Fentanyl Cleanup in Southern California

Fentanyl Cleanup

Fentanyl cleanup by trained hazardous materials crews

HCI crews clean up fentanyl across Southern California. The calls come from rental housing, patrol cars and holding cells, and from offices and medical buildings. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid many times more potent than morphine. A few grains left on a counter are enough to put the next person who wipes it in the hospital.

Here is the hard part. The residue is invisible. It gets into the carpet pad. It sticks to the fabric on a couch. It rides the airflow into a return vent and settles on painted drywall at the far end of the hall, and bare wood holds it. Anybody who starts pulling carpet without containment is spreading it.

So before a single thing gets moved, HCI controls the door, walks the site and marks what is affected. Then the crew chooses the PPE and the containment, and sets up the HEPA vacuums and air filtration that particular room calls for.

The method comes from the EPA voluntary guidelines for methamphetamine and fentanyl laboratory cleanup, with state and local rules layered on. When a building owner or an agency needs the space released, we run the sampling, write it up and hand over the record of what was done.