AUGUSTA — When a tenant dies alone and it goes undiscovered long enough for the body to decompose, or a tenant is killed in a violent, bloody crime or just lets the apartment become littered with feces, it can leave a horrific mess to clean up.

But often what a landlord faced with such a situation can’t see has the potential to be much, much worse.

Additional Images

Kerry Gilmore, director of sales for 24-Trauma/Restore, teaches housing authority employees and landlords Wednesday how to protect themselves with booties while cleaning up a biohazard in an apartment during a course at City Center in Augusta. Staff photo by Andy Molloy

There could be a wide variety of biohazards lurking beneath the carpet, on the walls, or even on a ceiling fan, which in many cases will require clean up by a licensed professional trained and equipped to deal with anything from HIV-infected pools of blood to a house three-quarters full of human waste.

Local landlords and housing professionals from across the state learned Wednesday from the pros, Massachusetts-based 24-Trauma/Restore, what to do to make sure the unit is cleaned properly and legally when biohazards are left behind in an apartment by someone who died, or had a meth lab, or allowed mold to grow, so it can be safely rented to a new tenant.

“Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” said Kerry Gilmore, the firm’s marketing director. “You just have to be prepared if you open a unit and there are biohazards present, and know what to do to keep yourself safe.”

Gilmore showed photographs of an apartment overseen by a housing authority in Massachusetts where a tenant had died and his body had decomposed. Other than some minor-looking carpet stains, the room didn’t look too bad.

Then she showed what was under the carpet: a huge, human-shaped black stain from body fluids that burned into the hardwood floor below the carpet. The fluids had leaked down into rafters and, Gilmore said, would have leaked down into the apartment below within another 24 hours.

About 15 people attended the session, including several from out-of town housing authorities.

The training session was organized by the Augusta Housing Authority in partnership with MaineHousing and Waterville Housing Authority and was meant to help landlords, property managers and others learn what they need to do to make sure their apartments are safe and legal to rent out following an unattended death, suicide, violent crime or other incident likely to leave behind biohazards.

Chris McMorrow, a local landlord and member of the board of directors of the Maine Apartment Owners and Managers Association, said he attended the presentation to learn what to do in situations potentially involving biohazards. He said he once had a diabetic tenant who left needles throughout the apartment and asked what he should do about those needles.

Gilmore suggested contacting a licensed medical disposal company to safely and legally dispose of the needles. She added that some fire departments may pick them up.

Dan Morse, another representative from 24-Trauma/Restore, said if a landlord is caught throwing needles in the trash, they could be fined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

McMorrow said he’s had a couple of tenants die in apartments, but there was no blood in the units in either case. He said family members of the tenants came in and cleaned the apartments, and “I really thought nothing of it.”

Morse said not every death requires a professional clean up.

However, he and Gilmore warned if an unseen biohazard is in a unit where a tenant dies, and the family of the tenant cleans up the unit and is exposed to that biohazard, the landlord could risk liability for that exposure.

Gilmore warned someone walking through blood can get it on their shoes, take that blood home and put their own children at risk of being exposed to disease while playing on their own floor.

For such cleanups, a quick pass through with a dust rag and vacuum cleaner just doesn’t cut it, said Amanda Bartlett, executive director of the Augusta Housing Authority, a quasi-municipal organization that distributes federal housing vouchers and provides other housing assistance in the area. She said landlords need to know how to properly dispose of blood or body fluids that may have seeped into walls, floors or the air. While most landlords do the best they can, they need to know the proper way to clean to make sure the apartment is safe to rent to someone else, she said. She said a new tenant could become very sick or even die if biohazards are not taken care of properly.

Bartlett said suicide and unattended deaths happen fairly frequently. She said most landlords she has talked to have had an unattended death, in which someone dies alone and the body may not be discovered for some time, or a suicide occur in one of their units at least once. For larger property management company workers, it happens more frequently for the simple reason they manage a larger number of rental units.

24-Trauma/Restore cleans up crime scenes, including where homicides and natural deaths occurred and the bodies have decomposed, where meth labs operated and other difficult situations.

The firm’s work included the cleanup after a man recently barricaded himself in the Camden Rite Aid before shooting himself with a shotgun, the Boston Marathon bombings, and U.S. Postal Service facilities after the anthrax incidents in 2001.

The training was open to anyone but targeted property managers, landlords, maintenance staff and other housing professionals.

The free training was part of the new Healthy Housing Seminar Series of Augusta Housing Authority, Waterville Housing Authority and MaineHousing. Other seminars are planned to cover topics including the life safety codes rental units must meet, radon, bedbug control, smoke-free housing initiatives and lead paint hazards.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj

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