Doing the Dirty Work

Doing the Dirty Work

ENTREPRENEURS by Janet Leiser | Senior Editor

Spaulding Decon takes on Gulf Coast jobs most people don't want to see. It's an unusual niche with plenty of dirty work to go around.

Time after time, people in need would turn to Laura Spaulding, then a Kansas City detective: Who could they call to clean up after a murder or suicide?

It didn't take Spaulding long to realize there were few companies willing to take on cleanups that involved blood and other bodily fluids. She became certified in crime scene cleanup and formed a company to do the work.

Last year, after Spaulding returned to the Tampa Bay area from Kansas City, she founded Spaulding Decon in east Pasco County. The five-person company cleans up after the dead and removes traces of bloody car wrecks and methamphetamine labs. Company technicians travel as far south as Fort Lauderdale and north to Jacksonville.

Though Spaulding would rather focus her efforts locally, many customers find her company through the Internet, and she doesn't want to leave anyone in the lurch, she says.

A landlord from Cape Coral called this month for help. She'd found her tenant dead in bed when she checked on her after she failed to pay rent.

Once the police officers finished their work and the coroner removed the remains, Spaulding and another technician put on special suits, along with rubber boots, two pairs of gloves and respirators, to protect against hazardous material. Then they took on the unsavory task.

"There were maggots and bodily fluids everywhere," she says. "I think I'm used to it from being a police officer."

The woman had been dead for three weeks. Fluid had seeped through the mattress, box spring and carpet into the cement slab.

Technicians use special hepa vacuums to remove blood and other waste. When they've finished decontamination, they take all waste materials to Medico, a Clearwater incinerator, to be destroyed.

It's not always houses that need to be cleaned. An automobile insurance company recently hired Spaulding Decon to remove animal and human blood from the inside of a newer, expensive BMW.

The driver hit a deer that crashed through the windshield. Spaulding says technicians try to remove all traces of blood. But if it doesn't come out, the carpet or seat or flooring has to be destroyed and replaced.

Spaulding recently offered her company's services at no charge to the family of WFLA weatherman John Winter who killed himself in the garage of his home.

The company cleans up after a lot of suicides, she says.

A newer and potentially more dangerous area for Spaulding Decon is the cleanup of methamphetamine labs, another area in which Spaulding is certified.

"Meth labs are another ballgame," she says. "The vapors are invisible to the naked eye. It takes completely different equipment."

Methamphetamine laboratories are dangerous to those who walk into them without donning protective gear. The invisible vapors reportedly are linked to respiratory illness and lung cancer.

Calls come in to Spaulding Decon at all hours of the day and night.

Not all involve death or crime.

The company also cleans up after packrats, she says. For instance, it went into an apartment recently where a tenant had lived for 10 years.

"There was fecal everywhere, carcasses of cats and dogs," she says. "You can't send your maintenance person to clean that. There are OSHA laws against that."

While the company is still a startup, Spaulding expects business to boom, thanks to the proliferation of methamphetamine labs.

"I think the company has a good future," she says. "There are no regulations in the state of Florida for cleaning these things up. What's going to happen is somebody is going to get sick and there's going to be a huge lawsuit and it will spark a mandatory cleanup law."

That's exactly what happened in Oklahoma, she says. A family bought a house, unbeknownst to them it had been a former meth lab. The family developed illnesses and two of the police officers that responded to the initial call later developed cancer, which they say is linked to the hazardous vapors in the house.

The Oklahoma lawsuit is pending, as is new legislation in that state to require cleanup and mandatory notification to prospective buyers.

Florida now requires notification for buyers of houses or buildings that have lead paint or mold, but not where there have been meth labs.

And as usage of methamphetamine, a cheap, fairly easy-to-make stimulant, continues to increase, so will the home labs.