It's the Casa Cast.
We got Orange Credo, Casa Cast, ourto Casa Cast, created by Casa.
It's time for the show.
Let's go.
Hey, welcome to Casa Cast.
I'm your host, Steve Schwab.
Today I'm with Dave Thompson.
Not to be confused with Dave Thomas.
Founder of Wendy's.
Dave Thompson is the founder of the Academy of Excellence
based in Orlando, Florida.
He's been in business for multiple decades and his claim to fame is that
he helps people protect their health within their cleaning companies.
Welcome Dave.
Hello, Steve.
Dave, you and I had a pretty good discussion a few weeks back
. And you asked me a really pointed question, And I want to dig into
it because I think it was a wise way of explaining what is clean.
So Dave, what is clean according to the Academy of Cleaning Excellence?
You know, I just did a four hour broadcast to 60 schools yesterday, and that was one
of the first things that we talked about.
There's many people in the cleaning industry and just in
the general public as at large.
We say we clean and we say we cleaned it.
But really, do you know what cleaning is?
Do you know what clean is?
It's not what we use.
It's not the process.
Really.
It's actually taking what is on a surface and removing it and
putting it in its place, which generally is not where we find it.
Right.
So you mentioned a big part of cleaning is.
PH and the physical removal of soils that aren't supposed to be there.
I have no idea what the PH has to do with the cleaning.
Once you removed the physical objects and soils from the surface.
This is pH, a liquid that you find in a bottle.
I don't care what liquid it is.
Basically, water has a pH factor.
pH.
The blood in your body that gives you life has a pH of 7.
365.
So, when you think about these things that come in these bottles,
the pH of that product has a very profound effect on your body.
Because we know that we inhale, we all have smelled chemicals, right?
We, we smell these.
We know that we can put a patch on our skin and we can absorb
chemistry through our skin.
So whatever the pH is that's in this bottle, I can inhale or absorb.
You want to keep that pH as close to seven as possible.
That's why pH is so important.
But without liquid, can we really completely clean?
No.
So that's pH, the best physical removal device on the planet.
Every car that is driving has something like this on the windshield, right?
And for those who are just listening to audio, what is that?
This is a squeegee.
I did not say a window squeegee.
I said a squeegee.
It's a piece of rubber that pulls across the surface and removes what is there
and puts it in its place, not on the window that you're looking through.
So, what does a windshield wiper do?
It uses a liquid and a piece of rubber to remove the film
and what's there, not a rag.
A rag leaves moisture that has to dry and that leaves a film.
I could go on and on, but that's the basic.
Principle of all cleaning, pH and physical removal.
Dave, when we think about surfaces and physical removal and the pH, does pH play
a factor in how well you're able to clean the soils out of like a porous surface?
Yes, to a point.
And it's more the chemistry that's made up in that pH.
pH is only one factor.
So yes, pH is important.
But also agitation.
You have to have agitation in that process.
You know, whenever we're cleaning, we're going to use what's in this bottle.
We're going to use some form of agitation, and then we use removal.
Now, I just showed you a squeegee, but think of what your dishwasher does.
The same thing.
It just uses water pressure as the agitation, and it's rinse, is the
removal of whatever chemistry was there.
So we're still using pH.
We're using chemistry.
We use the pressure of the water and we use water to rinse, which
is the most important thing when you're cleaning folks.
You talked a little bit about how cleaning has to be done properly before
the sanitation or disinfection is done.
. Think about this.
If you have a sandwich and it's laying on the table, can you
just spray it with a chemical and just sanitize or disinfect it?
No, you have to take the sandwich away and then it's the same thing.
But remember, when you're talking about sanitizing and disinfecting,
what are we actually working against?
Microbes that you can't see.
So remember this, the food that they live on are, guess what?
Microscopic.
You can't see the food.
So if you remove the food, the microbe dies.
You starve it out.
Just like you and me, you remove my food and water and I'm going to die.
It may take a little bit.
So how effective is your cleaning process?
Because remember.
We're not doing it just to be doing it.
We're doing it for the result of removing and making that surface
healthy and safe for us to live in.
Dave, you mentioned on our last conversation that there's no such
thing as a green disinfectant.
Correct.
What does that mean and why not?
Green means it's healthy.
Disinfectants kill.
It's just that simple.
So it's like saying a safe poison.
Is that what you're saying?
