A senior living cleaning service should cover resident rooms and bathrooms, common areas, hallways, restrooms, offices, high-touch areas, trash, and agreed supply-restocking duties. The scope should be customized to the client facility. Come Back Clean is an environmental and facility cleaning service and is not a nursing, medical, personal care, or clinical health care service.
The service should cover resident rooms and bathrooms, common areas, hallways, restrooms, offices, high-touch areas, trash, and supply tasks where agreed. The service access, frequency, duties, and documentation should be agreed to by the facility management and the cleaning service provider prior to the initiation of service.
Senior living is not just a large multi-family residence.
It is a facility where residents, staff, visitors, and activities are all part of a scheduled or structured program where different parts of the facility need to be addressed at different times. For example, the dining area may need more service during breakfast and lunch times.
For this reason, we look at our approach to facility cleaning services for senior living a bit differently from traditional house cleaning.
For senior living facilities in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, our first step would be to get to know the property and management’s expectations. A preliminary walk-through helps us to determine which spaces need service, how access will be handled, what duties will be assigned to the cleaning service, and how frequently different spaces will be cleaned.
A practical scope may look like this:
- Resident rooms: Dusting, floors, surfaces, and trash. Confirm frequency and room access.
- Resident bathrooms: Fixtures, sinks, toilets, and floors. Confirm the agreed sanitation scope.
- Common areas: Floors, surfaces, and high-touch points. Confirm traffic level and frequency.
- Hallways: Floors and shared touch points. Confirm scheduling.
- Offices: Routine office cleaning. Confirm staff access.
- Shared restrooms: Surfaces, floors, and supplies. Confirm restocking responsibilities.
- Break areas: Surfaces, floors, and trash. Confirm the exact scope.
A practical scope shows what is agreed upon.
A good facility-cleaning proposal should not leave management guessing what is included.
Resident Rooms and Bathrooms
Resident rooms are private living spaces within a facility.
This changes the approach.
Come Back Clean’s documented senior living work includes resident rooms and bathrooms. Based on what’s agreed upon, this could include floors, dusting, accessible surfaces, bathroom fixtures, sinks and toilets, and trash.
Access is just as important as the cleaning task.
A resident may have restrictions and need to be taking it easy. A room may be closed off to the public. Staff may need to be coordinating access. A scheduled activity may take precedence and allow time for cleaning to be done later.
These situations need to be anticipated before cleaning begins.
The facility management team and cleaning service provider need to know:
- What processes are in place to control access to resident rooms by cleaning staff?
- What happens when a room cannot be serviced at the scheduled time?
- Who is to be contacted when access to a room is not available?
- What is the process for documenting work that is completed, or not completed?
Come Back Clean's facility management approach is to track and report the work done within the facility.
That kind of documentation becomes essential when dealing with multiple rooms and repetitive tasks. It allows management to have clarity on work that is actually completed as opposed to making assumptions.
It is critical that the responsibility for the completion of the work remains with the facility management team.
Hallways, stairwells, elevators, common restrooms, public lounge areas, and the like are good candidates for establishing schedules.
The use of resident rooms varies from that of common areas. Therefore, common areas do not automatically warrant the same schedule and scope as resident rooms.
Facility management should define the following:
- Which shared spaces are covered
- How much each space is used
- Preferred cleaning frequency
- Interference with operations
- Areas needing special focus
Come Back Clean's approach to senior-living facilities considers property operations and doesn't make assumptions about whether all spaces can be serviced simultaneously.
Facilities with memory-care areas may have other considerations including resident routines, access to and from rooms, and documentations. We cover those considerations in our memory-care facility cleaning routines.
Identification of high-touch surfaces, along with regular sanitizing, should be part of the standard cleaning procedures.
Those surfaces may include, but aren’t limited to:
- Doors and door frames
- Cabinets
- Counters
- Light switches
- Restroom fixtures
- Shared equipment and machines
- Other surfaces that are frequently touched
The surfaces and how often they should be cleaned should be defined by management.
There are considerations around language and definition.
Come Back Clean has a contracted, agreed-upon scope of work, and does not cross the line into misrepresenting routine facility cleaning as other services.
This includes, but isn’t limited to, representing facility cleaning as medical treatment or services; clinical infection control or biohazard remediation; or healthcare services.
If there are other medical, regulatory, or hazardous-material requirements outside the scope of the contracted cleaning services, qualified and professional services should be engaged by management.
Offices, Restrooms and Break Areas
A senior-living community has an operational side that residents and families may rarely notice.
There are offices, break rooms, and restrooms used by staff, visitors, and other workers. And of course, the supporting and administrative areas of the facility also collect dirt and garbage like other workplaces.
They should be part of the facility-cleaning discussion.
Documented work of Come Back Clean’s teams at retirement communities, for example, includes operational areas, in addition to resident areas.
An office-cleaning scope may include surface cleaning, vacuuming or mopping, removing trash and other regular office-cleaning tasks. Facilities that need broader workplace cleaning may also be interested in our professional office cleaning services.
Setting precise standards for restrooms and break rooms is crucial.
