We empty the building, then wash it

We clear neglected buildings to the floor

A neglected commercial property usually looks worse than anyone expects when the door first opens. Junk can be piled from the floor to the ceiling, and more of it leans against the outside walls. We start by walking the whole site, inside and out, and sorting what we find. Ordinary trash and things the last owner left behind are one kind of job. Anything that could be a health hazard is another, and it gets marked before a single load goes out.

The hazardous items come out first, handled apart from everything else. Then the general debris goes. We start nearest the doors so there is a clear path to the back of the building. We keep going until every room is down to bare floor, because the floor is where oil stains and damaged concrete hide. Nobody can judge a building while it is buried. Once the floor is clear, we can power wash the inside and the outside so the building is ready for a walkthrough.

The usual shortcut is hauling out the big pieces and calling it done. The building looks emptier, but droppings stay in the corners and the smell stays in the walls. The first person who walks through notices it right away. Leaving the outside for later is the other shortcut. A clean interior behind a pile of junk still looks like a neglected property to anyone driving past. Both shortcuts end with someone doing the cleanup a second time.

• Junk removed, even floor to ceiling piles
• Debris hauled away from the outside walls
• Hazardous items handled with our partner BIOTEAMAZ
• Every room cleared down to bare floor
• Power washing inside and outside

Hazardous material gets its own handling

Neglected properties collect things that should never go in a regular dumpster. Old batteries leak acid as their cases crack. Used oil sits in buckets and drums that may have been leaking for a long time. Animal feces build up wherever birds or rodents have been living inside. Previous owners sometimes leave containers with no label at all, and nobody should guess what is in them.

That is why Cleaning Resource Center has partnered with BIOTEAMAZ to help remove hazardous materials. We find and separate that material on the first walk, before any general hauling starts. Keeping it apart means a battery does not get crushed in a load of trash. A bucket of oil does not tip over on the way out the door either. The hazardous items then leave through our partner instead of going into a trash bin.

Droppings and old waste also leave biological contamination on floors and walls. Sweeping it up dry kicks it into the air as dust, and people breathe it for the rest of the job. So once the debris is off a contaminated area, that area gets cleaned and disinfected before anyone moves on. Skip that step and every person who works in the building afterward is breathing what was left on the floor.

Phoenix heat makes a dirty building worse

A closed building in Phoenix gets very hot inside through the summer, especially one with the power shut off and no air moving. Heat speeds up everything that is already going wrong. Trash and droppings rot faster, and the smell soaks into drywall and ceiling tile. Batteries that were already cracked leak faster. Used oil thins out and spreads farther across the slab, and it works deeper into bare concrete the longer it sits.

Most commercial buildings around Phoenix sit on a concrete slab, and a lot of them have concrete block walls or tilt-up concrete panels. Many small warehouses and shops are steel buildings with roll-up doors. Block and bare concrete are porous, so oil and animal waste soak in instead of sitting on top. A steel building with no power gets hotter inside than the air outside, and anything piled against its walls heats up all afternoon. Those surfaces have to come clean before anyone can use the space.

Animals looking for shade get into an empty building quickly around Phoenix. Pigeons roost on the beams and ledges under the roof. Pack rats build nests out of whatever junk is lying around. The junk gives them cover. Clearing it takes that away. But the nests and droppings have to come out too, down to the bare floor and off the ledges. If a nest gets left behind in a corner, the animals come back to it.

Debris left outside can bring code violations

In many cities, debris left outside a commercial building can lead to code violations. Junk stacked against the walls and piles spread across the parking lot are what an inspector sees from the street. Removing it promptly is how those violations are avoided. So we treat the outside as its own part of the job, with the same sorting we do indoors. Hazardous items get pulled out of the outside piles too, before anything goes on a truck.

Dust storms and monsoon rain make an outside mess worse. Wind pushes loose trash and dirt into corners and against the walls, where it piles up and holds moisture after a storm. Rain runs across a cluttered lot and carries oil and waste toward the gutter and the storm drain. Clearing the lot before the summer storms keeps that mess on the property, where it can be picked up.

Normal debris removal is not always enough on a property like this. A dumpster takes the trash, but it does nothing about what the trash was sitting on. Under a pile that has been there a long time, the pavement is stained and the ground is littered with droppings and broken glass. Once the piles are gone, we clean that ground and can power wash the outside walls. After that, the lot looks like part of a working property again.

An empty floor shows the real layout

Commercial real estate agents often find properties that have gone without care for years at a time. A buyer walking through a building full of junk cannot picture the space, and many stop trying. The agent is left selling a space that nobody can see. Clearing the building first gives the agent open floor to show and a clear idea of how big the place really is.

Businesses have the same problem when they move. Old equipment and stock build up over time, and leaving a facility means someone has to deal with all of it. Moving into a building the last tenant never cleaned out is just as hard. Many owners do not realize how common this is, or who to call for it. The work is the same in both cases, and it starts with sorting what is there.

A finished cleanup is a building you can walk from one end to the other without stepping around anything. The floor is bare and washed, and nothing is stacked against the walls inside or out. That is when you can see the real layout and how much usable square footage the building actually has. Any damage that was hidden behind the junk shows up too, so it can be dealt with before a lease is signed. It is also the first time anyone can judge what the space could be used for.