Hey, I'm not trying to step on your toes here.
But I want to be as safe as possible and healthy.
You see it right here on my logo, right?
Knowledge protecting health.
That's exactly what I'm about.
However, I need to kill the microbes in certain situations.
I don't need to in every situation.
And this is where we went into this.
The COVID era that if you will now, we went way too far trying to kill anything
and everything that lived on a surface.
That's not right.
That's wrong.
So what are we trying to do here?
We're trying to kill what is left in certain environments where it's required.
That is not every environment.
What environment would it not be appropriate for your home?
Remember if you're cleaning a home where I live, where you live, Steve,
your family, which lives there most of the time, I mean, yes, you have guests
and you have friends that come over.
Hopefully for Steve, you got some friends that come over, right?
At least one.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
One or two every once in a while, but they're not there all the time.
So what we do at home is our own private.
Responsibility.
This is what we're dealing with.
Basically, you're used to your own microbes.
You don't usually get sick from your own microbes.
Commercially, when we go to an environment where people are coming
in and they're depending on us to provide a healthy, safe environment.
Now, this is commercial cleaning.
I don't care whether you're cleaning a home, a rental
property, a school building.
That's commercial cleaning.
So think about this and we got to get this through our head.
We're not home cleaning just because it's a home building.
Home cleaning is when I do it for me personally, commercial cleaning
is when I do it and somebody else is using that facility.
Yeah.
At Costco, we call it getting it rental ready.
You know, where we have a stranger coming into a property, their first time
there, the standard in which we clean to make sure that it's rental ready.
Is a very different standard than just clean your own house, right?
That's why we often don't let homeowners clean their own properties for us
Because there's a standard to which the hospitality standard was a higher bar than
what people do in their own homes often Well and steve, you're absolutely right.
So the thing about it is We should not be using household cleaning chemicals
to come clean at commercial property.
I mean, I'm proud stepping up some toes right here, but the items that
you buy on the store shelf out of this bottle that we buy and use in
our homes is not commercial grade.
It is not the same.
And it doesn't have the same labeling.
It doesn't have the same safety data sheets on it that we are talking about.
So whenever we go to commercially clean, we should be using something
different because think about this.
Whenever you use your restroom at home, it takes a month of using it at home to what
three days using commercially would be.
Yeah.
There's a gentleman in our industry called Sean Kemper, he has a chemical
company called Kemper Industries.
Yeah.
And I never really understood why he was so adamant about
using commercial products.
And as I've become more educated just over the past year or two, after being
in the industry for 23 years now, I thought Fabuloso was just fine.
But what I'm finding is I've learned my lessons that with
chemicals, commercial grade.
Chemicals are the proper way to clean a property with everything you've learned.
Then what's the smell of clean nothing?
Absolutely.
So whenever you use a chemical that leaves a smell that is a perfume That was left
and that perfumes are usually in oil that are left on a surface that is going
to attract more pathogens and create a biofilm for more pathogens to live in.
Have we really cleaned?
Have we really done our job?
No, we haven't.
Well, that brings me to the next point that you and I discussed.
Rents, rents, rents.
Absolutely.
Explain that to the audience.
Explain that to our team here.
I've put some chemicals down.
You know, I've got my pH down.
I've agitated, I've wiped it off.
It looks clean to me and it smells good.
Why should I rinse?
Well, here's the thing.
You see this bottle right here?
It doesn't have a label of a chemical in it.
Why?
It's water.
That is the final step in all cleaning.
The pH and the physical removal of these tools is simply to remove The material
that's there, the pathogens I can't see, and some that I can see, obviously.
But the final step is to rinse.
And , here's the thing.
Whenever you go through the car wash with your car, automatic or whether
you do it manually, whichever way you do it, I am sure that you drive
it off with the soap still on.
Yeah, you're kind of chuckling at me there, Steve.
What's the punchline?
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like when you take a shower, I'm sure
you leave the soap on your body.
And somebody looked at me and said, that's why I have no hair.
I said, no, that's not why.
I wish it were.
Here's the thing.
Everything we really do, we rinse.
Your dishwasher rinses.
You wouldn't leave the soap on your dishes.
Your laundry machine rinses, your dishwasher rinses, I rinse, but when
it comes to cleaning, most people that clean, say they've cleaned, never rinsed.
Yeah, I mean, I'm guilty of it myself.
