CM/Spotlight: Restroom Care Does Your Restroom ‘Feel’ Clean? Customers use their senses to determine cleanliness. By: Peter J. Sheldon, Sr. and Dr. Charles Gerba for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Restroom Care . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Restroom . F For the past 150 years, we have been cleaning the epicenter of biowaste transfer — the restroom — to a standard we can smell, touch and see. If it looks, smells or feels clean, then it must be clean, at least to the perception of a single individual. Another personʼs perception, however, may be completely different. Gauging Success Cleaning a restroom for the aesthetic appeal of the users of the facility is ambigu-ous at best and often a moving target. What “feels” clean to one person, may in fact seem just the opposite to you. In assessing cleanliness in restrooms, we need to educate building occupants that germs are invisible. This means that places that look clean can, in fact, be very risky. When a proper cleaning regime is not fol-lowed, cleaning can actually spread illness-causing germs in a facility, even though the facility may smell or look clean. Therefore, as building service contrac-14 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • November 2009
CMM – Archives Nov 2009: 14
