One late Friday night last November, Carol Schaubhut got a call about a murder-suicide. A man had shot his wife 11 times in the shower before turning the gun on himself. It was gruesome; they needed her to come right away.
Schaubhut waited for a detective to release the scene before getting to work. She sprinkled a powerful chemical on the blood, which coagulated into a scoopable pile. Then, with an electrostatic sprayer that looked more like a Stormtrooper blaster than a cleaning tool, she disinfected the tiles and the grout. After she finished, a swab test confirmed the porcelain tub was clean enough to eat off of.
The three-hour job was one of Schubert's last crime scenes before she pivoted to sanitizing spaces impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March, the 55-year-old franchisee of biohazard cleaning company Steri-Clean has been deep-cleaning offices, government buildings, and schools before they re-open. She uses EPA-approved solutions to kill any potential traces of the virus, which is spread through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
"COVID-19 cleanup is really no different than working on a crime scene," Schaubhut tells ELLE.com. "We identify [target areas], craft a game plan, ready our equipment, and then rock and roll. We take it one step at a time. Nice and slow, to make sure we do it right."
Schaubhut comes up with a "hotspot" checklist for COVID-19 cleanups.
Courtesy Carol Schaubhut
Schaubhut consults with clients via phone to review "touch points" before entering a potentially contagious area. What rooms has the infected person been in, what have they come in contact with, and what have they sneezed on? Then, she comes up ..
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