The Importance of Cleanliness in Places of Worship

Places of worship – churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples – are unique places designed to inspire and uplift the members of the faiths they serve. Several times each week, large groups of people gather there to connect with their faith and their community to be spiritually fulfilled.

For this reason, primarily, it's important for these places of worship to be clean and tidy when people come for service. In fact, it's a distraction for all in attendance if you can tell that it hasn't been cleaned recently. Carpets that haven’t been vacuumed, metal surfaces with smudges and fingerprints, dirty windows, and messy restrooms all detract from the purpose of the space.

Recently, we posted blogs about cleaning restrooms and offices in places of business. For those areas, the advice we posted applies to places of worship as well.

One thing that separates places of worship, though, is they tend to have a lot of wood surfaces, and if you don't clean them the right way, you can damage the finish. Due to the pandemic, it's understandable that some people have tried to be very thorough in disinfecting surfaces, including wood, to stop the spread of germs. However, cleaning wipes and bleach-based products should not be used on finished wood.

A better option is Murphy's Oil Soap or a similar product, which is formulated specifically for cleaning finished wood surfaces. After allowing the wood to air dry completely, you can spray and polish with a product like Pledge. This not only protects the wood, it also reduces the likelihood of viruses spreading because it’s more difficult for the virus to survive on polished wood.

One important thing to be aware of is that there are different types of finish on wood. The two main ones are referred to as a “hard finish” or an “oil finish.” One way to determine which type of finish you're trying to clean is to get some boiled linseed oil, which is available at hardware stores, and rub a few drops into a hidden part of the furniture, just in case it stains. If the oil is absorbed, you have an oil finish. If it beads up, you have a hard finish.

That's why it's a good idea to also test your cleaning method and products on a hidden area of the wood, just to make sure it won't do any damage. Additionally, doorknobs and handles, light switches, and microphones, should be cleaned using packaged wipes such as Clorox or Lysol Wipes.

At Clean Break Commercial Cleaning, we offer professional cleaning services throughout the Orlando area for a wide range of businesses, including office buildings, churches, schools, bank branches, retail locations, restaurants, medical/dental facilities, and more. Licensed and insured, we recruit, hire and train only the most reliable team members, emphasizing the importance of professionalism. For more information, including a free estimate, please call 321.616.5775 or fill out the contact form on our home page.

Why Keeping A Clean Workplace Is So Important

Photo by Marc Mueller from Pexels

· When you walk into a place of business – whether it's a public-facing business where you have customers onsite like a restaurant or retail shop, or it's an office environment involving mostly employees – how clean the location is has a substantial impact on the success of the business. For customers, especially when visiting a place they expect to be clean like a restaurant or a doctor's office, a location that seems dirty or cluttered can cause then too worry about hygiene. In office settings, a messy, disorganized workspace can take a toll on the morale of your employees.

To make sure public areas are presentable, business owners and managers need to put some thought and care into making sure the workspace reflects how you want the business to be perceived. Feel free to refer to the following checklist to make your cleaning routine as efficient and effective as possible.

Public areas, like lobbies and waiting rooms

• Clean crumbs, dust, and stains from seating areas.

• Dust flat surfaces on furniture and shelves, as well as carefully dusting plants, wall hangings, and window treatments.

• Keep reading materials on display tidy and up to date. Discard reading materials that are outdated, ripped, or dirty.

• Wipe smudges and fingerprints off mirrors and windows.

• Vacuum and/or mop the floor.

Restrooms

We recently published a blog on cleaning restrooms, with more detail, but the basics include:

• Wipe down the toilet seat and lid, and scrub the toilet bowls with a disinfecting cleaner using a toilet brush.

• Refill soap dispensers and paper towel holders, and replace toilet tissue.

• Wipe down the sink and counter areas using a disinfecting cleaner.

Break rooms

• Clean and organize the refrigerator, throwing out old food weekly.

• Wipe down the inside with disinfectant.

• Spray sinks, counter surfaces, tables, and chairs with disinfectant and wipe with a wet rag.

• Clean the inside of the microwave every day with a disinfectant.

Also, empty waste baskets every day, including garbage in the break room, meeting rooms, office spaces, cubicles, and public areas. And make sure to follow the company’s policies on recycling. Finally, as part of your final walk-through, don't forget to look up and keep an eye out for cobwebs. These can be removed easily with a rag or soft-bristle broom.

At Clean Break Commercial Cleaning, we offer professional cleaning services throughout the Orlando area for a wide range of businesses, including office buildings, churches, schools, bank branches, retail locations, restaurants, medical/dental facilities, and more. Licensed and insured, we recruit, hire and train only the most reliable team members, emphasizing the importance of professionalism. For more information, including a free estimate, please call 321.616.5775 or fill out the contact form on our home page.

Tips on Cleaning Restrooms in a Place of Business

For facilities managers and business owners – in other words, people who are responsible for keeping a place of business clean – the most critical areas to focus on are often the restrooms. This applies to almost any type of business where customers and clients visit the location, such as restaurants and retail locations, as well as those where only employees are onsite.

While it’s important to keep every area of a place of business clean and sanitary, especially during this time when the world has been dealing with a pandemic, restrooms should be a top priority because they are the most likely area where disease can be spread. It’s also an area where people expect a higher standard of cleanliness, which means a dirty bathroom can be a real turn-off for customers and employees.

In fact, in a recent survey of facility executives published by Contracting Profits magazine, 55 percent consider clean and well-stocked restrooms to be what they expect most of a commercial cleaning service.

More than just appearances

Because public restrooms that are used by multiple people are such a haven for disease-causing germs, it’s important to follow a process when cleaning this area. If the restroom is cleaned quickly without attention to detail, it increases the likelihood that customers and employees will get sick, which is simply bad for business. That’s why we follow a specific sequence at Clean Break Commercial Cleaning that includes the following:

1. Disinfect all touchpoints. It’s important to start with the common touchpoints in the restroom, which includes flush handles on toilets and urinals, faucet handles on the sinks, door handles, as well as the toilets, urinals, and sinks, using a commercial-grade disinfectant. Most important, let the disinfectant sit on these surfaces while you continue cleaning so they can have a longer dwell time. It’s best to save wiping it down until the end.

2. Dust vents and high, flat surfaces. By dusting these surfaces early, you're allowing any debris to settle completely before you sweep and mop the floor.

3. Restock. Check to make sure all the paper supplies, such as toilet tissue, paper towels, seat covers, and sanitary napkin bags are refilled. Also, check hand soaps, hand sanitizers, and the odor control dispensers.

4. Finish up. Now is the time to wipe down all of the touch-point surfaces you sanitized at the beginning. Be extra thorough while rinsing and drying toilet seats. Otherwise, you risk causing a skin irritation from the chemicals.

At Clean Break Commercial Cleaning, we offer professional cleaning services throughout the Orlando area for a wide range of businesses, including office buildings, churches, schools, bank branches, retail locations, restaurants, medical/dental facilities, and more. Licensed and insured, we recruit, hire and train only the most reliable team members, emphasizing the importance of professionalism. For more information, including a free estimate, please call 321.616.5775 or fill out the contact form on our home page.