Tips & Trends

How to Prevent Office Allergies

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Allergy prevention tips from Tommy Petagna of Corvus of New Orleans

What’s the need for allergy prevention in the office?

Allergies are an ailment that affect many in the American workforce. Allergic disease (including Asthma) is the sixth leading chronic disease in our country, affecting more than 30% of US adults, and in 2022 approximately 8% of adults in the United States had hay fever. According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, “Allergic rhinitis, often called hay fever, is a common condition that causes symptoms such as sneezing, stuffy nose, runny nose, watery eyes and itching of the nose, eyes or the roof of the mouth”. You may have hay fever and not even know it!

As many as 4 million workdays a year are lost due to hay fever, and people with asthma will miss approximately five workdays per year because of their disease. On average, Americans will spend about 90% of their lives indoors. With that being said, it is important that work facilities are properly maintained in order to ensure a productive, healthy work environment for employees. With a few simple steps, business owners and managers can improve allergy prevention in the office.

Allergy prevention tips

Check your office air filter regularly

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems create a comfortable work environment, however they can be a source of air contaminants in the office if they are not properly maintained. Air filters can become dirty and clogged, which can lead to even more allergens entering the office than simply not having an air filtration system.

To avoid a dirty air filter, regular inspections should be done. Checking the air filter once a month is a good rule of thumb, but checks should be done more frequently during peak allergy season.

Go Green: Plants lead the way in dust allergy prevention

Phytoremediation is the use of live plants to clean soil, water, and, of course, the air of contaminates. According to researchers from the University of Technology, Sydney, “Potted plants can provide an efficient, self-regulating, low-cost, sustainable bioremediation system for indoor air pollution”.

Plants absorb air pollutants through their stomata and via microorganisms living in their soil. Only adding plants to your office will not be a sufficient method to make your office allergen free, but adding plants along with an air filtration system is a good strategy to office allergy prevention.

Steer clear of feather dusters – they do more to harm allergy prevention than to help

Feather dusters have been widely used since their inception in 1870. From maids, to moms, to janitors, the feather duster has been a go-to tool for cleaners across the board. Feather dusters may have been the cream of the crop for dusting in the 1800s. However, as times have changed, more effective dusting tools have come into circulation. If allergy prevention is a main concern, a feather duster, which oftentimes simply scatter dust off of surfaces and into the air, is not the way to go.

Dusty offices lead to dusty office allergies. Other cleaning supplies, such as microfiber clothes, electrostatic clothes, backpack vacuums, and extendable microfiber dusters will do a much better job of dust removal. Don’t be a victim of the appeal to tradition fallacy and continue to use feather dusters; they may actually increase the amount of dust in the air and will hinder allergy prevention in the office.

Vacuuming and carpet cleaning is key to allergy prevention

Everyone knows that regular carpet vacuuming is needed in an office setting, but the carpet is not the only surface that requires regular vacuuming. For example, cubicles often have carpeted walls, which can trap dust right near employees’ faces. These walls must be vacuumed regularly to prevent the inhalation of dust day in and day out. Any curtains, shades or draperies should also be vacuumed regularly. Furniture such as desks, chairs, and tables should be moved while vacuuming in order to ensure a complete clean.

For hard to reach and awkward areas, there are countless universal dusting attachments available for both regular and backpack vacuums. Carpet cleaning should be used in addition to vacuuming to rid carpets of allergens. When carpet cleaning, it is best to use low-moisture or dry carpet cleaning techniques. Traditional carpet shampooing leaves behind lots of moisture than can lead to the growth of mold and increase dust mites.

We can help you with office allergy prevention!

At Corvus Janitorial, we know the importance of maintaining an allergen-free facility. Our professionals have the skills, tools, and technical know-how to service your office with the highest quality possible. Let us help you with our professional cleaning services…contact us today for a free quote!

Tommy Petagna
Corvus Janitorial of New Orleans
2332 Severn Ave. Ste. 200
Metairie, LA 70001
tpetagna@corvusjanitorial.com
504-304-8323

3 Tips from Successful Corvus Janitorial Franchise Owners

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ALWAYS deal in kindness, courtesy and honesty.

When he started his cleaning business, Dudley Blake, the owner of a janitorial franchise business in Jacksonville, admitted he directed most of his time to the technical side of office cleaning. However, as his business grew, he directed more and more time to developing relationships with his clients, and in doing so paid special attention to committing himself to transparency, kindness and courtesy. “If I made a mistake in an account, or maybe if a client was a little tough on me with criticism, I started looking at every interaction and decision through the lens of courtesy and gratitude for the individual”, Dudley admitted. In doing so, Dudley forged strong, long term relationships with clients that have allowed him to grow his cleaning business several fold.

