How to check a cleanup company before you hire it

California has a law for this trade, the Trauma Scene Waste Management Act. Anyone who, as a business, removes human blood, body fluids and related residue from the scene of a death, serious injury or illness must register with the California Department of Public Health. The department's name for them is trauma scene waste management practitioners.

To register, a company has to show a contract with a registered medical waste transporter or with a permitted facility that will take what it removes. The Act also says what becomes of the waste: it leaves the scene as soon as the removal is finished and goes to a permitted medical waste transfer station or treatment facility, or for up to 14 days into a freezer kept for it at the company's premises.

The department keeps the list of registered companies and posts it as a PDF on its trauma scene page. Ask the company for the exact name on its registration, then look for that name in the list.

It matters for money as well. CalVCB, the state's victim compensation program, repays cleanup only where a registered practitioner did it.

Cleanup often ends with carpet missing or a wall opened up. Putting those back is construction, and the health department's registration says nothing about it. If the same company offers to rebuild, look it up on the Contractors State License Board's Check a License page. Otherwise you will want a separate contractor.