Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Workplace and Construction Site Accident Cleanup

Construction in our country is always in high demand. Whether commercial or residential, large or small, this industry has always been in the top percentile of workplace accidents and many contain some form of biohazard issues that must be professionally cleaned up to avoid liability.

Bio Clean Services serves Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and West Virginia and these accident calls are frequent.  Because of our climate and exceptionally good weather year round, there are construction projects working year round.  We are experienced in many forms of workplace accidents including slip n falls, power tool accidents, deaths by heavy equipment and general accidents that have a presence of blood, tissues and bodily fluids.

These accident scenes must be properly cleaned and all biohazards removed to protect other workers and anyone who may come in contact with pathogens or other possible infections materials that may be present.  These scenarios, when not properly cleaned may potentially be a huge liability for the company or property owner of the construction site.  Some pathogens can become airborne and ingested by others and certain infectious diseases and biohazards from blood or bodily fluids can remain present and dangerous for weeks if not months after an accident occurs.

If blood and fluids are present and not properly cleaned and sanitized the smell from this can linger on for months. It’s important that a professional, experienced biohazard clean up company like Bio Clean Services remediate the scene and return it to a safe environment as soon as possible.  We are specifically trained to find elements that cannot be seen with the naked eye and are a certified biohazard waste disposal company.  These certifications are required for the removal and disposal of most any form of biohazards found at a workplace accident.

If you own a construction company, please contact our company for more information on the areas that we cover and what you’ll need to do immediately if an accident occurs on your job site.  We offer emergency dispatch services 7 days a week to assist our clients. 

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend!

(Courtesy of timeanddate.com)
 
Memorial Day commemorates all men and women, who have died in military service for the United States. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials on Memorial Day and it is traditionally seen as the start of the summer season.

What do people do?

It is traditional to fly the flag of the United States at half mast from dawn until noon. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries. Memorial Day is combined with Jefferson Davis' Birthday in Mississippi. Memorial Day has become less of an occasion of remembrance. Many people choose to hold picnics, sports events and family gatherings on this weekend. This day is traditionally seen as the start of the summer season for cultural events. For the fashion conscious, it is seen as acceptable to wear white clothing, particularly shoes from Memorial Day until Labor Day. However, fewer and fewer people follow this rule and many wear white clothing throughout the year.

Public life

Memorial Day is a federal holiday. All non-essential Government offices are closed, as are schools, businesses and other organizations. Most public transit systems do not run on their regular schedule. Many people see Memorial Day weekend as an opportunity to go on a short vacation or visit family or friends. This can cause some congestion on highways and at airports.

Background

Memorial Day started as an event to honor Union soldiers, who had died during the American Civil War. It was inspired by the way people in the Southern states honored their dead. After World War I, it was extended to include all men and women, who died in any war or military action. Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. The current name for this day did not come into use until after World War II. Decoration Day and then Memorial Day used to be held on May 30, regardless of the day of the week, on which it fell. In 1968, the Uniform Holidays Bill was passed as part of a move to use federal holidays to create three-day weekends. This meant that that, from 1971, Memorial Day holiday has been officially observed on the last Monday in May. However, it took a longer period for all American states to recognize the new date.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Meth Lab Cleanup Services

Methamphetamine labs are more than just dangerous and illegal biohazard scenes. They always leave a dangerous mess and huge environmental hazards that must be cleaned up. Bio Clean Services offers meth lab clean up in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  This growing epidemic is huge and can be found anywhere from multi-million dollar homes in metropolitan areas to the most remote rural areas you can get to.

Many of the areas we service are ranked among the highest meth lab production states in the nation. The rate of seizures in meth labs has grown tremendously over the past 3 years and is continuing to steadily rise.

The growth of meth lab popularity may be attributed to the ease of “cooking” the dangerous and highly addictive drugs. Anyone can use pseudoephedrine, household chemicals and a plastic soda bottle to produce the drug. The problems lie in the hazards associated with the drug cooking. These methods can cause explosions that can blow holes through walls, start fires and contaminate any surface in a huge perimeter of where the drug is made.

Bio Clean Services is professionally trained in the clean up and removal of these biohazards. Our services, when performed, remediate an area to a safe, disinfected state with any trace of the drugs existence eliminated. Some meth houses may not need the entire residence decontaminated, just certain rooms or areas where levels of certain toxins exceed state law. We access the areas and a cleanup plan is crafted. Any porous materials, such as carpet, must be removed. Decontaminate is applied. When the cleanup is completed, another test is conducted to make sure the levels are acceptable to what regulations consider safe.

