Start with the plain fact: no Texas authority publishes what this work costs. Not the state, not the counties, not a trade body. There is no fee schedule, no published average, nothing to look up.
So every price range you find — including the ones on this page — comes from a company that would like the job. That does not make them useless. It does mean they should be read as advertising rather than as data, and it is worth seeing how far apart they are before accepting any of them.
The one figure that is actually published
Across everything the State of Texas puts in writing about this work, there is a single number:
The CVC Program will pay up to $2,250 for crime scene clean-up costs for crimes after July 14, 2016.
That is the Crime Victims’ Compensation cap, and it is the only published figure in the whole subject. It is not a price — it is a ceiling on reimbursement, after a violent crime, after your insurance. How it works is further down.
What the vendors publish, and where they disagree
Two national restoration firms publish ranges for the same work. Set side by side, they do not agree:
| The same job | Bio Recovery | PuroClean |
|---|---|---|
| Crime scene, average residential | $1,500 – $7,500 | $1,500 – $5,000 |
| Trauma or violent crime | $2,500 – $9,000 | $2,000 – $8,000 |
| Suicide | $1,500 – $5,500 | not published |
| Unattended death, found early | $1,500 – $5,000 | not published |
| Minor blood cleanup | $500 – $2,500 | $500 – $3,000 |
| Hoarding | not published | $2,500 – $15,000+ |
| Severe decomposition | $4,000 – $20,000+ | not published |
Bio Recovery puts most residential work “between $1,500 and $7,500”, with severe cases above $20,000. PuroClean’s top of range for the same description stops at $5,000.
Two things to take from that table. The first is the width: the honest answer to “what does this cost” spans more than an order of magnitude, and a company giving you a tight number over the phone is guessing. The second is smaller and worth catching — PuroClean’s figures are published for Nanuet, New York. A good deal of the pricing people find while searching from Texas was written for somewhere else, and labor, disposal and travel are precisely the inputs that do not transfer between states.
Treat both columns as a sense of scale. Neither is a quote for your property, and neither is a Texas figure.
The “Advertised range” on each service page on this site is built from this table, and spans every figure either vendor publishes in the rows that describe that job:
| Service page | Rows used | Advertised range |
|---|---|---|
| Crime scene cleanup | Crime scene, average residential; Trauma or violent crime | $1,500 – $9,000 |
| Trauma & suicide cleanup | Trauma or violent crime; Suicide | $1,500 – $9,000 |
| Unattended death cleanup | Unattended death, found early; Severe decomposition | $1,500 – $20,000+ |
| Biohazard cleanup | Minor blood cleanup through Severe decomposition | $500 – $20,000+ |
| Hoarding cleanup | Hoarding | $2,500 – $15,000+ |
| Odor removal | none — neither vendor publishes odor work on its own | not published |
What actually moves your number
The ranges are wide because four inputs do most of the work, and only one of them is visible from the doorway.
- How much has to come out, not how much you can see. Blood and decomposition fluids travel into carpet pad, subfloor and the cavity behind drywall. A room that looks surface-stained can be a floor-assembly job. This is usually where a $2,000 quote and a $12,000 one diverge.
- Time before discovery. Days change the answer. A death undiscovered for two weeks in a Texas summer is a different job from one found the same afternoon, and no phone estimate prices it honestly.
- What has to be rebuilt afterwards. Removing contaminated flooring is cleanup. Putting a floor back is restoration, it is usually a different trade, and it is frequently not in the first number you are given. Ask which one you are being quoted.
- Volume and access. Stairs, tight spaces, after-hours response, and the bulk of what has to be hauled. A mattress is the awkward case: often the bulkiest thing in the room, and the drop-offs refuse it.
One thing that does not legitimately move the price on a home job: regulated-medical-waste handling. Texas excludes “waste from single or multi-family dwellings” from the medical waste rules, so a residential job does not carry the regulatory disposal burden a hospital does. Disposal still costs money, and it still has to go somewhere a facility will accept — where the material actually goes — but a line item justified by “regulated medical waste” on a house is worth questioning.
Will insurance pay?
Usually this is the first and largest source, well ahead of any state program. Homeowners’ and renters’ policies can cover biological contamination remediation after a covered event, and some exclude it, and an insurer generally wants a contractor’s itemized invoice rather than a folder of receipts.
Ask your own insurer, before hiring anyone, in roughly these words:
- Does this policy cover biological contamination remediation?
- Will you pay a contractor directly, or do I pay and claim it back?
- Is restoration — replacing what gets removed — covered, or only the cleanup?
- What is my deductible on this claim?
The last two decide more of your out-of-pocket cost than the contractor’s rate does. In a rental the question changes shape entirely, because the lease and the deposit get involved: a death in a Texas rental, and who pays.
The state money, and its three conditions
After a violent crime the Texas Crime Victims’ Compensation Program, run by the Attorney General, may reimburse up to the $2,250 quoted above. Three conditions decide whether it reaches you:
- It pays last. In the program’s words: “By law, the program is a last-resort option. If you qualify for compensation from other sources, like homeowners’ or renters’ insurance, that must be used before the CVC Program.” The insurer comes first, and the claim asks for your declaration page either way.
- It requires a violent crime. Eligibility is for victims of violent crime — the program lists qualifying crimes as “including”, so the list is not exhaustive. An unattended natural death is not a crime, and this money does not reach it — which catches out a large share of the families who go looking for it.
- It excludes restoration. Removing contaminated flooring is covered; replacing the floor is not.
Claims run within three years of the crime unless good cause is shown. Keep the itemized invoice, the supply receipts, your insurance declaration page and the police report number. Payment can go directly to the cleanup company where the documentation is complete, so it is worth asking whether a company will bill the program on your behalf. The crime victim line is (800) 983-9933.
If you are considering handling part of it yourself, the program treats that differently: it reimburses cleaning supplies only.
One thing the price should never depend on
A license. Texas does not license crime-scene or biohazard cleanup at all — the state’s licensing body lists mold assessors and remediators, sanitarians and code enforcement officers, and this trade is not among them. A company charging a premium for being “licensed and certified” for this work is charging for something that does not exist. Ask instead for the certificate of insurance, the bloodborne-pathogens training position, and where the waste goes — a medical-waste transporter registration, which is public and searchable, is the clearest sign of a real route. What Texas does and does not regulate.
How to get a number you can rely on
Nothing on this page is a quote, and a figure given before somebody has seen the property is not one either. What makes an estimate trustworthy is narrow:
- Somebody has been to the property, or has seen photographs of the actual affected area.
- The estimate is itemized, in writing, and says explicitly whether restoration is included.
- It states what happens if more damage is found once material comes up — because it often is.
- It names who hauls the waste and where it goes.
And before any of that: who is responsible for the cleanup is not always the person being quoted. In a rental, or where there is an estate, it can be somebody else entirely.
This page summarizes what Texas publishes, with the vendor sources named so you can see where the ranges come from. It is not a quote, and not legal or insurance advice.
Each city on this network has its own page with that county’s offices, the local numbers and the rules that apply there, with the sources. Find your city.