A plain guide to the money
Who pays for biohazard cleanup?
Short answer: the person responsible for the property hires the company and owes the bill. Several others may then pay some or all of it back. This page takes them in the order worth trying.
Phone answered all day and all night, seven days a week
Five places the money can come from
Property insurance
Homeowners, condo, renters and commercial policies sometimes cover cleanup after a death or an injury on the premises. Whether yours does is a question only your insurer or agent can answer. Call before work begins and ask what photographs and paperwork they want.
The state, after a crime
If a crime was committed in a home or a vehicle, the California Victim Compensation Board can repay the person who paid for cleanup, up to a set limit. It pays for biohazard removal only, and only when a state-registered company did it.
The landlord or the tenant
In a rental, the lease and each side's insurance decide who carries the cost. Talk to each other early. Landlords should read the page written for them.
The estate
When the person who died owned the home or left assets, the cleanup may be paid out of the estate. The executor or the attorney handling it can say how to submit the invoice.
Auto insurance
For a car or truck, ask the auto insurer whether the policy responds. Some treat it as damage to the vehicle.
More on the state compensation board
CalVCB's rule has a detail families miss. The board will reimburse a cleanup only if the company is registered with the California Department of Public Health as a trauma scene waste management practitioner. If you hire an unregistered firm, that door closes. Look the company up on the department’s list first.
The benefit goes to whoever paid, or took on the obligation to pay. It does not replace damaged furniture or flooring.
In Santa Barbara County, advocates in the District Attorney's Victim-Witness Assistance Program help people apply. The Santa Maria office is at (805) 346-7529, and the board's own customer care number is 800-777-9229. For a crime in Nipomo or Grover Beach, San Luis Obispo County's Victim/Witness Assistance Center does the same job.
What makes one job cost more than another
This site prints no prices, because a figure that fits one home misleads the next. These are the things a company weighs:
- How much time passed. A room found the same day is a smaller job than one found after two weeks.
- What the fluids reached: sealed tile, or carpet, pad and subfloor.
- How many rooms, and whether anything travelled between floors.
- The amount of material that must leave as regulated waste.
- Access: an upstairs apartment, a crowded house, a vehicle in a tow yard.
- Whether odor treatment is needed after removal.
Before you agree to anything
- Ask for the scope and the price in writing.
- Ask what would raise the price once work is under way, and whether they will stop and check with you first.
- Photograph the room, or have the company do it, before anything is removed.
- Keep every invoice and receipt. An insurer, the state board and an estate will each want copies.
Money questions
Do I pay this website anything?
No. You pay the cleanup company if you hire it. The company or a referral network may pay this site for the introduction.
Will the company deal with my insurer for me?
Some companies are used to sending their paperwork to insurers. That is between you and them. This site takes no part in claims and cannot tell you what a policy will pay.
What if nobody can afford it?
Say so on the call. Ask whether the job can be limited to what makes the home safe, with the rest left for later, and ask about payment terms.
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.