They're called when CSI done

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer

PORT RICHEY - Six liters of blood pump through the average human body. Rick Akin can't stop thinking about what happens when it gets out.

"Tile is great to look at, but grout is porous," he said over breakfast one morning, pointing at the floor of a Denny's restaurant. "Blood would soak through that."

He should know. He's seen blood soak through foam mattresses, seep under toilets and run nearly 9 feet down plumbing pipes. He's seen a stain "this big" underneath an orange shag carpet. He's seen blood stick to gorging flies that then alighted on walls and left little bloody dots.

Akin, 46, has seen all this as co-owner of D-N-A Extreme Clean, a Pasco company that he and pal Rob Debow started nearly two years ago to clean up suicide, homicide and belated discovery scenes. D-N-A is one of about 10 biohazard companies listed in a directory that Pasco Sheriff's Office can provide to victims' families upon request.

Hired by victims' family members or landlords, Akin and Debow don heavy Tyvek suits suits, three pairs of gloves and rubber boots and scrub blood and bodily fluids released as a body decomposes. They try to get rid of the unforgettable odor. They rip up stained carpets and dismantle bathrooms to track the flow of blood and fluids. They disinfect, and they triple bag before they haul the waste away.

Akin is matter-of-fact about the harsh details of this line of work, but he says he's motivated by a desire to help people through the hardest times of their lives.

"It gives me the warm fuzzies to help people," he said.

He has also found a business that suits his obsessive curiosity.

"I've been fascinated by blood spatters for years," he said.

He can't say exactly why, but he tells this story:

Years ago, when he was a teenager in Detroit looking to make some cash, he went to a blood bank to sell plasma. Fifty bucks a pint. He remembers sitting in a recliner and watching the workers hurry by. One of them, he says, dropped a bag of blood.

"Soon as it hit the floor, the blood shot across," he said.

Another worker dropped a bag of just plasma. "It just landed in a big gooey pool," recalled Akin.

He wondered why, so he got a high school science teacher to tell him about the properties of blood.

"When I'm interested in something I do everything I can to learn about it," said Akin. "Kind of like a shade tree mechanic? I'm a shade tree scientist."

Of course, there's another motivation for starting a business: Making money. Costs of D-N-A's services range from $500 to nearly $5,000 depending on the severity of the scene. Homeowners' insurance sometimes pays for the work, and families can also be reimbursed through a state fund for crime victims.

Akin thought the business would make good money, but so far that isn't happening. In two years, they've done about 24 jobs, some of which were just for cigarette smoke removal. Both he and Debow are keeping their day jobs, at least for now: Akin is an equipment technician for Pasco Fire and Rescue Department, and Debow runs a conventional cleaning company.

Akin started D-N-A with money - he won't say how much - borrowed from a friend and has yet to pay him back. None of this has helped out his personal financial situation, either: Akin lost his house to foreclosure earlier this year, and he, his wife and teenage son are now renting a home. Akin said his slow business is partly to blame.

Struggling for solvency is typical in this mostly unregulated industry. Dale Cillian, president of American Bio-Recovery Association and owner of a Phoenix company, said there's no one-stop source for how to operate one of these companies. And biohazard removal alone rarely pays the bills. Many of the roughly 400 biohazard companies, including his, make their money on remodeling the homes after they clean them.

"A lot of these companies go under," he said.

One reason is that marketing is tricky. Selling yourself at a time of suffering for someone else isn't easy.

D-N-A started out with marketing materials, for instance, that featured a hazard symbol. But Akin and Debow decided to go for a more sensitive touch: They changed their icon to a dove, with the tagline "No one should ever have to be a victim twice."

Akin, a friendly man prone to guileless self-promotion - "I'm a tough person to work for because I'm all about safety," he says - also blames law enforcement for not going far enough to make victims' families aware of the industry and managers of apartment complexes for trying to do the work themselves.

"Would they know to pull up the toilet?" he said one day when he and Debow were looking at photographs of an apartment bathroom they'd cleaned.

Few people think about blood as much as he does. But he says everyone should think about it a little more, and he has embarked on a publicity campaign.

He posted a message on a television news Web site - "Who is cleaning up the bloody messes?" - following a story about a homicide. He sent an angry e-mail to federal housing authorities after learning that the maintenance crew at a subsidized housing complex in Spring Hill had cleaned up an apartment where a person's body had been discovered rather than hire a company like his to do the work.

"Bad things happen to good people. And somebody has to be there to help pick up the pieces," Akin said. "Sooner or later, God forbid, you may need somebody like us."