Why a home is not safe just because the police have left

This catches almost everybody. The home is handed back, the door closes, and the assumption is that handing it back means it has been dealt with.

It has not. It has been released, which is a different thing, and the difference is the whole reason this trade exists.

Released is not the same as cleaned

The authorities do what their work requires and then release the property. Cleaning is not part of that, and it is not arranged for you. It becomes the responsibility of whoever holds the property, which might be the family, the landlord, the estate or the management.

Nobody says this out loud at the time, because at the time everyone is dealing with something else. So the first anybody learns of it is when they walk back in.

What is usually still there

• The affected area itself, which is often larger than the visible mark, because fluid travels under and into things rather than sitting on them.
• Materials that have absorbed, typically bedding, mattress, sofa foam, rugs and whatever the floor covering is.
• Anything left behind by the response, which is nobody’s fault and is not always obvious until you look.
• The odour, which is the one that does not improve on its own and is the reason most people call at all.

Do not start on it yourself

The instinct is to get in and deal with it before anyone else sees. Bodily fluids can carry bloodborne pathogens, and household cleaning equipment is not protection against that. A mop in particular makes the affected area bigger rather than smaller.

Shut the door, keep people out of that room, and make one phone call. That is the whole of what today asks of you.

Who is allowed to call

Whoever is holding the property. You do not have to be next of kin, and in a rented unit it is very often the landlord or the agent who calls rather than the family. We have written about that in you do not have to be family to call.

What happens on our side

One of the directors comes and looks first. The scope is set in the room and explained before anything is moved, the affected material is removed rather than wiped, the waste leaves through the proper channel, and then the space is cleaned, which is a separate step people forget is separate.

The sequence in full is on What happens now.

Who tells the family this

Usually nobody, and not out of neglect. Everyone involved is doing their own job properly and cleaning is simply outside all of their remits, so it falls into the space between them and lands on whoever opens the door next.

That is why so many people discover it alone, at the property, on a day they went there to do something else entirely.

If you are about to go and look

• Do not go alone the first time if you can avoid it.
• Do not take children or elderly relatives, however much they want to come.
• Do not plan to start on anything. Go to look, then leave and decide.
• Do not open every window. It moves the problem into the corridor and the units either side rather than out of the building.

You can also not go at all. Somebody else can meet us, or we can attend with a neighbour or an agent who holds keys, and you never have to see the room. There is more on that choice in what to do first when someone is found dead at home.