ReadyBot, a House Cleaning Robot | Resistance is Futile

ReadyBot, a House Cleaning Robot | it’s Martini Hour for Mom!

ReadyBot, built by a team of senior engineers and designers from (where else?) Silicon Valley, will clean kitchen floors, pick up the kids toys, and deploy a Roomba to vacuum the carpets while it continues to do other cleaning chores.

Boot it up, turn it loose, and then it’s martini hour for Mom!

Call Four Star Office Cleaning Services at 212-741-9400 to hear about our low rates or fill out our form for a free estimate.

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The Green Office May Lead the Way to Higher Worker Productivity

Green buildings increase productivity
By MONICA UNHOLD, The Daily Transcript
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

SAN DIEGO, CA – Employees working in green buildings phone in sick to work less frequently and are more productive than their counterparts who work in non-green buildings, according to a recent study by University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate and commercial real estate firm CB Richard Ellis.

The study compared LEED-certified or Energy Star approved building against those not certified as “green.”

Productivity increased in part because there were fewer employee sick days in the green as compared to the non-green buildings.

One More Reason to Go With Green Office Cleaning?

The study cited indoor air quality, natural light and ventilation as factors in increased employee productivity. “People like natural light, they like clean air,” said Norm Miller, academic director for USD’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate who participated in the study.

Psychologist have known for long time that the quality of light and air can have a big affective on a person’s mental and physical health.

While the study didn’t look at the effect of green office cleaning technologies and products on worker productivity, the study strongly suggests that a clean and environmentally friendly work environment could have an impact on a business’s bottom line.

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While chatting with my mother the other night online, using skpye and a cam, she complained to me about all the visitors that would arrive in her home over the next few days. I said “mom, that’s great! You tell me all the time how lonely you are. What’s the problem?” “Because now I have to clean!” she said.

“Uh . . . you do?” I said. “Why?”

The hard stare I got over an uncomfortably long pause told me I had asked an apparently clueless question. I could see her on cam peering dourly past my head where the pizza boxes, Chinese food cartons, wine bottles and beer cans congregated on the floor behind me, the detritus of last night’s party. I moved my head to block her view.

“(Sigh) because I want to make a good impression” she said evenly.

A Janitor Service Can Help You Put Your Best Foot Forward

Janitor Services & A Good Company Impression

All eternal and universe truths are somehow encoded and stored in those things we know as mothers, and — she’s right. Having a clean, well maintained, and organized work environment sends the clear and important message that you care about your business, the comfort of your visitors, the perceptions of your clients and potential clients, and it is a good measure of your management skills too.

To make a good impression, have your janitor cleaning service do the following things:

• Clean all glass doors and windows so they’re clear and streak free. Let that sunshine in baby!

• Clean the area around all doorknobs and wall light switches.

• Clean the carpets and upholstery because they collect dirt, dusty and bacteria, and if you leave them too long, they’ll start to smell. Make sure your janitor service has the necessary carpet and upholstery cleaning experience and that they give special attention to any waiting area or entrance area. Cleaning and properly maintaining carpets and upholstery have the added benefit of extending the life of those items.

• A good janitor service should dust all furniture and tabletops, again, especially in any entranceway or waiting area.

• Plants are a terrific addition to just about any work environment – if they are well cared for and healthy.

• The Bathroom. It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that they should be both cleaned and disinfected regularly – daily, if they get heavy traffic or if they are used by visitors, clients and potential clients. Your janitor service should clean the grout regularly. Make sure that there is no shortage of liquid soap, paper or cloth towels, and toilet paper.

• Regularly carry out all the trash, ideally at the end of each day to help keep the indoor air smelling clean and fresh.

Do all this, and do it consistently, you’ll make your mom proud, and you’ll improve your business’s bottom line.

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How to Survive The Recession

If you think that the bad economy is mopping the floor with just about every business on the planet — think again. The crazy real estate boom of the past 15 years, the cost advantages of outsourcing, and even the swine flu have all but insured that professional office cleaning companies are the ones doing the mopping up.

According to a 2006 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, professional office cleaning companies are expected to expand their workforce by 14% by 2016 and despite the recession, industry insiders believe that that statistic will still be met.

Office Cleaning Services Clean Up Before, During, and After the Recession

Several factors have conspired to make office cleaning a growth industry for at least the next few years: 1) the huge expansion of office real estimate in the last 15 years and 2) — paradoxically — the severe recession itself.

The massive expansion of office space fueled the demand for office cleaning services but the severe recession forced companies to cut their in-house janitorial staff in favor of lower cost outsourced and contract office cleaners. This has created an obvious opportunity for outside contractors: do a great job, and then when the economy improves, companies will be unlikely to go back to employing a more costly full-time in-house janitorial staff.

