Back to work puts spotlight on office maintenance

When workers head back to the office in the coming months, the spaces might look similar to how they were left when the pandemic began in March 2020.

When workers head back to the office in the coming months, the spaces might look similar to how they were left when the pandemic began in March 2020.

But flicking on a light switch, visiting the washroom or even heading to another floor could reveal a slew of issues missed amid the health crisis.

"When something small goes wrong, like a sink overflows or leaks ... it gets noticed like right away probably 99 per cent of the time ... but because these buildings are empty, or almost empty, there's not nearly as many eyes to catch those things," said Jim Mandeville, senior project manager at property restorer First Onsite.

Mandeville expects everything from burned out light bulbs to malfunctioning elevators to become issues as Canada plots a return to pre-pandemic conditions, including working from the office.

That return to spaces Canadians retreated from will remind people that dormant buildings or ones that saw few visitors for months or years can be like a petri dish.

Stagnant liquids that remained in mugs or toilets, dripped from leaky faucets or pooled around windows are a haven for germs, a breeding ground for mould and even a trigger for legionnaires' disease, a respiratory infection caused by breathing in bacteria.