In a office environment with about 30 staff what would be an acceptable frequency for the cleaning of urinals and cubicles, eg, once per week, two or three times per week, everyday...? I have checked HSE guidance and regulations but nothing specific to my query. Thanks for you comments in advance - Ray

Ray, I've seen you posting on this forum for ages, and with the greatest respect I can't believe you've had to ask that question.

Max, a pretty basic question - granted, but needs must...LOL!

Must be made of Money, I could only run to "pea wet and scraps"

Fantastic idea Graham, sadly my Mum is no longer with us and I have resorted to asking the girls in the office to tie my shoe laces for me. I refuse to wear 'slip ons'. It just wish they wouldn't tie those double knots! Daily doesn't seem unreasonable?

GeoffB4's response reminds me of an acquaintance who once commented that he always changed his underwear once a week whether it was necessary or not! Evidently he'd either lost his mum earlier than most men or she wasn't an especially diligent mum. One definition of a mum is a woman who always hopes that her offspring, irrespective of age, wear reasonably clean underwear just in case they ever need to be taken urgently to hospital! When I mentioned this to friend with experience as an A&E consultant, he said that hospital staff were too busy focusing on what treatment a newly admitted patient needed to notice the state of his/her clothing. However, if sufficient numbers of mums campaigned for it, perhaps the NHS could be persuaded to amend its patient admission record sheet to include an underwear rating scale ranging from 'commendable' to 'tut tut/deplorable' ! :-) Ray - As your thread hasn't been treated with sufficient gravitas so far (and for which I plead guilty regarding my earlier jocular responses), here are some thoughts regarding your initial question: As with many topics which appear on this forum, the answer depends on the circumstances at the actual workplace involved. If the employees appreciate the facilities and use them in a reasonable manner, the facilities obviously won't need to be cleaned as often as ones which quickly become smelly and visibly mucky. I've had a quick look through my copy of "Redgrave's Health and Safety in Factories" to see if Section 7 of the now obsolete Factories Act 1961 contained any stipulations about cleaning frequency. It simply says that 'sufficient and suitable sanitary conveniences ...should be provided, maintained and kept clean..." Section 7 is accompanied by "The Sanitary Acccommodation Regulations 1938". However, these simply deal with design aspects and numbers of urinals and WCs in relation to numbers of employees, and are 'silent' (to use a posh legal expression) about cleaning frequency. Perhaps suitably knowledgeable forum users can advise about what sort of germs proliferate on what surfaces at urinals and WCs, with what speeds and whether or not they pose significant health risks. (Apparently scientists have advised that computer keyboards are notably dirtier in this regard than many surfaces in toilet facilities.) Also, appropriate advice about such matters ought to be available from members of the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICS).

Now that we have reached unanimous agreement that Mum does indeed know best, it remains that some of her offspring did not learn at her apron strings and cannot now manage to deal with this toilet cleaning issue without the tick-box approach that gives the H&S professional such a bad name. No doubt the journalists are laughing all the way to the news desk. I despair!

Daily might not be enough. We had a new cleaner employed to do just that, but found within a couple of weeks, that although the building was relatively clean & tidy, the loos were very, very smelly. Plumbers came and went and said there was no blockage or air gap in the drains. It was all a bit of a mystery until a member of staff was using the urinals and saw the new cleaner wetting his mop by plunging it down the toilet bowl before proceeding to give the tiled floor a good old clean. So just because you clean the loos at your place of work daily, do not automatically think it will be clean !

And by the time you've worked all that out you could have cleaned the toilets, washed your hands then made a cup pf tea, then got on with something useful!

Ian, the above took longer to write than to think, it only took seconds. Even the maths could be done in the head, without the use of fingers and toes. Sadly my mum died when I was young, so was taught to think things through logically for myself, apologies if this has wasted valuable seconds of your ( or anyone else’s) life. Having seen the answers RayRapp normally provides on this forum, I feel there is a spot of devilish fun taking place here on his part, but others read these posts too.

Oh dear. #14 spot on. Surely Mr. Rapp has resorted to the pastime of "Trolling"....?

Regrettably, it's not in plentiful supply is it?

How many at your home? How often is yours cleaned? Then workout the ratio re numbers using the one in work. It may work. On the other hand... :-)

I can almost sense Ian's despair from here !!!!

Oh dear, how such a basic question can elicit so many different kinds of responses...it's bizarre! Indeed, if I still had a mum I might have asked her the same question and perhaps I lived a sheltered life. However, sometimes what might seem a simple question to one person is not quite so simple to another. There is no definitive document or guidance which I am aware of for the frequency of toilet cleaning and before I hit someone over the head (metaphorically speaking) I needed to gauge the opinion of others. So, thank you to all those who have taken the time and trouble to respond.