I used to read the comic strip Peanuts. If you did too, you will remember the cloud of dust that followed Pigpen. He carried his cloud with him. We never actually saw where Pigpen’s dirt came from, but it would be interesting to know the source. Many offices environments have similar dust just waiting for some activity to make it airborne. And when it does become airborne, complaints occur.
Occasionally, building occupants will complain to management about excess dust on their work surfaces. They may even throw small pieces of paper or other debris on the carpeting as a challenge to see if the custodians are vacuuming the space. While these issues may seem minor at first, poor custodial services is a actually a much bigger issue that can impact IAQ. But we can’t always blame the custodians.
While walking through commercial buildings, we often see occupant spaces that are cluttered with papers, files, folders, and other documents. It is also common to see boxes and piles of papers on the floor in some offices. When this happens, custodians will not clean the office.
Office areas that don’t receive regular custodial attention can have very high levels of settled dust and debris on horizontal surfaces. This includes desktops, file cabinets, and even carpeting. That means that when someone comes into the office and drops a pile of papers on the desktop or other work surface, a large but invisible plume of dust becomes airborne. Can this really happen? You bet it can!
I’ve done the math … er, science. I have actually placed equipment in a complaint area for a week or more just to see what happens … and I can tell you this. Laser particle counts collected in an occupied office over 7 to 10 days clearly show “explosive increases” of airborne dust particles during those times when the occupant is in the office. This happens because the settled dust particles (in dirty offices) become disturbed when the occupant is working in their space. Moreover, if there’s a meeting in there, whoa! Watch out! The levels are crazy high!
Complaints about sneezing, coughing, itchy skin, itchy eyes, and occasional upper respiratory problems, can often be attributed to offices with high dust levels. However, if the space is cluttered with papers, then it isn’t necessarily the custodians’ fault! The space needs to be organized for the custodians to effectively clean and dust.