A facility should be clear about:
- Which surfaces of fixtures are cleaned
- Who removes trash from restroom
- Which service leaves the floors clean
- Whether paper products and soap are restocked
- Who provides paper products and soap
Clarify break area expectations similarly.
Cleaning the floor and removing trash in a break room does not mean the entire refrigerator, microwave or other cabinets are part of the scope of work.
Those expectations should be documented.
Trash, Supplies and Day-to-Day Facility Details
Larger contracts for facility cleaning can fail to get underway because of the smallest details.
Trash is one such detail.
The facility and the cleaning company should agree on which trash receptacles are serviced, and where the trash is removed. Other details, such as the service of recycling bins, may also need to be agreed on.
Restocking supplies may also need to be agreed on.
If your cleaners need to restock paper towels, soap, etc., your facility needs to define:
- The products included in the program
- Who purchases the products
- The location of the products
- Who controls the stock
- The dispensers that cleaners are to restock
Some things that need to be defined during the startup of a new program may appear insignificant. They are significant and are defined to prevent misunderstandings during service.
Come Back Clean’s facility service program can include tracking and reporting of work completed. This may include service and support for resident room and common area cleaning in a senior living facility. This may also include laundry and housekeeping tasks.
What Makes Senior-Living Facility Cleaning Different From Residential Senior Cleaning?
Residential Senior cleaning occurs in a client’s private home or apartment. Senior living facility cleaning encompasses an operating community, which includes resident rooms, bathrooms, hallways, shared bathrooms, common areas, dining and activity rooms, offices and staff areas, as well as other responsibilities of the facility. There may also be access control procedures, documentation, and service coordination around activities in the facility, as well as multiple stakeholders.
This guide is for senior living property decision makers to understand contracted cleaning services for a senior living facility.
For residents and families looking for independent living senior cleaning services, please see our guide to residential cleaning help for seniors.
In both situations, there needs to be a clear delineation of responsibilities.
Come Back Clean provides facility cleaning services for senior living facilities.
Our cleaners should never be confused with nurses, caregivers, clinicians, medical personnel, or personal care providers, regardless of where the service takes place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does a Senior-Living Cleaning Service Include?
A senior-living cleaning service includes resident rooms, shared bathrooms and public restrooms, hallways, and other common areas. The service can include high-touch surfaces, trash, and supply restocking. Management should set expectations for the work to be performed, traffic patterns, and the frequency of the work.
Can a Cleaning Company Clean Resident Rooms and Public Areas?
Yes, a cleaning company can be contracted to clean resident rooms and public areas. There should be a defined scope of work to indicate which areas are to be cleaned, how frequently they should be cleaned, and how resident room access should be handled.
Does a Senior-Living Cleaning Service Include Shared Bathrooms and Restrooms?
Yes, shared bathrooms and public restrooms can be included in a senior-living cleaning service. Management should set expectations for what is included and ensure responsibility for supply restocking is clear.
Are Hallways, Offices, and Break Areas Included in Facility Cleaning?
They can be. Senior-living facility cleaning does not stop at resident rooms. Other operational spaces such as hallways, offices, and break areas can also be included based on the terms of the facility agreement. Each space should be defined with an appropriate access and cleaning frequency.
Are Paper Products and Soap Replenished?
Yes, if that is included in the defined scope. Management should clarify the inventory location, who purchases the products, the cleaning service responsibilities, and the distribution points for products and/or equipment.
What Are the Senior-Living Facility High-Touch Surfaces?
High-touch surfaces can be included in the defined scope of duties for routine cleaning and sanitizing. Management should define what surfaces need to be cleaned and sanitized, what products should be used, and what the facilities expectations are for the service. Routine cleaning should not be represented as a medical or clinical service.
Is Senior-Living Facility Cleaning the Same as Residential Cleaning for Seniors?
No. Senior residential cleaning serves an individual in a private residence. Senior living facility cleaning serves an operating community that includes shared spaces and facilities beyond resident rooms. Senior living facility cleaning can differ greatly from residential senior cleaning.
Does Facility Cleaning Include Medical or Healthcare Services?
No. Come Back Clean offers professional cleaning services. We do not provide nursing services, medical treatment, personal care, clinical healthcare or patient-care services. Other medical, clinical, hazardous-material, or healthcare services outside the scope of the cleaning services should be provided by qualified personnel.
Customize The Cleaning Scope To Fit The Facility
A proper senior living cleaning plan should provide management a detailed scope of the services that will be provided and how the service will integrate into the operation of the facility.
This should include, but not be limited to, resident rooms and baths, common area and family spaces, hallways, staff spaces and baths, high touch points, supplies, trash, access and control procedures, and cleaning documentation, if applicable.
Come Back Clean has the ability to offer the senior living and facility market in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana markets a full service cleaning plan. Rather than just giving a checklist of services to senior living facilities, we can evaluate the needs of your facility and customize a cleaning plan that meets the needs of your facility.
We can help you clean your senior living or retirement facility? Let us know about your facility, and the services that you require, and the cleaning schedule you have in mind to help us determine an appropriate scope.
