The Elements of Clean

So, does all the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo in the previous post really mean anything?

It sure does.

It means that there are guidelines out there for cleaning safely and effectively. It also means that they are difficult to find and not mandatory for general residential and commercial housekeeping -- so odds are your cleaning lady doesn't know anything about them.

For me personally, it means I had to look long and hard for help in putting together my materials and cleaning procedures.

And, for all the government agencies' focus on chemicals, my conclusion is that what a cleaner does is more important than what cleaners she uses.

Here are my main principles:

Know what you're doing.

Spray bottles can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

In my time working for other people, I have never once seen a cleaning service follow the OSHA hazard communication standard.  The norm in my experience is for cleaning companies to hand workers unlabeled spray bottles, tell them what they are for, and have them go at it. Now manufacturing and construction companies live in fear of OSHA. They sit every worker, whether he uses chemicals in his job or not, down and tell him where the Material Safety Data Sheets are, how to read them, and to throw out any substance that isn't properly labeled.

Following "the rules" for general housekeeping is important for two reasons. The main one is that virtually any chemical poses some hazard and can react badly with other materials. The old "never mix bleach and ammonia" is the main example. That creates deadly chloramine gas. Bleach and vinegar will give off plain chlorine, another dangerous gas. Here's a handy info sheet from the New Jersey Health Department that spells out some of the dangers of mixing household chemicals.

The other reason it's important to know what's in the bottle is for the safety of your stuff.  A degreaser can strip the finish off a floor. Spray furniture polish can turn the wax finish on wooden furniture to goop. Some chemical reactions can scratch or stain the surface they occur on. Bleach "stains" cannot be removed. Here is a cleaning company guide to basic cleaning chemical families and their health and property hazards. Another source for information about what cleaners are safe for your particular surfaces and furnishings is the original manufacturer. Most reliable domestic manufacturers will tell you what products are best, and many warranties specify that you follow those recommendations if you want to be covered.

One other thing I wasn't thinking of: Some cleaners can be harmful to your drain or septic system. Here's an InspectAPedia article that tells all about it.

These days, cleaning companies generally steer clear of hazardous, highly reactive chemicals like bleach, but, still, if your housekeeper says he's highly trained, he's not telling the truth if he can't tell you what cleaners he's using and what's in them.

Clean first.

 The iron rule of cleaning is to clean.

What I mean is that no housekeeping operation is going to be effective unless it's done to a clean surface.

The main use for this principle is for killing germs. The strongest hospital biocide can't do its job unless its applied to a clean surface. So when a janitor blows through your place spraying Lysol around and immediately wiping it off, he might be killing germs in the dirt he's removing, but he's not killing the germs on the actual surface he's wiping.

Here's is a nice magazine article by an author who actually talked to leading experts and includes information about less harmful homemade and commercial disinfectants at the end.

Plain old soap and water get rid of germs all by themselves, which is why just washing your hands with no special cleaners is effective. But for critical areas like toilets, sick rooms and kitchens, it's a good idea to follow up with a germ-killing chemical designed for that purpose.

Dwell on it

That janitor spraying Lysol around in the section above, he's also not giving the cleaner enough time to work. Although the disinfectant cleaner I have comes pretty close, there is no cleaning product that kills germs instantaneously on contact. Not even bleach.

The concept behind that is "dwell time,"  how long a chemical has to stay in contact with bugs to kill them dead. Yet another agency, the National Institutes of Health has a handy table of disinfectant types that includes dwell times, toxicity, effectiveness, brand names and other useful info. There are a couple of "one-step" cleaners mentioned on there, but the table notes that "best practices recommend cleaning first and then disinfecting for optimal efficiency."

Watch your cleaner sometime. If he doesn't go do something else for a few minutes after spraying disinfectant on your kitchen and bathroom surfaces, he's not going to actually be disinfecting them. (That's doubly true if he sprays the cleaner before wiping the dirt off.)

Keep germs in their place

And my last, but absolutely not least, principle of cleaning is technique, technique, technique.

Even if a housekeeper follows the directions on her cleaning chemicals to the letter, she's still not doing you any favors if she uses the same dirty rag and tools to clean your whole house ... and the house of her next client that day. (Shudder.)

I'm talking about cross contamination. You've probably heard that term before in talk about kitchen safety. When you get salmonella from your raw chicken legs on your cutting board and then cut the tomatoes for your raw salad on the same surface, that's cross-contamination.

In housekeeping, cross-contamination comes from dirty hands, dirty cleaning rags and dirty equipment. Dirt and germs also get around in dirty mop water and garbage can drips and spills.

Kitchens, hospitals and big cleaning companies often use color-coded equipment (red = bathroom/hazardous areas only) and disposable mops and rags to avoid spreading germs.

Cleaners like myself with more time and brains than money to spend on cleaning supplies follow two main rules: One, use clean rags and tools for every area and change mop and cleaning water (if used) frequently, and two, work from the cleanest areas to the dirtiest ones. It makes sense to do "clean" tasks like dusting and wiping mirrors before going on to do the germiest, highest-touch areas of a house. Most pros do the opposite, because the dirty areas are the most crucial and time-consuming, so it makes good business sense to get those done first so you can triage the rest. That's a big reason why I won't charge hourly rates. I'd rather find out the bathroom will add an hour to the end of a job than clean the rest of the house after scrubbing the toilet and taking out the trash. And doing the bathroom and kitchen last also keeps the sinks available for frequent hand-washing, another key to reducing cross-contamination.

Hours of searching for some official pronouncement that cleaning bathrooms last is the best way to do it has turned up nothing but one hotel group cleaning protocol and a  homemaker cleaning type advice article. So the pros generally tackle the dirtiest jobs first, but I just won't because it's gross.