A cleaner maintains offices, hospitals, schools, apartments, educational institutions, hotels and leisure resorts in a clean and orderly condition. Commercial cleaning companies usually employ them.
Cleaners generally work in a team and perform a variety of tasks, including: cleaning floors, windows and walls; vacuuming carpets; dusting furniture; emptying dustbins; polishing desks in offices; changing linen in hotels, resorts and hospitals.
Cleaners operate electrical vacuum cleaners, use manual cleaning equipment such as mops and brooms and employ chemical cleaning agents to accomplish their tasks. They may work in the evening or early morning because most offices have to be cleaned while the personnel are not there. Some buildings, such as hospitals and hotels, require 24-hour maintenance resulting in shift work for the cleaner.