Signs you need this
- Restrooms cannot hold up to two or three shifts a day
- Break room is the thing your associates complain about most
- Dock walkways and racking aisles have visible dust and debris
- The office front looks nothing like the rest of the building
- Nobody is scrubbing the slab and tire marks are building up
- A customer or client audit is coming and housekeeping is a line on it
Why square footage is the wrong starting point
A 120,000 square foot distribution building can have 4,000 square feet of office and eight restroom fixtures. Quoting the whole footprint at an office rate produces a number nobody will pay, and quoting it at a warehouse rate underprices the part that takes all the labor. So the scope gets zoned: office front, restrooms and break rooms, dock and walkway areas, open slab. Each zone carries its own task list, its own frequency and its own line on the quote. You can then change frequency in one zone without reopening the whole agreement.
The parts your associates actually notice
Restrooms and the break room. In a building running two shifts, both take several times the load of an office of the same size, and both are what turns up in staff surveys and exit interviews. Dispensers need to be high capacity so they last between visits. Restroom floors need scrubbing rather than mopping, because mopping a tiled warehouse restroom just moves the soil into the grout. Break room tables, microwaves, refrigerator exteriors and the sink area need daily attention, and a fridge clear-out on a posted schedule stops the problem everybody pretends is not theirs.
Dock doors, walkways and winter
Dock areas are where outside comes in. Road grit, rain, snow and salt arrive on trailer wheels and on foot, and from December to March that means a constant film across the dock apron and the first twenty feet of slab. Pedestrian walkways painted alongside forklift lanes get dirty fastest and are also the ones an auditor looks at. Scrubbing those lanes on a tighter cycle than the rest of the floor costs very little and changes how the building reads.
Air quality and the things that build up slowly
Dust in a warehouse collects high and stays there until something disturbs it. Racking tops, beam flanges, light fittings and conduit runs accumulate for years. An annual or twice yearly high level clean using a lift handles that, scheduled with the aisles below closed. It also gives you a chance to look at fittings and pipework you never see from the floor.
Audits and customer visits
If your building serves a customer who audits, housekeeping will be on the form. What helps is evidence: a written zone scope, a signed task list per visit, restroom check logs and a dated record of periodic work such as slab scrubbing and high level dusting. We keep that documentation as a matter of routine and hand it to you, because being able to produce it on the day of an audit is worth more than the cleaning itself.
How the work runs
- 1
Walk the building on a working shift
We walk during operations to see real traffic, real restroom load and where the forklifts run. A quiet Saturday walkthrough hides everything that matters in a distribution building.
- 2
Split the scope by zone
Office front, restrooms and break rooms, dock and walkway areas, and open warehouse floor are scoped and priced separately. Each zone gets its own frequency.
- 3
Fit the schedule to your shifts
Cleaning runs in the gap between shifts or during the quietest window. Restroom and break room service often has to happen mid-shift, and that is built into the route.
- 4
Safety induction and start
The crew completes your site induction, PPE requirements and traffic rules before the first clean. A supervisor is on site for the first week and inspects on a fixed schedule after that.
What it typically costs
| Job | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Warehouse floor area Aisles, walkways and dock areas, excludes the office front | $0.03 to $0.09 per sq ft per month |
| Office front, per square foot Priced at general office rates, five nights a week | $0.09 to $0.18 per sq ft per month |
| Restroom and break room service Set by fixture count and how many shifts use it | $180 to $520 per month per block |
| Slab autoscrubbing Per pass, ride-on scrubber on open warehouse floor | $0.04 to $0.11 per sq ft |
| High level dusting Racking tops, beams and light fittings, usually annual or twice a year | $0.05 to $0.14 per sq ft |
| Day porter on site Restroom and break room coverage across shifts | $24 to $36 per hour |
Typical ranges for Indianapolis and the surrounding area , reviewed September 2026. Every quote is written and fixed before work starts.