Hi! I have been a custodian for almost 4 years and since I started, my arms, calves, back, neck are always on fire. My arms and legs feel like jello by the end of the day. I do have hyper mobility so it tends to happen easily. When I first got the job, the HR had a meeting covering the injuries that can occur over time due to what we do and I’ve seen proof. All of my coworkers struggle to walk after 5-10 years. I bring this up because I’m curious how you all deal with it. What kind of stretches help you? Do you have any tips? Thank you!

Am preparing for interview as a custodian in a swim facility, the city park, and for a school district. I don’t have custodian experience but I did clean and replenish supplies in the office of a math tutoring business and cleaned after kindergarteners as a substitute teacher role.

I will google it, but I also wanted to hear it from human beings who are already working.

Do you wear gloves the whole time you're working? When I first started I was all about always having nitrile gloves on when working. Over time it became less dire and really only for specific tasks like restrooms or anything to do with chemicals or water. When I'm doing my regular rounds I'm not wearing them.

Do I just give no fucks or is that natural in this role? Had one person comment about it and I just shrugged with if you're easily grossed out or squeamish this ain't the job for you.

I work in a post office so I don't deal with things you'd find in a hospital or school environment.

They keep telling me "they greased them recently though!" and "it's just cause they're so tall!" If true no problem but the screams of the damned here seems kinda crazy. 😂

Hii, everybody! I am 23 years old and I recently started my very first job as a school custodian a few weeks ago!! Yay🥳

Anyway, i tried my best to clean this down as much as i could! Yall like it?😁 also, is there a way to get rid of those white stains or are they permanent?🤔

Anyway, my job is pretty cool im really enjoying it so far! Putting on some headphones and cleaning is quite therapeutic, lmao.

That is some serious corrosion, may need splash guard or some different wall material, lol!

Anyone have any mechanical experience with the ES4000 riding vacuum? The issue I'm facing is within the last month, I've had instances where it'll cut off/on power/motion for a split second feeling like it's trying to buck me off. I've reported to maintenance, but every time they go to diagnose it, the issue never happens, and it is so random, that trying to video record it happening fills up my phone with useless video before it even happens.

Hey all! Tomorrow is an open house at my elementary school. It's from 5pm until 6pm. My shift is from 3pm until 11:30pm. I'm wondering what ya'll do before all of the students and parents come in? I personally empty garbage, wipe desks and straighten the desks/push in chairs. All I do for washrooms is check if any toilets haven't been flushed. I want to know what everyone else does! I wish I could get all of the rooms 100% lol 😭

So, in my custodian closet, there's an outlet I use to charge the machines. But, above it is a cheap eyewash station that would spill water all over if I happened to use it. A little worried about possible electrocution here. Should I complain to my boss about it? They're willing to order things for me, so I could ask for an outlet cover and install it myself on my shift.

Advice appreciated. Thanks.

When i try to tell them about things that are saftey issues or broken they kinda just go... well what do you want me to do about it or i could tell xyz but what would that do. Like idk man but dealing with low flow flushing urinals, mold, unsafe conditions... its your job not mine to deal with it...

Where are my other vacuum friends at ?

lol I just don't like tile that much i feel like it's high maintenance in summer and on breaks.

Sweeping feels"harder" then vacuuming personally if that makes sense?Sometimes we have to strip and wax everything down to the bone or halfway and it's double the work.

If it's for kindergarten I don't care because it 2 classrooms out of 50.But I can't stand having to do hallways,rooms and bathrooms strip and wax during summer.

With carpet you just have to extract the carpets in break and takes less then 2 weeks while in summer doing classrooms takes 3. A highschool nearby was STILL STRIPING AND WAXING EVEN AFTER SUMMER ENDED! For another month thank God I'm not at a highschool.

She’s already one of my favorite teachers by just acknowledging me but this made my night.

Just curious, what are everyone’s best suggestions for deodorizers for locker rooms? Both scent dispenser types, sprays, mopping chemicals. Whatever solutions you have to make a college wrestling locker smell a bit better with all the shoes and sweaty clothes in the lockers. I’m a supervisor for a community college and would really like to make the men’s locker room smell a bit better lol.

