[Biz Development]
Case Study: Aftermath Specialists
(was: “Aftermath-Trauma”)
Hed: A Real Mess
Deck: Former paramedic cleans up after criminal, medical and industrial disasters
Pull quote: “I had one guy, a real tough guy, too, that heard we were going on a call
where a mother had killed her children. He just said, ‘Nope. I can’t do that.’ That was his
first and last day.” – Andy Grubb, owner, Aftermath Specialists
When you scrape up brains for a living, it’s all profit. Or very nearly, according to Andy
Grubb, owner of Aftermath Specialists in Hendersonville, Tenn.. A former paramedic,
Grubb founded his crime scene clean-up business in April 1999 as an extension of an
domestic cleaning service he had been operating.
He is available for clean-up and restoration in a tri-state area, arriving with an arsenal of
anti-pathogens formulated to restore the scenes of just about any type of human calamity
imaginable including murder, suicide, unattended deaths and intentional maiming. He
also is happy to sanitize the back of police patrol cars after injured suspects bleed into the
upholstery or spit on the windows.
Grubb tells the story of a man who went a little crazy with a small knife. He attacked
some people, then stabbed himself repeatedly before the Nashville police could subdue
him. He seemed resigned to going to jail, but at some point went berserk in the back seat
of the police cruiser.
“That was a pretty messy one," says Grubb. "And cops are so nervous about being
exposed to AIDS, HIV. We give the police a good rate. I think we charged them $140,
about half of normal. After all, we work with them a lot."
Crime scene cleaning services are used to remove any kind of bio-hazard. Crews can
work in private residences, businesses, cleaning up cars or city streets, mopping up after
industrial accidents, homicides, suicides or just helping landlords dig out from bad cases
of “pack rat” syndrome, when rentals become uninhabitable because of accumulated
materials. The more types of scenes they clean, the shorter the down time between calls.
Help Is A Phone Call Away
Before crime scene cleaners started popping up in the early 1990s, families who lost
loved ones to violence, suicide or unattended death also faced the trauma of making
spaces livable again.
Now there are private companies that offer cleaning and restoration services.
Many of these firms are members of the American Bio-Recovery Association in
Washington, D.C., the national association for trauma and crime scene cleaners.
These businesses can be an entrepreneur’s dream come true. Few set rules, no humdrum
routines and plenty of work at high billing rates – not to mention a million stories to tell
over drinks.
It’s a rare type of business; one that can still be launched in many parts of the country
with very little competition. In California, for example, the Department of Health
Services has only 50 registered crime scene clean-up companies.
Aftermath Specialists charges a flat $250 to respond to any call, then an hourly rate on
top of that. A suicide usually runs about $325. Grubb says he likes what he does for a
living, even when the weird jobs come in. What’s weird to Grubb? Well, he just recently
rehabilitated a building completely blanketed in dried pigeon droppings. The bill for that
all day job topped $1,200.
In Memphis, with a population of 650,000, the average annual murder rate for the last
five years is approximately 140. If an average murder clean up bill is $400, that city
generates $56,000 in clean-up fees alone. Compare Memphis to Philadelphia, the city of
brotherly love. With the population topping 1,650,000, that city averages over 400
murders per year, generating up to, $160,000 in clean up fees. Most bills are paid by
homeowners’ insurance.
Think all you need is a bucket and a mop? Not so fast.
Trauma clean-up businesses must comply with Environmental Protection Agency’s
OSHA regulations on cover bio-hazard removal services. They require workers exposed
to blood spills to have training and be compliant in five areas.
Workers must have:
 BBP (blood-borne pathogen) training;
 A written BBP exposure control plan;
 Protective equipment;
 Proof of Hepatitis B vaccine and follow-up exposure evaluations;
 Have a method to remove and properly store bio-hazardous waste in properly marked
container for delivery to an approved site.
Aftermath Specialists has six full-time employees and several part-timers who meet these
requirements. They respond to calls twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
A typical scenario for Aftermath Specialists is that of a death in bed. If, for example
someone kills himself on grandma’s quilt, leaving blood or other bio-materials spattered
about, that piece of furniture and all the dressing, is dismantled, bagged and driven to a
Browning Ferris incinerator in Gallatin. Grubb says there is a bigger incinerator in
Nashville, but it’s a bit pricier. A typical run to the incinerator for Grubb can cost
anywhere from $10 to $30, depending on the volume and density of the load.
