The Janitors' Closet

Restroom graffiti

Keeping restroom stalls graffiti free is covered in a perceptive article at CMM.  Of prime importance is the author's call to view the stall from the point of view of the user. 

We train our folks to inspect their own work (as far as is humanely possible).  When you've finished a cleaning job and put away your equipment, pause, put on your other hat and walk through the facility as would my daytime customer service representative, trying to find issues that the client might notice.

Sit down at the reception desk; you'll better see prints on the front door, or the spider web up in the corner.  Same with the boss's office.  In the restrooms, use an ultraviolet light to check for "=bodily fluids still on the wall next to the urinal, or behind the toilet tank.  (Have never been able to figure out how the stuff gets there, but it does.)  Finally, close the partition door and sit down on the toilet.  You'll see the cigarette ash in the little corner ahead of you, next to the partition's side wall.  And you'll see the graffiti, and hand prints, on the inside of the stall door.

A handy piece of advice from the article:

"One of my favorite graffiti prevention hacks is to apply a thin coat of mineral oil on the stalls where people are prone to write with permanent marker or ink. The oil is odorless, clear, and not easily detected by graffiti artists. If someone writes on the oiled surface, a general-purpose cleaner and a microdenier cloth should easily remove it."

One might even draw a bit of philosophy from the thrust of the article.  Don't just strive to view life (as well as restroom partitions) from the perspective of the other; try to walk a mile in his shoes.

 

 

“If you are failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

The above observation, from Ben Franklin, neatly encapsulates the significance of a recent article in Cleaning and Maintenance Management, summarizing the "how-to" of planning for everything from a flood to a cyber attack. 

Similarly, here's a bit on planning out in advance what to do in response to an active shooter in the vicinity, either at work or out in public.

We stress security in delivering janitorial services, but mostly focus on our own folks: personnel screening and back-grounding, identity verification, key and alarm code security, segregating client keys from alarm codes from client identifiers (name, address, etc.) and such.  We also talk to our crews in our training program about their own personal security, from eyeballing your route into a building before exiting your vehicle, or from the building back to the vehicle, to noting burnt-out security lighting or overgrown planting.  Finally, we're aggressive about security in the areas of back-up key storage, client payment information, personal information on our folks, and so on.

We also offer, at no charge to our clients, a monthly facility safety inspection, looking at exterior security lighting, the battery on the exit sign above the front door, proper storage and labeling on any chemicals inn the janitor closet, and the OSHA mandated monthly inspection of the facility fire extinguishers.  We're careful to give all clients a Safety Data Sheet book covering all the goop we use on the job, company wide - something our clients need to keep OSHA compliant, but that very few janitorial services supply their clients. Won't do much to stop a terrorist attack, but it helps protects our clients from the mundane day-to-day dangers.

We also find ourselves counseling clients (whether they want it or not) about alarm codes - every individual has his own code, know only to him; codes are immediately deleted when said individual leaves, etc.  Rather wish more clients thought a bit about such issues.

Body cams for cleaners

Unexpected article in the European Cleaning Journal.  A proposal is in front of Glasgow's City Council to require cleaners to wear body cameras while on duty.

OK - it involves street cleaners, not the commercial janitors I employ.  But the point is not to spy out irregularities in the work habits of the cleaners, but to protect them from hostile crowds.  (I thought Scotland used to be law-abiding - at least, after the '45.  Go figure.)

Per the article:

"A spokesman from the council cleansing section of the UK's general trade union GMB said: "We're working with large crowds of drunk people outside kebab and chip shops and they're flinging things everywhere. We have people driving by, shouting at us and even throwing bottles.

"Body cameras would be a good deterrent to people who may abuse us - particularly since street cleaners sometimes have to move away from the group and work alone for periods of five to ten minutes."

One wonders why folks - even drunks - would hassle people just cleaning the streets, to the extent that it seems dangerous for them to work alone for even 5 or 10 minutes.

On the other hand, if the body cams are so useful, why need they be required by law?  One would think the cleaners would be happy to wear them, for their own safety.  Perhaps we could just have the City pay the cost.

The bit about "kebab and chip shops" also caught my eye.  Used to be "Fish and chip shops".  Were I not afraid to offend, I might speculate on a possible ethnic change in the neighborhood.  Which might just explain the increased violence - in law abiding Scotland.

