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Most people outside the professional cleaning and infection control industries and the adjunct industries haven’t heard the term “biofilm.” But, this film is the basis for all soiling and contamination within the living and work environment. Where does this biofilm come from? This is a question we at Crime Scene Cleaners KC have had to ask and learn the lessons in order to properly clean and sanitize the affected areas in our crime and trauma scene cleanup work or what we call forensic restoration.

Biofilm comes from two main sources, human activity and bacterial activity. Combined they form on a surface and continue to build into soiling you can see.

Here is how this works. Humans are fat. I’m not necessarily speaking to people who are overweight but rather the substance that makes us overweight, namely lipids and no matter how much you weigh, us all have lipids. Most of us know of lipo-suction where they literally suck the fat cells out of a person. Those lipids run through every part of the body. They are in your hair, skin, tears, nasal secretions, breath, saliva, blood and our waste. If you place your hand down on a surface and raise it up and look at the surface you will see an outline of your hand. You have just placed what most call hand-oil on to the surface. That hand-oil called, esters, a liquid form of lipids. That’s what you wash off your face and hair. We also place lipids on each surface with our breath. As we breathe, the air leaving our body is laden with lipids. Now that the lipids are on our surfaces and the moisture begins to evaporate the lipids become sticky. (Ever had blood between your fingers and as it dries you feel the stickiness?)

Being sticky on a molecular level it begins to attract micro-pollutants and bacteria floating through the air. Here is where the bacteria come into play. Once the bacteria is on the surface it begins to replicate producing a very sticky substance of a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances, meaning goo in laymen. A bacterium grows at an exponential rate. One bacterium on the surface continually divides to 2,097,152 in just seven hours. In twenty-four hours it divides to 4.7 sextillion, that’s 4.7 with 17 zeros behind it.

These two substances are continually growing through the human and bacterial activity attracting more and more micro-pollutants. The longer the biofilm lays on the surface it begins to harden into layers. Also, this bacteria laden biofilm is continually spread through our touching the surface and then touching yet another surface depositing the biofilm from one area to the next.

We start to see biofilm as our surfaces start to dull, or you see a dingy dark substance around cabinet handles, door knobs or light switches. I clean my kitchen counter tops at least twice a day…it takes just a few minutes. Yet, I’ve cleaned counter tops in a hoarder house roughly the same area and it has taken me several hours, why? The biofilm was deep and extremely hard and you have to work through those hardened layers. Here’s one more example; tooth plaque is biofilm on your teeth. The longer you wait between dental visits the harder the plaque is to remove and the more damage it generates.

The technicians at Crime Scene Cleaners, LLC in the Greater Kansas City Area are routinely trained in the science of cleaning and restoration. Our goal is to create sanitary surfaces within the built environment whether we are remediating are as affected by suicide, homicide, unattended death or performing infection control services in homes and businesses.

If you have an incident requiring a high level of expertise we have the training experience and equipment to properly perform the work; please call Crime Scene Cleaners at (816 or 913)-808-7642 or find us on the net at www.crimescenecleanerskc.com

By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018

Most of us have heard of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and SEDS (Sudden Elderly Death Syndrome) is a twist on that terminology. Have you heard, the “The new 50 is 70?” This means people in the industrially developed world are living longer and are stronger than ever before. Today people who reach 70 and beyond are usually much more active, ambulatory and look much younger than their fathers and mothers, and certainly their grandparents at the same age. The average age expectancy for men and women in the United States is 78.6 for men and women being 81.1 according to data published by the US Census Bureau. And, on many occasions a person can be relatively healthy and active right up and to the end of life.

An unattended death is someone who dies alone and isn’t discovered for three or more days with the average unattended being 10 to 14 days. It only takes three days before the body begins to breakdown, which can cause structure damage and extreme odors.

Keep reading to see how these two events create a need for a professional remediation and cleaning company like Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. of Kansas City to be engaged for repairs.

We are a very mobile society with people and families moving from one end of the country to other. Older people nowadays move away from their family and close friends to enjoy warmer or exotic climates. Other times it’s the exact opposite; close family moves away from older relatives to pursue work and career choices. For those of us who are blessed to live longer we may even outlive our close friends and family leaving us pretty much alone. Other times we choose to be alone. No matter how it happens some end up in a situation where they’re somewhat alone or secluded and when death does strike, there’s no one around to know.

In these cases families, and/or landlords are left to repair the structure. The longer a death goes undiscovered the greater the damage to the structure. They will need a company like Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. of Kansas City to remediate the structure and perform special deodorization to abate the extreme odors left behind. These events present specific problems for remediation companies, since pathogens and other biohazards will be present.

That’s why Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. specializes in biohazard remediation and infection control. They are a step above normal restoration companies as this is the only thing they do.

If you are in the Greater Kansas City Area, from Topeka, KS to Columbia, MO from Bethany, MO to Pittsburg, KS and find yourself in need of a specialized company for a traumatic death scene such as; an unattended death, suicide, or homicide please call Crime Scene Cleaner, Inc. at (816) or (913) 808-7642

By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018

What is an unattended death? This is a person that passed away but wasn’t found for three or more days, with the average being 10 to 14 days. I wanted a more compassionate way to communicate to my clients for this state of affairs because using the word decomp, decompose, or any derivative in dealing
with my clients seemed too harsh. So, finally we landed on Unattended Death. Today, the term fully explains the situation to most people we deal with and now it’s widely used even on television shows and the movies.

Understanding how hard these deaths are to cope with is the reason for this article. I remember full-well my first unattended. It was the elderly aunt of a police detective named Chad. He was her only living relative; she lived alone but was fiercely independent. Chad explained, “I would call her a couple of times a week just to check-in on her and she told me to quit calling so much, she didn’t have anything to say. Then, I would drop by just to say hello, telling her I was in the neighborhood or perhaps bring her a meal we could share and she told me it was too much company, she had too much to do and it wasn’t necessary.” He felt bad but didn’t want to intrude, nevertheless concerned since she lived alone. She was an 83 year old woman who only weighed 95 pounds soak and wet, yet she worked around the house keeping busy every day; out in her garden, mowing the lawn, shopping, and had been living alone for some 20 years since her husband died. He further explained, “I don’t think she was ever a really sick other than a head-cold.”

The angst Chad felt for not being there when he was needed is what bothered him the most explaining this several times in different ways within the first hour. Chad and his family had left to go on a two-week vacation and when he returned, he learned of her death. As near as they could tell, she had passed away perhaps the day they left town.

Usually, what people say in these cases are, “I can’t believe, while I and my family were out having fun or living life they were left to die alone, it seems so sad.” This is what bothers most relatives and friends, and they seem, at least for a while to torture themselves with those thoughts.

As they say, death is part of living and this is the reason Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. in Kansas City exist. These deaths can create quite a bit of damage within the structure and the deodorization is very difficult to abate. Crime Scene Cleaners has all the knowledge, experience and equipment to restore these structures to a pre-event status. We understand how our clients feel and have so much compassion for their plight.

If you have an unattended death, suicide, homicide or some other trauma event please call Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. in the Kansas City and surrounding areas at (816) or (913) 808-7642

By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018