 

Stay optimistic

When you start a cleaning business…or any business…the entrepreneur needs loads of spirit, enthusiasm and optimism. Anthony Russell, janitorial franchise owner in Denver, provided prescient advice when he counseled other franchisees – rookies and veterans alike – that the key to success is staying positive, being optimistic and remaining mentally tough around those two points. In business, how you face disappointments has a huge impact on future success. Rather than dwelling on losing a client, Mr. Russell emphasized looking forward to getting that new client, keeping your existing offices clean and happy, and never allowing setbacks to keep you down for long.

 

Patience

Finally, and similar to our second bit of advice, business owners need patience – patience to develop their technical skills, customer service skills, their team, their own best practices, and the like. Both Mr. Russell and Mr. Blake admitted that like most business owners, they wanted to win and didn’t want to wait for it. Nevertheless, allowing time to bear out in order to refine their skills and strategies played a key role in the ongoing success of their cleaning businesses.

Restroom Odor Busting Techniques for Educational Facilities

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Corvus of Chicago Janitorial Franchisee Marquette Dewitt and Corvus of Chicago Director of Operations Mario Rodriguez collaborated to provide perspective and tips on some of the most challenging and important aspects of providing outsourced janitorial services to schools, daycares and education oriented facilities.

To address restroom odor, Start with the floor

No facility, regardless of its mission, wants any type of odor within their four walls and certainly not in the restroom areas. Yet as it relates to pre-schools, day care facilities, or schools at large, odors in restrooms can foul the feel of the entire institution, impacting students, and teachers, as well as prospective students and their families. According to Mario and Marquette, a major obstacle to ensuring an odorless restroom is connected to the technique used in addressing flooring in those areas.

Because of high traffic and the need for a strong material to manage traffic patterns and heavy use, most school restroom floors are comprised of ceramic tile and grout. The trouble is that waste, liquid and other odor generating materials seep into porous grout, taking up permanent residence. In such cases, typical damp mopping won’t do the trick, nor will wet mopping.

The key to reducing, if not eliminating, ongoing restroom odor has more to do with four essential cleaning techniques:

Time
Product
Agitation
Pick Up

What is meant by this?

Proper Cleaning Technique Matters

  1. “In order for a cleaning product to be effective, you’ve got to let it interact with the soiled area and material”, remarked Mr. Dewitt, “most people dunk their mops in their buckets, run the fibers over the area and call it a day…but that doesn’t really take care of sanitizing or killing the odor”. Instead, janitorial contractors need to apply the chemical – in an appropriately diluted manner – and let it sit, engaging the target, for 3 – 5 minutes. “With my accounts and my team, I’ll make and apply the diluted cleaning product to areas around toilets or commodes, then address trash, mirrors, dusting or surface areas, giving the chemical time to attack the soiled area”, Marquette said.
  2. It’s critical to use the proper cleaning chemicals when eliminating odors. According to Mario, “a typical floor cleaner or even specialty sanitizer won’t do the trick. That’s because, in most cases, urine is the culprit of odors in restrooms…and to be honest and frank, it’s usually the gent’s restroom that causes problems. ” Employing a product with an enzyme that consumes any type of “organic” material is the key to destroying odors produced by those materials. “We tend to use Spartan products like ‘Digester’ or ‘Nature’s Way’, as we’ve used the line for years and have a great relationship with our supplier, Seaway, but all the other major brands carry a similar type of product,” offered Mr. Rodriguez.
  3. “You have to get in there and deck brush the area,” stated Marquette. Manually agitating the area to ensure the enzyme mixes and consumes the organic matter is critical. In fact, without forcing the interaction, the product remains on the top surface of the soiled area, and does not seep into the porous areas. Especially as it relates to grout floor material, or any material with any degree of permeability, one has to agitate, which in turn can be done with a deck brush, smaller hand-held brush or a more robust slow speed floor machine.
  4. Clean Water and Chemicals for Clean Floors The last step to successfully eliminating odor is a thorough “pick up process”. Janitorial contractors have to change out mop water and chemicals, filling a new bucket with the clean solution. They must “pick up” and rinse water, mopping the area to absorb the chemicals and the now reduced organic material. “Ideally one can wet or “flood mop” then either use a wet-dry vac to pick up the soiled waste water or squeegee excess liquid into the drain which ought to be available in the restroom environment. With my franchise, that’s the method we use for picking up, but occasionally the time frame or window for cleaning won’t allow for that method”, offered Marquette.

 

While many other methods and techniques exist to help battle urine odors and restroom odors in general, those four keys will significantly help bust restroom odor! Time, Enzyme/Chemical, Agitation, Pick Up.
Thanks to Corvus of Chicago Janitorial Franchisee, Marquette Dewitt and Director of Operations, Mario Rodriguez!

Corvus of Chicago – 773-276-2227