After a death or suicide at home, Remedy Restoration removes all biological material, treats odor at its source and documents the work for insurance. We are CDPH-registered (TSW #711), discreet and available 24/7 across Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties.
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Need help immediately? Call 831-216-8283
Remedy Restoration handles cleanup after a death at home across a 40-mile radius of Watsonville, covering 15 cities in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties. The coroner removes the person; nobody removes what is left behind, and that responsibility falls to the family, the landlord or the estate. We are registered with the California Department of Public Health as a Trauma Scene Waste Management Practitioner, TSW #711, which is what permits a company to commercially remove blood and other potentially infectious material. We arrive in unmarked vehicles, typically within two to three hours.
Families usually reach us in one of three situations, and the practical needs are different in each.
Someone has died alone and was not found for days or longer. Decomposition releases fluids that pass through flooring into subfloor and joists, and the odor that comes with it is not a smell sitting in the air — it is material still present in the structure. This is the situation where trying to clean it yourself does the most harm.
Alongside the biological cleanup there is often investigation residue to deal with, and the family is frequently in the house while decisions are being asked of them. We work around that rather than through it.
Hospice and long illness can still leave medical waste, sharps and soiled material that has to be handled and disposed of properly rather than bagged up.
One thing worth saying plainly: none of this reflects on how a home was kept, and there is nothing shameful in any of it. It is a job with rules, and it is ours rather than yours.
For a full guide to what happens after someone dies alone at home, see unattended death cleanup.
Not sure what to do first? Read our step-by-step checklist for when someone dies at home in Monterey County.
We take instruction from whoever is handling the property — a family member, an executor, a landlord or a property manager — and we keep them to as few decisions as possible.
We establish how far material has traveled. After an unattended death that is almost always further than the visible area, and it is the single most common thing other companies underestimate.
The area is sealed before work begins so nothing is carried through the rest of the home.
Flooring, subfloor, drywall and furnishings that have absorbed material are removed. Surface cleaning something saturated does not resolve it; it postpones it.
Remaining hard surfaces are cleaned and treated with hospital-grade disinfectant.
Odor is treated at its source rather than covered. Once contaminated material is gone we treat the structure and the air, and we do not call it finished while it is still detectable.
We set aside anything that can be saved and tell you honestly what cannot. Photographs, documents and keepsakes are looked for deliberately, not swept up.
Waste leaves under our TSW registration and is tracked to a permitted facility. We then rebuild what had to come out.
Remedy is registered with the California Department of Public Health as a Trauma Scene Waste Management Practitioner, TSW #711, under the Medical Waste Management Act. That registration is what legally permits a company to commercially remove blood and other potentially infectious material from a property, and it requires a standing relationship with a registered medical waste transporter or permitted treatment facility.
What that means for you is that everything removed is tracked to a licensed endpoint, and you receive the paperwork — which matters when an estate is being settled or a landlord has to account for the work.
Trauma Scene Waste Management Practitioner under the Medical Waste Management Act.
If you are speaking to more than one company, ask each of them for their TSW registration number. A general cleaning company cannot lawfully do this work.
We do not bill your insurance company directly. You pay us and claim it back, and we document the work the way an adjuster needs to see it — dated photographs, written scope, itemized costs, disposal records — and speak to your carrier directly when they have questions.
We give you a written scope and cost before work starts. Nobody should be agreeing to an open-ended bill in the week they lose someone.
Most homeowner policies cover this work, and for a rental it is usually the property owner’s policy rather than the tenant’s. Where a death is the result of a violent crime, the California Victim Compensation Board can reimburse crime scene cleanup for eligible direct and derivative victims, which includes family members. We will tell you if we think that applies to your situation and help with the documentation.
We work a 40-mile radius from Watsonville, covering 15 communities across Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties. Typical arrival is two to three hours anywhere in that area.
Any time, day or night.
We also handle suicide scene cleanup across the same area. These pages explain what to expect in the communities we are called to most often.
Sensitive cleanup requires more than equipment. You need a team that communicates clearly, protects your privacy, and follows proven safety protocols from the first call through completion.
Need help now? Call 831-216-8283
Established procedures guide every cleanup.
We explain the next step before work begins.
Your privacy and dignity stay protected.
Reach a real specialist day or night.
Quick answers about death and suicide cleanup, timing and costs. Still have a question? Call us any time, day or night.
After a death or suicide, there may be hazardous materials like blood, bodily fluids, and tissues that can pose serious health risks. Professional cleanup ensures that these materials are safely removed, reducing exposure to pathogens and ensuring the area is fully sanitized and habitable again.
We offer 24/7 availability and can respond immediately to death and suicide cleanup situations. Our team works quickly to assess the situation and begin the cleaning and decontamination process, ensuring a safe environment as soon as possible.
Yes, death and suicide cleanup services are handled with the utmost confidentiality. We understand the sensitive nature of these situations and work discreetly to ensure your privacy is maintained throughout the process.
In many cases, insurance may cover the cost of death and suicide cleanup, depending on your policy. We work directly with your insurance provider to help you manage the claims process and ensure you’re covered for the cleanup expenses.
No. The coroner is responsible for the person, and the funeral home for what follows. Neither cleans the property, and there is no public service that does. It falls to the family, the executor or the property owner — which is a hard thing to discover at the worst possible time, and the reason this service exists.
Legally you can in your own home, but with an unattended death it is genuinely inadvisable. There is a bloodborne pathogen risk, material almost always reaches subfloor and wall cavities where household cleaning cannot follow it, and anything removed becomes regulated waste. There is also the part nobody says out loud: doing it yourself is an image that stays with you.
Odor after an unattended death is not something in the air — it is material still present in the structure. Once every contaminated element is removed and the area is treated, it goes. Any company treating odor with fogging or ozone alone, without removing the source, is selling you a delay rather than a solution.
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