SEP 01, 2017 by PAUL MARVEL
Tonight Bio-One of Tucson received a phone call in the middle of the night from a mother who had just lost her adult aged son to suicide. He had lost his job due to the Covid-19 pandemic weeks ago and was silently struggling. Her story was tragic and unfortunately not unique, and when I was finished helping her schedule for us to provide immediate Biohazard services I hung up with tears in my eyes. Not only had she lost a son, but she also was facing the challenge of how to afford to pay for the services she needed to clean up the area left behind, and plan a funeral. It was heartbreaking, and a story that I had heard multiples times this past week from a wide range of our Tucson community. Mental Health affects all of us in this community, regardless of socio-economic status, ethnicity, orientation, or age.
Mental health professionals around the globe have expressed how the social isolation, economic and medial stress, and the barriers to in-person mental health care created by the current pandemic can cause "the perfect storm" when it comes to mental health. The Journal of American Medical Association wrote an an article that detailed the stressors that can be significant during this time https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/12/coronavirus-crisis-creates-perfect-storm-for-suicide-risk-as-job-losses-soar-and-people-remain-isolated-at-home.html
Therefore I felt the imperative need to reach out to you and let you know that right now, more than ever it is important to check on those in your immediate circle of influence and reassure them that they are not alone. Check on your friends and family frequently, send cards to those isolated in nursing homes that can no longer have visitors, teleconference those that can not travel... you can make an impact on your circle.
Bio-One of Tucson provides the type of services that we hope our community homeowners and business owners never need to call us for. However, with our current environment, the number of active Corona Virus cases continues to increase along side the increasing number of unattended deaths occurring in the Tucson area. These circumstances cause individuals and businesses alike to face the need to be able to find affordable remediation solutions, and we are here to help you work through those challenges.
What Solutions Can I Communicate to Someone Who Experiences an Unattended Death?
Bio-One of Tucson experts strictly adhere to the to the stringent OSHA and CDC regulations surrounding the decontamination of and removal of biohazardous waste. When there is a large loss of blood or human decomposition it is especially imperative that these guidelines are followed stringently to properly disinfect the area and prevent further health risks to the surviving family, friends, and the public that may interact in those areas in the future.
When it comes to these services unfortunately the majority of the clean up costs are the burden of the homeowners or business owners. However, what many are unaware of is that for unattended death most Homeowners Insurance policies provide some type of of coverage. We urge you to call your insurance carrier and ask what coverages your policy provides to see if it might help ease that financial burden. Bio-One of Tucson is well experienced in working with insurance carriers to determine coverage, and is happy to work with homeowners to help identify what coverage they may be entitled too in order to help alleviate costs.
For those services that are not widely covered by insurance carriers such as Covid-19 disinfection services we can help provide third party financing options to help you afford what needs to be done to keep you safe.
We believe in the enormous heart of our Tucson community and their desire to take care of their families, friends, employees and the public. However, none of us planned for this pandemic, or can plan for an unattended death in our circle. These situations can be unexpected, and it's our aim to help provide resources to assist in navigating unchartered waters. If you, or someone you know, needs help answering these questions please give us a call at 520-771-5960 24 hours a day. We are here to help.
In the midst of COVID-19, it’s more important than ever for all of us to be paying special attention to our cleanliness, both at home and during our day-to-day activities. COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus, has been sweeping through our news cycles, and it’s beginning to impact us more and more every day. Arizonans have been told to stay home, save for essentials, and as we experience an unprecedented state of shutdown, it’s tempting to give into panic.
But before you start envisioning the worst possible outcome, take a moment to sit down, breathe, and listen to this good news: there’s a lot that you can do at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Indeed, while Coronavirus has inspired a wide amount of fear among the populace and provoked strong government responses, there’s some good news. COVID-19, at the end of the day, is pretty wimpy in the face of soap and water. If you apply the right cleaning agents, the virus molecules easily fall apart. Ergo, as long as you’re staying disinfectd and applying appropriate measures in your home, there’s a good chance that you can prevent its spread should you come in contact with it.
In this blog post, we’ll look at what you can do at home to combat Coronavirus, and what we’re doing here at Bio-One.
Keeping Your Home Clean From COVID-19
The reason why COVID-19 has provoked such a strong response is that it’s a sneaky little virus that spreads around while its host shows no symptoms. Most of the people who start showing the telltale fever have actually had it in their system for a week or two (according to current estimates), which means that you could potentially be exposed to the virus without even knowing it.
