How to Remove Death Odors from Concrete

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Sealing Concrete - The Franchise Cleaning Problem
 
What follows describes concrete work during and after a crime scene cleanup. Pictures show how a crime scene cleanup missed some important cleaning.

Each page shows one picture. Each picture's narrative explains what we might learn.

In no case do I assign blame to this crime scene cleanup gone south. It began when an untrained apartment management crew did their own crime scene cleanup.

Here, an advanced decomposition presented a horrific scene with horrific odors. Because management's crew were not comfortable in this environment, if anyone could be, they either ignored or made a poor judgement call. That call lead to leaving behind offensive materials in the apartment's concrete floor.

A Concrete Sealing

Making matters worse, they sealed over biowaste. Although there's no way to know how much biowaste they left on and in the floor, it was enough to off gas for four months. The odor offended some noses, like the building's owner, but not others, like the insurance agent's nose. I did not perceive the death odor, and neither did a test person I hired for two minutes. A management employee did perceive this offending odor without "doubt" and it remained "strong" in his nose.

Sceptically, I moved forward. After hearing a history of this floor's "cleaning," I became even more sceptical, but my nose lost its sensitiveness to deaths fragrances long ago. So I'm not an expect at its detection.

The "Franchise" Cleaners

A franchise service company followed the work of the management cleaners. They cleaned the floors, walls, and ceiling of the victim's apartment. Then, they resealed the floor with a better known product. With their work completed, off they went. Then they came back from time-to-time for three months. The owner continued perceiving death's odors. Others also perceived these odors.

The owner came to me for advice, and finally asked me to remedy this situation after a number of weeks.

To the franchise company's credit, they stayed with this project for three months. But why they did not remove the floor's seal will never be known.

Beginning at the Beginning

Any time a crime scene cleanup job goes sour, it's important to begin at its beginning and follow each step, not unlike Sherlock Holmes. Had the franchise company done so, they may have found what I found. Or, they may have ground it off without ever seeing or otherwise perceiving it with their olfactory nerves, which I did.

Two outcomes follow crime scene cleanup efforts at removing blood and other potentially infectious materials (OPIM) from concrete. Naturally enough, one results in total removal of odor causing biowaste. The other leaves behind odor causing biowaste.
Here's a comment on concrete floor cleaning during crime scene cleanup. If we look at two types of floors, both extremes from one another, we'll find newer, flatter, porous floors, possibly still curing. At the other extreme we find older, slanted, less porous floors, no longer curing. The former absorb blood and OPIM. The latter allow for blood's flow and spread in the direction of slant and cracks.

Los Angeles Crime Scene Cleanup

Orange County Crime Scene Cleanup

 

 

 

Crime Scene Cleanup Floor Grinding

Rarely, but often enough, a crime scene cleanup practitioner fails to fully clean and disinfect a decomposition. Fluids from the decedent soak through carpet and carpet padding. Once on a concrete floor these fluids begin to either spread along the floor in the direction of a floor's slant, or fluids begin to soak into a concrete floor.

Because the floor in question was 4 years old, possibly still curing, and its upper-most crust consisted of portland cement, and below very porous content, body fluids remained near the cadaver. Either neglecting or unknowingly passing over this blood stained floor's soiled concrete material, cleaners left behind enough biowaste to off gas. This went on over 4 months.

The only way to ensure all odor producing biowaste no longer remained below the sealed floor was to remove its sealer, which I did with a diamond blade, but this followed a two strong bleach disinfectant applications, which probably caused color loss to the offending materials.

Once I ground the sealer off, I could see the brown biowaste material, now perceptible, although barely. At this point it became clear that this material held a big clue to remaining blood and death odors in the room.