 

 

Ocean trash removal - one pound at a time

Caught an article about a Boca Rotan firm that's doing its part to remove floating trash from the nearby ocean by paying fishermen to pull trash; they've just celebrated their million pound mark.  They pay expenses by selling bracelets, made of recycled material (though, I gather, not the stuff pulled from the ocean).

All very commendable.  One million pounds is 500 tons.  Though the planet is better off with those 500 tons in a landfill than in the ocean, that's not really a lot of trash (one could talk about a drop in a bucket...).  And I wonder just how "sustainable" a business model is that's based on selling bracelets.

Given the industrial quantity of trash in the world's oceans (think the Pacific's own "Sargasso Sea" of trash), it rather seems that we need an industrial scale approach.  Think trawlers with really large nets.  I gather that's being worked on, but nowhere near implementation.

Much of the "environmental" movement seems long on feel-good symbolism and short on real-world effect.  Think a bit about Seattle banning restaurant plastic straws.  Most Seattle straws are tossed into the trash at the given restaurant.  That trash is picked up by one of those big trucks you see trundling down your alley (just like the trash that we commercial janitorial services dump from client's office trash cans every night).  It is then dumped into a landfill (regardless of whether it is a city or a private trash hauling firm).  The straw would have a really long hike to get itself into the ocean.

So far as I know, virtually all first world cities use landfills, or recycling centers, or incinerators - never a barge to be dumped into the river or the ocean, as East Coast cities did a generation or two back.  Plastic trash in the ocean comes from second and third world countries, that can't yet afford a dump, or a trip to it. 

You really have to wonder what possible effect Seattle's forward-looking (feel-good) ordnance has on the straws from, say, Pakistan or Venezuela.  Those would be the ones impacting sea turtles and such.

The looming epidemic

As we enter the school year, vaccination rates among Arizona school children continue to decline.

From All About Arizona News: "Currently, 18 states, including Arizona, permit philosophical exemptions from immunizations leading to “hotspots” with potential for major outbreaks, according to the Public Library of Science’s analysis."

In Maricopa County (the metro Phoenix area, where we provide commercial janitorial services, with an emphasis on health):  "According to data from the Arizona Department of Health Services, 5.4 percent of students, namely kindergartners and sixth graders, received non-medical exemptions in 2017. The ADHS recommends a 95 percent vaccination rate among schoolchildren to ensure herd immunity..." 

That 5.4% would be in addition to those unvaccinated due to medical reasons.

One might argue that parents have a right to withhold medical treatment (say, an appendectomy rather than a necessary vaccine) from their children, although I have a bit of a problem with that. However, those children who cannot be vaccinated for various medical reasons depend on herd immunity - the inability of infection to spread through a population if most are immune - to protect them.  Mumps, measles, rubella can be quite serious, leading to various permanent impairments, or death.  I'm waiting for the first wrongful death suit to be filed against parents who refused vaccinations.

I find it interesting that non-vaccinated "hot spots" seem to occur in very traditional religious communities, who don't much believe in modern medicine, and trendy "new age" areas, who have their own set of prejudices.  The current doubts about vaccines date from a 1998 paper published in The Lancet, claiming to link vaccines with autism.  The paper was withdrawn as fraudulent, and the author stripped of his medical license.

Gives "fake news" something of a new perspective.

In passing, one might argue that the state is a bit complicit.  In Arizona, private schools cannot refuse admission to a "philosophically" non-vaccinated student; the school thus compromises their other kids.  You would think that we would encourage schools to protect, rather than require them to endanger, their students.

Cleaning fluid in the latte.

My attention was caught by a quick article about a McDonalds serving a lady cleaning fluid rather than the latte she had ordered.

She seems unharmed, but a bit unhappy.  Seems that the coffee machine was down for cleaning; staff had neglected to unplug the hose to the cleaning solution tank.  Can happen to anybody...

Though not applicable to the commercial janitorial we provide, the incident does highlight the importance of procedures, and procedure manuals, and training.  We do our level best to make all three integral to our program.  And put inspections, and double checks, in place.  An old friend once described it to be as a "belt and suspenders" approach to janitorial - and, I might say, to life.