I mean, I'll take some 409 and spray it on some, something greasy, you
know, on the surface Wipe it up with some paper towels, whatever.
And I I'm done in my head, but obviously I'm not.
No, you're not.
And so just think this here is a bottle of window cleaner.
Okay.
That's what I've got in here.
How many people, when they put window cleaner on, stand there and polish
their freaking life away, trying to get rid of the streaks and the smears.
Me.
Uh, yeah, I know.
I do listening probably.
Yeah.
Well, here's the thing.
If you would simply take water on that after you use the chemical and use a
squeegee or the best wiper that you have, you will have a streak free window.
And why do I say window?
Because we can see through it.
So if I can do that on a window, then think of if I transfer that
same practice to every other surface.
But here's the thing is,?
When you get through with your dishes, what do you do?
The last thing you do is as the sink is draining out the soapy water.
You take that dish rag outta there, you wring it, and you wipe the counter down.
Was that water clean?
Is that what I should leave on the countertop where I'm now gonna make
Johnny's peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
So what you should do is rinse that rag out, or better yet, change to a clean rag,
put water on it and wipe the counter down after you cleaned it with their dirty rag.
And apply that process to everything.
I have people that come in and go, my floor looks dingy.
Did you rinse it?
Well, no, I mopped it with a clean and come home.
I cleaned it.
No, you didn't.
All you did is smear their dirty water from one area to the other
and made it all evenly look dirty.
When it comes to floors, that's an interesting conversation because I can
tell you that, especially on porous floors, the hard surfaces that we have
here in Arizona, chemical product, and then rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse.
And we still get the gray foot syndrome of when you walk across it with a gray
socks, you end up with a gray foot.
And that's what we call around here.
What do you say about that?
Yeah, white socks that turn dingy right after you mop the floor.
And, and rinsed.
We've tried to rinse.
We've actually gone, we've done a test where we literally
rinsed it 10 times in a row.
We still can't get it to work.
Well, let me ask a question.
Are you sticking the mop back in the same water every time?
For the test, no, but.
I'm just wondering if there's something that, that more that has to be done.
Well, it goes back to what is this?
A squeegee.
Okay.
So you need a machine that puts fresh water down and suction off of the
squeegee and sucks it off the floor.
A mop is not the tool.
, I don't know if you know this or not, this is my life.
This is all I do for 50 years.
It's all I've done.
Do you know when the mop was patented?
1893.
Are you really seriously thinking here in 2024?
It's the best tool to mop your floors with is a mop.
Come on, we've got a cell phone here.
We got a $1,400 or $2,000 computer in our hand, and you're still telling me that
the best we can do is a mop on the floor.
A mop is the worst thing to clean the floor.
What's the best thing?
Well, it depends on the environment you're in.
Depends on what you can do.
But basically, it's a machine that's going to have a cylindrical brush.
You know, something round.
Yeah.
That brushes and scrubs and lifts the soil up.
And then sucks that dirty water completely off the floor because
the squeegee comes along.
And pulls it off the floor when we're talking about getting to the final
product, you know, whether it's getting rid of the gray foot syndrome or making
sure that we haven't left that film for pathogens that smells nice, but now we've
just more food to eat from in the oils
. How do you measure the outcome of the process to validate his performance?
That's the one thing that people don't want to do.
And it's very interesting, as I've went all over the world over the last 20
years since we've had these devices.
People don't like to see me come in with my little device.
It's called an ATP, adenosine triphosphate meter.
It's been used for decades in food processing.
So, you know, whenever you're eating your luncheon meat from Oscar Mayer,
the surface that that product was produced on had to be tested to
not have microbial life on it.
And so what we now have is we have these devices where we can go out and after the
process, whatever process you've used, We can actually measure the amount of, for
layman's terms, Steve, microbial life.
Let's just say it that way.
I don't want to get in too technical today.
And every meter is a little different.
So the one I use here at the Academy, it actually says that if
I can get a single digit reading, I could prepare food on it safely.
Now, to me, I'm going to say, hey, if I can prepare food on it safely,
then that's the number that I want my cleaning process to result in.
You know, and some people want to get caught up in the number, but, you
know, we do tests here with the Academy of what is the process you're using.
And how effective is it?
Because what's the purpose of our cleaning or sanitization or disinfection process
if it isn't to measure and validate that I actually made a healthy surface?
