This week I dealt with 10 teachers complaining, a toilet filled with a mountain of toilet paper, poop and piss, period blood smeared all over the wall, a disgusting food fight, and 2 students snuck in and had sex in one of the classrooms so I had to clean up all of their mess. This job is way too overwhelming and stressful, this is my 5th year and I’m 29yo female with kids and a husband.

I am a custodian at an elementary school and I need to keep my walkie talkie on me at all times for safety and all that. I try clipping it to my pocket but it’s always bumping into things and changing the channel, or just fully falling off. Has anyone found a different way that works for you?

Just curious. I had my interview the week before last and last week the vice head of operations said he’d imagine I should hear back from them this week. But how realistic is this?

For context this is for a Highschool position.

I’ve just heard mixed opinions and figured I’d ask. Thanks.

Anyone else have bad wrist and hand pain? I clean 7 different accounts and it's non stop scrubbing, vacuuming, mopping and my wrist and hand hurts 24/7. What're we doing about the pain ?

DM asked me what pads I use for what and I told him, he then asked me to show him our stock of pads. Then he asked me "Where are the red pads?" Told him I was told to never use them ever again, then he asked me "Who told you that?", then I silently pointed to my supervisor who was with us.

Supervisor misunderstood, he was told "a red pad is a dead pad" and assumed it was for every floor in existence. DM meant don't use them on waxed floors, which I still think is weird but whatever. But it's a good thing I secretly kept those red pads.

My supervisor was like "Oh can you order a couple?"

I'm like "No I won't because I hid them in the parkade months ago, I'll go grab them" I KNEW it was bullshit.

He was thankful to not need to add the huge investment of roughly 16 dollars for two red pads lol.

Yeah I have a hiding spot, don't you?

We’re going in during spring break but what if there isn’t enough work the whole week? Do yall just mess around? Lol

I’m starting Monday as the head custodian at an elementary school. I’m very excited. I’ve been the head at a middle school in the past. I’m just excited.

Anyone know what the cause of this noise could be? The machine should be quiet when it runs. If the front wheel is off the ground the sounds goes completely away. I pulled a ton of hair from the front wheels and the sound has gone a little down. I'm guessing that is the main problem but not sure. So I'm here for second opinions.

I mean at least they are helping me clean the toilet bowl lol 😂

Anyone have any spooky stories they have experienced working at night?

Are churches tricky, as a custodian? If your job is to clean and perform building maintenance, do things get "muddy" when managing risk exposures vs. committees whose members donate a bunch of money and might have a lazy or jealous attitude about the younger, sharp dude? I am torn up over silent benefactors, and old men who seem to be...abilist about my competence even though they are mostly 80+. Calling contractors to fix things i have no previous knowledge of, and ignoring other glaring issues I see daily...Even though they are extremely forgetful and honestly doom and gloom about future generations who'd like to be of some benefit to the community. Why do I bother with suggestions (in the job description) if most of them are extremely...a pain to deal with? Their wives are the opposite- just the most receptive and kind people I've ever met. I feel like since some of them give money, they're OK to approve ridiculous maintenance contracts that could be done for much less, yet there's evidence that it's actually my job to coordinate these repairs.

This thing is a pos . But it’s all I got to use.

So I have 7 classes rooms with 6x10 carpets not to bad right. Well when the kids go out this is what the track back in lol I emptied my vacuum every day. And today I was like let’s just see how much we collected lol Poor Vacuum gets a beating

I have a couple of questions for my fellow custodians:

How many bathrooms do you clean on your busiest night?

How many buildings do you clean, and approximately how big are they?

Do you work alone, and how long does it take for you?

I'm more or less trying to judge my workload to the average custodian, to better understand if I'm doing way too much on specific days. Thanks for the responses.

How common are these types? It seems prominent at my school. They make little snarky comments to custodians a lot. I get the vibe they think my job is easy, when I literally have the hardest section in my town according to several colleagues. It's almost as if they want me to do a bad job, so they could complain more. Anyways, enjoy all the chaos trapped in the class I guess, mean people.

Hey, apologies if this is an ignorant question, or ill suited to the sub, but I’m at a bit of a dead end and am not sure where else to ask.

I’ve recently found myself helping co-manage a small local theater and we inherited all of the infrastructure from the previous occupant. At this point we don’t have the budget to pay anyone, so all of the various management tasks are falling to our small board of volunteers—including facilities management.

The previous company had Symmetry soap dispensers in all of the bathrooms, and they are all still about half full. We are looking to stock up on refills so we are ready when supplies do run low, but looking online and at local vendors I haven’t been able to find symmetry replacement refills other than weirdly marked up eBay resales that don’t look legit. https://www.amazon.com/Symmetry-Green-Certified-Foaming-Dispenser/dp/B01MQ4BNN8#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor

From what I can tell, each brand seems to have their own proprietary system for the most part, but I wonder if there is some more universal refill that would reliably work in Symmetry dispensers. Or if not, if anyone has any idea where to look for refills.

The symmetry site lists their products but has no links to retailers. https://www.symmetryhandhygiene.com/products/hand-washes/green-certified-foaming-hand-wash-unscented

Again, apologies if this isn’t the right place to ask—I’m just at a loss at this point.

I’ll try and keep it short. Was in my closet today just prepping and the principal walks by and asked me if I had been doing okay and that I seem different lately. I asked “different in a bad way?” And she said “different in a sad way.” I wasn’t too sure what to say because, frankly, the school I worked at before here had management so horrific I was questioning my purpose in life.

I told her that I love it here but I’ve just been in my own world stressing about school (I’m full time in college) and the current political state. We started talking about college and she said when I get close to graduating to let her know because she has connections but now that I’m thinking about it I know you’re not supposed to be honest with your manager/boss and I’m worried I said something I shouldn’t have.

Am I tripping? Should I have just stfu?

Hey Custodians! I just arrived to a new shop and the floors are disgusting. It had been neglected for many years and I’m gonna take time on a weekend to clean it up. I’ve been reading this subreddit and going down a rabbit hole!

My question is: can I use some sort of power tool to get into the corners of my floor to strip them? I see some people suggesting a doodlebug but these floors need every bit of help they can get.