Crime Scene Cleanup School

Have you wondered why we call Crime Scene Cleanup “Crime Scene Cleanup”?

Me too. I do not know. But, it makes sense that “crime scene cleanup” is a little more fancy than “trauma cleanup” and other variations on this phrase – “crime scene cleanup.”  It sounds much more flashy than “Crime Scene Maids.” So for our purposes, we might refer to Crime Scene Cleanup as trauma cleaning, bio-recovery, cleaning, and more. For certain, more popular writing goes with Crime Scene Cleanup than anything else that I have encountered. There is even a web site called, "Crime Scene Cleanup." I wonder who owns it?

Analyzing (taking apart) the term:

Crime

A violent crime will tend to leave a bloody mess.

Scene

A “scene” is almost too perfect for the 21st Century because it is exactly what fits many of today’s worldly philosophers’ ideas about life: Everyone has a story. Stories consist of “scenes,” so we might think of every crime scene as a story in the eyes and minds of the perpetrator (law breaker), victim, police, coroners, family, and cleaners. Everyone has a different story about the scene because everyone sees it differently, has a different take on it, different emotions, different words to explain it.  So Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” sure hit the mark. He certainly knew what a bloody scene meant!

Every scene is different and they all have commonalities. You might guess that planning ahead is very important for this type of cleaning.

Here’s a hypothetical (as if) story to explain what this writer means when saying, "cleanup."

A shotgun murder-suicide occurs. You get the call and bid $4.99. You get the job. You arrive and find blood, snot, and gore everywhere on the scene, which happens to be the master bedroom of a 4 bedroom house. It’s on the second floor, too.

While on the telephone, you ask questions like these:

1. Has the coroner released the scene?
2. When were the deceased removed?
3. What diseases did the deceased have if known?
4. When does the job need to be completed?
5. Where did this scene occur and does it go beyond xyz? (Never trust the caller’s story  because they do not know what is involved, but do ask.)
6. When did this event occur?
7. Who is the responsible party?
8. Who is paying and how and when?

You then arrive at the scene safe-and-sane because you learned the secret to driving from my crime scene cleanup page on the secrect to driving.

You introduce yourself to the responsible party. You offer them a card rather then shake their hand. If they insist on shaking your hand after you hand them your business  card, OK, shake their hand. Then explain what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and what they should expect and not expect when you are “done.” Do not ramble. You will find that you sometimes need to act as a sounding board (more on this later) because they are still trying to figure out what happened and why. Telling their story helps sort things out. Your presence and willingness to listen helps validate their story telling. More on this later.