And that's what that does.
Where do you pick up an ATP meter?
I can help you with that.
Just give me a call.
I can help you.
Okay.
I just find it interesting.
I've, I've never used one.
I'd love to get one and I'd love to tell everybody else where to get one too.
And what do you just like put a swab down on the swabs?
And it's kind of complexed in a way because you have to be very accurate.
I mean, you know, this isn't just a, you're not trying to validate,
just, just be saying you did it.
We use this in healthcare.
I mean, I've been in hospitals where you want to actually, and if you're in
an OR room or you're in these places where disinfection has to be absolute,
this is why we go there, right?
You know, if I'm there, I have to be able to quantify the outcome of my performance.
And I think this is where, if we actually did this in facilities, I mean, just
think of a marketing tool, Steve.
If you could actually say that we meet this measurement standard and
we validate it on a regular basis using this process, then challenge
anybody else to do the same thing.
I mean, are the machines cheap enough to hand out to cleaning teams to
validate or no, this is something an owner, a manager, supervisor would do.
And I've got videos on it on my YouTube channel, Steve, of me doing
this and showing the whole process.
But basically, you have to do it in a 4x4 square.
You have a swab that has to be refrigerated.
It has an expiration date.
The swabs are not inexpensive, but you also have to the right protocol
to do this, the measuring device, the meter, depending on where you're
getting can be up to 1, 400 a unit.
So it's a real investment, but all the work that you have to be able to validate.
What nobody else is doing.
And so where's the value in saying, well, you know, we clean and sanitize.
Well, so does everybody else, but does that mean anything?
Typically not.
No, it really doesn't.
And you know, everybody says it, but they don't really
understand what sanitizing is.
And obviously if you're not following the process and have a standard
to meet, then how do you really know if it's being done properly?
Yeah, I was conducting a master's class here a couple months ago and
the people came in from all over the states and we got into this area and
they said, well, what chemical to use?
And I said, I really don't care.
And we're like, well, you got to care.
I said, no, I don't.
The thing is, is do I really need to disinfect?
Do I really need to sanitize or is cleaning properly efficient?
And so I showed them by using the process I talked to you about earlier, Steve.
Of simply using ph agitation Physical removal and rinse.
I got a single digit and I did not use a disinfectant So the question
is do I need to use a disinfectant?
Not if I have the right process That's pretty incredible that you can go
in and get the same effect without using all of the chemicals and the
poisons to kill and disinfect and still end up with the same result.
That seems so counterintuitive to everything I've been taught.
So, so your question earlier was, is disinfection safe?
Well, not by most people and using a disinfectant because the pH of a
disinfectant usually is around a 13 or 14.
And if you don't understand pH, what that means is it is anywhere from
1, 000, 000 to 10, 000, 000 times stronger than the pH of your blood.
I can't say that safe.
Well, that's how it poisons things, right?
But that kind of brings in something else that's important
when it comes to chemicals, or at least understanding chemicals.
And disinfectants and cleaning products as a whole, something called quads.
How does that play into each other?
And what is it?
Can you explain what a quad is?
I know there's a much bigger word that it stands for and you're
going to say it for in a second.
But after our conversation, I Googled it and it's, In almost everything.
Uh, yeah, and that's scary.
If so, if you think about this, what kind of disinfectants Were we
spraying from about 2020 to 2023?
Quats was the number one Disinfectant that you were spraying
whether you knew it or not.
So what is a quad?
Quats, without getting real scientific, is called, basically, that is an abbreviation
of a quaternary ammonium compound.
You can have a 2 quat, a 3 quat, or a 4 quat.
Now, what does all of this mean?
Well, that is the product that kills microbes.
That's the killing agent, if you will.
You know, if you want to think about your gun, you know, you got to have the
gunpowder, you got to have it going there.
But The quats is the bullet.
That's what's killing the microbe.
Well remember that quat has that 13 or 14 pH.
And what were we doing?
We were spraying it in the air.
We were breathing it in.
It was sitting on everything that we touched.
You absorbed it through your skin because you came out for running,
jogging, and you sat down in the chair catching your breath on your lazy boy.
What happened?
Now, your skin is opened up and you're absorbing all of
that clot through your skin.
Why were people getting sick, not from COVID, but from chemicals?
And here's why.
