Florida Biohazard Cleanup

On Call Bio serves all of Florida — Miami and the Gold Coast, Tampa Bay, Orlando, Jacksonville, the Panhandle, and everywhere between. Unattended deaths, suicides, crime scenes, hoarding, blood, drug residue, and more. Below is what holds true statewide in Florida, and Florida has one important difference from most states: it actually regulates this work.

Does Florida require biohazard cleanup companies to be registered?

Yes — and this is where Florida stands apart. Most states have no rule aimed at cleanup companies at all. Florida does. The Florida Department of Health permits trauma and crime scene cleanup companies as biomedical waste generators and requires a biomedical waste transporter registration to move 25 pounds or more of biomedical waste over public roads. The authority is section 381.0098(5) of the Florida Statutes, carried out through Administrative Code Chapter 64E-16. A company hauling that waste without a registration ID is operating in violation of state law.

The rules go further than a piece of paper. Under Chapter 64E-16, a registered transport vehicle has to be fully enclosed and leakproof — no upholstery, no carpet, smooth cleanable floors — and it must display the business name, the registration number, a 24-hour phone number, and the biohazard symbol on the outside. On Call Bio holds the required Florida registration and meets those transport standards, on top of the federal OSHA bloodborne pathogen rules for handling blood and body fluids. In a state that sets a real bar, ask any company you’re considering for its registration. We’re glad to be asked.

Can Florida crime victim compensation help with cleanup costs?

It can. Florida’s Crime Victim Compensation Program, run by the Bureau of Victim Compensation in the Office of the Attorney General, reimburses crime scene cleanup up to $1,500 for qualifying victims of violent crime. One detail that trips families up: the cleanup expense has to be incurred within seven days of the crime, so this isn’t something to sit on. Like every such program, it pays last — after insurance, workers’ compensation, and offender restitution have been applied. Our crime scene cleanup teams in Florida work with these programs every week.

Here’s the part worth understanding up front, because it’s easy to misread: the Bureau reimburses you, the eligible claimant — it does not pay the cleanup company directly. In practice, we bill you and you submit our itemized record to the Bureau for reimbursement toward that $1,500. So the documentation matters enormously, and that’s the piece in our hands: a clean, itemized, dated record built to be filed. Call and we’ll point you to the Bureau, give you the hotline, and make sure your paperwork is ready. To confirm the current limit for your situation, the Bureau’s line is 1-800-226-6667.

If insurance doesn’t cover everything, financing options are available. Other states’ rules differ — compare every state’s victim compensation fund in our guide.

Who releases the scene in Florida after a death?

A district medical examiner. Florida runs a statewide, district-based system — 25 districts, each with a medical examiner appointed by the Governor, overseen by the Medical Examiners Commission within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. There are no county coroners in Florida. When a death is investigated, law enforcement has jurisdiction over the scene and its evidence, and the medical examiner has jurisdiction over the body and anything in direct contact with it.

Then comes the moment families aren’t ready for. Once law enforcement and the medical examiner finish and the scene is released, cleaning the property is the responsibility of the family or the owner — not the district, not the state. The officials investigate and take the person into their care, and then they’re done. What’s left is yours, and moving it off your shoulders is exactly what we do. This is when families need unattended death cleanup, and it’s the call we take most often in Florida. Call 844-326-6800.

What Happens When You Call

• You speak to a person immediately — no phone tree, day or night.
• We listen, walk you through what the work involves, and dispatch a registered crew — same-day across most of Florida.
• We document everything for your insurance claim and can bill your carrier directly.
• The scene is returned to a safe, livable condition — meeting OSHA and EPA standards.

The Paperwork Side, Handled

A death sets off a stack of forms, and the estate and insurers ask for some of them right away. In Florida, death certificates come from the Department of Health’s Bureau of Vital Statistics, with local county health departments issuing them as well. A certified copy is $5 for the first — that fee includes the record search — and $4 for each additional copy of the same record ordered together. Online orders go through VitalChek, the state’s contracted vendor; you can also order by mail or walk into a county health department. Order several at once, since each institution tends to want its own.

Requesting them is yours to do, but we’ll tell you who typically needs which document, and we give you a cleanup record built to satisfy the Bureau of Victim Compensation and your insurer — so nothing stalls over a missing page.

