The transition from winter to spring brings warmer temperatures and melting ice. Any areas around your dumpsters, garbage, recycle cans and trash chutes that were kept at a colder temperature during those long winter months are ‘defrosting’ too. Those areas were dry and cold throughout the past several months, but now they’re damp and warm, this is the perfect spot for mildew to start growing and for new colonies of mold to form. Add a slight breeze to the dumpster corrals outside and that mold gets carried by the wind to areas all around the community.
The best way to treat these conditions is to stop them before they start. Here are a few things you can do each year to be proactive about mold, mildew and bacteria growth on your properties.
Plan Ahead
Add our spring cleaning service to your budget. Most communities operate based on a fixed annual budget. That budget typically includes seasonal activities such as spring landscaping cleanups, gutter cleaning, carpet shampooing, and tree trimming. Adding our Fresh Focus services to your annual operating budget is a great idea. We can clear up and disinfect your outdoor areas such as the garbage and recycling corrals. Using our foam will give your compactor rooms a fresh start and remove the built-up gunk and goo from your trash chutes. And don’t forget about your pet stations and the disposal bins located throughout your walking paths. Those outdoor areas grow mold and bacteria even faster with a constant supply of water and sunshine to help them get big and strong.
Update Your Onsite Maintenance Procedures
Ask us how you can integrate our services into your maintenance teams onsite cleaning and housekeeping tasks. At Fresh Focus, we offer a system made especially for your janitorial staff. They can use it to disinfect the common area bathrooms, work out rooms, elevators, and stairwells. These are high traffic areas that get used 365 days per year. Mold and mildew can easily bloom in these spaces because while they are used daily many people neglect the corners and the high touch surfaces like handrails and walls.
In addition to those high use common areas, your custodial team can use this equipment to help clean and disinfect vacant units. The bathrooms and kitchens, even the appliances can be cleaned safely and efficiently with our Fresh Focus products. An application in between tenants impedes the long-term growth of mildew and bacteria from expired food, and other debris tenants sometimes leave behind. Plus, your new tenants will be excited to move into a unit that smells fresh and looks clean.
If your staff doesn’t have time to handle these tasks on their own, we offer a foam treatment service that will handle these tasks for you so your staff is free to handle other important duties. Plus, it won’t interfere with the daily operations of your business!
Empty and Clean ALL of Your Containers
Changing garbage bags frequently and keeping lids on your receptacles is the easiest way to keep debris and liquids from gathering at the bottom of your containers. However, there will always be holes in the bags or a bag that has slid off one side of the receptacle, which results in all types of waste and liquids building up at the bottom of the containers. Several times per year all the containers should be taken outside, emptied and treated with our foam. It will eliminate any bacteria and mildew growing in the bottom and leave a wonderfully fresh scent. While offering trash receptacles throughout the common areas is helpful in cutting down on littering you never know who is disposing of what in those receptacles. It could be old food, doggy bags, dirty diapers even dirty tissues. Occasionally a resident will even walk a stinky bag of trash from their apartment out to these common receptacles. All of these items have bacteria and the potential to grow mold and mildew the longer they sit.
Add Fresh Focus to your annual budget as a part of your seasonal spring cleaning. Create a checklist to make sure your janitorial staff has disinfected all the high touch and common areas such as bathrooms, hallways, railings, and corners. Ensure that all receptacles, trash, recycle, even doggy stations have been emptied and disinfected. Taking a proactive approach to fighting the growth and spread of mold, mildew, and bacteria will keep your community smelling fresh and clean. It will also save you money because keeping these harmful and smelly things from flourishing in the first place is better for your budget than discovering an out of control mess later that requires expensive remediation.
