The nightly work in an old downtown office is the same as in a new one. What’s different is the building, and one material in the lobby can be ruined by the wrong cleaner in a single mop.
Cleaning older downtown office buildings in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre runs on the same core routine as anywhere else. Trash out, restrooms disinfected, floors cleaned, desks and touch points wiped, kitchen reset. If you want the full list of what a standard visit covers, our breakdown of what office cleaning includes lays it out.
The difference is that a pre-war building has four or five physical features a modern office park doesn’t, and each one punishes a crew that treats it like a modern office. The stone lobby floor, the radiators, the original windows, the old floor tile, and the simple fact that there’s nowhere to park a cart.
What Changes When You’re Cleaning an Old Downtown Office Building
Scranton and Wilkes-Barre are full of early 1900s office stock. The Lackawanna Avenue Historic District in Scranton and the older bank and office buildings around downtown Wilkes-Barre were built with materials and systems that a 1990s suburban office simply doesn’t have.
None of that changes what needs cleaning. It changes how the work is done, what products are safe, and which crew you want holding the mop. A cleaner used to open plan carpet and vinyl composition tile can walk into a marble lobby and do real, expensive damage without knowing it.
So the routine is identical and the risks are not. The rest of this comes down to five features of the building, starting with the one every visitor walks across before they reach your suite.
The Lobby Floor Is the First Thing to Get Right
Most of these buildings have an original terrazzo or marble lobby, and both are damaged by acid. Cementitious terrazzo actually dissolves on contact with acid, and even something as mild as vinegar will etch and pit the surface. A cleaner reaching for an acidic tile cleaner or a strong stripper can dull a hundred year old floor in one pass, and you can’t undo it.
The safe routine is boring on purpose. Dust mop or vacuum the grit off first, because grit under a pad grinds the polish. Then damp clean with a pH neutral cleaner, one that sits in the 6.5 to 7.5 range, so it’s neither acidic nor harshly alkaline. Pick the dirty water up before it dries. For heavier scuffs, a mild alkaline cleaner is fine, but nothing acidic ever touches it.
The shine on these floors comes from periodic buffing and polishing, not from stripping and recoating like a vinyl floor. Ask any cleaner what they’d put on your lobby stone, and if the answer includes an acidic cleaner or an aggressive strip, that’s your answer about them.
Radiators and Steam Heat, and the Dust Nobody Reaches
Old downtown buildings run on steam or hot water heat, which means cast iron radiators under the windows instead of ceiling vents. They collect dust in every fin, they’re awkward to clean around, and for a good part of the year they’re too hot to touch.
A crew that knows the building vacuums and wipes the radiators during the shoulder seasons when the heat is off, and keeps the tops and the gaps behind them on the periodic list rather than the nightly one. Left alone, a radiator bakes dust into a smell you notice the first cold week of fall.
This is the kind of detail that separates a crew that has cleaned old buildings across Northeastern Pennsylvania from one that hasn’t. It never shows up on a checklist, and it always shows up in the air.
Windows That Predate Central Air
Original single pane windows behave nothing like a modern sealed unit. They sweat and drip in winter, so the sills and the wood or metal frames need wiping, not just the glass. The sashes are old and sometimes painted shut, and the paint on a pre-1978 frame may contain lead, so nobody should be scraping or sanding it as part of a cleaning visit.
Interior glass in these buildings, the transoms over old doors and the glass partitions in a converted Scranton or Wilkes-Barre office, is often original too and deserves a soft cloth rather than a squeegee dragged over grit.
The rule is gentle and dry-leaning. Clean the glass, wipe the condensation off the sill so it doesn’t rot the wood, and leave the frame restoration to a contractor, not the night crew.
The Floor Tile You Should Not Strip on Instinct
Here’s the one that carries real liability. A lot of old buildings still have vinyl asbestos tile, the nine inch floor tile common through the middle of the last century. As long as it’s intact and sealed under wax, it’s safe. The danger is in how it’s cleaned.
