Stop Restroom Odors with Smarter Floor Care

Key Takeaways:
• Restroom floor care is a critical driver of hygiene, odor control, and indoor air quality in commercial cleaning.
• Preventive maintenance and the right cleaning tools improve productivity while extending floor life.
• Smart technology and evolving restroom designs are changing best practices for commercial restroom cleaning.

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If commercial cleaning crews are like scientists, then restrooms are their Petri dish. These high-traffic spaces are ideal for microbial germs, often contributing to unpleasant odors and poor indoor air quality (IAQ). Restroom care is essential to a building’s cleaning system and can be the deciding factor for occupants debating whether to stay in a facility. In fact, there is one often-overlooked element that can compromise that entire environment: floor care.

“Floors are one of the first things people notice,” says Nina Smith, Senior Account Consultant of WAXIE Sanitary Supply, an Imperial Brady company, and recipient of the 2026 Sanitary Maintenance Sales Award. “If the floors are dirty, the entire restroom looks dirty.”

Complaints about restrooms are commonplace in the cleaning profession. However, one of the larger public cleanliness concerns, as affirmed in Bradley Corporation’s 2025 Healthy Handwashing Survey, is unpleasant odors. Material buildup—urine, soap scum, waste, and bacteria—is the leading cause of malodors, but excess chemical usage can also be a culprit. Commonly found around urinals and commodes, embedded in the grout, and inside of drains, these trouble spots impede restroom hygiene and can leave a poor impression.

“Product buildup can result from improper dilution, lack of training, ineffective techniques, or the wrong tools,” notes Smith. “Combined with tight time constraints, the final results may fall short of occupant expectations and appear to be poor execution.”

Facility management and building service contractors (BSCs) should first prioritize preventative care. Although foundational cleaning systems still support present-day operations, the integration of innovations can achieve a quality clean alongside improved employee productivity.

“Preventative measures can save time by minimizing scrubbing, odor removal, and extra detailing tasks. Instead of spending additional time removing soaked-in buildup, frontline teams can focus on maintaining a cleaner environment through regular service routines,” Smith shares.

Splash Doesn’t Cash

Effective tools that can help attain hygienic environments are urinal mats and splash guards. As the main source of restroom smells, urine deposits differ from other floor contaminants because of their chemical composition. Uric acid crystals are insoluble in water and bond to flooring, making standard mopping ineffective. In fact, they can produce foul ammonia odors every time the floor gets damp. Moreover, the longer this residue remains, the more damage is done to the floors.

Urinal mats not only minimize urine remnants; they can also offset labor tasks by reducing the need for corrective cleaning. By limiting buildup, cleaning crews can focus on routine tasks that enhance the restroom environment. Additionally, the mats are designed to capture and eliminate odors, strengthening a facility’s odor control program.

“Disposable urinal or toilet mats keep organic matter off the floor, making cleaning easier and reducing the risk of urine soaking into porous surfaces,” Smith says.

This equipment is only helpful when maintained properly. Urinal and commode mats and splash guards lose effectiveness once saturated, causing the potential that they contribute to the issue they were designed to address. The replacement frequency for these tools depends on foot traffic volume. Alongside product usage guidelines, frontline staff should observe mats for signs of visible degradation—or rely on their sense of smell—to identify when it’s time for a change.

Another hygiene hazard hotspot is grout. Grouted tile remains a popular flooring type in commercial restrooms due to its durability. However, it is a porous material that can easily soak up urine, bacteria, mold, mildew, and other contaminants. Routine cleaning cannot reach these substances once they’re below the surface, Smith says, which causes odors to return repeatedly.

A regular mop cannot solve this problem alone, as mops are designed to spread and absorb rather than extract and remove. In fact, mop fibers can easily contaminate the grout line on tile flooring, leading to stained grout and a smell that occupants can find offensive. Therefore, specialized tools are required for a productive and complete clean.

“The best approach is to use mechanized equipment that can effectively scrub grout lines and textured surfaces, along with extraction equipment—like a wet/dry vac—that removes the loosened soil, bacteria, and cleaning solution,” Smith recommends. She adds that scheduled deep cleaning and grout sealing can also tackle problems early on, leading to floor longevity.

