took us 3 days for a total of 108 man hours to complete the job.