There are certain expectations that clients have of the maid services that they hire. Obviously, many of them expect the maid service to clean their home properly and in an efficient manner. Few expect the technicians that arrive to mop floors on their hands and knees – or do they? We're here to explain the proper ways to mop floors and why it's beneficial.
Some clients of maid services have specific expectations that have been brought about due to cleaning services that they’ve used in the past, or general old-fashioned conventions that dictate the need to mop floors while on your hands and knees, with a sponge in one hand and a bucket of soapy water in another. They believe that this method of cleaning is much more effective than using a rope mop, sponge mop, or other tool, like the microfiber mops that we use here at Fresh Tech Maid. However, this technique is not the proper way to mop floors.
While it might be necessary for the technician to get on her hands and knees under certain circumstances – for example, if dried food is stuck to the floor and won’t budge when the broom hits it – most of the time it is unnecessary and even harmful. Plus, except for this one circumstance, wiping a floor entirely while on your hands and knees does not mean that the floor is cleaner in the end.
Here at Fresh Tech Maid, we have been using the mopping approach for many years, which we know as the proper way to mop floors. In short, we have cleaned thousands of floors with a microfiber mop, and receive amazing client satisfaction ratings. Our quality does not suffer because our technicians use tools instead of a single, hand-held sponge – in fact, our service is even better!
The reason why we advocate for the mopping technique is due to the fact that this is less harmful to our technicians. Additionally, this method does not necessarily yield better cleaning results. How is it harmful? The following three things can create a number of physical problems:
Awkward posture
People are not meant to crouch down on their hands and knees for periods of time, even for the seemingly short time that it takes to mop floors. This can lead to back problems. Especially when you consider the fact that maids don’t just stay in this position – they move around in it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to clean the entire floor. It is much more ergonomic to stand up, use a microfiber mop, and only crouch down when they need to remove something that is stuck to the floor.
Contact stress
Even with protective padding on their knees, people who kneel on a consistent basis have problems with their knees, hips and ankles, not to mention their hands, elbows and shoulders. These problems usually present themselves as a feeling of stiffness or soreness. Over time, these simple aches and pains can become much worse, especially if the same motions are repeated continually. This can lead to arthritis, the inability to move around freely, and numerous other issues.
Repetitive motions
The continuous motions required to clean a floor while on the hands and knees can lead to physical problems like the ones described above. These repetitive motions are seen in many other industries as well, and can physically take their toll on a person.
Yet, with all these down sides, there is no evidence that the hand-and-knee approach has resulted in better results. Instead, micro fiber based mopping system plus spot cleaning with hand-and-knee has proven to be effective and earns top clients satisfaction ratings in the case of this maid service Arlington Heights.
Rather than acquiesce to people’s beliefs when it comes to cleaning floors, we instead train our maids to wash tile, wood and linoleum floors with a microfiber mop. This is easier on them physically, as they don’t need to bend over, crouch down, and clean the floor the “old fashioned” way. Requiring our technicians to clean floors while on their hands and knees would lead to greater employee turnover, which would then impact our clients. For this reason and the others described here, we prefer our technicians to use “new-fangled” methods of washing floors.