Suicide Call
We got a call from a very lovely lady who was distraught about the death of her brother who was found in his apartment after several days. It wasn’t clear how he died to us, but he took his own life.
Suicide is always a hard situation to walk into, but we do it with the utmost professionalism and respect. We deal with suicides often and they are never easy on the family and friends that are left behind. But Exit Biohazard Cleanup was started to help people in these situations.
It was unclearly suggested that his death was some form of a
self-induced drug overdose , possibly a needle used. The sister was our contact and she was not very clear on how he died exactly which is understandable because she was just managing the best she could under the circumstances. The
blood and bodily fluids that were left make it hard to say exactly how he killed himself but we didn't want to press the subject unless it was needed information for the cleanup. We like to know what we can when the situation is questionable. Drug over doses are too common now and some are not intentional so we need to do a risk assessment of the situation to also determine if there are drugs at the scene that can hurt our technicians of the public. At this point we determined there were not any dangerous dugs present. We were informed that he had HIV and Hepatitis which is always an eye opener but nothing we worry about because we honestly treat every cleanup as if there is every major deadly disease present. Safety is most important.
We showed up within the hour of the call and saw the situation which was contained to the living room where he died slumped between the coffee table and couch and bled out a bit on the floor possibly by an open needle situation. Either way it wasn’t too bad or a mess from what you could initially see as you can tell from the picture above, but it needed to be professionally cleaned and decontaminated.
WHO PAYS FOR THE SUICIDE CLEANUP?
often in most cases the home owners insurance pays for
biohazard cleanup. But in a rental situation it depends. The real issue was that the floor was the part that needed to be cleaned and my guess was that the tiles may even need to be taken up in that area since blood and bodily fluids seem to always seep into the grout and get under the tiles. The problem with that is that the landlord was the one who would have to "ok" this, and it was actually their responsibility to pay for that. The sister wanted to clean things for her brother and take care of the apartment and his property so that the landlord could move forward but she didn't want to have us do anything other than clean up the floor as if we could just clean the visuals without going further if needed. She didn’t want to call the landlord and have us talk to them until she did a few things so it was an odd situation. We couldn’t clean things properly without the landlord and the client didn’t want to contact them yet and there wasn’t any contact info available for them. So we were pretty much stalled. She also was very afraid of telling the landlord that her brother had HIV and Hepatitis which we suggested was needed to be known for safety reasons in case someone from the building came into the situation if it wasn’t cleaned professionally.
After some debate and understanding, we knew we couldn't move on this cleanup until the property owner / landlord was on board and she wasn't in the frame of mind to continue this day. She did want to organize his things and remove some of the property so to help her stay safe and do what she needed we decided to do a few things for her before we left. We ended up quickly disinfecting the couch and table which had no biohazardous material on them so we could move them for her and make a safe path for her to collect some property. We did this at no cost to her and we left it for her to decide if she would call the landlord and have us come back to do the cleanup. We helped for what we could without having a contract to be there, and she called back a couple days later to thank us again and let us know that the landlord had someone to clean the situation.
So we lost that job but helped the client a bit so she could move forward safely. We never heard from the landlord and I don’t think he really had a professional to do this cleanup or knew enough to remove tiles if the blood made its way there. We hope he did. We can only give our professional opinions to people. Odors will continue and the bodily fluids left could be dangerous if not cleaned properly but sometimes our hands get tied by the property owner and we can only say and do so much. We were happy to help the sister in this situation so that she could move on, because we are always here to help, and we know that sometimes we just don’t get the job and that’s ok.
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From NOLA TO BATON ROUGE and all surrounding areas, Trusted and Professional Biohazard Services
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Phone: (504) 722-1504 • Email: info@exitcleanup.com • License # 94037645
Call anytime 24hrs -7 days a week, 365 days a year, Free Estimates. Address 314 Penns Chapel Rd Mandeville LA 70471
Exit Biohazard & Crime Scene Cleanup Services