Recognizing Domestic Violence on a Call and Staying Safe

Why this matters

Techs walk into homes where one person is afraid of another more often than anyone in the shop likes to think about. Usually you will not know. Sometimes you will see it: a partner who answers every question for the customer, a hole in the drywall at fist height, a flinch when a door slams. What you do in the next ten minutes matters to two people. The customer may pay later for anything that looks like you took their side. You can get hurt if you step into it. This card covers what to notice, why you never intervene physically, how to get out of the house, when to call 911, and what you can say, and to whom, without making things worse.

What you are looking at

Domestic violence, also called intimate partner violence, is abuse by a current or former partner or spouse. It includes physical violence, but the core of it is usually coercive control: a pattern of controlling money, movement, phone use, friends and decisions, backed by threat. That is why most of what you will see is not a bruise. It is one person being managed by another.

Signs that register on a service call

How the two people behave around you:

• One partner answers every question, including ones put to the other ("I'll handle it, she doesn't understand this stuff"), and the other looks to them before speaking.
• The customer apologizes for their partner, or seems frightened of what the partner will think of the estimate or the mess.
• The partner hovers in every room you are in with the customer and does not let you talk alone, or listens from the next room.
• The customer's phone is checked, taken or answered by the partner.

What the house shows:

• Holes or dents in walls and doors at fist or head height, doors off hinges or with broken frames, broken phones.
• A lock on the outside of a bedroom door.
• Damage the customer explains away before you ask.

What the person shows:

• Injuries with explanations that do not fit, especially on arms, face or neck, or clothing that covers a lot in hot weather.
• Marks on the neck. Strangulation is one of the warning signs that research on intimate partner homicide flags most strongly, along with a gun in the home and threats to kill.

Money and the job itself:

• The customer cannot approve a repair, sign, or pay without the partner, in a way that is about permission, not budget.
• The partner is angry, out of proportion, about the estimate, the time, or your presence.

Any one of these can be innocent. A partner who handles the money and does the talking is common and fine. What you are watching for is a pattern, and fear.

Why you never step in physically

Even if a partner shoves the customer in front of you, the right move is almost never to physically intervene. The reasons are practical, not cold:

• It escalates. A third person stepping in can turn a shove into a beating, often directed at the person you meant to protect.
• The customer pays for it later. After you leave, the abuser may punish the victim for "embarrassing" them or for "bringing a stranger into it."
• You get hurt. Domestic calls are among the more dangerous calls police officers handle, and police are trained and armed. You have a toolbag.
• You become a party. If you lay hands on someone, you may face assault claims and you have just made yourself the story rather than the witness.

What helps is being a calm presence who leaves, and calling the people trained for this.

How to leave

Plan the exit when you arrive, at every call, so it costs nothing when you need it:

• Park so you cannot be blocked in, on the street or facing out, not deep in a driveway where a car can pull in behind you.
• Keep your keys and phone on you, not in the toolbag or the truck.
• Stay between the person and the door where you can, and do not let yourself be walked into a back room or a basement with only one way out by someone who is agitated.

When a situation starts to turn (raised voices aimed at the customer, a partner who is getting physically close to you or to them, an object thrown, a threat), leave with an ordinary reason. "I need to grab a part from the truck." Do not announce that you are leaving because of them, do not argue about the job, and do not try to take the customer with you. Walk out, get in the truck, lock the doors, drive to a spot out of sight of the house, and decide from there. Your tools can be collected later with the office arranging it, or with police present if needed.

Do not go back in alone that day. Call the office and the owner. A job interrupted this way is rescheduled with two people, or not at all; the owner decides.

When to call 911

Call 911 from a place you are safe, which usually means from the truck, away from the house:

• Someone is being hit, choked or seriously threatened, or you hear screaming for help or the sound of someone being hurt.
• A weapon is shown or used, or someone threatens to use one.
• You are threatened or assaulted.
• A child is in danger. See related: What to Do if You Suspect Child Abuse on a Job.
• Someone, including the customer, tells you there is a protective order and the person it covers is in the house.

Tell the dispatcher the address, what you saw and heard, how many people are inside, any weapon, and where you are. Then do what the dispatcher says. You can ask the dispatcher not to tell the household who called; they cannot always guarantee it, but they will note it.