This means that you need to be extra proactive in keeping your home clean. Even if you have no reason to believe that family members or visitors have caught the virus, it’s possible that they could be spreading it around without showing symptoms. Instead of waiting around for the problem to happen, get ahead of it. Here are some things you can do to curb the spread of Coronavirus in your home:
Sanitize All Surfaces That Are Frequently Touched
While much research is still being done on COVID-19, current research suggests that it spreads in two ways — airborne transmission (similar to a cold or flu) and surface-to-surface contact. There’s not much you can do about the former, except for distancing yourself from carriers. But with the latter, you can stop the spread of germs by disinfecting surfaces where the virus may be dwelling.
Coronavirus is capable of surviving on various surfaces for different periods of time. The more solid and smooth the surface, the greater the likelihood of it sticking around. Here are some estimates of how long COVID-19 can dwell on various surfaces, based on current research:
As you can see, steel, plastic, and glass are the troublemakers here. COVID-19 can literally last for days if it makes contact with one of these surfaces, and all it takes for someone to catch it would be to touch the said surface (thus transferring some of the virus to their fingers) and then get it into their airways — something that is highly likely if you touch your face.
With that being said, here are some surfaces you should consider wiping down regularly:
Keep Your Phone Clean
While this could easily be lumped in with the point above, we believe it deserves its own special mention in this post, due to how glued we are to our phones every moment of the day.
Remember that bit above about how COVID-19 can survive on glass for up to four days? Yeah, that’s bad news, given that the overwhelming majority of smartphones have glass screens. Suppose one of your friends or family members has caught the virus, and you don’t even know it. Suppose you let them use your phone to snap a photo or show you a funny video. Now you’ve potentially got nasty COVID-19 molecules hanging out on the device that you carry around everywhere.
During this pandemic, it would be prudent to be careful about who you loan your phone to, even if it’s just for a moment. And, to be safe, you should wash it down at least once a day with soap and water. It’s important to be delicate — many phones aren’t waterproof, so you don’t want to overdo it. Disinfectant products and a slightly damp, lint-free cloth should do the trick, and good ol’ disinfectant wipes are also an option. You just want to make sure you’re not letting out too much liquid, if any at all — if anything gets into your phone’s internals, it could be the end of the line for your device. Be careful!
Wash, and then Disinfect
We’ve talked about cleaning the common surfaces of your home, but it’s important to know how. If, heaven forbid, somebody sneezes COVID-19 molecules all over your home, you need to be going about sanitization the right way.
Due to the nature of Coronavirus, it falls apart easily when exposed to normal soap, due to its lipid membrane layer. For DIY cleaning tasks, we recommend washing down surfaces with hot soapy water first. After you’ve done a few good passes, spray it or wipe it with a disinfectant product. To make things easy, the EPA has a comprehensive list of disinfectant products that are eligible to fight COVID-19.
The best practice is to leave the surface wet for the cleaning product’s recommended time. This allows the disinfectant to settle in and fight against any viral cells that might remain.
Wear Gloves
We confess that disinfectant gloves may be difficult to come by right now, joining the mythical ranks of toilet paper and hand disinfectr as products that are impossible to find in stores. But if you have any type of protective gloves, you’ll be better off wearing them while you clean.
It’s not like you have to put on protective gear and religiously wipe down every surface of your home every single day. But if you suspect you may have come into contact with someone who has the virus, it’s better to err on the side of caution.
What If My Home Has Been Exposed to COVID-19?
While we’ve outlined a list of general tips for keeping your home nice and disinfectd, these are all intended to be preventative measures just in case the virus might be spreading without you knowing. But if you’ve come into direct contact with someone who has been tested for the virus, you don’t want to take chances, especially if you have someone in your home who falls into one of the at-risk groups. In this kind of scenario, it would be wise to call a team of professionals to ensure that your home has been properly disinfected.
COVID-19 Cleaning Services in Tucson and Surrounding Areas
In many areas, all non-essential businesses have begun to shut down. But at Bio-One, we’re as essential as can be, due to our ability to thoroughly cleanse and disinfect areas that have been exposed to the virus. As a cleaning company that specializes in biohazards, we are uniquely equipped and trained to combat COVID-19. On days where we aren’t helping Tucson businesses and homeowners to clean up after the virus, we are doing other jobs such as blood spill cleanup, mold remediation, crime scene cleanup and more.
