Commercial Janitorial
A janitorial account is the same rooms on the same nights, over and over, after your last person has gone home. What makes one work is boring and specific. A task list with a frequency written next to every line, and a plan for how I get in and lock up again. I take on small commercial accounts in the evenings: offices, studios, shops, single suites. The evening slot suits me. I came out of live entertainment, where the work also happens on the building's schedule rather than mine.
$40 an hour, 1 hour minimum. Every visit is billed at least one full hour even if the work takes thirty minutes. Why, and how to get the most out of it.
What the job involves
- A scope sheet before anything else, one line per task with a frequency beside it. Trash, restrooms and traffic lanes every visit. Dusting, interior glass and full carpet weekly. High dusting, vent grilles, baseboards and chair legs monthly. If a task is not on the sheet it is not getting done, and that is the point of writing one.
- Restrooms are the account. Toilets and urinals, sinks and mirrors, partitions wiped down rather than sprayed and left wet, floors mopped into the corners and behind the bowl, and paper, soap and liners restocked so nobody in your office has to think about it.
- Trash out of every can, including the ones under desks, with liners replaced instead of straightened, and the bags walked to your dumpster or compactor. Tell me where that is and whether the enclosure is locked, because a locked gate and no key turns into a bag sitting by your back door.
- Floors on a split schedule. Entries and traffic lanes vacuumed every visit, the full carpet on a set night, hard floor dust mopped then damp mopped. Machine work like burnishing, strip and wax, or hot water carpet extraction is a separate scheduled job with dry time, never folded into a nightly stop.
- Break room and kitchen: counters, sink, tables and chairs, the coffee station, and the outside of the microwave and fridge. Inside the fridge is a dated job we agree on ahead of time, and somebody on your end has to tell staff to clear it first.
- Getting in and locking up. A key or fob, my own user code on the alarm so your log shows who came and went, and an agreement on what happens if the panel trips at nine at night and the monitoring company starts calling.
What changes the price
Visits per week first. Then restroom fixture count, because two toilets, a urinal and two sinks take about the same time whether the office around them is 2,000 square feet or 6,000. After that: carpet against hard floor, how many cans there are and how far the dumpster is, whether there is a janitor closet with a mop sink and hot water or I am carrying water from a restroom, whether staff are still working while I clean, and who buys the paper, soap and liners.
What people usually get wrong
Comparing two monthly numbers as though they buy the same work. They almost never do. A lower monthly number is bought with frequency, not with a cheaper hour: traffic lanes instead of the whole carpet, dusting monthly instead of weekly, partitions and interior glass left out, consumables left to you. Ask each bidder for the task list with a frequency beside every line and compare those instead. And remember what the account actually gets judged on. Nobody notices the vacuuming. They notice the restroom and the glass by the front door.
Send me this and I can quote it without coming out
There is no trip charge either way, but a remote quote is faster for both of us and it costs you nothing to try.
- A photo of each restroom, plus the count of toilets, urinals and sinks and whether the floor is tile or sheet vinyl.
- The janitor closet: mop sink, hot water tap, and what is already stocked in it. If there is no closet, tell me that.
- Total square footage and roughly how it splits between carpet and hard floor, with one wide photo of each area.
- Which nights you want it done, what time your last person leaves, and how I would get in and disarm the alarm.
- Whatever your building requires from a vendor before anyone can start, if there is a list. Better I see it before a walkthrough than after a bid.
When I am the wrong call
One person working evenings covers a suite or a small building. A nightly route across an office park, a day porter during business hours, or a crew stripping and waxing a floor over a weekend is a company with staff, and you should hire one.