Cleaning up Crime scenes

How would one go about getting a job cleaning up crime scenes? Do you have to take classes, or can any Joe pick up a sponge and go brain scraping?

Man, I knew the job market was tight dude, but doesn’t McD’s have any openings?

Here is an interesting article that should answer your questions.

And here’s an interesting novel about crime scene cleaners.

Sorry, folks. I didn’t see that this was a duplicate thread. Apologies.

Michael Moore had a show called TV nation where he tagged along for a day with a company that did this… worth a watch if you can find it!

An enterprising buddy of mine runs such a business. He’s also a fireman, but works a 48-hour shift and then is done for the week. So he started a crime scene cleanup company, capitalizing on the ties he developed with police departments over the years, and has done quite well with it. When he has a particularly taxing assignment, he’s able to easily round up the additional manpower he needs from the crew of firemen he works with.

In addition to training, you need to be able to handle the sights and - even worse, from what he’s told me - the smells. To people experienced in working fire/rescue, I guess it’s not such a biggie. But I’d think it would be tough for the average civilian to handle. I know I couldn’t do it!

As an aside, a couple of years ago I rented a straight-to-video movie called Curdled, which is about a girl working for such a company. I’m not sure how realistic it is. The girl, by the way, is the driver of the cab in which Bruce Willis’s character in Pulp Fiction left after the boxing match. The movie is one of those ‘Tarantino presents’ thingies. Not very good, but hey, what do you expect with straight-to-video.

bump

Good grief, another one? The hamsters must have been on something. I’ll close this one too and direct further comment to http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168957

bibliophage
moderator GQ