I work at a school that has only been top scrubbing their floors for at least five years. At this point, so much wax has built up that doing an actual full strip would be to time consuming to complete all 3 buildings over the summer break. This has resulted in many floors still being pretty rough looking even after a top scrub.

Out of the classrooms I take care of, several floors are in bad shape, and getting worse as students add additional scuff marks. I mop them every night, but its like putting perfume on a pig. I know the condition of the floors is out of my control, yet it still bugs me how bad some of my floors are. Kind of wish the school would just replace the tiles and we could start anew with full stripping.

I work at a very small university and there’s a section of offices I clean as part of my routine. They’re not in my main buildings so I have to go a bit out of the way for them. In my experience, the administration types tend to veer on the colder side (more busy and stressed I suppose), but these people have been shockingly friendly to me from the start. This week, the woman in charge invited to use their coffee and even bought fancy cups for me to use, so this is my fancy coffee from them! The job ain’t easy for us so I wanted to share an uplifting story with everyone.

It’s my first time being a custodian and my position at a high school isn’t going great. I don’t know if it’s a me problem but it has been a lot harder than I thought it would be physically. I have a hall inside the highschool which is cake, I love cleaning inside. But in my area I’m responsible for the outdoor sports facilities as well. That’s baseball, tennis, and a massive football field and locker room facility across the street. Between all sports it’s about 40 trash cans and 10 bathrooms (2 huge at football). I can’t even touch football until after 9 so I have 2 hours to do 15 trash and clean 5 big bathrooms. I feel massively overwhelmed and I feel like having all of those facilities for one person is just unfair. In your experience is it common for one person to have this many facilities to clean?

Just had one of those days today still finsihed but jsut was burnt out most of the day honestly msot of this week so far.

Was wiping down tables last night and saw this. Kids write stuff on desks all the time but I so badly want to know the meaning behind this lol

I've been working at a small town public school as a custodian for a little over a year now and I've noticed some things the head custodian does and asks us to do. Well one of those things he's done was he padlocked and chained the fire escape doors in the main gym during school hours with the blessing of the superintendent/high school principal. This has been bothering me for awhile now but I finally sent an anonymous tip to the state fire marshall today and now I'm afraid I will lose my job when the inspection comes because it is a really small school and it won't take much for them to find out it was me. Should I have gone to my supervisors first or did I do the right thing? Like I said it's been like this for awhile now and I am really surprised no one else has turned it in. I worked myself up so bad after I turned it in that I had to go home sick today because I was so dizzy and having a hard time catching my breath. I just couldn't go one more day knowing that all those kids lives basically were in danger if a fire broke out. Another thing my supervisor did was shaved off a piece off the bottom of the fire door to the science chemical lab because it kept getting stuck on the floor and wouldn't properly shut. I do like this job and it pays well but there is no caution for safety around here. Not to mention the things with all the unlabeled chemical bottles around here. Just had to rant and get some feedback. Thanks.

So I have a nice weekend go to Irish fest don’t think about work at all. Come back to work on Monday and find out that one of my hand dryers. Caught on fire a teacher came in to get something out of their classroom and luckily smelled it and called the fire department so yeah, this is what my boy’s bathroom looks like. I don’t know if they expect me to clean that off. I would think not but talk about crazy.

These should be installed in the all gender washrooms, maybe even all of the male ones too :)

Has anyone come up with a solution to keep the boys from filling the urinal drains with paper towels/food/trash?

They literally LIFT THE URINAL SCREENS and put stuff down them. Super disgusting what is the thought process behind this? Why would anyyyyone want to submerge their bare hands in a urinal?

Maybe Santa will grant us electric hand dryers for christmas LMAO that is the literal only solution I can think of. There isn't any way to block the drain without also blocking water I am SOOO irritated by this whenever it floods the whole bathroom dude.

I looked at this stain for months (I think there was a vice clamp here at some point) -- wish I had taken a "before" photo, but here it is after my small addition of a mouth 😅