Certain states have funds set aside for the cleanup of these scenes however, depending on the state, the cleanup cost may be the responsibility of the property owner. Contact us today for more information about these and other services we provide.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Biohazard Cleanup from Suicide

Numerous factors attribute to the cause of suicides and a large majority would say that it can be attributed to the economic meltdown in our country over the past several years.  Bio Clean Services provides suicide cleanup services in four states in the northeastern US. The health and overall fitness of the baby boomer generation has deteriorated greatly and a large number of these statistics indicate that the victims were medically ill, taking depression medication, suffered general health insufficiency, on disability and overwhelmed with credit card and other types of debt.

General consensus is that the victim’s life now “Isn’t what they envisioned” it would be at this age. Most of these people were in young adulthood in the 1960’s and 1970’s and that was an era that people were much more in tune with others and people helped other people.  Today, it’s a dog eat dog world motivated by money and the quest to “achieve” and the children and long time friends of the baby boomers are no exception.

The increased suicide rates are ordinarily male, elderly and alone with health and financial issues.  Because of social isolation and the feeling of being alone and abandoned, these victims take their life as they don’t see an importance in “fighting the fight” to survive in the world any longer.

Bio Clean Services gets frequent calls to provide death clean up services for families of suicide victims.  Many of the scenes we’re called to clean are unattended death scenes where no one knew that the victim had been dead for days, and in certain cases weeks to months.  We are certified in these types of cleanup jobs in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and West Virginia.

Contact our office today to learn more about the services that our company provides and our service areas. We perform biohazard clean up services in both commercial and residential settings with immediate technician dispatch 7 days per week.  Our main goal is to help victims of tragedies such as these return their properties to a safe, habitable condition so they can move forward without additional trauma from the scene cleanup.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Death Scene Cleanup and Biohazards

Any time someone dies it can be a difficult and emotional time. It’s even harder if the body was unattended at the time of death as it only adds complication and trauma to the situation.  If you happen to be the unfortunate one to discover the death, it’s important to know that you need a professional biohazard cleaning service.

Unattended death can be a very hazardous situation.  Most often times the scene contains urine, feces, blood and other bodily fluids and all are in a state of decomposition.  This poses an extreme risk of exposure to infectious diseases and individuals who are not properly trained can be exposed to infectious diseases.  Decomposing body fluids can contain germs, active disease and bacteria for a  very long time.  Even if an untrained cleaner wasn’t exposed to these elements, the EPA and OSHA have strict regulations on the cleaning and disposal of these types of bio-hazardous materials.

It is also common for the scene of an unattended death to have extreme odors that will remain even after removing the body.  These odors cannot be extinguished by ordinary household cleaners. These household cleaners will mask the odor temporarily only for them to return a few hours later.  Bio Clean Services utilizes equipment to permanently remove these odors from effected materials. The chemicals we use are designed to neutralize odors at the molecular level so they won’t return.  We are also dedicated to ensuring the safety of anyone associated with this type of scene.  We cannot stress how important it is to hire a professional biohazard clean up company to perform this work. 

Bio Clean Services is fully equipped to handle unattended death clean up scenes. We maintain the equipment and advanced training to properly handle the scene of an unattended death.  Our cleaning technicians are professional and have the utmost compassion when dealing with the details of these tasks. We understand what a difficult time it is and work efficiently to clean and restore a home to its original state.  Bio Clean Services also offers additional services that can assist you in cleaning debris, clutter and other items from these scenes.  Please contact us for more details.

Monday, May 4, 2015

History of Cinco de Mayo: Battle of Puebla

Courtesy of History.com

 In 1861 the liberal Mexican Benito Juárez (1806-1872) became president of a country in financial ruin, and he was forced to default on his debts to European governments. In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew, but France, ruled by Napoleon III (1808-1873), decided to use the opportunity to carve a dependent empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large French force and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat.

Certain that success would come swiftly, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez (1814-1892) set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. From his new headquarters in the north, Juárez rounded up a rag-tag force of 2,000 loyal men—many of them either indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry—and sent them to Puebla. Led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza (1829-1862), the vastly outnumbered and poorly supplied Mexicans fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, Lorencez drew his army, well provisioned and supported by heavy artillery, before the city of Puebla and led an assault from the north. The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated they had lost nearly 500 soldiers. Fewer than 100 Mexicans had been killed in the clash.

Although not a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza’s success at Puebla represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement. Six years later—thanks in part to military support and political pressure from the United States, which was finally in a position to aid its besieged neighbor after the end of the Civil War—France withdrew. The same year, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who had been installed as emperor of Mexico by Napoleon in 1864, was captured and executed by Juárez’s forces. Puebla de Los Angeles was renamed for General Zaragoza, who died of typhoid fever months after his historic triumph there.