Navigating the Pandemic - A Maintenance Perspective

When the pandemic started last year, it immediately put the maintenance team atmy community - Colorado Station - on high alert. We had to get creative and start making adjustments to fight COVID 19. The first thing we started to do was to find cleaning supplies like sanitizer, latex gloves, hand wipes, masks, housekeeping cleaning materials and sanitizing dispensers, which was challenging since everyone was doing the same thing and stores and items were running out everywhere.

Once we were able to get the items, we had to get a game plan in place, which included the installation of sanitizing dispensers at the entry of each building, our laundry rooms and outside the elevators. We installed a total of 15 sanitizing stations throughout the property, which are still in use today.

We had to carefully create schedules to make sure the community remained as clean as possible. This included disinfecting everything from the gym equipment down to every door handle in the building and even the elevator buttons. We ran this disinfecting process at least four times daily!

Our team made adjustments on prioritizing work orders as well. When the pandemic began, we only completed emergency work orders and dropped off llight bulbs at a resident’s front door if they needed one. It was very different time for us, since we are so used to seeing and talking with our residents.

The way we interacted with them changed immediately as well. Prior to leaving for a work order, we called each resident to ask questions around COVID-19, such as "have you travelled in the last 30 days" or "have you been in contact with anyone who has had Covid?" etc. At the time, the questions seemed repetitive and important, but we are all used to being asked these questions everywhere we go now.

Some residents didn't mind it, but some were really agitated with us asking personal questions. A few months down the road, it was established companywide that the resident was not able to be in the apartment when we were fixing items that they requested, which was difficult for them because almost everyone is working
from home and they didn’t really have anywhere to go in the meantime.

Overall, it's been a challenge navigating the pandemic, but our team has done an exceptional job keeping up
with the sanitizing tasks at hand, wearing proper PPE around each other and the residents and keeping our residents and the team safe.

Hector Maldonado is the Maintenance Supervisor at RedPeak Colorado Station. He has been with RedPeak for 14 years.