What specifically, or what mechanical action does a clot take to kill
the pathogens that makes all the chemical companies want to use it?
Cheap.
Cheap?
Okay.
That's it.
I mean, a phenol.
kills.
Alcohol kills sodium hypochlorite bleach kills.
But if you don't use all of these agents correctly, they don't do their job.
So it's not just the product by itself.
There is a process.
By the way, If you read the labeling on a clot or a disinfectant of any
sort, it says it's against federal law, hear what I'm saying, against
federal law to use it in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.
I will tell you that most people using or breaking the law.
Number one, it says to pre clean and they didn't.
So back to his cleaning important, the disinfectant cannot do its job of killing.
If I didn't remove the organic material first that is on the surface.
And we're not talking about what you can see, because remember, the microbes are
living on microbial organic material.
So cleaning removes that.
If I do that, then if I use a disinfectant according to the label, and by the
way, most disinfectants say to rinse.
I can see now.
So, Steve, what are you in prison for?
I didn't pre clean before using a clot.
Broke federal law.
Yeah, well, and the thing is, is what has happened as a
society and it's nobody's fault.
I'm not blaming anybody here.
It's just what we have done is we just depend on the chemical to do
everything so I don't have to do it.
And unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.
So that kind of brings up our last two Subjects, I'd like you to explain
what you call the wooden bottom test along with the chemical stupidity of
We're gonna be we're gonna kill these chemicals aren't we today i'm into it
Believe you me
. I am not anti chemical But here's the thing.
We need to use the right product in the right place at the right time and the
right amount to get the right job done.
We do need chemicals.
We need to use the right ones in the right time.
, you know, what is interesting is almost every household in America And
even maybe possibly the whole world.
They're cleaning chemicals that are under the kitchen sink.
And I'm thinking, you know, wait a minute.
Why is this?
Why do we do this?
Why do we put it there in the room that we're providing our food and we're
trying to make our food to consume, but we're putting chemicals under the sink?
But now to your point, the wooden test, that shelf that's under the sink is
usually made of some kind of composite nowadays wood, not probably 100 percent
wood anymore, some kind of a composite.
And I would challenge almost anybody that's listening to this podcast to
go right now to that sink, pull all of the chemicals out and see how many
rings are burned into the wood from the cleaning chemicals that sit there.
Now just think about this.
What causes that?
It is the chemical actually leaching through this plastic bottle over a
period of time and burning a ring from the bottom of the product into the wood.
Now that's what we call off gassing.
And if it's doing that, what is it doing to you?
You might not want to be having that chemical in your living environment.
Now, if you feel like you got to use that chemical by and large, I'm not
telling you throw it away, but maybe just maybe , it should be outside the
garage, not inside my living dwelling.
So whenever I think about, you know, commercial cleaning, when you take a
commercial product and you're using it in a commercial facility, we
really, really should not have these.
where we're living.
These should be, you know, stored, you know, there, you know, when we get
into commercial environments, we have a metal shelf that says flammable, you
know, for certain types of products, maybe we should have something
special for cleaning chemicals too.
I think so.
So Dave, you've spent your life educating people on cleaning clean
excellence through teaching them knowledge, protecting their health.
helping them protect others health.
Can you tell me a little bit about what you do and what the Academy of Cleaning
Excellence offers and how maybe our teammates could get a hold of you if they
wanted to come to your training courses?
Academyofcleaning.
com.
That's where you can get a hold of me.
I have almost anything and everything on there that pertains to cleaning.
What is our main focus?
It's certification of processes.
We have a certification course for almost any type of flooring, but then we also
do, you know, above floor infection prevention, restroom decontamination,
not just cleaning, but decontamination.
Thank you.
We do live classes.
I've got four different locations here in Florida that we do live
classes from, and then I have a very robust online campus for those
people that can't come to Florida.
So, basically, your online gives you the knowledge.
It just doesn't give you the skills training.
And then, of course, hey, just like we did yesterday, we had over
300 custodians that couldn't leave where they're at at summertime.
. So if you're up with technology and want to get there, we just started putting
our classes into the metaverse too.
That's great.
Dave, thanks so much for your time.
Learned a lot again, as always.
Thank you for talking to us on Casa Cast and helping all of our teammates
become better property managers.
Appreciate the time.
Just rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, . Just keep rinsing, just keep rinsing
, thanks Steve.
It's,
they
call,
we got orange.