My last day of exams/papers was Friday and for the last week I've been working with Dorm Crew.
Dorm Crew is the largest student run organization on campus. and during the year "term time" they basically clean most of the private bathrooms on campus. It is pretty low key. However, during the summer time or what they term "spring clean up" it is crazy intense. In a 40 hour work week students are sent out in crews to clean the dorms. My crew is made up of 8 people and we were given 3 entry ways to clean. The first step is "trashing the room" this consists of going from room to room with garbage bags and sifting out what has been left behind. Paper and plastic must be recycled. hangers kept to place in the room later. glass separated. white and grey cloth kept for further work later. aerosol cans, batteries, and other weird things are separated for separate disposal. any usable furniture or clothing is separated for habitat for humanity and the rest is trashed.
Then comes dry dusting and sweeping. In this phase rooms are dusted with pretty little dusters, every single item in the room. And the largest part of the project, sweeping. Every room has to be swept with nylon brooms, because they are hardwood floors and they have to be swept ever so slowly because you have to get all the dust. And you have to move every piece of furniture. Extremely tedious.
After the dusting and sweeping, rooms have to be damp dusted. Damp dusting consists of going from room to room with a 3 or 4 person group, using damp rags to dust. We have termed our group the "scraper guys". One person gets the "tall stuff" this includes dusting off the tops of doors, closets, and molding, and doing the windows, the next does "spot washing" this would be going from wall to wall with a degreaser and a small slightly abrasive sponge and scrubbing every single dubious spot on the walls. Next is the furniture person (that happens to be me), this person goes from furniture piece to furniture piece dusting out every nook and cranny from the back to the desk to under the desk, inside the drawers, the runners on the drawers, under the chairs, the backs of the books cases, the list goes on and on. and the last thing that must be done is the lower things which all three of the people on my crew share. This includes the base boards, the mantel place, the molding in the closets and any other surface left to clean except the floor. every single surface. even the window we have to open and clean the place between the window and the window screen. yuck.
During this time other people have to go around in groups of 2 cleaning the bathrooms. One person does the toilet and sinks, damp dusts a few surfaces, and then sweeps and mops the floor. The other person has to clean the shower. These tiny 24" x 24" showers have to be scrubbed and scraped. and it is the most annoying of any of the aforementioned chores. These tiny marbel showers take forever because they seem to think that soap scum is their best friend. you spray the pretty walls and then scrub scrub scrub a 9in squared area. after the soap scum comes to the surface you take a scraper thing and scrape it. off and you proceed until you finish the entire thing and you can throw water on it and the water comes down in one sheet. to be continued…..
