And let's hear it for the times when janitors and trades-workers of
all kinds were able to earn dignified family-sustaining wages doing
the work that really needs to be done. Contrast to the ponzi-scheme
economy where selling fraudulent mortgages produces obscene fortunes
while cannibalizing what's left of the middle class. Solidarity
among working people is what made the difference in the 20th
century, and it can work again in the 21st century.
Re. cleaning:
Professional cleaning crews work efficiently because they have the
right tools and the right methods, and very often they work as
teams. We can do this.
At minimum we should have:
a) A broom and long-handled dustpan set. The best ones for dealing
with large spaces, are the Rubbermaid long-handled dustpans that are
open in the front, and come with brooms of compatible size. These
tools make it easy to sweep up spot messes on the ground, including
dropped items, crumbs, etc.: and it's the spot messes of this kind
that often make the difference between an area looking clean and
looking messy.
b) A duster on a long enough handle to enable getting at areas
above head height, such as door frames and shelves. Accumulated
dust is an allergen and it also makes a place look neglected. The
point of dusting is to get the dust off the surfaces, so it settles
on the ground and can be vacuumed later.
c) A trigger-spray bottle of Windex or equivalent, and a supply of
cleaning rags that can be laundered. These aren't primarily for
windows but for cleaning & wiping tables, equipment, and other
surfaces that are closer to the ground and subject to grime, spills,
and so on. Those of us who are inclined toward chemistry can
experiment with creating our own version of Windex: basically it's
dilute ammonia with a little bit of detergent. (Never mix ammonia
and bleach: poison gas!)
d) A trash container that's easy to tote around the space and fill
up with whatever dropped objects, swept-up stuff, and so on. It can
be used as a collecting container: the load can be sorted into
recyclables and trash when it's transferred to the main bins. The
point of this is to save oneself the effort of having to walk back
and forth to the main bins with every handful of "stuff." Best of
all are 5-gallon pails, which can be found "used" and scrubbed out,
or bought cheaply at hardware stores. You can carry two around at
once: one for trash and one for recycling, saving some sorting
later.
e) An upright vacuum with a hose attachment. We already have one.
With frequent spot-sweeping by hand (broom & long-handled
dustpan), vacuuming only needs to be done occasionally, once a week
or every other week. The most efficient way to vacuum is with a
helper who can help move furniture before you get to that part of
the room, so the vacuuming can go on without interruptions or need
to maneuver around objects.
Re. methods:
Aside from "patrol" cleaning such as sweeping up spills or picking
up occasional bottles: Start by picking up large objects and work
your way toward the crumbs. After picking up & sweeping up,
start from above head-level and work your way to floor level.
Vacuuming comes second-to-last, and cleaning surfaces with Windex
& rags comes last of all.
Liquid spills are best cleaned up as soon as they occur (the supply
of cleaning rags should be accessible for this), so they don't
become dried-on or sticky and hard to remove later.
Left-behind piles of food & drink containers on tables mean
there's a need for small convenient refuse containers (5-gallon
pails work for this also) near the places where the messes
accumulate.
Vacuuming makes noise that some people find distracting, and
involves moving furniture, so it should be done at the beginning or
end of the day.
We have a Roomba: a little carpet-cleaning robot with brushes and
vacuum. This is in serious need of being cleaned and reconditioned,
with new brushes, filters, and battery pack. But once it's in
working order it can be turned loose on the big room every other
night, and will relieve the need for vacuuming more than once a
month or so.
Everyone has their own personal list of clever cleaning tricks, and
we can start compiling these for reference, on a wiki page.
Cleaning can become like inertia: at first it looks like a big task
that takes much effort to get moving, but after it's going along
routinely, it takes relatively little effort to keep it up.
-G.
======
On 13-05-05-Sun 10:25 AM, Romy Ilano
wrote:
It would be interesting if the organizers of events could
find a cooperative way to make cleaning fun for each individual
guest... Make a game of "who'll pick up beer bottles?"
Re: janitors
My uncle recently retired as a janitor at a Florida school.
He was debt free and able to return to his home country with a
great pension. He bought and paid for a house car and saved
despite coming from a crime ridden poor third world country
Cleaning is life. But
even if each of us tried our best to clean up after
ourselves, there will be aggregated filth, incrementally
built, plus the cost of natural shuffling,
displacement--such is the burden of use and optimization! I
think we should:
Communicate more clearly the necessary standards for common
space.
Provide all event holders with a checklist for set up and
break down
Clean up after ourselves and each other collaboratively
Recognize that some additional amount of cleaning is
required and therefore create good systems for cleaning
natural, aggregate mess.*
* my personal politics hope we can do this specific type of
work without direct financial incentive.
I think we should hire a fellow sudoer and use
the cash as incentive. Whoever wishes to do it that month
can.
Or people can learn how to pick up after
themselves.
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 8:44 AM,
Romy Ilano <romy@snowyla.com>
wrote:
SudoRoom is a hackerspace. Our skillset
is not cleaning, especially cleaning the big main
room.
- Should we put aside $30-60 every time a
group holds an event in our space so that we can
pay someone to clean up the common room?
- Should we pay someone $30-60 once month to
clean the common room for us?
I brought this up because we are realistically
not going to get a lot of members to clean the
space. we are hackers. it is not our skillset. There
is not going to be a magical day when a hackerspace
finds that all of its members find cleaning to be a
pleasurable act.
We are good at starting projects, drinking beer,
looking for new spaces, but we are definitely not
great at cleaning.
Our landlord G is also receptive to the idea of
us hiring someone to clean up the common room after
big events.
I personally suck at cleaning, I'm into doing it,
but I would rather spend my time hacking and working
on projects. I spent a bit of time cleaning up the
space Saturday morning, wiping down the tables int
he main room and vacuuming to prepare the space for
the today I learned.