Death's a messy business ... somebody's got to clean it up. Hey, it's a living.

By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News

difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934

GOBS OF GORE, the stench of decomposing flesh and maggots squirming in dead bodies would make most people run, retching, the other way.

Not Tom Rohling.

The Reading man runs Tragic Solutions, a crime-scene cleanup company based in North Jersey. Rohling removes all toxic traces of suicides, homicides and other messy tragedies from the homes and businesses where they occurred.

"As bizarre as it sounds, I like it - I like to help people, and this does help a lot of people," said Rohling, a retired homicide detective who started his business about six years ago.

In an economy in which few careers seem recession-proof, crime-scene cleanup is one industry that's booming.

The burdens and blessings - yes, there are some - of the business are featured in a new movie, "Sunshine Cleaning," which opened last weekend.

But, although the movie's lead character, Rose, transforms herself overnight from unhappy maid to calamity-cleaner/crisis-counselor, experts warn that that path into the profession is perilous.

"This stuff is easy to learn and hard to master," said Dale Cillian, president of the industry's trade group, the American Bio-Recovery Association.

Cillian owns an Arizona crime-scene cleanup company, which he opened in 1985, and which he claims is the "world's oldest."

"I run into things, after 24 years, that I've never seen before," said Cillian, a retired Phoenix firefighter. "You could go out and do this tomorrow with some Windex and paper towels. But that's disaster; you're endangering yourself and your customer."

Some infectious diseases are more virulent than ever, making scenes potentially lethal for those with a stomach steely enough to grapple with the gore, experts say. That means trauma cleaners should, at a minimum, be professionally trained in how to safely contain, clean and dispose of blood-borne pathogens, experts agree.

Some blood-borne pathogens, including hepatitis B, can live in the blood even when the blood is outside the body and has dried, medical experts agree.

And bodily fluids have a way of permeating surfaces, so that even "small" scenes could require cleaners to rip out walls, floors, carpets, appliances and other things.

"Most building materials are porous," said Donna Jaconi, whose Philadelphia-based cleanup company was featured in a 2002 documentary called "Family Values." "So if you have a double homicide, all that blood's got to go somewhere - I've seen plaster walls absorb blood up to the ceiling.

"Shotgun suicides are the worst," added Jaconi, who sold her business in 2004 but still processes crime scenes as a Philadelphia police officer. "It's all through the room, up on the ceiling fan, under counters, on doorknobs."

Cillian agreed: "You could have a piece of skull five rooms down the hall."

Rohling likened trauma cleanup to "peeling layers off an onion: You keep cleaning until you don't find anything."

When cleaning a bedroom in which a man died and wasn't discovered for days, Rohling said, "I had to pull the wood floor up, then the subfloor, then the Sheetrock from the apartment below. A general rule is: The longer the body's been there, the bigger the mess."

Such scenes can require a technological trove of gear to sanitize, such as black lights that show bodily fluids invisible to the eye, thermal and ozone foggers to kill germs in the air and double-filter respirators to protect workers.

But some cleaners also employ decidedly unscientific methods to find contaminants.

"I do a 'squish test,' " said Bob O'Connor, owner of Philadelphia-based Trauma Scene Restoration. "You step on the floor and see if blood comes out between the tongue-and-groove flooring."

Jaconi's secret weapon: hydrogen peroxide.

"When you spray peroxide, it bubbles up if there's blood or bodily fluids," Jaconi said.

With homicide rates relatively steady and suicide rates climbing nationally and locally, trauma cleaning is a career with longevity - especially considering that firearms are the preferred method of people who kill themselves and others.

"It's something that people are always going to need," said Benjamin Lichtenwalner, a Marine and Iraq war veteran who opened his crime-scene cleanup company, Biotrauma Inc., in Georgia with a military buddy about three years ago.

But experts warn that such industry growth has drawn greedy ghouls looking to exploit grieving families at their most vulnerable time.

Experts suggest that mourners ask for a company's qualifications and recommendations before hiring.

Cillian's group requires that members adhere to stringent training; it counts about 70 cleanup companies nationally as members.

Tidying up after a tragedy can get expensive, sparking outcry from some victims' relatives.

"I feel taken advantage of, and I think it's a sham. They robbed me," said George Rohanna, who paid more than $2,500 for O'Connor to clean up his South Philadelphia rowhouse after his son killed himself and his girlfriend there last year.

But cleaners say that the high costs of training, insurance, equipment, waste disposal and other needs drive their rates. A shotgun suicide can cost $3,000, O'Connor said.

"If you get an invoice for $1,000, something's too good to be true," said Rohling, whose rates have ranged from $750 to $25,000, depending on the magnitude of the mess.

Further, most insurance companies and victim-assistance groups will foot the cleanup bill.

And do-it-yourselfers could come to regret not hiring a professional, cleaners warn.

"You can't just wipe up what you see, because come May or June when the weather warms, you'll be like: 'What the heck's that smell? Where are all those flies and maggots coming from?' " O'Connor said.

Despite the disgust that many people hold for the profession, many cleaners find it fulfilling.

"I've sat at the kitchen table with a woman whose husband committed suicide, and she cried for an hour with me," Rohling said. "You become a sort of counselor, a shoulder to lean on."

Lichtenwalner agreed: "We help make things better after the damage has been done."

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