Janitor Services in the Age of COVID
With the world slowly reopening and bringing itself back to life, so much focus is – correctly- being put on how to keep people safe when they’re not in their homes, either at the office or visiting a business or shop. For many businesses, they are looking to hire dedicated janitor services to come in day in and day out to clean their spaces. While it’s a nice idea, the effectiveness may leave much to be desired!
Know What Is Required
Standard janitorial services may be fine for standard janitorial cleaning, but that’s not wha the world is needing right now. When it’s time to clean after a possible COVID exposure it’s anything but standard.
There is a clear and serious difference between standard janitorial cleaning and infectious disease decontamination! Consider these things before relying on a standard cleaning service.
Level of Training
Most janitorial companies don’t require intense, biohazard specific training. For their day to day jobs their great no doubt, but infectious, biohazard materials require serious education and training.
A common sight these days is seeing a company claim that their newly offered fogging service does the trick, but there’s more to it than that! To put it briefly, there are necessary disinfectant stages that need to be done in addition to the fogging technique to make it effective. Most simple janitorial companies aren’t following that either because they don’t know that or they’re not trained in it. Either way, they’re not performing at the level required to keep the space safe.
Speaking of disinfectants…
The Right Tools for the Job
As everyone begins to reenter the workplace and begin living more in public, employees, customers, everyone is paying extra attention to the cleanliness of their surroundings. A standard janitorial service might have the skills to keep things looking clean and safe, they don’t necessarily have the tools to make sure environments are clean and safe from coronavirus.
There are very specific disinfectants and cleaners that are approved by the EPA for use in cleaning and disinfecting SARS-COV-2 contaminations. These compounds also have specific requirements including directions, application method, and dwell time, to properly disinfect an area. Since COVID is highly infectious, any area that has had exposure needs to be treated as such and so full personal protective equipment (PPE) needs to be worn when cleaning and disinfecting COVID-19.
Not having the proper tools or following the proper, required procedures means the ‘cleaning’ well, isn’t. In some instances this could open the business to liability should something occur.
Here at BIOClean, we have the experience, knowledge, and access to these tools to use them correctly, because we clean hazardous materials day in, day out – Joe Janitor doesn’t.
Testing Capabilities
Verifiable surface testing is an absolutely necessary piece of the puzzle in combating the spread of COVID-19. This extra step provides accountability, allowing for more proactive controls and containment. Being able to test surfaces before and after disinfection can help track how effective the process is (and whether it is needed in the first place). Being able to do verifiable, measurable tests is such a huge component to proper disinfection and, as you may have guessed by now, it’s not something standard janitorial companies are required to do. These tests require specialized training and equipment.
So if standard janitor services don’t cut it, who does?
The BIOClean Team – Profesional, Trained, Disinfection Specialists
Continuously keeping a sanitized workspace is critical. If one person gets sick and brings the virus into work, it is immediately risky for everyone else, workers, clients, customers anyone who may enter the space. Businesses need to up their sanitization strategy. Give The BIOClean Team a call! We are happy to help and trained to do it all, safely.
As always, The BIOClean Team is committed to being here for you when you need us the most. We are actively deploying teams to combat COVID-19 and offering large and small-scale disinfection in addition to all other standard services.
We follow the most up to date safety measures and precautions, employ an environmental hygienist to update our protocols, every team member is a certified professional following infection control measures, and the team is led by an RN with specific microbiology and virology knowledge.