Homeless encampment cleaning takes a lot of guts. The type of waste that you’ll encounter in the encampment and the sheer amount of it can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned sanitation worker. Homeless encampments seem to be popping up everywhere, with more and more of them popping up in neighborhoods and business districts close to where you live. Even if the residents are removed from the site, the cleanup remains. The hard part is figuring out how to make sure that the cleanup makes the area that the encampment was in safe for human occupancy. One important thing to realize about homeless encampments is that they are filled with biohazardous waste that is dangerous for humans.

What Are Homeless Encampments?

Homeless encampments are camps that have been set up by homeless people who have no other place to go. They’re usually set up anywhere that they’re speaks. This means that they could pop up in a residential neighborhood, a retail district, or a public space like a park or a beach. Should be considered a homeless encampment, they’re usually have to be two or more people. In some areas, however, a single individual has set up an extremely large encampment for just themselves. In other words, what constitutes an encampment depends on each particular circumstance.

Who Is Responsible for Cleaning a Homeless Encampment?

When it comes to homeless encampment cleaning, you may be concerned about who exactly is responsible for cleaning it. What a homeless encampment is located in a public space, the city, town, or local authorities are responsible for cleaning. If a homeless encampment is located on a private residence or near a private residence, the owner of that residence may be required to handle clean up. If the encampment is located in a business district on business-owned property, the business may be responsible for handling cleanup. If you’re unsure of who is responsible for the encampment that you’re dealing with, give us a call so that we can help you figure that out.

Why Are Encampments Unsafe?

You may be making the assumption that the reason that homeless encampments are unsafe is because of the types of people that live there. Many of the people who live in homeless encampments are simply people who are down on their luck who are dealing with job losses or apartment rent hikes. These people may have lost their jobs, and they may find safety and numbers in encampments. It is true however that some encampment residents are there because of more difficult to handle issues like mental health issues. Some of them tmay be there because of unsavory pasts. What many people fail to realize is that the key reason that homeless encampments are unafe is because they are unsanitary. Most of the danger from homeless encampments comes from the biohazardous waste that’s found there.

Bio-hazardous waste is waste that contain pathogens. Pathogens are microorganisms that cause diseases. These microorganisms include viruses, bacteria, and fungi. At homeless encampments, it’s present in matter like blood, human waste, animal waste, animal carcasses, rotting food, and drug paraphernalia. People frequently get cuts and bruises or worse and homeless encampments, and they have nowhere to got those injuries treated properly. That accounts for the blood. In regards to human waste, the reason that it’s so prevalent at homeless encampmets it’s because there’s nowhere for anyone to go to the bathroom. This means that people often go to the bathroom wherever they are. Human waste is a huge pathogen risk, making the likelihood of disease being spread highly possible. 

The situation is no better when it comes to animal waste. People’s animal often go should a bathroom wherever their owner is due, and it’s very rarely cleaned up. This creates a huge likelihood of pathogens being spread through the waste. When it comes to food, people buy what they can, and they try to save as much as they can. Unfortunately, much of the food they try to conserve needs to be refrigerated. Since there is no Refrigeration on site, that food ends up rotting, creating biohazardous waste.

How Do Cleaners Protect Themselves?

It’s extremely important that cleaners handling crime scenes protect themselves so that they protect themselves from the contaminants that they’ll find on site. They’ll wear coveralls that protect their clothes from head to toe so that they’re safe from any splashes or droplets containing dangerous pathogens. They’ll wear respirators, goggles, and face masks to help prevent material from getting into their eyes, mouths, and noses. They’ll need to protect their feet as they walk through the encampment, so they’ll wear special boots or shoe covers that not only protect them but can also be removed once they’re done. Most of this gear that they wear is disposable, so it’s removed and discarded once they leave the scene. This helps prevent the spread of contaminants from one site to another. 

How Important Is Disinfecting a Cleared Homeless Encampment Spaces?

Disinfecting is a huge part of cleaning a previous home encampment space. Many illnesses are spread between inhabitants of homeless encampments. These illnesses include hepatitis A, HBV, and other ailments. Since people are packed in spaces close together, it’s very easy for these pathogens to spread through the air. The disinfection process will take the threat of diseases like this away. Encampments often have horrible smells that linger long after the area has been cleared. The special deodorizers will help get rid of those smells so that the spaces can be used freely once again. 

You probably have a lot of questions About homeless encampment cleaning in Rancho Mirage, California. Give us a call so that we can discuss your options and figure out your next steps.