Do not call 911 just because you saw signs and are worried. Signs without immediate danger are a conversation the customer may want to have, on their terms, and that is in the next section.

What you can say, and to whom

An adult victim decides what happens in their own life. That is the difference between this and a child: you do not report an adult's situation on their behalf unless there is immediate danger, or the adult is also a vulnerable adult under your state's protective-services law. See related: What a Tech Can and Cannot Do About a Welfare Concern.

What you can do is make a resource available, in a way that does not put the customer at risk:

• Only when you are truly alone with them, and only if they raise it or you have a clear opening. Never in front of the partner, never within earshot, and never with "Is he hurting you?" as an opener.
• Say it, do not write it. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, and you can text START to 88788; there is also a chat at thehotline.org. A card left on a counter, a number written on the invoice, or a text from your phone can be found by the partner and can make things dangerous. If the customer wants the number, let them decide how to keep it.
• Keep it short and offer, do not push. If they say they are fine, accept it.

What to do when a customer actually tells you they are being abused is its own procedure. See related: Responding When a Customer Discloses Abuse.

The office's part

Two things the office controls matter as much as anything a tech does on site:

• Appointment and address information goes only to people on the account. An abuser looking for a partner who has left may call contractors asking "When is the tech coming to my wife's new place?" or book a visit to get an address confirmed. Confirm nothing to someone who is not the account holder, and route oddities to the owner.
• Locks and access. Locksmiths and garage door techs get asked to change locks or codes after a separation. Several states give a tenant protected by a domestic violence order the right to have locks changed, California among them (Civil Code 1941.5 and 1941.6), with rules about who pays and how quickly; the details vary, so check your state before quoting the law to a landlord. Changing a lock for a homeowner needs nothing special; changing one where the other partner is also an owner or tenant is a question for the customer's attorney or the police, not for you.

Write any safety concern on the customer record in neutral, factual terms only. See related: Writing a Safety Flag on a Customer Record Without Defaming Them.

A worked example: a garage door call that turned

A garage door tech arrives at 2:00 p.m. for a broken spring. A woman books it; a man answers the door and takes over: "I'll show you, she has no idea how it works." The woman stays in the kitchen.

2:05. The tech notices a fresh hole in the drywall beside the door to the garage, at about chest height on him. The man says, unprompted, "Don't mind that, the door slammed." The tech parks that as an observation and gets on with the job. His truck is on the street, facing out, keys in his pocket, which is his habit on every call.

2:25. He gives the estimate. The man's voice rises toward the woman: "You booked the expensive guys again." She says quietly that she called the first number she found. He slams a cabinet. This is the point the tech watches: the anger is about her, not the price, and it is getting louder.

2:30. The tech says, "I'm going to grab the spring sizes from the truck," and walks out. In the truck, doors locked, he drives two houses down so he is out of sight of the windows and calls the office.

2:34. While he is on the phone with the office, he hears a scream from the house, then the woman shouting "Stop!" That meets the first 911 condition: the sound of someone being hurt. He hangs up on the office and calls 911 at 2:35, giving the address, "a man and a woman, I heard her scream and shout stop, I don't know of a weapon, I'm in a white truck two houses north." He stays in the truck. Police arrive at 2:47.

After. He gives the officer what he saw and heard, factually, including the hole and the "door slammed" comment, and the officer takes his name. He does not go back in. The office reschedules nothing and leaves the account for the owner to decide. The owner adds a neutral note: "2-person crew required. Contact account holder (booker) by phone only. Do not confirm appointments to other parties."

What would have changed his calls: if he had not heard the scream, he would have stayed in the truck, told the office the job was stopped, and not called 911; raised voices and a slammed cabinet are signs, not an emergency. If the woman had come out to the truck alone and asked for help, the next move would be the disclosure procedure and, if she wanted it, 911 with her consent. If the man had followed him out to the truck, he would have driven away first and called second.

References

• National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-7233, text START to 88788, thehotline.org
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intimate partner violence overview
• California Civil Code sections 1941.5 and 1941.6, lock changes for tenants protected by restraining orders
• See related: Responding When a Customer Discloses Abuse
• See related: The Hostile or Impaired Customer: A Decision Tree