There is no cleaning method in the world that guarantees total and complete elimination of pathogens. But when you work with us, you’ve got the strongest fighting chance. We have been working around the clock to help protect Greater Tucson from the spread of Coronavirus. If your building has been exposed, we encourage you to give us a call today.
So you read up on how to spot a potential hoarding situation, you’ve realized you or a loved one may have a problem, and you’ve acknowledged that help may be needed to address the issue. Congratulations, you’ve already taken a giant leap towards getting help!
Now, what’s the next step?
Hoarding is a mindset that can either feed off mental illness or can act as a mental illness in and of itself. Because of this, it’s important to remember that treating it in an incorrect manner can just start the hoarder back at square one, or traumatize them and make things even worse. Just like a chronic health condition can take an ongoing treatment plan to keep in check long after the symptoms have gone away, getting a hoarder help relies as much upon making sure the symptoms causing the hoarding are addressed as well as the hoarding process itself.
Relapses may happen, and it may take approaching treatment in a number of different ways before any tangible progress is made. If you find you’re getting upset with a lack of progress, take a step back and breathe. While understandable, anger and frustration can spark regression as the hoarder goes back to handling stress in the way that they best know how; by surrounding themselves with possessions that help them feel safe.
The old Daoist proverb rings especially true with hoarding; while it may be easy to understand that getting help for a hoarder is a gradual process, it can be harder to accept that getting the hoarder to even part with one item is a success. Take every win as a step in a never-ending journey, where even getting the hoarder to admit that they have a problem can be difficult to accomplish.
Just because you managed to clean out the house once doesn’t mean it will stay clean. Make sure that, if you’re the hoarder, you stay on top of warning signs that you may be repeating old habits. If you’re the loved one of a hoarder, keep an eye out if it seems like they might be regressing. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is another adage that is incredibly relevant here — if help is obtained before the hoard becomes a problem again, catching the mindset that enabled the hoard to re-emerge may lend valuable insight into what may be causing the issue in the first place.
If possible, seek to enlist the help of a specialist to help prepare the hoarder mentally for the ordeal to come. Mental health is an exceedingly important part of a successful hoarding recovery strategy, and some sort of mental preparation is essential. This might be therapy, advice from someone who was in a similar situation, or just general encouragement and support.
If the hoarder refuses to see a mental health expert or is otherwise against seeking help because they don’t think they have a problem (or if this sort of help is otherwise unattainable), it may be worth consulting with a specialist for advice on how to persuade the hoarder to get enough help that they’re open to having others help begin the process of cleaning.
The most important thing not to do is lure the person out of the house and then clean for them, or force them to take part in something they are adversely against. This can make the underlying symptoms worse, will not stop the hoarder from continuing to collect belongings that will eventually build up once again, and can make true recovery even more difficult. Bio-One Tucson works with clients for precisely this reason.
Once the hoarder is ready to help and willing to take steps to change, even if tentative initially, then the actual cleaning can begin.
Interventions, in extreme cases, can be effective. Of course, this depends very heavily on how well the intervention is staged, whether the path towards recuperation is clearly charted from intervention until recovery, and upon the individual. However, interventions should always be a last-ditch effort. In some cases, they may even make things worse.
It is highly recommended to hire professional help like Bio-One Tucson for help with the actual cleaning process. It’s possible piles of belongings haven’t been moved or even touched in years, and could be hiding swarms of pests, dangerous molds, or festering diseases. Your goal is the same as ours — getting the hoarder’s living space back to pre-hoarding conditions — and years of helping others do just that has given us valuable experience that we can leverage to safely and efficiently assist in cleaning efforts.
If you are curious about our process and what makes us different from other services you might seek to hire, just take a look at the services we provide. By not focusing just on one specific task, we can handle complex situations that others may not be able to, including:
Pet waste
Mold
Medical biohazard (such as blood, biological waste, and more)
Terrible odors
Sewage backup
In addition to the services we provide, we work with clients to help bring them comfort in a time of great distress and treat them with respect and compassion in order to make the process easier on them. While this process isn’t an easy one, it is one that we seek to make as easy on everyone involved as possible.
If you want advice, more information, or to enlist our help with cleaning out the home of either yourself or a loved one, visit our Hoarding page today. With years of experience under our belts and a client-focused attitude towards customer service, we can’t wait to help you reclaim your home.
