Cleaning is a health practice, not a look.
Judge cleaning by what it does for the health of the people in the building, not by how the building looks afterward. The essays published here between 2011 and 2018 made that case. The new writing continues it.
The founding definition
What “health intentional” meant here
The site’s 2011 definition page set out what cleaning has to satisfy before it counts as cleaning for health. It has aged well. Five of its points:
- Cleaning performed for health purposes rather than only appearance.
- Cleaning achieved without the additional spread of harmful bacteria.
- Cleaning performed with the fewest health risks for the cleaning personnel.
- Cleaning performed by staff educated in best practices for maintaining a healthy environment.
- Cleaning with results that can be scientifically measured.
New writing
Working essays on cleaning for health
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30 Aug 2026
Cleaning for appearance vs cleaning for health: the difference you can’t seeEssay
Two crews can leave a room looking identical and leave it in completely different biological condition. Where the divergence actually happens, and what an appearance standard quietly pays people to skip.
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30 Aug 2026
Why turnover cleaning in short-term rentals is a health practice, not a choreEssay
A short-term rental turnover is a full household handover in a few hours. Treated as tidying, it is the weakest hygiene link in hospitality. Treated as a health practice, it is the strongest.
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30 Aug 2026
What hotel housekeeping gets right that everyone else copies wrongEssay
Everyone copies the hotel checklist. Almost nobody copies the sequence, the separation of doing from checking, or the room-status discipline underneath it, which is where the health protection actually lives.
From the archive, 2011–2018
The original library, preserved
These pages are kept as they were published, at their original addresses. Some of them are of their moment, and some are still the clearest statement of the idea anyone has written here.
- 25 Sep 2013
Sustainable Healthcare Cleaning and Disinfection – AVT White Paper
The post that offered the AVT white paper on disinfection options as a download. The PDF is still attached to the page.
- 20 Mar 2017
Guidelines for Purchase of Steam Vapor Cleaning and Disinfecting Devices
A buyer’s brief on what a steam vapor system is, what it is not, and what to ask before buying one.
- 24 Feb 2015
Chemical Disinfectants and TANCS – podcast with Dr. Charles Gerba
Audio and full transcript of an interview with the University of Arizona microbiologist on the practical limits of chemical disinfectants.
- 27 Mar 2013
Cleaning for Appearance: The Problem – a Treatise Against the Superficial
Allen P. Rathey’s essay against superficial cleaning, and the piece the new writing here is answering to.
- 11 Mar 2011
A Commentary on Cleaning Standards
Why the industry could not agree on one cleaning standard: a standard has to be defined by a purpose, and the purposes were never the same.
- 12 Feb 2011
Steam Vapor Attacks Biofilms
A 2010 Advanced Vapor release, reprinted here, on University of Michigan work against microbial biofilms: the invisible films that make a surface harder to disinfect than it looks.
- 22 Feb 2011
Bed Bugs Gone
Heat and steam against bed bugs in sensitive accounts, from the entomology literature of the period.
- Reference
Health Intentional Cleaning: the definition
The eleven-point definition of cleaning performed for health rather than appearance.
- Reference
Chemical Toxicity
The original reading list on cleaning chemicals and human exposure. Many of its outbound links are now historical.
- Archive
The home page as it stood in 2018
The original front page, kept intact, for anyone who arrived here expecting it.
About this site
Health Intentional Cleaning published on cleaning science, steam vapor, disinfection and indoor health from 2011 to 2018. That archive is preserved here in full, at its original addresses, including the pages other publications still link to.
The new writing is a continuation of the argument rather than of the original masthead: practical essays for people who run cleaning operations in commercial buildings, hotels, and rented homes, written from the same starting point. Cleaning is a health intervention, and a health intervention has to be judged by evidence rather than by how the room looks at the door.