Today, we’re going to touch on how to clean an office effectively.
We always have a rolling trash can—some people call it a barrel. Whatever you want to call it, for us, it’s very important because it’s a watertight container. A lot of times, we’re reaching into the trash and don’t know if someone has put a cup or something in there, and we don’t want to make a bigger mess. Alongside our rolling trash can and glass cleaner, we use a feather duster. We look at the feather duster kind of like when you’re doing the floor—this is your sweep; this is your mop. That’s how we clean. Many people think feather dusting is just one swipe and one pass, and you’re done. With our method, there is a system that we use. So, the first thing we do when we walk into an office is always get the trash first.
So, what’s our next step? Well, we’re going to have a system on how we clean.
The first thing we’re going to do is get this out of the way because we don’t want to bother with it anymore. Then, we’ll look for a start and finish point. For us, we usually choose light switches. If we’re starting at this light switch, we’re going to go high to low, right to left, however we want to do it, but that’s what we’re going to do.
Here’s an example:
While we’re dusting around, if we have a picture frame, we’re going to hold that corner so we’re not looking to see if it’s dusty— we’re just assuming that it is.
If we’re in a commercial building, a lot of times they don’t want us to touch certain items. So, we’ll feather dust lightly around them. In areas that are cleared, we can do this in two ways. If we’re worried about the surface, ninety percent of the time, we will spray the towel and wipe the surface down.
If we’re in a commercial environment, a lot of times customers won’t want us to clean their screens because they’re afraid we’ll ruin them. If they give permission, we’re going to spray our towel first. We’re not spraying directly on the screen because if the screen is hot and we spray it, it’s going to burn the spray marks into the screen. With this screen being dry and not warm, we proceed accordingly.
Now, we come to the desk, which gets a lot of questions—what to do and what not to do. If we are walking to a desk like this in this environment, we’re not gathering up all this person’s paperwork and piling it up. We’re leaving it as it is. We’re using our feather duster to sweep, so to speak, to get all that fine dust off, pulling it one way. In situations like this, we’ll see cut marks where people have been putting cups on the desk. Same thing—this is a natural wood surface, so we usually spray our towel and wipe it down. We can pick up stuff like this if we want to. The same goes for keyboards, calculators, remote controls—all that kind of stuff. We can pick those up too.
Then, we’re turning around to clean these chairs. Again, we’re looking at areas that usually get missed. Watching for low dust is where the feather duster comes in handy.
Chairs—We are not skipping over them. A lot of times, even in your house, we’re going to skip over a chair thinking, “Oh, it’s a chair. No, I don’t need to spray it.” we may not need to spray it if it handles are straight and maybe clean, and there’s no problem with them. But down below, we’re going to collect a lot of dust. All this—from top to bottom—high to low. Again, this is a glass tabletop, so we are looking for fingerprints. Then, coming through here, always remember the area behind doors—another spot that many companies miss. So, same thing here—these get really dusty.
The last thing we do is vacuum. So, this is our battery-operated Karcher backpack vacuum that we actually did a review on—you can look at that on our YouTube channel as well. Yeah, we’re a little bit spoiled with this. We don’t have to worry about a cord or anything like that. And this is again a suction type of vacuum, so I can suck up anything from paper clips to staples. It doesn’t make a difference—if it’s on the floor, it’s not going to hurt my vacuum.