Strange odors are a good sign that something is not quite right with your house. Whether you have a sewage backup, an animal infestation, a mold problem or an undiscovered death in your vicinity, a trademark stench can help point you in the right direction to see what’s going on. Even something more mundane like a stale, musky odor that just won’t go away can be annoying, and a good enough reason in and of itself to call an expert cleaning crew for help.
Some common smells and their causes can be found below. If the scent is long-term and you find it lingering in your home long after the source of the smell is gone, contact Bio-One Tucson today for information on our odor removal services. Years of experience and use of the best products around help us to ensure that we treat the odor at its source so you don’t have to deal with it any longer.
If you smell something that “smells like death,” chances are it could be. Undiscovered death, or the death of someone that goes under the radar for an extended period of time, is rare but certainly not unheard of. Especially if a neighbor has no family to check up on them, weeks or months could go by before the source of the odor is discovered. If the odor persists, checking with neighbors to see if the smell is bothering them as well could be a great way to see if they’re impacted as well or see if it’s localized to you.
If the scent is localized to you, it’s entirely possible that you have a pest or rodent infestation, and one of them passed away within your walls or under your floorboards. Consulting with an exterminator is a great way to confirm this suspicion, and set a plan in motion to get rid of the pests plaguing your place.
This is yet another telltale sign that you may have a pest problem. If you’ve washed and washed and washed your poor dog over the course of the past few weeks and it still smells like wet dog in your house long after he’s dried off, it’s quite likely that there’s another animal in the vicinity that’s causing the smell. An exterminator could help you solve your problem! Make sure to check our article on post-extermination cleanup if this is the route you take.
A fishy smell in your house may not have anything to do with your freezer — although it’s still certainly worth checking out. If nothing there is awry, it could instead be an overheated electrical outlet. Sometimes the plastic coatings on outlets or internal wiring can let off an unpleasant scent akin to fish that tell you that something is not working correctly. If you can isolate which of your electrical components is malfunctioning, an electrician should be able to help you swap out parts to eliminate the source of the smell.
If it’s not due to overheated electrical components, having an expert take a look at your air ducts could help isolate what the problem could be.
If you notice that part of your home smells stale and musky, it may be a sign of mold. Mold can be a significant problem to the health of both you and your home, and catching it early can stop a problematic invasion in its tracks. If you find that you’re in need of mold remediation, Bio-One Tucson’s crew is made up of experts that will go above and beyond to ensure that your mold problem is treated at its source, never to return. Get more information or contact us to request our services on our Mold Remediation service page.
The scent of rotten eggs could speak to a natural gas leak or a sewage leak. If you’re smelling a sudden strong, prominent stink of rotten egg, get out of your house immediately and call 911 so they can send out someone to deal with the scent, and whatever may be causing it.
If the scent is more subtle, and only happens at random intervals, it’s likely a less serious issue, although it would still be a good idea to contact a plumber. You may have a leak in your plumbing, and getting it repaired before it becomes an issue will save you lots of time and money down the road.
Something smelling like sewage could point to a number of different issues. Before taking drastic measures, make sure first that the seal for your toilet is working properly. If the seals of your toilets are looking fine, it may be time to call the plumber. While there’s still the opportunity that it isn’t a problem of catastrophic proportions, the key to tackling the current odor before it settles is preventing whatever problem could be building up in your house’s pipes.
Make sure, first of all, that your house isn’t actually on fire. If it is, evacuate and call 911.
If everything is normal, but a smoky scent is still lingering around your house, check your fireplace and your chimney. Creosote, a byproduct of wood fires, can build up in chimneys and cause a smoky scent that can linger for days after the fire’s been put out. Long-term exposure to smoke can also cause a lingering smell in rooms exposed to smoke and could require deep cleaning to properly address.
If your house is plagued by strange odors you just can’t get to go away, Bio-One of Tucson can help those in Tucson and the surrounding areas to get rid of the smell. Whether you’re plagued by any of the above scents or something entirely different, we can help you find what’s causing the odor and neutralize it, disposing of anything that may be contributing to the smell or that was irreparably damaged because of it.
For more information on our odor removal service or to get more information about our service today, visit our Odor Removal service page for further assistance!
