If you have recently tested positive for the newest strain of coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, one of your first priorities, after you have recovered from the disease, should be to clean your property. Covid-19 is a particularly dangerous disease because it can live on surfaces for a week or more. This means that even after you have recovered, there may be Covid-19 still contaminating your home. To prevent yourself and your loved ones from contracting Covid-19 again, you should make sure that your entire property is professionally cleaned thoroughly and in a timely manner.
The first thing you should do after you have recovered from Covid-19 is research companies that have experience cleaning infectious diseases. Traditional cleaning companies may be cheaper, but they do not have the necessary equipment or experience to assure you that your home will be 100% free of Covid-19 after they are done cleaning. To make sure that a cleaning company is legitimate, look for a certification by the Institute of Inspection Cleaning & Restoration Certification (IICRC) on their website. If they have this certification, also make sure they comply with all Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. By checking for these two specific points, you can be sure that you will find a cleaning company that specializes in infectious disease cleaning.
Once you have found a company that has both the IICRC certification and complies with OSHA regulations, read more about the company online. You should start by checking reviews from third party sources such as Google reviews. If they have a lot of credible, positive reviews, this proves that they have a history of successfully cleaning properties contaminated with infectious diseases. After you check online for reviews, go back to the company’s website. On the website, check to see if they describe their cleaning process. The more specific they are with the steps they use to decontaminate properties the better. Most importantly, you want to make sure that their cleaning procedures are approved by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This may not be specifically mentioned on their website, in which case you should call them and ask if the CDC and EPA have approved their procedures.
After confirming that the company’s procedures have been approved by the proper authorities, closely read their infectious disease decontamination procedures. Note that traditional property cleaning and biohazard remediation are two completely separate procedures. While a traditional property cleaning may be as simple as deep cleaning your house with vacuums and water, biohazard remediation is much more thorough. Biohazard remediation involves three simple steps: removal, cleaning, and disinfecting. If the company’s biohazard remediation services do not offer some variation of these steps, they are likely repackaging their traditional property cleaning services, which will not guarantee that your house is decontaminated from Covid-19. Although companies differ in how they execute these steps, all legitimate biohazard remediation companies will be sure to follow them. Before you choose a cleaning company to decontaminate your property from Covid-19, make sure they are committed to following standard biohazard remediation procedures.