Vinyl asbestos tile should never be dry buffed, dry swept, sanded, or aggressively stripped, because any of those can release fibers into the air. The safe approach is damp methods, a vinyl floor cleaner, and a wet vacuum with HEPA filtration when the old finish comes off. The tile gets stripped as rarely as possible, and only when the building is empty.
If nobody knows how old the tile is, it gets tested before anyone strips it, not after. A cleaner who wants to run a high speed buffer over mystery tile in a 1920s building is a cleaner who hasn’t done the reading. This is exactly the kind of judgment you’re hiring for.
There Is Nowhere to Put the Cart
Modern offices have a janitor closet with a mop sink. A lot of these old buildings have a closet the size of a phone booth, or none at all, and no dedicated slop sink on the floor. That sounds minor until you realize the crew has to haul water and equipment up and down, and store a cart somewhere that isn’t in anyone’s way.
The logistics stack up. The freight elevator, if there is one, may run on a schedule or need a key after hours. Building security and the after hours access rules are stricter downtown than in a suburban park. A tight stairwell decides how big a floor machine can even come in the door.
A crew that has worked these buildings plans around all of it before the first visit. One that hasn’t finds out at 6 p.m. on night one, and you hear about it.
The building sets the hard parts, but the buying steps are the same as for any office, and you’ll find them in the office cleaning services guide, starting with the scope.
What to Ask a Cleaner Before They Quote an Old Building
You don’t need to become a floor care expert. You need to ask a few questions and listen for whether the answers sound like experience or a guess. Before you sign with anyone for a historic downtown building, ask:
- What would you use on the terrazzo or marble lobby? The right answer is a pH neutral cleaner and periodic buffing, never acid and never a hard strip.
- How do you handle floor tile that might contain asbestos? They should mention testing unknown tile and using damp methods, not a buffer.
- How do you clean around steam radiators, and when? Look for the seasonal answer.
- Have you worked in this building or others like it downtown? Experience with the freight elevator, the access rules, and the closet situation is worth real money.
Whether your building sits on the Lackawanna County or the Luzerne County side of the valley, the building itself decides most of this, not the address. Pick the crew that treats your old building like the specific thing it is, and the rest of the routine takes care of itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you clean a terrazzo or marble lobby floor without ruining it?
With a pH neutral cleaner and nothing acidic. Terrazzo and marble both etch on contact with acid, including mild ones like vinegar, so the routine is to dust mop the grit off first, damp clean with a neutral product, and pick the water up before it dries. The shine comes back through buffing and polishing, not stripping and recoating like a vinyl floor.
Can you strip and wax old floor tile that might contain asbestos?
Carefully, and only the right way. Vinyl asbestos tile is safe while it’s intact and sealed, but it should never be dry buffed, sanded, or aggressively stripped, since that can release fibers. If the tile’s age is unknown, it should be tested before any stripping. Safe maintenance means damp methods and a HEPA wet vacuum, stripping as rarely as possible and only when the building is empty.
Why does cleaning an old downtown building sometimes cost more?
Usually because of time and access, not the cleaning itself. Radiators, delicate stone floors, tight stairwells, a freight elevator on a schedule, and no proper janitor closet all slow a crew down and call for more care. The nightly task list is the same, but doing it right in an older building takes longer, and the quote reflects that.
Do original single pane windows need special care?
Yes, a gentler approach. They collect condensation, so the sills and frames need wiping along with the glass to prevent rot. Old sashes are delicate, and paint on pre-1978 frames may contain lead, so a cleaning crew should never scrape or sand them. That’s restoration work for a contractor, not part of a nightly visit.
How should a cleaner handle steam radiators?
By cleaning them during the seasons when the heat is off, and keeping the tops and the gaps behind them on the periodic schedule. Cast iron radiators trap dust in every fin and are too hot to safely clean when they’re running, so a crew that knows old buildings times that work for the shoulder seasons rather than skipping it.