The City · Shoreditch · Clerkenwell · 22:00–05:30
Offices,
after ten.
Every lit floor you can see from the river after ten is someone like us. Studios and offices of 10 to 150 people, cleaned while the building sleeps.
Lobby · terrazzo
22:00
One night, one floor
The shift.
A 40-desk floor in Clerkenwell, two people, seven and a half hours. The order never changes, so a morning never starts with a surprise.
- 22:00 · Arrive
Keys, alarm, log.
Signed in at the desk, alarm off with a personal code, the log started. Anything odd gets a photo before we touch it.
- 22:20 · Desks
Bins out, desks wiped. Papers never moved.
Clear desk surfaces get wiped; anything with paper on it gets dusted around. Keyboards and phones with a disinfectant wipe, blue cloths only.
- 23:40 · Kitchen
Green cloths, along the grain.
Dishwasher loaded and run, coffee machine drip trays emptied, fridge fronts and splashbacks wiped along the brushing.
- 00:50 · Washrooms
Red for toilets, yellow for basins.
Colour coding means the cloth that cleaned a toilet never touches a tap. Descaled, restocked, dried.
- 02:10 · Floors
The lobby, last to be walked on.
Carpets vacuumed with HEPA filters; the terrazzo lobby gets a neutral scrub with a scrubber-dryer, so it's dry before the first coffee.
- 03:40 · Glass
Partitions, doors, meeting rooms.
Every hand-height smear on the glass meeting rooms, squeegeed in S-strokes, edges dried.
- 05:30 · Gone
Walk-round, alarm, out.
A last walk with the checklist, the log closed, the alarm set. You get a two-line report by seven.
The UK colour code
Four colours,
never mixed.
The colour code most UK offices and schools follow (hospitals keep yellow for isolation rooms). We keep to it in homes, too.
- Red
Toilets & urinals
The highest-risk areas, and the washroom floors around them.
- Yellow
Basins & washroom surfaces
Sinks, taps, dispensers, tiles. Never the toilet.
- Blue
Everywhere else
Desks, meeting rooms, reception, stairs: the low-risk general areas.
- Green
Kitchens & food areas
Worktops, fridges, tables, anything food touches.
Contract
Monthly, rolling,
thirty days' notice.
- People
- Employed, not agency. Basic DBS checked, paid the London Living Wage or more.
- Keys & codes
- Coded keys in a logged safe; personal alarm codes; nothing is labelled with your address.
- Report
- Two lines by 07:00 after every shift, with photos of anything that needs you.
- Price
- Fixed per month after a walk-round, usually £28–£34 per person-hour depending on hours and floors.