What to Do Before We Arrive

• Stay out of the room where it happened, and keep children and pets well away from it.
• Don’t try to clean blood or body fluids on your own — it’s a real infection risk, and it’s not something you should have to face.
• If law enforcement or the medical examiner is still working, wait for the scene to be released before anyone enters.
• Find your homeowners’ or renters’ policy if you can; if it’s lost in the shuffle, chasing down coverage is part of our job.
• When the time comes, order several certified death certificates together.

Discreet, From the Keys to the Panhandle

Our vehicles carry no company name and, apart from the biohazard placard the state requires while waste is aboard, nothing announces what the work is. To a neighbor, it’s a plain van and people moving containers — it could be anything. No one on your street learns why we came, in a Miami high-rise or a small Panhandle town. Crews gear up inside, and if a particular hour keeps things quieter where you live, tell us and we’ll plan around it.

The Full Range of Scenes We Handle

The reasons people call are never identical, and we cover the whole spread across Florida. A death found long after it happened, with what the heat and time do to a room. A suicide, cleaned quietly so a family is never asked to face it. A crime scene, after law enforcement and the district medical examiner have released it. A hoarded home that needs clearing and disinfecting, treated with respect rather than judgment. Blood from an accident or a medical emergency. Drug residue that has to be tested and removed before a space is safe to occupy.

You don’t have to name it correctly or know the terminology to call. Describe what you’re seeing in plain words, and the person who answers will understand and take it from there — with a properly registered crew behind them, as Florida requires. Every Florida crew works to the same standards as our national biohazard cleanup service. That includes help with hoarding cleanup from the Panhandle to the Keys. One number handles all of it, statewide. Families across the South also reach us in Texas.

Questions Florida Families Ask

What does this cost?

The scene sets the price — a single contained room is a small job; a scene that spread or sat is larger. You’ll get a written price after we see the property and before any work starts, and that’s the number you pay. With homeowners’ insurance and the state victim compensation program in play, many Florida families pay little or nothing themselves.

How fast can a crew reach me?

We dispatch around the clock, every day, and most of Florida gets same-day response. If the scene hasn’t been released by law enforcement or the medical examiner yet, call anyway — we’ll stage the crew and move the instant it clears.

Are you actually registered in Florida?

Yes. Because Florida requires a biomedical waste transporter registration for this work, we hold it and meet the Chapter 64E-16 transport standards. If a company can’t produce a Florida registration, that’s your answer about whether to let them in the door.

Will anyone be able to tell you were here?

No. The vehicles are unmarked, the crew wears nothing branded outdoors, and there’s no signage. When we finish, the room looks like an ordinary room again — no trace of the work or the reason for it.

Do you also handle the odor?

Yes — odor treatment is part of the job, not an extra. Removing the source handles most of it, and treating the air and the materials that absorbed it handles the rest. We don’t consider a space finished while it still smells like something happened there.

The Florida Cities We Cover

Florida packs more of our Tier-one metros than any state we serve, and the coverage runs coast to coast and down to the Keys:

• Southeast Florida — Miami, Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton
• Central Florida & the Atlantic coast — Orlando, Deltona, Palm Bay, Port St. Lucie, Palm Coast, Lakeland
• Tampa Bay — Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater
• North Florida — Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee
• Southwest Florida — Cape Coral

All 67 counties answer to the same dispatcher, Panhandle to Key West. Just north, our Georgia biohazard cleanup team covers all 159 counties.

What Sets On Call Bio Apart

• Call any hour and a live person picks up — never a recording or a call-back queue.
• OSHA bloodborne-pathogen methods and EPA standards guide the work from start to finish.
• Holds the required Florida biomedical waste transporter registration (Chapter 64E-16).
• We document the whole job for insurance and, where allowed, bill your carrier for you.
• Unmarked vehicles and complete discretion — neighbors never learn why we came.
• We test to confirm a surface is actually clean, not just clean-looking, before we finish.

What Families Say

On Call Bio was very professional and was able to accommodate the urgency in the situation. They explained the services and was able to relieve my worries.

Latoya

On Call Bio Team made a very hard event much easier. Without them, I do not know how I would have made it through this…

Christopher R.

One Call Starts It

Something hard happened, and now there’s a property in Florida you can’t bring yourself to deal with. That’s alright — it’s our job, not yours. Call 844-326-6800. You’ll reach a real person who will listen, tell you what happens next, and carry this the rest of the way. Florida is one of 49 states plus DC we serve.