What Have We Learned from the Pandemic?

We have learned a lot:

• We have learned a whole new respect for teachers and what a big role they play in keeping our kids safe from germs in the classroom.
• We have learned that wearing pajama pants to meetings is fantastic! But that viruses and germs can impact us far beyond a sick day.
• We have learned that we never really cleaned our work areas. Think back to the amount of funk you have been surrounded by and how differently we feel about it today.
• We have learned to be more conscious about the surfaces we touch throughout the day and that keeping things clean matters more than we’d ever thought.

The Dirtiest Surfaces

Your cleaning company should be cleaning these surfaces every time they’re servicing your office.

What you need to think about are the surfaces that are frequently touched but not often cleaned. We’ve been compiling data while sanitizing high touch surfaces in over 100 buildings here in Illinois over the past nine months. What we have learned will surprise you.

Cleaner than a Toilet Seat?

We’ve learned that the toilet is one of the cleanest surfaces we’ve tested. Seats and handles are typically disinfected once per day. Light switches were pretty clean too. Think about it. At your office, lights are kicked on in the morning and left on all day, and we aren’t touching too often.

Dirty Door Handles

But it’s not the doors you would think. The Interior handles of restroom doors were pretty clean, and the exterior handles of the same restrooms were filthy. Think about it; when you enter a bathroom, you touch all over everything. When you leave a toilet, you wash your hands; you shut the water off with a towel and bootie bump the door to exit.

Computer keyboards and chair handles are pretty funky too.

The good thing is this funk is typically your funk, so you shouldn’t be too grossed out by the high numbers of bacteria we have found.

Dirty Shared Machines

Community copy machines, touchscreens, and security keypads were germ havens. These are things many cleaning companies miss or hit inconsistently. This is a prime area to place a container of sanitizing wipes.

Ok, it’s been long enough. Here’s the funkiest surface in your office…

Your Dirty Cell Phone

You take it in the restroom to lay it on the germ-covered counter, you put it in your filthy pockets, or you ‘never cleaned’ purse. You give it to your kids; you snuggle it to your face when you talk. You spit on it, drop it on the floor, touch it, swipe it, all things that transfer funk and filth. Yet you rarely clean and sanitize it. It’s typically the first thing you feel in the morning and the last thing you touch at night, and I bet you don’t wash your hands after you fondle this funk fest.

Be Dirty Aware

Set a reminder to sanitize and pay attention to what surfaces you put your phone on. Be safe and be educated on keeping you, your family, and your staff safe and healthy.

What is the best lesson you have learned over the past nine months? How has the pandemic changed the way you think about cleaning?

Contact Clean Impact LLC, and let’s talk about outsourcing your commercial cleaning needs to a company you can trust.