While it can be easy to think that your problems are over and done with after the exterminator comes to do their thing, in reality, it just means you’ve moved into step two of the process: cleanup. While many exterminators will clean up pest waste for you, this is not always the case, and if they do not, post-extermination cleanup is a must. Waste left behind by animals can be just as dangerous as the critters themselves in many cases, and proper post-extermination cleaning is essential.
Make sure to ask your exterminator about whether post-extermination cleanup will be necessary, and if so, to give you specifics on when and how certain areas should best be cleaned. Some areas may be able to be cleaned immediately after whatever pesticides the exterminator used are dry, and some may require you to wait for a while until you can safely clear them out. Some processes may require professional cleaners to safely handle.
If the removal of animal waste is ever going to be a requirement, however, do not attempt to handle the cleaning of the waste yourself. Without specialized equipment, cleaning supplies, and safety equipment, you could end up incredibly sick after accidentally ingesting something you shouldn’t have.
There are two main types of cleanup that you will have to worry about when an exterminator is required: the cleaning of animal waste and other byproducts, and the cleanup of pesticides that were used in the extermination process once the extermination has been completed.
Animal waste can carry many of the same diseases that the animals themselves carry and more. Aside from the simple ailments such as rabies, the bubonic plague, and simple food poisoning, dried-out animal feces can carry parasitic eggs and other nasty surprises that only make themselves known days or weeks after the animal defecates.
While your exterminator may have already taken care of this in a serviceable manner, another reason to go with a professional cleaning service is to neutralize any lingering odors or pheromones that may linger on after the exterminator has come and gone. These pheromones may be resistant to cursory cleaning, and if left intact, could lead to a brand new infestation, leaving you with yet more bills and an even bigger headache.
Pesticides have been contentious in modern U.S. debates around food precisely because of the danger they can pose to humans. Because of the pesticides used in and around areas where house occupants live and eat, ensuring pesticides don’t linger long after they have to (and that they don’t come in contact with food or surfaces food may touch) is a good idea.
Often, this isn’t anything that will require expert help. That doesn’t make it any less important. Pesticides left unattended can make your loved ones or your pets incredibly ill. Talk to your exterminator when they finish up to get a sense of how long after extermination you need to leave these pesticides to settle before you can clean again. Often, you won’t need to wait for much longer than after these pesticides have dried to get to cleaning.
Bio-One of Tucson’s top priority is to help treat any potential avenue for disease or emergency before it has a negative effect on you, your home, or your family. To that end, animal waste is an issue we take incredibly seriously. If you think you may be in need of our services, see our Rodent Droppings Cleanup Services page for more information, or to contact us about our services today!
Hoarding is a problem that’s been getting an increasing amount of attention in the news, which has sparked a debate about how to differentiate simple clutter from problematic hoarding. The question of how to know when someone’s just messy or when they’re a full-blown hoarder can be difficult to answer.
Hoarding can result not just in piles of useless goods, but can also create perfect environments for mold or pests to grow out of sight, and in extreme cases, could contribute to cleanup costs in the tens of thousands of dollars. Stacks of books and piles of old belongings can also be dangerous if they topple, and have been known to injure or even kill people and animals they’ve collapsed upon.
Knowing how to help a friend or family member who may have a problem with hoarding is important, but even more important is being able to spot friends or family members who may need help. Understanding which of your friends may be hoarders involves knowing what exactly a hoarder is, what causes hoarding, and signs that a loved one may be struggling with a hoarding situation.
To understand whether or not somebody may have a potential hoarding problem, it’s important to first understand what can cause this sort of behavior. From there, you can begin to work on getting yourself or your loved one help with clearing out the mess in a non-traumatic manner.
Hoarding is, very simply put, the compulsive collection of miscellaneous items and an unwillingness to get rid of them. While it’s easy to think of hoarding as an addiction, there’s a very important distinction between compulsion and addiction as the terms relate to hoarding: compulsions rely on the avoidance of taking certain actions (disposing of old or useless items that the hoarder no longer needs, in this case), while addictions rely on the taking of a substance or performance of a certain action to relieve tension. Even the idea of cleaning may cause a hoarder discomfort or a looming sense of unease.
This is important because compulsions and addictions are treated much differently, and attempting to treat a hoarder like someone addicted to collecting miscellaneous items will not treat the underlying issue, the inability to rid oneself of even the most insignificant items for one reason or another.
