Metro Atlanta schools went back in early August, so the first wave lands about now. The six surfaces that actually move a cold around a house, and the ones that do not.
Schools across Gwinnett, Forsyth and Fulton went back in early August. If your house has held out this long, you are in the window where it usually breaks.
The pattern is boringly consistent. Three to four weeks after the first day, the first real wave moves through the classrooms and comes home in a backpack. Late August into early September is when we start hearing about it from customers in Suwanee, Duluth and Cumming, and it is why this is the month people book the first proper clean of the school year.
Here is what actually moves a cold around a house, roughly in order of how much difference it makes, and what people spend money on that does very little.
Clean first, disinfect second, and only when you need to
Most advice gets this backwards, so it goes first.
Cleaning and disinfecting are two different jobs. Cleaning with soap or detergent physically lifts germs off a surface and carries them away, and it removes most of what is there. Disinfecting kills what is left behind. The CDC guidance for households is that in everyday life, cleaning is usually enough. You disinfect when somebody in the house is sick, or has recently visited.
Two practical consequences follow from that:
- Dirt blocks disinfectant. Spray a disinfectant onto a sticky counter and you have mostly disinfected the sticky layer. Clean first, then disinfect, in that order.
- Contact time is not optional. Every disinfectant label states how long the surface has to stay visibly wet, usually somewhere between thirty seconds and ten minutes. Spraying and immediately wiping is the most common mistake in home disinfecting, and it turns a disinfectant into an expensive cleaner.
The six surfaces that actually spread it
Door handles, light switches and the fridge door
These get touched dozens of times a day by hands that have not been washed yet. The fridge door handle deserves its own mention: it sits between coming in from outside and washing up, and it is usually touched immediately before somebody handles food.
A damp cloth and ordinary cleaner, once a day while somebody is ill. That is the whole intervention.
Faucet handles, in the kitchen and the bathrooms
You touch the faucet before your hands are clean. That is the entire problem, and it is why the handles matter more than the bowl does. Most people clean the sink and skip the thing they turned on to do it.
The kitchen table and wherever homework happens
This is where food and faces meet, and the one place a backpack, a lunch box and a snack all land within the same hour. Wipe it before eating, not only after. After is for crumbs. Before is for germs.
Remotes, controllers and the family tablet
Shared, handled constantly, almost never cleaned. A barely damp microfiber cloth is enough. Do not soak anything with ports in it, and check the manufacturer guidance before putting alcohol on a screen coating.
Backpacks, lunch boxes and the counter they land on
A backpack spends its day on a classroom floor, a bus floor and a gym floor, and then goes on the kitchen counter. Give bags a home that is not a food preparation surface: a hook, a bench, a bin by the door. Lunch boxes get wiped out daily, not on Sunday.
The flush handle and the bathroom door
The last two things touched after washing hands, which quietly undoes part of the handwashing. Worth adding to the daily pass while somebody in the house is sick.
What matters less than the internet suggests
- Antibacterial hand soap. Colds and flu are viruses. Plain soap and twenty seconds of friction does the job; the antibacterial label is aimed at a different problem.
- UV wands. How well they work depends on dose, distance and time in ways the marketing rarely mentions. Nothing wrong with them. They are not a substitute for wiping a door handle.
- Whole-house fogging. You disinfect a surface by keeping it wet for its contact time. Air does not hold still for that.
- Cleaning everything, everywhere. Shared touchpoints and the sick person's room matter. The guest bath nobody has walked into since June does not.
- One cloth for the whole house. That is an efficient way to move germs from the bathroom to the kitchen. Color-code your cloths, or use a fresh one per room.
Where a cleaning service fits, and where it does not
Plainly: a bi-weekly visit is not a health intervention on the day somebody spikes a fever. The wiping that matters that day is yours, and no cleaning company is standing in your kitchen at the moment it counts.
What recurring service does is hold the baseline down through the busiest term of the year. Kitchen and bathrooms properly reset, floors done, and the jobs that quietly never get done at all, such as vents, fan blades, trim and the inside of the microwave, handled on a schedule instead of never.
One thing worth asking us for: if touchpoint wiping is not already written into your scope, ask for it. Handles, switches, banisters, remotes. It costs a few minutes a visit, and in September it is the most useful few minutes in the house.
What this costs in North Atlanta
From our published pricing, on the schedules families actually use during term time:
- 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom: $171 to $218 per bi-weekly visit, or $165 to $210 weekly
- 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom: $215 to $273 per bi-weekly visit
- One-time deep clean: $322 to $391 for a 3 bed, 2 bath, and $401 to $491 for a 4 bed, 3 bath
One thing we would rather you hear now than at the door: first-time cleanings are always done at our deep clean rate. If a company quotes you a standard rate for a first visit to a house nobody has seen, ask what happens when they arrive.
You can run your own numbers on the pricing page.
Four school systems, one shared pattern
Our service area is unusual in that it spans four separate school systems. Gwinnett County Public Schools covers Suwanee, Duluth and Norcross. Buford runs its own city system. Cumming sits in Forsyth County. Alpharetta, Milton and Johns Creek are Fulton.
The practical effect on a household is simple. If you have children in two systems, or a carpool that crosses a county line, you get two overlapping waves instead of one. Families in Suwanee and Johns Creek with children on different campuses tell us the same thing every year: it does not arrive once and finish.
See service areas for the towns we cover.
Common questions
Do I need to disinfect every day during cold season?
No. Cleaning normally is enough for an ordinary week. Step up to daily disinfecting of shared touchpoints while somebody in the house is actually sick, and for a few days after, then go back to normal.
How long do cold and flu viruses survive on surfaces?
It depends on the virus and the surface. Flu can persist on hard, non-porous surfaces such as counters and door handles for a day or more, and cold viruses generally less. Norovirus, the stomach bug that goes through elementary schools every winter, lasts far longer and shrugs off many household cleaners. That one calls for bleach or a product specifically labeled for norovirus.
Does an air purifier help with colds?
It can help with the airborne share of transmission if the unit is matched to the room size and actually left running. It does nothing about the door handle. Treat it as one input, not a solution.
Should I book a deep clean after everyone has been sick?
It is a sensible time for one, mainly because a deep clean reaches what a normal week skips. But if you are choosing between spending on a deep clean during the illness or after it, after is the better value. Cleaning a house that is still generating germs is a losing race.
Which areas do you cover?
Suwanee, Alpharetta, Buford, Cumming, Duluth, Johns Creek, Milton and Norcross. Each has its own page under service areas.
