Is crime scene cleanup America’s forgotten public service?

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Is crime scene cleanup America’s forgotten public service?

Three years have passed since four college students were brutally murdered in their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho. And while the crime scene photographs have long faded from headlines, this startling moment remains: Moscow Police Chief James Fry standing before cameras to announce that a private company would be responsible for sanitizing the bloodstained house.

For most Americans watching, this revelation was a shock. The police weren’t handling the cleanup. No government agency was stepping in. Instead, a private cleanup crew, of which most people were unaware, would do the traumatizing work.

The home on King Street had become a symbol of unspeakable tragedy. Investigators with decades of experience called it the worst scene they had ever encountered. Blood had even seeped through floors and walls.

Yet after weeks of forensic work, after evidence was collected and the investigation shifted elsewhere, the property was simply released. And families, property owners, and communities were left with a question most people never consider: Who is responsible for what remains?

The answer points to a gap in America’s emergency response system, according to Trauma Services. While police secure crime scenes and EMTs transport victims, no public agency handles the physical aftermath of violence.

That responsibility falls to property owners, many of whom are grieving families already shattered by loss. They must either face the scene themselves or hire private biohazard remediation companies, navigating a service most never knew they would need.

And the scale of these crimes is staggering. The FBI reported more than 22,000 murders in 2022 alone. Each one left behind not just a victim but a scene requiring professional attention. Add suicides, accidental deaths, and traumatic accidents, and the numbers swell into the tens of thousands.

This is where private cleanup crews step in, working silently in the aftermath of America’s most traumatic moments.

These technicians arrive after everyone else has left. They enter homes that are still heavy with grief, businesses marked by violence, and apartments where death went unnoticed for days or weeks. They restore what investigators leave behind, making spaces livable again so families and communities can begin to heal.

Their work is both vital and unacknowledged, a gap in the public safety infrastructure that leaves thousands of families each year facing impossible circumstances alone. This gap in emergency response reveals a truth about American emergency infrastructure that remains largely unacknowledged.

The Work They Do

Blood and bodily fluids can carry hepatitis, HIV, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Tissues and biological matter begin decomposing within hours, releasing pathogens into the air and seeping into porous materials like carpet, drywall, and wood.

The work begins with an assessment. Cleanup technicians arrive in full protective gear, identifying every surface touched by blood or bodily fluids. They seal off the affected area to prevent cross-contamination, then carefully collect all biohazardous materials using specialized equipment.

Carpets, furniture, and even sections of flooring may need to go. These materials must be transported and disposed of in accordance with strict regulations designed to prevent public exposure.

They work quietly, arriving in unmarked vehicles to protect privacy. They provide detailed documentation to help with insurance claims. And they connect families with victim advocacy programs and grief counselors.

This dual role, restoring both physical safety and emotional stability, makes their absence from public discourse notable.

Safety & Regulation

The work these crime scene cleaners perform is not just emotionally demanding. It is medically hazardous in ways that require strict adherence to federal safety protocols. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration governs their every move through the Bloodborne Pathogens standard, a regulation that assumes all bodily fluids are infectious until proven otherwise.

This federal rule mandates that employers provide hepatitis B vaccinations to all workers with potential exposure, supply proper protective equipment, and maintain written exposure control plans.

The Environmental Protection Agency adds another layer of oversight. Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the EPA regulates how biohazardous waste must be stored, transported, and disposed of to prevent environmental contamination.

For this reason, crime scene cleaners must use EPA-registered disinfectants proven effective against pathogens like HIV and hepatitis B. These requirements ensure that infectious materials do not end up in landfills or water supplies where they could pose a threat to public health.

Yet beyond these federal frameworks, regulations splinter into a patchwork of state and local laws that vary dramatically. Some states require special licenses for companies handling biohazardous waste. Others mandate specific training or permits.

California and Florida, for example, have detailed requirements for biohazard remediation companies, while other states have minimal oversight. This inconsistency creates confusion for families seeking help and makes it difficult to verify which companies meet rigorous standards.

The most striking gap is the absence of any universal certification. No central regulatory body accredits crime scene cleanup companies. And no government agency issues a standardized license that signals competence and training. Instead, a variety of private organizations offer their own certifications, with quality and rigor varying widely.

Reputable companies respond to this absence by prioritizing training and transparency beyond what regulations require. That discipline keeps workers safe, protects the public, and turns high-risk work into a reliable service that communities can trust.

The Human Cost

That absence of support creates costs on two fronts: the professionals who do the work and the families who need it.

Violent crime cleaners face constant exposure to scenes that would devastate most people after a single encounter. In fact, a 2023 study found that field-based forensic professionals experience PTSD at a rate of 29%, significantly higher than the general population.

While the study did not isolate crime scene cleaners, it does prove that repeated exposure to homicides, suicides, and decomposition leads to compassion fatigue, a form of secondary traumatic stress that causes emotional exhaustion and a diminished capacity for empathy.

Professional cleaners report intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks related to scenes they have cleaned. Some develop anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances that follow them home. The psychological strain manifests physically through headaches, chronic fatigue, and stress-related ailments that accumulate over the years.

Why Recognition Matters

This pattern of individual compassion substituting for systemic support reveals why formal recognition matters.

Crime scene cleanup professionals are the only workers trained to safely remove and dispose of highly infectious materials like blood and bodily fluids that can harbor HIV, hepatitis B and C, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Without their intervention, these pathogens remain in homes, businesses, and public spaces, posing a serious risk of disease transmission to anyone who enters.

They ensure contaminated materials are disposed of in accordance with federal regulations, protecting both the environment and unsuspecting waste handlers. They restore dwellings to safe, habitable conditions, a nonnegotiable step before families can return home or businesses can reopen.

Scott Vogel, chief operations officer at New Jersey-based biohazard disposal company EmergiClean, argues that city governments should take responsibility for connecting residents with vetted cleanup services, as grieving families should not be left to search, compare, and negotiate on their own.

This recognition would bring standardized practices, better regulation, and assistance programs that acknowledge this work as what it truly is: an essential component of emergency response that begins where other first responders leave off.

These professional cleaners seek the infrastructure that would allow them to serve families more effectively, the mental health support that would sustain them through years of traumatic exposure, and the public awareness that prevents families from confronting this responsibility alone.

Policy Pathways Moving Forward

The house on King Street in Moscow stands as a reminder of what happens when essential services remain invisible. Every day, somewhere in America, another family faces the same devastating discovery that no one is coming to help. This cycle will continue until policy catches up with reality.

One potential solution is for state legislatures to formally designate trauma cleanup as an essential public safety service, placing it within emergency response budgets alongside police and fire departments. This designation would bring uniform licensing standards to replace the current patchwork of inconsistent regulations.

It would also expand victim compensation programs to cover cleanup costs automatically, eliminating reimbursement models that force grieving families to pay thousands upfront.

Local governments could then establish direct partnerships with licensed cleanup companies, creating clear pathways for families to access help without navigating this crisis alone. And municipal assistance programs would subsidize services for those who cannot afford them, ensuring tragedy does not compound with abandonment.

These changes would not erase grief. They would simply provide the people who restore our communities after violence with the same support given to other emergency responders.

This story was produced by Trauma Services and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.