Throughout the world there is a tendency for cities to die at their core like rotten apples. People more away from dirt, decay and squalor to start new developments and so cities move like sand dunes driven, not by wind, but by dirt. Commercial cleaning London plays its part in preventing this from happening in England's historic city. Its iconic Trafalgar Square must stay where it is and the buildings around it must be kept clean and serviceable.
Visitors to London are often surprised by how few people they see who look like the Queen. It seems that the city is populated by young people from every corner of a forgotten empire. Young Polish people speak in charming accents and shops seem to be run by people from the Middle East, Africa or Asia. When it comes to the service industries one might well find that the work is done by young people born in former colonies working under supervision.
In the past many cleaners specialized in moving dirt from one place to another. It may have been swept into a pile or swirled around by a mop that converted dust into mud and smeared it around a floor. In many cases vacuum cleaners screamed loudly as they sucked up dust from the floor and blew into the air from which it gradually settled down again on different surfaces.
The availability of information in the decades since the advent of the Internet has had some surprising results. The greatly increased efficiency and efficacy of service industries might be one such unexpected outcome. Online resource enable people to realize where dirt, mould and scale lurk in places where they were previously safe. Now, the whole standard of work has been raised.
Ironically, better information about the insidious effects of many chemicals previously used for cleaning has resulted in their abandonment. It has been recognized that human beings are part of a community of life. Vulgar political directives to kill all sparrows, flies and rats have been replaced by tree planting programs. Butterflies and rabbits have returned to live in Hyde Park at the heart of London.
In the past drops of harsh chemical were dropped into buckets of water for cleaning purposes. Now methods of reverses osmosis are used to purify water before it is used for washing. Such water can be fed through long poles into special brushes and used to clean surfaces that might previously have been unreachable. Other devices now use steam for stubborn stains.
New building methods and materials call for new techniques. Some urban buildings have suspended ceilings. Vinyl and acoustic ceilings boards are used to modulate noise but can become covered in a film of dust. Similarly dry walling used in the allocation of interior space can become soiled with finger marks or even graffiti. Special techniques are required in such situations.
Notwithstanding the considerable advances achieved by technology there are some timeless aspects that remain in commercial cleaning London. Perhaps the most importance of these is mind. Gone are the days when char work was mindless drudgery. Now teams of quick workers under expert supervision enter buildings at opportune times. They work with super efficiency and are gone, like elves, leaving other workers to arrive in the morning for work to find everything hunky dory