The exact cause of these hoarding behaviors are still being researched. Like many mental illnesses (or many behaviors caused my mental illness), a variety of factors may come into play. However, it has been noted that there is a lot of overlap between those who have problems with hoarding, and those with extreme Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
There are as many specific “causes” of hoarding as there are hoarders. One of the most common is that an item — even an apparently useless one such as a flyer, old mail, or an old, worn-though item of clothing — might be vitally important one day, too important to risk getting rid of. So stacks of items that others may consider trash build up, and when it becomes too much to store, piles of these items may begin to build, and build, and build. Another may be that each and every item they own has some sort of value to the hoarder, even if they can’t quite explain what it is about an object that they specifically value.
The difficult part about this is that it isn’t always obvious. Many hoarders are aware and ashamed of their collections and will either shut themselves away or refuse to have visitors over because of it. It may also exacerbate substance abuse issues, which can also cause self-imposed isolation.
Look for some of the telltale signs:
They have clutter and mess that just keeps growing, but they just cannot seem to sort through it
They continuously acquire items they either don’t need or don’t have room for
The idea of cleaning — even in situations where pest infestations have occurred or similarly dangerous situations have manifested — can cause anger, hostility, or extreme anxiety
This can include simply making sure bathroom or kitchen spaces are sanitary and free of mold
When rooms that have become unusable due to the collected items run out of space entirely, any open area of the house may serve as storage space, including living rooms, kitchens, hallways and more
If you suspect that a friend or family member may be a hoarder who needs help, be careful how you approach the situation: because the root of many hoarding problems is compulsion and the deep-seated fear that cleaning may lead to negative outcomes, attempts to get a potential hoarder help may be seen as an attack instead of a gesture of goodwill.
If you or a loved one are a hoarder ready to make that leap, you can get more information and request help directly from our Hoarding page. Bio-One Tucson specializes in hoarding cleanup, not only working with clients to help them sort through the massive collection of items that may be present but also address any potential safety hazards that may crop up such as mold, disease, or the waste left behind by pests.
We work directly with our clients because we know how difficult a decision this can be, and we make every effort to respect their wishes while ensuring that living spaces are made once again livable.
5 Steps to Take in the Event of Undiscovered Death
Whether you’re a landlord checking on a tenant, a family member concerned about an elderly aunt or uncle, or a roommate back from a long trip, discovering someone that passed away in their homes can be jarring, and the shock can make knowing what to do difficult. Your initial reaction to the situation may put you in danger, so knowing what to do if you find yourself in this predicament is paramount. If you find yourself in this situation, there are 5 crucial steps you need to take to ensure your safety, and the safety of those around you.
Shock can disrupt the thought process of even the most rational people out there, and it may be your first instinct to run to the body (especially that of a loved one) to check on them. If you can tell they are dead (by the smell or in some cases even bodily decay), or they appear dead upon inspection, immediately clear the area. While you probably have no need to fear disrupting a crime scene in the event of an unattended death, especially if it has been a while since the decedent passed, you may have to worry about diseases from the body spreading as gasses and fluids are released.
Immediately contact your local authorities to ensure that the body is properly cared for, and can be assessed to ensure that no diseases or illnesses are lingering that could be dangerous to those in the area. Keep in mind that it may take them a while to prepare the correct equipment and personnel to transport the body, and you may be asked to keep onlookers out of the area, bringing us to step 3.
For many of the same reasons listed in point 1, keeping people out of the location is important until the body can be transferred. If the setting is an apartment complex, it can be difficult to secure the decedent’s home. While broadcasting that there’s a dead body around may backfire and draw some of the more nosy neighbors to see what’s going one, keeping watch and making sure people don’t linger in the area or attempt to enter the room before the area is cleared of the decedent and decontaminated can help keep everyone safe.
If the decedent lives with you or has others living with them, work with those transferring the body out of the apartment to see what the best course of action is for moving residents back into the house or apartment, or having them grab their belongings so they can vacate the home until it is safe to return.
This is where you may want to consider acquiring professional help from a qualified cleaning service like Bio-One of Tucson. Once the body has been removed, any airborne pathogens or sicknesses in any blood that may be left behind (if the decedent passed away after a fall, for instance) could still be contaminated if the team that removed the body didn’t clean up the area around. Even if they did, hiring professional cleaners to clean up after them is still a smart move.
