Concrete Floor Odor Elimination

Tap sealed death scene for a picture of where you want to go. There's 1.5 gallons of Zinnsser oil based primer on this floor's death scene area, about 5 times more than needed. I had good reason to exaggerate my use of sealer. A liberal use is all that's needed in most cases, if needed at all. Before placing it, extensive grinding and disinfecting took place. If you're wise you'll read below, too.

Crime Scene Cleanup Odor Reduction

I use the term "odor reduction" because homicide cleanup, suicide cleanup, and unattended death cleanup vary in their odors and strengths. To say, "The death odor is gone" becomes an arguable point. In fact, a crime scene cleanup practitioner knows they don't know if death's odors have disappeared.

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Young noses detect death odors readily, although these young noses may not know what odors they've detected. It's better that they not know, in most cases. Just the same, if a resident living in a home or building senses a death odor, it may exist. There are times, too, when survivors imagine that they're sensing death's odors when the odors perceived are urine, feces, garbage, or possibly, nothing.

Here's an example of how death odors following a decomposition after an unattended death became a monumental problem.

In October heat, a decedent remained down for 3 days, which is not a long time as unattended deaths go. Still, October heat will cause decomposition to occur more quickly than in cooler months. In this case the decedent's body and carpet upon which he laid were removed on the same day.

Allegedly, the concrete floor on which the carpet and carpet padding leaked body fluids was cleaned well. So well, that the cleaners sealed the floor with a well known (water based) sealer.

The odor remained and the building's manager's sensitive nose picked up this odor from out doors and far off. His claims were verified by more than one person. and he had the money and a second crime scene cleanup "crew" arrived from a well known franchise. In this case, the franchised employer's crime scene cleanup crew took the first cleaning company's word that they had cleaned the floor before sealing it. In fact, this second company simply applied a better, oil based sealer over the floor and left it at that.

A month went by and the apartment owner still claimed that the death odor remained. To the franchise crime scene cleanup company's credit, they returned for a total of 3 months following their first efforts. They sealed all the walls and ceilings in their endeavors to destroy this "lingering" odor. To make matters worse for the apartment owner, the franchise company employees no longer detected the owner, so they no longer believed they could detect death's odors.

This is where I come in as a self-employed crime scene cleanup practitioner. Our frustrated apartment manager came to me for advice. I had one major addition to what others had done, which meant more work.

He insisted that I take over odor abatement in his apartment. I did so, and I did so more out of an academic sense than for the money. I wanted to know what was going on. Anytime a challange arises in learning more about crime scene cleanup, I jump at the opportunity. I find that after years of pursuing the mondane and seemingly obvious, there's more to crime scene cleanup than the average custodian might guess.

Arriving on the scene, I walked in and could not perceive a death odor, and I went along anyway because of my weak ability to smell death odors. Although, a strong new carpet odor lingered in the air from a carpet remnent placed over the death scene floor. This had to go. We needed a "neutral" odor environment, or at least as close to neutral as possible. Still, I detected no death odors once the offending carpet remnet was taken out.

I, like the second crime scene cleanup company, began with the assumption that the first crime scene cleanup company cleaned the concrete floor well. I did, though, keep in mind that I may end up cleaning it again, but this was my last choice, at least in the beginning of my Sherlock Holme's role. "Surely no self-respecting cleaning company, management company or not, would leave biowaste on a concrete floor" I figured. Then I thought, "So, there's one big place to look and I'll find the problem in less than five minutes."

I began my taking baseboards off the walls nearest to the death scene on the floor. I expected to find blood and other potentially infections materials (OPIM), and found none. At this point I realized this concrete floor was much more porous than the many concrete floors I've worked on over the years. Plus, it was only 4 years old. My mind began to work over other jobs and my experience with newer floors. "So why didn't the blood make it to the wall," I asked myself.

There was only one thing left at this point, grind the floor. I did so and unveiled the remnants of a decomposition, roughly 12 inches long and 3 inches wide, with a tail the same width, but only about 4 inches long. Indeed, embedded deep enough in the concrete to survive a diamond blade grinding, I picked up a tell-tale trace of a bloody feminine napkin-like odor, twice. So there now came evidence that the apartment manager's mind worked as well as his nose, too well in this case for the previous two companies.

This remarkable appearance of biowaste under two coats of sealer, one Kilz, the other Zinnsser, made an impression upon me. I found the remaining biowaste remained on a thin slice of portland, crown, the paste that floats to the top of concrete the day it's poured. Next to this crown I could see aggregate (tiny, black rocks), which showed that I had ground deeper to one side of the remaining biowaste.

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I figured that I may have ground more biowaste from the floor before stopping to check my work. Had I not stopped, cleaned the floor of slurry )concrete paste and aggregate), I may not had found the offending biowaste, if it was indeed the offending substance. I mean, I never picked up a trace of death or decomposing blood until I took the crown of the death scene area. I continued grinding and found no more evidence of sloppy cleaning. It may have been there before I began grinding,and then again I may have ground it off.

What I learned from this particular area of the floor was that hydrogen peroxide would take the odor out and cause color loss to the remaining, brown decomposition material, although I was not testing for any of this. I just happened to pour new peroxide on this brown area to test for live proteins (fizzle) and found none, which I expected -- to find none.

After cleaning the floor and bleaching it out and then neutralizing my bleach, I dried it out. Last, I applied one thick coat of Zinnsser B-I-N as thick as possible to the offending area. I cannot see how this odor will return, unless someone drug a soiled carpet across the apartment floor and thereby cross-contaminating so much more floor area. I wasn't about to grind the who thing, that's for sure.

So anyway, I took pictures, and the below links lead to pages with one picture each and a short explanation.

Porous concrete slows and captures blood and OPIM more closely to the decomposing victim than less porous concrete. The reason for this difference is found on ceramic tile's nonporous surface leading to wide migration of body fluids. In fact, a polished concrete floor allows fluids an easy flow along and into uneven floor spaces. (return)

Links

Sometimes grinding must take place to satisfy those concerned with lingering odors. There's simply no way to prove the source material once embedded in a concrete floor no longer exists. Grinding a concrete floor ensures all of your offending biowaste gets removed, I mean. It's important not to grind too far. Usually, when this sort of restoration work turns out as a last-ditch-effort, then grinding just to the smallest aggregate should do.

If this job had been cleaned correctly from the beginning, then I wouldn't have been called. As it turned out, I had caused color loss to the majority of biowaste with a strong bleach and water solution before I started grinding. In fact, a perodide solution dwelled on this floor over night.

With a Makita right-angle hand-grinder (Home Depot) and diamond-blade (Lowes's for less than $60, a bargain.), I had roughly 50% of this small room's floor ground. I went well beyond the death scene's fluids, which is a story in itself (below). Note that I use waster and surfancants as a lobricant and means of avoiding hazardous, ariborne lime and alkaline, especially silicone, from floor grinding. It's best to create a perimeter with plastic bags held up by pails circling your work area. This saves a lot of cleanup time because a scurry consisting of your concrete work soon generates this icky mix. Once it dries it's hard to remove, by the way.

 

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