An Australian facilities journal
Est. 2004 · Australia
Commercial CleanersWorkplace hygiene, contracts and practice for Australian facilitiesIndependent writing for facility managers, contractors and the people who still have to clean the building on Monday.
Every essay currently in the book. Nothing here is paywalled. Start at a hub if you would rather read by problem than by date.
National Regulations, toys, nappy change, sandpits and chemical choice around children. After-hours work does the floors; during-session work does the mess. Neither needs a hospital protocol copied onto a kindy trolley.
Ellen Marks · 16 September 2025
Casual pools are not a system. Award minimums decide whether a two-hour gap is fillable. Multi-site jumping and sick season take the rest. Buyers should specify relief hours, not hope.
Priya Raman · 2 September 2025
Liners, drums, spent pads and the difference between tenant rubbish and cleaner rubbish. Landfill versus comingled is a bay problem. Weighbridge theatre is a reporting problem.
James O'Connor · 19 August 2025
Concrete dust, oil, ride-on scrubbers, line marking and cold stores decide whether a warehouse floor lasts the week. Food-grade sites and 3PL sheds are not the same specification, even when the machine looks identical.
Ellen Marks · 5 August 2025
Capex versus opex, battery versus cable, and the Friday-night machine that has no spare. Who owns the kit on a contract decides who waits. Filters and training are the real lease conditions.
Priya Raman · 29 July 2025
Response times, rectification, credits versus termination, force majeure after storms, indexation, and labour-hour floors. An SLA is a bargain you can inspect, not a scorecard from a software demo.
Tom Bradley · 22 July 2025
Gastro and respiratory clusters ask different things of a workplace. The PCBU, the public health unit, the limits of fogging, and the decision to close a floor sit above a single invoice for a Sunday clean.
Claire Nguyen · 8 July 2025
Guests see rooms and a lobby. Councils, auditors and night auditors see kitchens, linen, grease and the dock. How hotel housekeeping and back-of-house cleaning actually split, and what an outbreak does to that split.
Ellen Marks · 17 June 2025
One national contractor versus regional firms, Award and travel differences, building managers who do not share a standard, dashboards that flatter the average, and quarterly reviews that still look at rooms.
Tom Bradley · 10 June 2025
FSANZ sets the Code, states write the Food Acts, council EHOs walk the floor. Cleaning schedules as evidence, allergens, grease traps versus floor soil, and the point where pest control and cleaning have to meet.
Ellen Marks · 20 May 2025
Body clocks, lone work and alarms. The last floors get the leftover attention. Transport home is a WHS question. Award night penalties pay for the hour; they do not make it safe.
Priya Raman · 13 May 2025
Dust reservoirs, vacuum filtration, chemical volatiles and damp after mopping sit on the cleaning side of a building. Plants will not save a tenancy that soils itself every night.
Claire Nguyen · 6 May 2025
Term-time cleaning is toilets, traffic and child safety. Holiday programs are strip-and-seal, labs and the work you cannot do while a school is full. Universities add 24-hour libraries and a graffiti problem that does not wait for the holidays.
Ellen Marks · 29 April 2025
Colour-coded cloths, a laundry that does not wreck the fibre, and an auto-scrubber that is not a hose on wheels. Microfibre fails on grease and grout. Drought-era building rules still decide what you may pour.
James O'Connor · 15 April 2025
Appearance is a lagging indicator. Vacuum frequency, soil load, interim and restorative cleaning, AS/NZS 3733 and lease make-good decide whether a floor is maintained or quietly written off.
Claire Nguyen · 8 April 2025
Award labour, supervision, equipment capital, industrial relations and hybrid models decide the choice. A university hospital is not a CBD tower, and the cheaper quote is not a strategy.
Tom Bradley · 25 March 2025
Lifts, door furniture, meeting rooms and shared keyboards need a protocol people will still follow on a wet Wednesday, not a laminated leftover from 2021. Dwell times, colour-coding and the limits of an alcohol wipe.
Claire Nguyen · 11 March 2025
Overlapping PCBUs, night access, lone work, plant, asbestos and lead registers, and consultation. A cleaning crew in a host building is not a visitor who left their duties in the van.
Tom Bradley · 4 March 2025
Retail cleaning is two jobs sharing one trolley. Day porters, night crews, food versus fashion versus hardware, spills in trade, trolley bays, mall common areas and the Christmas roster that always arrives late.
Ellen Marks · 18 February 2025
Site maps, chemicals, security and language. A buddy shift is not a course. CAF and the Award ask whether the labour is real. Refreshers have to survive a roster, not a January toolbox talk.
Priya Raman · 11 February 2025
A foyer walk at 8am is not an inspection. This is a practical route through kitchens, washrooms, glass, bins, high dust, security and the conversation you should have with the night supervisor.
Claire Nguyen · 4 February 2025
Inspection scores, complaint volume, attendance, washroom run-outs and rework rates tell you whether a contract is staffed. Looks-clean is a mood. This is how to measure the work without teaching everyone to game the audit.
Tom Bradley · 28 January 2025
GECA is a product ecolabel. ISO 14001 is a management system. A tender that treats them as the same thing will buy a certificate and a trolley that do not match.
James O'Connor · 21 January 2025
A specification that only a contract manager can read will not be cleaned. This piece walks through rooms, tasks, outcomes, frequencies, exclusions and inspection language that a night crew can actually follow.
Claire Nguyen · 14 January 2025
GHS labels, current safety data sheets, decanting, the bleach-and-acid mistake, storage, induction, and the split of duties between a PCBU host and a cleaning contractor. The folder in the store only counts if it matches the trolley.
Tom Bradley · 3 December 2024
Expression of interest versus RFT, site inspections that actually happen, labour hours against square metres, CAF and modern slavery questions, transition, and why the cheapest conforming bid is often the most expensive story you will buy.
Tom Bradley · 19 November 2024
A general practice is not a hospital, and a waiting room is not a treatment room. Blood, clinical waste, after-hours access and the limits of “hospital-grade” on a clinic trolley.
Ellen Marks · 8 October 2024