If you don’t have the right training, safety equipment, or cleaning supplies, your attempts to clean could result in you getting incredibly ill, or in the area not being properly decontaminated. Since blood-borne pathogens like Hepatitis A, B, and C can be transmitted through contact with bodily fluids such as blood and can survive outside of the body for weeks or months in the right conditions, letting professionals handle decontaminating and disinfecting the area is in your best interest.
Even after being disinfected, odors could linger if it took a while for the decedent to be found, and it’s important to clean the area even further after the pathogens and illnesses have been taken care of. While a professional cleaning service hired to do a full deep-clean could still be beneficial to ensure that the house is returned to normal and there is no possibility of any lingering illness, this last step could be safely handled by any remaining occupants of the house as long as they remember to properly protect themselves as they clean.
If you’ve been put in a position where you’re responsible for ensuring the safety of occupants of a home after an undiscovered death, you need the best cleaning crew in the business to ensure the safety of those remaining in the home. For more information about our undiscovered death cleaning services or to request more information, just visit Bio-One Tucson’s Undiscovered Death service page.
Tucson, Arizona_ - January 20, 2020: Today the use of cannabis has grown over the last five year and now there are over twenty-nine states that have approved either the medicinal or recreational use of cannabis. However, if you are looking to sell your home and there is a tobacco/cannabis odor in the environment that could lower the value of your home by 25%-29% as noted in investopedia.com. That is a big drop in value. Matter of fact the top three odors that a home should not have if you are looking to sell your home is pet odors, protein and other food odors such as fish, curry, onions, garlic and tobacco/cannabis odors. When sticky tobacco residues accumulate, the resulting of film on interior building surfaces continually release malodors. Heavy smoking over a long period of time causes stubborn and severe smoke odors.
Our sense of smell can determine a lot of things for us. Some potential home buyers can walk thru a home and walk right out within minutes and never return, while others will still look, but those scents linger and make an impact on the brain and how we perceive that particular home.
Of course, we can’t always please everyone all of the time, but if you can avoid these odors that can certainly help. The most important smell you can leave buyers with is the smell of “clean.” Keep your home sparkling clean, free of dirt and dust and you will be rewarded.
Bio-One Tucson provides a proven system that provides the removal of tobacco/cannabis odors. They are using the latest technology and provide certain steps in removing these pungent odors which will increase the value of your home. For additional information and a free quote call _520-771-5960_ or email us at info@BioOneTucson.com
Bio-One Tucson provides exceptional service with over 20 years of experience in the cleaning and restoration industry thru out the city. We provide excellent service and provide proven results. Please visit our website at www.BioOneTucson.com for additional information.
Losing a loved one in an accident is incomprehensibly painful. The seeming unfairness and randomness of the moment is almost impossible to accept at first as grieving friends and family members try to rationalize what happened. They often feel guilty for not doing enough to prevent the death despite the fact that the incident was entirely out of their control. But nobody can prepare for the sudden and unexpected. Accidental deaths are by definition unnatural and unintentional. They include slips and falls, traffic accidents, poisonings, accidental weapon wounds, drownings, fire injuries, head traumas, industrial accidents, choking deaths, explosions, and natural disasters. Fatal accidents have always been a leading cause of death in America. But unfortunately, they are becoming more common.
According to the non-profit National Safety Council, accidental deaths increased 96 percent over the last 25 years. Though they decreased significantly between 1950 and 1980, fatal accidents have been growing rapidly since the mid-1990s.Despite our innovation in creating safer technologies, today’s rate of 52.2 deaths per 100,000 people hasn’t been seen since the mid-1970s. Now, accidents are the number one leading cause of death for people aged 1 to 44, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For all demographics, they are the third leading cause of death nationwide, with 169,936 deaths reported by the CDC in 2017.
While researchers have not reached a consensus on why accidental deaths are increasing, the NSC points to three trends to explain the rise, including increases in poisonings, motor vehicle deaths and falls among older adults. All of these injuries are preventable, they say, arguing on their website that institutions “have not consistently prioritized safety at work, at home and on the road”. Poisonings, the leading unintentional injury among CDC data, increased 11 percent between 2016 and 2017 . The NSC attributes the growth to the opioid crisis, which claimed the lives of 47,000 Americans in 2017 .
To put the CDC data into perspective, 466 people die from accidental injuries every day The number of friends and family members affected by the death of a loved one is even higher, resulting in an ever-growing community of people who must find ways to manage their grief. Bio-One works with these families every day to facilitate their steps towards recovery.
