Treatment of premises after a death

What we do

We carry out disinfection and sanitary treatment of premises after a death in a flat, a house or other premises. This covers treatment of the affected surfaces and structure, assessment and removal of contaminated materials, and odour removal.

In practice this means the premises are sanitised and usable after our work — or, if renovation is needed, ready for it to begin.

If you are planning to sell or let the property once the premises have been treated, that can be combined with odour removal and full preparation of the premises.

We do not provide funeral services, sort through belongings or carry out construction work. Our part is the sanitary treatment of the premises.

Discretion

We understand that this is not an ordinary situation and that it often happens in an apartment building, where the neighbours notice everything.

• We arrive in vehicles without company markings.
• We do not discuss the content of the work with third parties.
• We do not ask questions that are not needed to carry out the work.
• We agree a time that suits you better, if that matters.

In your enquiry it is enough to state that treatment after a death is needed — we will not ask you for a fuller account.

If you cannot be, or would rather not be, at the premises while the work is done, that is understandable and a perfectly normal arrangement. In that case we agree access and how communication and handover will work. If decisions about belongings are made by someone else — another relative, an heir or an authorised person — it is enough to tell us once.

Why timing matters

This is not about hurrying you; it is a practical point. How much time has passed directly determines how much material will have to be disposed of and how large the job will be.

In summer and during the heating season these processes run faster than in a cool room. So if the premises are cool and unheated, a delay of a few days changes less; in a warm room it changes a great deal. If you are not in a position to deal with this at the moment, the most practical step is at least an inspection — so that the scope is known, not so that work begins.

How we work

The inspection is the first and necessary step. In it we establish the affected area — which is almost always larger than what is visible, because fluids spread under the covering and along the fall of the floor — assess the materials and prepare a quote. We start work only once you have approved it.

Assessing materials

Materials that have been in contact with biological fluids are assessed by how porous they are. The line here is stricter than in other kinds of treatment:

With hard, non-porous materials, treatment is usually sufficient. With porous ones it is not, and we say so openly rather than treating something that will keep causing a problem afterwards.

The reason is the same as in every other case, simply applied more strictly. Porous material absorbs fluid through its full thickness; a disinfectant reaches the surface and a few millimetres below. The untreated depth remains both a source of odour and a sanitary problem. That is why a mattress, an upholstered item and a carpet are disposed of here rather than treated.

If any of the affected belongings matter to you personally, say so during the inspection. Some items — hard, non-porous ones, for example — can be treated and kept. If something cannot be kept, we tell you directly and explain why rather than leaving it unclear.

What to prepare

• Arrange access to the premises and one contact person to agree decisions with.
• If possible, take documents, valuables and personal belongings out of the unaffected rooms.
• Point out any items in the affected area that you would like kept.
• Do not try to clean the affected area yourself — that usually spreads the contamination further.
• If you plan to sell or let the premises, say so at the outset — we will then plan the treatment together with full odour removal.
• If the premises are in an apartment building and the smell is already noticeable in the stairwell, mention it — the ventilation may need treating too.

That last point comes up more often than you might expect. In apartment buildings the ventilation duct is shared, and odour travels through it into neighbouring premises and the stairwell. In that case we treat not only the flat itself but the grilles and the accessible section of the duct — otherwise the odour stays in the system and keeps spreading after the premises have been treated.

One more thing worth knowing in advance about odour removal: ozone is the closing step, not the first. Until the affected materials have been removed and the surfaces treated, ozone removes what is in the air while the source remains, and the smell is back within days. That is why ozone treatment always comes after material removal and surface treatment in our quote, never instead of them.

Prices

For this work we set the price individually, after an inspection. The reason is an honest one: situations differ greatly in scope, in the volume of affected materials and in how long the premises have gone untreated. Any figure quoted over the phone would be inaccurate.

The inspection and the quote happen before any work begins, and we start work only once you have approved it.