Every day is a clean slate, and for Colorado State University students living on campus, thanks can be given to faculty such as Brittney Briar, one of the 130 environmental service staff members responsible for the daily cleaning of CSU’s 15 residence halls.

As one of seven environmental service staff members responsible for cleaning duties in Braiden Hall, Briar said her day starts at 7 a.m.

“The early morning is actually our most important time because the students aren’t really out and about,” Briar said. “We make it a point to clean their bathrooms and study areas in the mornings before they are actually using them.”

A CSU employee of two years, Briar said she enjoys interacting with students and watching them grow throughout the school year. According to the CSU’s institutional profile, with an incoming 2015 – 2016 freshman class of about 4,800, there is ratio of 37 students to every one residence hall custodian.

Simone Listmann, assistant director of operations management for Housing and Dining Services, said she is proud of all her environmental service employees who get their hands dirty every day to provide a clean living environment for students.

“I like to think that our employees are not just cleaning, rather that they are almost like the soul of the building,” Listmann said. “They are around the students every day.”

The largest environmental service staff team on campus is assigned to the halls of Edwards and Ingersoll, with a combined total of 26 members. The remaining residence halls employ between seven and 10 members.

Freshman computer science major Owen Davidson said that he could not tell that only seven custodians are responsible for cleaning Allison Hall.

“The entire staff at Allison — they make life livable,” Davidson said. “We’ve had a couple problems with people throwing up in the bathrooms, and in the morning at 8:30, it’s gone and we all say quick prayer to the cleaning crew.”

He said could not imagine having to clean 12 college bathrooms every morning in Allison Hall, where the community bathrooms, like in all halls, are cleaned daily. Likewise, suite bathrooms get cleaned once a week.

“Overall, the custodians for housing and dining work extremely hard and put in a lot of effort to give the students the best experience that they can while they are living here,” Briar said. “I think I can say this for myself and most of the custodians that work here: We value our job and we take pride in what we do.”

Collegian Reporter Diego Felix can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @FMTLturntablist.