Outside contractors have even benefited from the occasional health crisis, like dealing with the H1N1 (swine flu) virus, which requires special products, expertise, and service. Often an in-house janitorial staff doesn’t have access to the specialized products needed to deal with special requests such as these.

But perhaps the biggest reason professional office cleaning services have profited during the recession is that no matter what, somebody’s got to take out the trash:

“There is nothing sexy or exciting about commercial cleaning except for the fact that it is usually a wonderful, successful business that is almost totally recession resistant!” says Jeff Elgin, the CEO of FranChoice Inc., a company that provides free consulting to consumers looking for a franchise that best meets their needs. “Very few business owners are ever going to want to clean their own office space,” he says, “so the demand isn’t going anywhere.”

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Refrigerator Office Cleaning Mishap

OK, in addition to calling in a professional to clean your office, simply because they’re going to be more efficient then you (and you’ve got better and more productive things to be doing with your time, right?), this is another reason to Call In The Professionals:

Hazmat team called after Refrigerator Office Cleaning Mishap

Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday after the fumes led someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in.

Authorities say an enterprising office worker had decided to clean it out, placing the food in a conference room while using two cleaning chemicals to scrub down the mess.

The mixture of old lunches and disinfectant caused 28 people to [seek medical] treatment . . . (Associated Press, Wed., May 13, 2009).

So if you’re an ambitious and enterprising office worker, good for you, but when it comes to office cleaning in New York, always call in The Professionals, 4 Star Office Cleaning, because — unlike you — we know what the hell we’re doing . . .

Call 4 Star Office Cleaning Services at 212-741-9400 to hear about our low rates or fill out our form for a free estimate.

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Recommendations From Yale’s Green Cleaning Committee

Making Office Cleaning Both Safe and Green

Today’s “green consciousness” is driving business and institutions to become more environmentally sustainable. One of the easiest ways to do this has been for organizations to retool how they handle office cleaning. A leader in this area turns out to be Yale University’s Office of Sustainability.

In 2006, Yale’s Custodial Services and the Office of Sustainability formed a committee to review and improve the human and environmental health impact of Yale’s cleaning products and processes. The goal was to evaluate indoor cleaning products in terms of impact on indoor air quality. Equally important was the effect of using the products on the custodians who use these substances on a regular basis. Finally, the products were also evaluated in terms of their effectiveness in cleaning. After a year of review, Yale University came up with the following recommendations:

First Year Review of Yale’s Green Office Cleaning Committee

The committee tested six products that were identified as safe alternatives. The majority of these products are certified by Green Seal, a non-profit organization that uses a life cycle approach to evaluate the human and environmental impact of a product. It awards environmentally responsible products with its eco-label.
At the end of their review, the Yale Office of Sustainability found that the products drew overwhelming positive reviews from custodial staff who raved about the lack of irritations and nauseous fumes as well as the effectiveness of these new eco-friendly products:

• Bay West paper towels and toilet paper:  Green Seal-certified paper products made from 100% recycled material.
• Johnson Diversey Crew 44:  Green Seal-certified bathroom cleaner and scale remover.
• Aquaria finish and Freedom stripper:  Green Seal-certified floor products that is zinc-free. The finish appeared to be holding up well, but tests continue to see how well it handles salt.
• Glance Glass Cleaner:  Green Seal-certified product that is non-ammoniated.
• Alpha HP Multi-Surface Cleaner:  Green Seal-certified product that uses hydrogen peroxide.
• Johnson Diversey PACE Mop:  A flat-head mop system with a micro-fiber cloth that can be washed up to 500 times, and a small spray bottle (in lieu of a bucket of water). This mop system is faster, uses much less water, and is more ergonomically-friendly for the custodial staff. Moreover, the mop design allows it to sweep the floor and to clean hard to reach spots, such as behind toilets.

(Source: Green Cleaning at Yale, Yale’s Green Office Cleaning Committee and Office of Sustainability).

Four Star Green Cleaning

Four Star has a long commitment in using environmentally safe green cleaning products.

1. Four Star utilizes only environmentally sound cleaning and maintenance programs.
2. Four Star promotes water and energy conservation in its choice of cleaning equipment and systems.
3. Four Star reduces waste and consumption of finite resources and promotes and participates in recycling programs.
4. Four Star continues to be an advocate for greener, healthier, and more sustainable cleaning.

For your green office cleaning needs, call us: 212-741-9400, or use our contact then for a Free Estimate.

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