Enzymatic cleaners are another solution for floor care and maintenance. Not only do they break down organic matter, eliminating the contaminants causing odors, but they are also natural substances, making these cleaners a sustainable solution.

According to Smith, enzymatic cleaners are also essential to an optimal drain maintenance program. Floor drains are critical in restroom facilities because they remove water and minimize flooding, thereby reducing slip-and-fall risks. Yet organic material accumulation, dry drains, and blockages can lead to harmful odors, compromising a restroom cleaning program.

“Applying an enzymatic drain maintainer on a scheduled basis allows the enzymes to work overtime, reducing the food source bacteria needs to create odors,” says Smith. “Keeping drains treated, ensuring traps stay wet, and making drain care part of the regular restroom maintenance routine can greatly improve long-term odor control.”

These chemicals can be applied beyond drain systems and used for flooring. Before utilizing enzymatic cleaners, frontline staff should know if the floor and grout were sealed, as Smith warns that any solution apart from a pH-neutral cleaner could degrade the sealants or damage the flooring. Also, the more challenging the floor type, the more cleaning chemicals are needed.

Cleaning Smarter, Not Harder

A growing challenge in restroom floor maintenance is the evolution of new flooring surfaces and designs.

“Many of these materials look great and create a modern, elevated space, but they can also introduce new challenges when it comes to daily cleaning, soil removal, and long-term maintenance,” Smith shares. “Sometimes the first thought is, ‘Yes, this looks amazing,’ but then the question becomes, ‘How was this designed to wear and how should it actually be cleaned?’”

New materials require BSCs to revise and implement new cleaning protocols that optimize both floor hygiene and longevity. This may involve frontline teams using certain cleaners and disinfectants that align with different flooring types to prevent damage and maintain overall appearance. In general, teams that can adapt to these trends will be successful as flooring obstacles continue to emerge.

“Cleaning has to evolve with design,” Smith says. “Every new substrate can require a different approach, and relying on old methods may not always deliver the results clients expect. It’s important to use your network, manufacturers, and the cleaning community to share best practices, ask questions, and learn what works as new challenges come up.”

Innovations are imperative for company resilience. Smith finds that smart restroom technology has become a large part of conversations around enhanced restroom cleaning. Emerging technological tools—smart sensors, automated equipment, and all-in-one systems—offer real-time data into operations and end user usage. This is instrumental in strengthening workflows, allocating high-need cleaning tasks, and proactively responding to maintenance and hygiene needs.

Smith notes that another industry trend is restroom fragrance. An Ennovamark study found that certain scents enhance occupant opinion of cleanliness by 40 percent.

“Clients are looking for more elevated, premium scent experiences that create a better impression for building occupants rather than just masking odors,” Smith notes. While smell can affect an occupant’s perception of how clean an environment is, certain chemical odors can be health irritants. Scents should be carefully selected to ensure they are adding to—rather than masking, or worse, contributing to—restroom odors, as well as safeguarding staff.

To address restroom hygiene effectively, cleaning crews will need to follow schedules based on foot traffic. During busy periods, staff should prioritize high-touch surfaces, paper and tissue restocking, and visible contamination concerns. Deep cleaning tasks can be completed when there is less traffic, allowing frontline teams to adequately address floor care needs.

Restrooms receive attention from both building occupants and frontline staff as these areas are a public health need. Even while frontline staff tend to restroom hygiene, lingering odors will indicate that the environment is not being effectively managed. Integrating innovations into floor care and maintenance will lead to an industry-shared goal.

According to Smith, “If you improve the overall restroom experience while helping frontline teams work more efficiently, you will deliver more consistent results throughout the day.”

Taylor Vraney is the Assistant Editor working on Facility Cleaning Decisions, Sanitary Maintenance, and Contracting Profits magazines. She's also very active in contributing to CleanLink.com. Prior to her time in media, Taylor served as a Special Education teacher, which gives her a strong perspective on custodial operations and its role in creating healthy environments for building occupants.
Taylor currently oversees Sanitary Maintenance's Sales Leaders Award program, which gave her a quick introduction to some of the many outstanding personalities that make up this great industry. At industry events, Taylor got first-hand experience with products and equipment, and even recorded the experience to demonstrate what frontline workers experience on the daily.
Taylor handles the collection of content for the Cleaning Insider newsletter and facilitates CleanLink's monthly polling questions.
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