CHICAGO – Bill Muir was burning out as an operations manager for a beverage company and started looking for another career. When his brother-in-law used a handgun to kill himself, Muir decided to clean up his sister's place.
Her gratitude for his gesture of grit and kindness gave him an idea. Five months later, Muir became a crime-scene cleaner.
"I wanted to start helping people," he said one recent afternoon before fielding a call to clean up a homicide scene. "And seeing my sister's face after … I knew this is how I can help."
In starting Bio-One Chicago last year, Muir and his wife, Dawn, joined the ranks of a profession that blends the demeanors of a funeral home director and grief counselor with a construction contractor who has a strong stomach and intimate knowledge of biohazard disposal. It is also a largely unregulated profession experiencing steady growth, fueled by increasing fear of contamination and disease, and awareness that the services exist, experts say.
"It's a hard thing to do," said Dr. Richard A. Jorgensen, coroner for the Chicago-area county of DuPage, who uses Aftermath Services LLC, an area firm, to clean the county morgue. "It's something that's little-understood."
Bio-One, Aftermath and other local companies are called to homicides, suicides, unattended deaths and the homes of hoarders. Sometimes they are called to clear a meth lab.
"When people ask me what I do, they say, 'wow,' and then they get really interested," said Dan Reynolds, a lieutenant in a fire department in suburban Chicago who started Chicago Crime Scene Cleanup in 2007 with his wife, Kelly, to supplement his income. "But I don't think they understand what all goes into it. They don't understand the emotional side of it."
Potential clients are enduring the worst time of their lives, cleaners say.