When Recruiting, You Just Don’t Run An Ad
One of the challenges of running a crime scene clean-up business is finding the right
people to do the work. Grubb recruits people he’s worked with previously, either as a
paramedic or from his days as a training instructor with American Eagle Airlines. He
never tells applicants that the work will be easy.
The best worker he has is someone who originally worked as a domestic cleaner for this
original service. “She didn’t have any medical training, but she’s very matter-of-fact
about cleaning," he says. "It doesn’t matter whether its a dog mess, a chemical mess or a
people mess. She just cleans it up.”
Several hires have failed to make it past their first radio call. “I had one guy, a real tough
guy, too, who heard we were going on a call where a mom had killed her children,"
Grubb says. "He just said, ‘Nope. I can’t do that.’ That was his first and last day.”
Building A Business, One On One
Grubb got his business going by visiting every cop, fireman and funeral director he could
find, then pressing his business card into their hands. He offered low, first-call rates and
eventually landed a few jobs, which earned him repeat business. He doesn’t advertise in
the Yellow Pages -- doesn’t feel he needs to.
His company provides state-of-the-art odor and stain elimination, utilizing chemical
foggers and hard-core cleansers with brand names like Microban and Enviricide. Major
jobs like unattended deaths will need an ozone generator, a stand-alone unit that changes
contaminants into purified water vapor and recycles the air until clean.
The goal is to reclaim a state of asepsis, which means clearing the environment of all
pathogenic organisms, which are capable of causing disease. First the space is sealed off.
Anything drenched in blood, human waste, or body fluids must be removed and properly
disposed of. Then the area is treated for airborne pathogens. The process can be as simple
as ripping up and replacing carpet or can require lengthy, skilled restoration services that
use power saws to cut out portions of walls and floors, then re-build them, paint and
cover them again. Grubb keeps an address book full of referrals to carpenters, painters,
carpet layers and general contractors who are sensitive to families who find themselves in
need of this kind of help.
What They Don’t Teach In School
Grubb learned quickly that the old myth about men blowing their heads off and women
using neater methods – like a car engine running in a closed garage - to end their lives
doesn’t hold true in the South where most homes have several guns and shotguns
typically are the most common tool used to commit suicide.
But he has found, that although both sexes use shotguns, there is a gender-specific
distinction. “Men will kill themselves in their favorite chair in the middle of the living
room, where women will kill themselves in enclosed spaces like a bathroom or laundry
room. Women really do hate to make a mess,” he says.
When the phone rings at Aftermath Specialists, Grubb puts on his ‘bunny suit,’ a white
jumpsuit with a helmet respirator, which is kept in a white panel van filled with
equipment and chemicals. Running the scene operation, while his wife, Peggy, runs the
office, Grubb moves from one grisly scene to the next with seemingly minimal personal
trauma. His paramedic training steeled him to the work and he is able to detach himself
from what he sees.
“It’s really a pretty good business," he says." The only real drawback is our grown kids
don’t like to tell their friends what we’re up to. They razz us on our answering machine,
and they've banned dinner-time talk about our work."
At a Glance
Name: Aftermath Specialists
URL: none
Location: Nashville, TN
Founder: Andy Grubbs
Founded: 1999
Industry: bio-hazard clean-up
Employees: 6 full-time, 3 on call
Revenue: Undisclosed
Related Links
<a href="http://www.aatraumacleaning.com">AA Trauma Cleaning Service</a>
<a href="http://www.biorecovery.com">Bio-Recovery</a>
<a href="http://www.crimescenecleaners.com">Crime Scene Cleaners</a>
<a href="http://www.tramacleanup.com">Houston Trauma Cleanup</a>
<a href="http://www.americanbiorecovery.com">American Bio-Recovery
Association</a>
SOURCES:
Andy Grubb
Aftermath Specialists
Hendersonville, TN
800-227-0655 or 615.822.0650
aftermathspecialists@home.com
Wife: Peggy (married 24 years)
His daughters are age: 18 & 20.
His son is 22, in the Air Force
American Bio-Recovery Association
Washington DC
888.979.2272
This is the national association of trauma and crime scene cleaners.