Mops, brooms and the janitor closet

What belongs in a building janitor closet

Almost every porter in this neighborhood uses the same seven things.

Angle broom or straight broom

Angle brooms get into corners and along baseboards, which is where the dirt in a lobby actually sits. A straight house broom pushes a wider path on open floor but leaves the edges. For a building, buy angle.

Sweep face is the number that matters. Eleven inch for hallways and stairs, thirteen inch for a lobby or a sidewalk. Flagged bristles, the ones that look split at the tip, hold fine dust. Stiff unflagged bristles are for wet outdoor grit.

The lobby broom is the one that saves a back

The upright dustpan with the long handle and the matching broom is what turns sweeping into a one motion job instead of a squat every ten feet. It costs more than a dustpan and it pays for itself in the first week. Any porter doing a building every morning should have one.

Loop mop, and the number 32

A 32 ounce loop end mop head with a headband is the standard for commercial floors. Loop end lasts longer than cut end because the yarn does not unravel, and the band keeps it flat so it covers width instead of bunching. Synthetic blends dry faster and do not sour the way all cotton does.

Buy the handle once and replace the head. A head is a fraction of the price and should be changed a few times a year, sooner if it starts to smell, which is bacteria and not something you can wash out.

For an apartment rather than a building, a twist or microfiber mop is fine and easier to store.

Buckets

An 11 quart bucket is the household size. A building washing a lobby every day wants a bigger bucket with a wringer, because wringing by hand puts too much water on the floor and a wet lobby floor is a liability, not a clean one.

Put out the wet floor sign. It is not optional in a building with a doorman and a lawyer.

Deck brush and squeegee

The sidewalk in front of the building gets a stiff deck brush on a long handle and a hose, not a mop. The entry glass gets a squeegee, one pass top to bottom with a slight overlap, wiped between passes. That is the whole trick and it is why a professional finishes glass in ninety seconds.

Restocking

Brooms and mop heads are consumables, not equipment. A building goes through a mop head every few months and a broom about once a year. Buy the handles good and the heads often.

Sign in to your First Ave account for account pricing on case quantities. Guests see the register price, the same as at the counter on 1st Ave.