When fatal accidents happen, we dedicate our resources to helping families restore their home or business in a safe, private and efficient manner. Because first responders do not decontaminate crime scenes after they respond to a call, we step in to ensure that families are not exposed to disease and other dangers. Crime scenes harbor harmful bloodborne pathogens that contaminate the immediate area, leaving everyone on the property vulnerable to Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Our licensed technicians use powerful, environmentally safe chemicals to thoroughly disinfect the area so you can rest assured that your family will be safe. We work with an appreciation for your valuables and will replace furnishings if need be. In hoarding situations, we remove clutter that may present a danger to other inhabitants, including feces and other biological waste.
When you give us a call at your local Bio-One office, we’ll immediately connect you with a representative that will address your unique situation. Because we value your time during this difficult moment, a team will be dispatched to your home or business within an hour to complete the service. When they arrive, they’ll come in unmarked vehicles to safeguard your privacy. Our team approaches their work with the sensitivity it demands and endeavors to address your needs with the compassion it deserves. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We are on standby 24/7/365.
We often forget about the people left behind in the wake of a homicide. News stories reveal who died but often fail to identify how their death impacts their loved ones. When someone is murdered, their family, friends and significant others endure one of the most traumatic experiences that anyone can face. These survivors are some of the least researched crime victims in America, and they are everywhere. According to the most recent FBI data, 16,214 Americans were murdered in 2018. For every one of those individuals an average of 7 to 10 relatives were severely impacted, according to an estimate by Lu Redmond, a homicide grief expert.
If the murder rate remains consistent, Redmond’s estimate means between 113,000 and 162,000 Americans will become homicide survivors each year. That’s in addition to the pool of survivors who already lost loved ones in previous years. Though the lack of research makes it impossible to quantify how many total homicide survivors there are in America, the number is high enough to warrant concern for how they are treated by health professionals.
For survivors, the grieving process is almost impossible to endure. Though loved ones will grieve in different ways depending on their relationship with the victim, the loss is shocking, unimaginable and absolute. They never had a chance to say goodbye to their loved one, and the plans they both shared will never come to fruition. This realization may be sudden. In some cases, it may take years. Some survivors find it difficult to accept a loved one’s death at first, resulting in a delayed reaction that is triggered by a situation that reminds them of the victim. According to the National Center of Victims of Crime, grief symptoms include shock, disbelief, numbness, changes in appetite and sleeping patterns, difficulty concentrating, anger, confusion, increased anxiety and fear. Financial loss, depression and family conflict are also common symptoms.
Discovering a murdered loved one in the home can trigger post traumatic stress disorder. After the first responders leave the scene, some survivors may feel compelled to clean up the aftermath themselves. Confused that the paramedics don’t complete this work, they may think the cleanup process is their responsibility and act immediately. After all, they want to restore the scene as quickly as possible. Operating in a state of shock, they’ll remove the blood stains, body tissue and contaminated materials from the home without recognizing the threat to their physical and mental health. In addition to exposing their body to dangerous bloodborne pathogens, survivors may experience traumatic flashbacks of the experience in the future and suffer from heightened anxiety and emotional numbness. These PTSD symptoms prolong the recovery process, making it even more difficult for survivors to cope with their new lives.
Bio-One works with communities across the nation to avoid this outcome. We employ certified technicians that respond to scenes of violent crime and clean up dangerous biohazards that pose a threat to you and your family. When we receive a request for our services, we’ll send a team to the job site within an hour to assess your situation and perform a comprehensive cleaning solution that restores the property. Our powerful, environmentally friendly chemicals eradicate harmful pathogens that spread Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV, giving you assurance that you will be safe long after the area is decontaminated. We’ll dispose of the infected materials that cannot be salvaged and replace flooring and other furnishings if we need to. Once the area is thoroughly cleaned, we’ll return it to its pre-incident state so you can focus on recovering.
We conduct this work because we want to help people who have been left to deal with a difficult, painful task. That’s why our company motto is “Help first, business second.” We don’t ask for payment until after the job is complete because we want to remove the safety threat from your home as quickly as you do. Every person on our team will arrive on-site with an understanding of the trauma you are going through and a respect for your privacy and personal needs. Contact your local Bio-One office today and we’ll immediately connect you with a representative that can assist you. We are available 24/7/365.
