Is It Safe to Have Cleaners in Your Home During Covid?

Covid-19 has undoubtedly reduced the number of house guests people have. This is on both a personal and professional note. There used to be large gatherings with friends and family playing games, having a barbeque, or just chilling out.

While these still often happen, people are way warier. The current trends are enough to create the concern that things may never return to normal even after the pandemic has passed. We are sharing helpful tips for home covid cleaning services and for more information, you can also visit our website.

Even with the circumstances, some necessities in life remain constant. Cleaning is certainly one of these. For a plethora of reasons, people would contract professionals to come in and provide cleaning services for their homes.

However, when there is a consideration about the amount of traffic passing through the home, even professionals in this field are not exempt from the radar of scrutiny. So, should we allow professional cleaners into their homes or not?

The benefits cannot be ignored. There are enough arguments and enough research to indicate that this is one of the most crucial times to ensure that surfaces are as clean as possible. Whenever companies discover cases of Covid, even they often close their doors, have a deep clean performed, and then reopen.

So, would it not be quite beneficial to have professionals bring the same effects to the home? On the flip side, the people who are coming to clean could be the same persons who transmit the virus to the members of the household. When considered that way, it becomes a bit of a slippery slope.

The short answer to the title question is yes. Professionals should certainly still be allowed to enter and clean homes, particularly considering the effectiveness of their disinfecting services.

However, homeowners and occupants must think and act critically to create and foster the safest possible environment to mitigate the spread of the virus.

The information below is intended to help with successfully achieving this goal.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Protection is one of the most essential elements to ensuring that the cleaning process remains safe and effective. Anyone who falls under the professional category should be aware of this and should come prepared with PPE.

It may also be a good idea for those requesting the cleaning services to verify ahead of time what kind of PPE is used when the work is to be carried out. Beyond bringing the PPE along, it is supposed to be used, removed, and disposed of acceptably.

For example, gloves are meant to be changed often. The best approach is to have gloves changed every time the task at hand is being switched. 

Standard PPE includes gloves, a mask, an eye or facial covering, and an apron. There may be variations of these, but these are the basics. Typically, any cleaner that uses this set meets the baseline requirement.

Depending on culture or unique needs, persons may have other PPE requirements. For example, someone may want to ensure that the cleaners are wearing plastic coverings for their shoes. This is not a standard requirement, so it’s best to communicate the need from the onset to find out if it can be accommodated.

One mistake that people make is acting as if they are less likely to catch the virus from others when they are in a familiar setting. You often find this in workplaces. When people are travelling to work via public methods, they often do their best to practice their mask-wearing and social distancing measures.

However, once they arrive in the workplace, much of this approach is thrown to the wayside. Similarly, while the cleaners may come in and be fully outfitted in PPE, those in the home are often under the impression that they do not need to take similar steps.

Gloves and an apron are not necessarily needed by those who are not cleaning. However, mask-wearing should be practised by everyone in the home to create a safer environment for all.

To err on the side of caution, it may also be a good idea to have extra implements ready just in case they are needed. These include gloves, disposable masks, facial coverings, etc. However, cleaners are expected to be prepared with their own items.

Disinfectant Type

It’s common knowledge that disinfectants should be used as opposed to typical cleansers or sanitisers. The farmer is adept at tackling both bacteria and viruses. Do not forget that Covid is a virus, meaning that bacterial implements such as sanitiser show little to no effect.

So, it’s very unlikely that a professional cleaner is going to show up and not be using a disinfectant. Be that as it may, not all these compounds are created equal. Thankfully, there is a very simple evaluation point to help establish the efficacy of a disinfectant brand.

The EPA has a list of approved products including disinfectants that are to be used to tackle the spread of Covid-19. As a cleaning appointment is set up and ensure to find out which disinfectant is being used. Do the required research to ensure that it is EPA approved.

Furthermore, it’s essential to ensure that the disinfectant is safe based on who and what may be present in the home. For example, there may be children or pets present. Some of these compounds are toxic or harmful in other ways to these groups.

The main idea is to secure an effective disinfecting process that is going to do its intended job without bringing any negative consequences along with it.

Social Distancing

Ever since Covid-19 was recognized, one of the earliest advisories was the practice of social distancing. The potential for spread is drastically reduced thanks to the maintenance of a distance that goes beyond the typical reach of the droplets that cause the illness.

So, it stands to reason that maintaining an adequate distance from cleaners is a great way to prevent the spread of the virus in either direction. Under normal circumstances, people would not even be in their homes when the cleaning process is carried out. However, not everyone has somewhere to go when this is happening.

Ironically, some of the places that people may have decided to go to are fully or partially closed because of the virus. To that end, staying home often becomes inevitable. Even so, the concept of social distancing should not be abandoned.

It’s critical to try as hard as humanly possible to stay in a separate room or space that is conducive to the amount of distance needed. Even if the cleaner is someone familiar, the amount of close interaction and conversation should be minimal to zero.

Time Spent

The less traffic in a home, the less potential there is for the spread of Covid-19. Therefore, while it’s not necessary to eliminate the use of cleaning services completely, reducing the number of time cleaners spend in the home is another great option to increase safety levels.

Again, if the cleaner is someone familiar, it’s very tempting to half the person to stick around for a variety of reasons. However, if never before, everyone should now be able to understand and appreciate the need for distancing, so it should be a fairly easy conversation to have.

While familiarity may not apply to everyone, things are different with the matter of frequency. Even before Covid-19, professional cleaning was a highly used service. The frequency depended on nothing more than availability and affordability.

However, considering that minimizing traffic through the home is now a priority, cutting the frequency of cleaning sessions may be necessary. So, if the previous schedule was to have the cleaners come through every week, once or twice a month may be a better alternative.

Cleaning up before the process is also a good idea. This is not the same as cleaning the areas that the professionals are also meant to clean. Instead, the idea is to move things around and declutter to make for easier movement and a smoother process flow.

The quicker the job can end, the quicker the cleaner can go. Additionally, it’s possible to establish time limits for cleaning or request that cleaning is done in specific areas, after which it’s easy enough to schedule subsequent sessions for other areas.

Finally, remember it’s about protecting the cleaners as much as it is about protecting others in the home. Therefore, if anyone in the household is sick, rescheduling is a very good idea.

Get Assurances

Realistically, there have been asymptomatic cases of Covid-19. That means, there is no reliable way to tell that cleaners don’t have the virus. That’s why the best way to approach things is to employ protective measures.

So, establishing a list of questions is a good idea as it provides certain assurances that the process is going to be carried out more safely. Some examples of useful questions are as follows:

• What measures are used to validate the health of the cleaners?
• What kind of equipment are cleaners outfitted with? 
• Can there be any additional requests for equipment?
• What kind of disinfectant is used for the cleaning process?
• What kind of social distancing measures are cleaners trained to abide by during the process?
• Can any special requests be made per Covid prevention mitigation?
• What is required of the client during the process?

Final Remarks

Certainly, Covid is not something to be taken lightly. It has changed and even ended many lives since its emergence. Therefore, people must take the required protective measures in every area of life.

Cleaning is essential, but professionals must do it safely. Everything above is structured to help just about anyone understand what to look out for and what to avoid if cleaners are needed during this time.

About the Author