Santa Barbara County, step by step
After a death at home: what happens, in order
If a death was expected and a hospice was involved, call the hospice nurse. This page is for the other kind: sudden, violent or discovered late. It describes what the authorities do and what is left for the family.
Phone answered all day and all night, seven days a week
The order of events
Someone calls 911
Tell the dispatcher what you found and where. Do not move the person or tidy the room. Wait outside it.
Officers secure the home
Santa Maria Police come inside the city; Sheriff's deputies come in Orcutt and other unincorporated places. They may ask everyone to stay out of part of the house.
A coroner's investigator arrives
The Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau handles death investigations throughout the county. The investigator looks at the scene, may collect items and medication, and may talk with relatives.
The person is taken into care
When the Bureau needs to, it takes the person to its facility in Santa Maria or Santa Barbara for safekeeping. Later the person is released to the funeral home or cremation service the family picks.
The home is released
An officer or the investigator tells you when you may use the room again. Ask for a name and a case or report number and write both down.
You choose a funeral home
The Bureau asks families to contact a funeral home of their choice. The funeral home then arranges the release with the coroner and orders certified death certificates for you.
Cleanup, if it is needed
Only now. If there is blood or fluid in the room, close the door and call a cleanup company. If there is not, there is nothing more to arrange for the house.
Getting belongings back
If the investigator took a wallet, keys, jewelry or a phone, the Coroner's Bureau releases them to the legal next of kin or to a person with the next of kin's written authorization. Often they travel with the person to the funeral home. Otherwise, property release is on weekdays, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the office number is (805) 681-4145.
The Bureau has no rooms for viewing. If the family wishes to see the person, that is arranged at the funeral home.
If the home is in Nipomo or Grover Beach
Over the county line to the north the same steps apply, with a different office. The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff-Coroner investigates, and its Coroner's Office is at (805) 781-4513.
Two things it tells families are worth knowing. If no relative is present to name a funeral home, an on-call mortuary collects the person and looks after them until the family decides. And the office sometimes places a seal on the door of a home or a room. Do not break a coroner's seal. Phone the office and ask when it will be lifted.
Things that can wait, and things that cannot
The room can wait a day or two with the door shut. Pets cannot: take them out and feed them. Medication, perishable food and an unlocked house should be dealt with the same day. So should telling the landlord, if it is a rental.
Everything else, including what to do with the room, can be decided after you have rested. When you are ready, the pages on unattended death cleanup and who pays take it from there.
Whenever suits you
Hand the room to people whose trade this is
Two sentences about the situation are plenty. You then hear how the firm would tackle it and what it would bill. Yes or no is yours alone to say, today or next week.
The number for Santa Maria and the valley
Whoever picks up belongs to a cleanup firm that takes jobs from Guadalupe up to Grover Beach. It is a separate business from this website. Name your town, say what sort of place it is, and ask anything.
Call (805) 362-1926Phone answered all day and all night, seven days a week
The call may be recorded. How this works is set out in the referral disclosure.