Crime scene and biohazard cleanup referrals for Georgetown

1First calls after an incident in Georgetown

Inside city limits, the Georgetown Police Department on Bourbon Street takes the call; at an unincorporated address such as Oxford or Great Crossing, the Scott County Sheriff's Office responds. Both are dispatched by the Georgetown/Scott County 911 Center. Kentucky law puts the elected Scott County Coroner in charge of a body and anything that may explain the death, so touch nothing in that room until the coroner and officers say the home is released. Renters in town or near the college should alert their property manager right away, because owners normally book and pay for cleanup of a rental unit. Subdivision residents with a homeowners association may also owe it notice if a shared wall or common area was affected. Once the release comes through, phone our line and we will pair you with a company serving 40324.

Georgetown cleanup checklist

1. Before officers leave, jot down the incident number that city police or the Scott County Sheriff's Office assigns.
2. Get the Scott County Coroner's release confirmed before anyone moves bedding, furniture or belongings from the room.
3. Photograph damage room by room for your insurer and, after a crime, for the Kentucky Crime Victims Compensation Board.
4. Call GMWSS at its West Main Street office if sewage came up a floor drain, and ask where its responsibility ends.
5. Tell your landlord, and the college if a student lived there, when the affected unit is a rental near East College Street.
6. Keep pets and children out, and leave windows shut so odor does not drift toward close-set neighbors in Lanes Run.

3Questions from Georgetown families

4From Royal Spring to the subdivisions Toyota brought

Roughly half of the homes in ZIP 40324 went up after 2000, which makes this one of the youngest housing markets ringing Lexington. Subdivisions along Frankfort Road near Great Crossing High School and east toward the Villages at Lanes Run are full of houses with carpeted bedrooms, drywall and floor-level HVAC returns. Those materials soak up fluids and odor quickly, so jobs on the newer side of town usually mean cutting out pad, subfloor or drywall rather than wiping hard surfaces.

Downtown plays by different rules. The blocks around the courthouse on East Main Street and Royal Spring Park along Water Street keep older brick buildings, upstairs apartments and frame houses, though fewer than one home in ten across the ZIP predates 1950. Plaster, hardwood with gaps between boards and shared stairwells mean contamination can drift downward or along a common hallway. Near Giddings Hall, the college adds a pocket of student rentals where landlords, roommates and parents may all weigh in.

Most land inside 40324 lies outside city limits. The ZIP stretches north to Oxford, west past Ward Hall on US 460 to Great Crossing along Elkhorn Creek, and even catches thin slivers of Bourbon and Fayette counties. Some farmhouses and outbuildings out there rely on wells and septic tanks rather than municipal water and sewer lines. About seven in ten homes across the ZIP are owner-occupied, so a family, not a management office, usually makes the call on cleanup.