In October of this year, central Texas saw one of the worst insect invasions it has had in years. Entomologists say that this annual event, which often happens just following the first big cold front, is one of the most predictable insect events seen in our great state. 

Cleaning companies are on high alert during this event, as the noisy black pests seek to make their way into every church, school, office building, industrial building, and business… disgusting visitors and employees alike. No one wants to hear the crunch, crunch of exoskeletons underfoot as they walk into their neighborhood bank!

What’s perhaps worse is that, left unattended, the cricket problem actually became more of a nuisance once the chirping stopped. Dead crickets emit a foul odor and, with the numbers we saw this past season, that odor can be quite offensive!

Fortunately cricket season has passed this year and made way for another crunch, crunch at every entryway–leaves! Those beautiful fall colors on the trees seems to come at the cost of quite a mess once they fall to the ground. With each passing cold front, more leaves change color and add to the growing piles on sidewalks, against fences, in flower beds, and even indoors if the problem is left unattended 

Fortunately, the leaves do not have a mind of their own so–unlike the crickets–they will not hop into your foyers of their own accord. Unfortunately, they can just as easily end up in every room of your building because they are so easily blown in by the wind or tracked in on the shoes of your guests, clients, employees, students, or congregants. 

Sonlight Cleaning Services knows that there are two different approaches to keeping those leaves out of your buildings depending on whether conditions are wet or dry.

Dry leaf protocol is fairly simple–prevent and remove. The easiest way to prevent leaves from blowing into the building is to keep exterior doors shut whenever possible. A secondary step is to have your lawn company come out more frequently to remove leaves from the premises (either through raking or vacuum mulching). The second step in dry leaf protocol–remove–is to keep leaves that do make it indoors from getting very far. For this task, Sonlight Cleaning Services highly recommends adding a day porter service to your regular janitorial cleaning services if you do not have one already. A day porter can focus their attention on sweeping or vacuuming leaves as they come into the building as well as keeping front door mats free of leaves. 

Wet leaf protocol is similar to dry leaf protocol but with an added step–prevent, remove, and dry. Wet leaves stuck to the underside of a shoe are one of the greatest slipping hazards you could ever have in your building because they cause the traction on the shoe to be almost nonexistent on flooring types such as tile, VCT, laminate, and even LVT. We recommend additional rugs to soak up water and collect leaves as well as frequent dry mopping by a day porter to ensure floors stay as dry as possible.

From crunchy crickets to crunchy leaves, Texas always seems to have some piece of the outdoors that tries to make its way indoors. With Sonlight Cleaning Services, your entryways can remain safe and clean no matter what nature throws your way!