Looks can be deceptive-germs hide in plain view!
Probably the number one way that I determine the quality of a restaurant or store is by the cleanliness of the restroom. If I detect an unpleasant smell or see toilet paper on the floor, smudges of something (!) on the partition, dirt on the countertops, etc I immediately correlate that to the values of the facility. And, I know I’m not alone. I find myself thinking, the restroom looks clean — but is it really?
We tend to apply that same criteria to the workplace. But here’s the danger: while most commercial office buildings LOOK clean, it can be deceiving.
The real test as to the cleaning quality is in what you DON’T see.
Public restrooms are notorious for harboring health-threatening germs including E coli, Shingella bacteria, Hepatitis, Strep, Staph, TB and the common cold. The door handles, toilet handles & seats, sinks and faucet handles, buttons on the dryers, feminine-hygiene units and door handles are all known as disease transfer points because they are touched by almost everyone who enters the restroom.
So what can we do to protect ourselves?
First and foremost, wash your handles thoroughly each and every time you leave the restroom. The second thing, is to be sure that your janitorial company is properly cleaning your facility.
The biggest mistake made in restroom sanitization is the lack of appropriate dwell time for sanitization and disinfection. Just spraying and immediately wiping means the restroom looks clean, but the solution did not have a chance to eliminate the hidden germs. That’s because some cleaners need as much as 10 minutes of dwell time in order to do its job.
At ImageOne Janitorial Services, Inc. we teach our crews to pre-spray the entire restroom with the sanitizing cleaner. Next, they wipe and then follow with the disinfectant. By giving the sanitizer and the disinfectant solution the appropriate dwell time, we can achieve a kill rate of 99 percent. Now, that’s a restroom I feel comfortable using. If only we could figure out how to get everyone to wash their hands!
ImageOne Janitorial Services, Inc. provides commercial cleaning to businesses across the Greater Orlando / Central Florida area.
