Unattended Death Cleanup in Allentown, PA

Allentown calls start from our East Side head office

Allentown is home base for us. Our head office sits on E Fairmont St on the East Side, so a technician can load a truck with poly sheeting, HEPA air scrubbers and waste boxes and be heading across town soon after you call. The drive into Center City Allentown, or out to the West End past Muhlenberg College, is short by any measure. That matters when a family is waiting on a porch or a landlord has a tenant next door asking questions. We don't need to cross county lines to reach you, and the people who answer the phone know the city.

We work all over Allentown, from the apartments above Hamilton Street storefronts to twins on quiet West End blocks and the rowhomes in between. Each kind of building asks for a slightly different plan. A third-floor walkup means carrying sealed containers down narrow stairs with care. A single home with a finished basement means checking whether anything traveled below the floor. We look at the whole building before we set up, not just the room where it happened.

Technician carrying a sealed waste box along an Allentown street of twin homes

Cleanup calls we answer most in Allentown

Unattended Death CleanupOlder rowhomes and twins near Hamilton Street often have residents living alone, and a death may go unnoticed for days.See how it works Decomposition Odor RemovalPlaster walls and old wood floors in Center City Allentown hold odor long after the visible cleanup is done.See how it works Hoarding CleanupLarge West End homes and East Side twins sometimes hold decades of belongings that family members need help clearing safely.See how it works Estate Cleanout After a DeathHeirs settling an Allentown estate often live out of town and need the house cleaned and emptied with care.See how it works Sewage Backup CleanupOlder Allentown basements with aging sewer laterals can back up during heavy rain and need full disinfection.See how it works Crime Scene CleanupOnce Allentown police release a scene, families and landlords need the home cleaned before anyone returns.See how it works

How older Allentown homes hold odor after a death

Much of Center City Allentown was built long before modern drywall and vinyl flooring. Many rowhomes and twins still have plaster walls, wood lath, tongue-and-groove floorboards and layers of old finish under newer carpet. Those materials are porous. When a death goes unnoticed for days, fluids can soak past the carpet pad into the subfloor and even reach the joists, and odor settles into plaster and trim. Masking it with spray or fresh paint only buys time, because the smell returns on the first humid day.

So we remove what can't be cleaned. Carpet, pad and stained subfloor sections come out and go into red bags inside rigid boxes. We clean and test the framing, then apply an EPA-registered hospital-grade disinfectant and leave it wet for the full dwell time on the label. Where odor has reached the plaster, we clean it and then seal it with an odor-blocking primer, and we run air scrubbers to pull particles from the air. In shared-wall twins, we also check the party wall, since odor can reach the home next door.

What happens once the Lehigh County Coroner releases the home

After an unattended death in Allentown, the Lehigh County Coroner's Office handles the investigation and arranges for the person who died to be moved. If police are involved, the Allentown Police Department decides when the scene is released. We never enter before that release, and we never disturb anything investigators may still need. Once the home is yours again, you call us and we take it from there.

Many families ask about cost before anything else, and that's fair. Homeowner's insurance often covers cleanup after a sudden event, and we can document the work room by room for your adjuster. If a crime was involved, the Pennsylvania Victims Compensation Assistance Program may cover cleanup for eligible victims' families. We also set aside personal items such as photos, papers and keepsakes, clean them where possible, and return them to you instead of discarding them.

Questions from Allentown

How quickly can a crew reach an Allentown home from your Fairmont St office?

Our head office is on the East Side of Allentown, so most addresses in the city are a short drive away. We answer 24/7, and once we know what the scene involves and confirm police or the coroner have released it, a crew loads up and heads out. We give you a realistic arrival window on the phone instead of a promise we can't keep.

Should an Allentown landlord tell other tenants before biohazard cleanup in a shared building?

It's usually wise, though the details depend on your lease and the building. We keep the work contained to the affected unit with poly sheeting and negative air, carry waste out in sealed containers, and keep shared halls clear. We can also suggest plain wording you might use to let neighbors know cleaning is underway without sharing private details about what happened.

Will my Allentown homeowner's policy pay for cleanup after a death in the home?

It often does when the event was sudden, but every policy is different, so check with your insurer first. We photograph the scene before, during and after the work, list every removed material, and write up the scope in plain terms your adjuster can follow. Many Allentown families find that this record makes the claim much simpler to process.

Unattended death and biohazard cleanup in Allentown, PA (18102)