And, along those lines, perhaps it's better to sip rather than gulp that first taste of coffee.

Don't touch that button!

61% of elevator buttons sampled showed microbiological growth, compared to 43% of toilet surfaces, in a study performed in....a hospital, according to the Open Medicine Journal.  Per the article, "Bacteria cultured from the elevator buttons and toilet surfaces included Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, coliform (or  bowel) bacteria, Enterococcus and Pseudomonas...".  Not the stuff I'd want on MY elevator button.

In doing commercial janitorial (and not just in health care facilities), we've long stressed the importance of touch-point sanitation, including areas like door push bars and elevator buttons.  Our standard touch-point protocol involves a microfiber cloth saturated in a hydrogen-peroxide sanitizer.  The HP is both an effective cleaner and sanitizer; the microfiber is a good cleaner, even with plain water, and because it both scrubs the dangerous critters from the surface, and hangs onto them, one could almost consider the microfiber a sanitizer as well.  Combined, hydrogen peroxide and microfiber become quite the effective sanitation team.

However, we also realize that the very best cleaned and sanitized surface will find itself violated by the first grubby digit with which it comes in contact.  So clean hands ought be a no-brainer.

Likewise, the article advocates using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer before and after touching the elevator button, or using one's elbow, or a pen, to push the button (this assumes that you don't chew the end of your pen), and educating the public about the importance of hand sanitation.

Finally, “We were surprised by the frequency of bacterial colonization on the elevator buttons, but we were also struck by how easily it could be avoided, specifically by the use of good hand washing or hand hygiene,” says co-author Dr. Andrew Simor, chief, department of microbiology and infectious diseases at Sunnybrook."

Like much of what we do, it's not rocket science.

In doing commercial janitorial (and not just in health care facilities), we've long stressed the importance of touch-point sanitation, including areas like door push bars and elevator buttons.  Our standard touch-point protocol involves a microfiber cloth saturated in a hydrogen-peroxide sanitizer.  The HP is both an effective cleaner and sanitizer; the microfiber is a good cleaner, even with plain water, and because it both scrubs the dangerous critters from the surface, and hangs onto them, one could almost consider the microfiber a sanitizer as well.  Combined, hydrogen peroxide and microfiber become quite the effective sanitation team.

However, we also realize that the very best cleaned and sanitized surface will find itself violated by the first grubby digit with which it comes in contact.  So clean hands ought be a no-brainer.

Likewise, the article advocates using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer before and after touching the elevator button, or using one's elbow, or a pen, to push the button (this assumes that you don't chew the end of your pen), and educating the public about the importance of hand sanitation.

Finally, “We were surprised by the frequency of bacterial colonization on the elevator buttons, but we were also struck by how easily it could be avoided, specifically by the use of good hand washing or hand hygiene,” says co-author Dr. Andrew Simor, chief, department of microbiology and infectious diseases at Sunnybrook."

Like much of what we do, it's not rocket science.

Superbugs are gaining resistance

So now for the good news, from Sciencemag:

"Alcohol-based disinfectants are a key way to control hospital infections worldwide. Pidot et al. now show that the multidrug-resistant bacterium Enterococcus faeciumhas become increasingly tolerant to the alcohols in widely used hospital disinfectants such as hand rub solutions".

In doing commercial janitorial service, we clean quite a few healthcare facilities.  For years, we've used a hydrogen peroxide based sanitizer and a quat based disinfectant, and a lotion based hand sanitizer.  No alcohol. So we seem to be safe (until the next discovery), but I see a lot of alcohol sanitizer in use whenever I visit the doctor. 

As always, no good deed goes unpunished.

Raising children

There is much Hispanic culture in my corner of southern Arizona (the Phoenix metro area).  Thus, in providing local commercial janitorial service, I deal whit a good many Hispanics, both as clients and serviced providers.  I've long been impressed with the solid upbringing evidenced by many raised in that culture.

A good friend - part of said culture, with a solid Catholic education, sent the following, to explain the essentials of said upbringing:

"Here's a management training technique you might try at CBN, it's very similar to the method old school Catholic nuns practiced in parochial schools.  In the traditional Hispanic family culture, it's called 'la chancla', and is based on the lore of the Mexican huarache sandal."  Enjoy! 

https://youtu.be/CMij9AKLvog