About RTJ Enterprise Cleaning Company
RTJ Enterprise Cleaning Company, LLC is a family owned and operated business founded by Robert and Jameika Jackson. We are a Woman Owned and Minority Owned Business, and for more than a decade we have given Western New York companies a single resource for building maintenance and facilities management.
Who we are
We are based at 501 John James Audubon Parkway in Getzville and we work across Amherst, Buffalo, the Northtowns, the Southtowns and the greater Niagara region. Everything we do is local. There is no franchise office in another state setting our standards, and there is no call center between you and the people who clean your building.
Being a certified diverse supplier matters to a number of our clients, particularly institutions and larger employers with supplier-diversity commitments of their own. Being family owned matters to all of them, because it means the people whose name is on the company are the people you can actually reach.
How we work
A written scope, not a vague promise
Every account runs from a written scope that separates daily, weekly and periodic tasks. You can see what you are paying for, we can be held to it, and a supervisor has something concrete to inspect against. Cleaning contracts that drift almost always drift because nobody wrote down what "clean" meant in the first place.
Consistent, trained, screened crews
Cleaners are trained, fully insured and background checked before they set foot in a client building. We staff accounts with the same people wherever we can, because a crew that knows your building notices the things a rotating crew never will.
We scope the building, not the square footage
A medical suite, a supermarket back-of-house and a law office of identical size are three different jobs. We price from a walkthrough that looks at floor types, headcount, restroom and kitchen count, compliance requirements and how the space is genuinely used.
We say no when we should
If a building needs something we are not the right contractor for, we say so. That has cost us work and kept us out of situations we had no business being in, which is a trade we will make every time.
What we clean
Eleven service lines run under one contract and one point of contact: commercial cleaning, office cleaning, disinfection services, post-construction cleanup, high angle dusting, floor care, carpet cleaning, hospital and medical cleaning supermarket cleaning, turnover cleaning.
Most clients start with one and add others as they discover we already handle it. Consolidating floor care, carpet extraction and high dusting onto the janitorial contract usually costs less than buying them separately, and it removes the co-ordination problem of three vendors in one building.
Cleaning in a Western New York winter
Any cleaning company that works here has to plan around five months of salt, slush and grit. Road salt is abrasive, it holds moisture, and it will haze a floor finish and stain entrance carpet if it is allowed to sit. From November to April we increase attention at entrances, maintain matting deliberately, and use neutralising treatment on entrance carpet rather than simply cleaning it more often. It is an unglamorous detail that decides whether a lobby looks acceptable in February.
Our commitment
We tell clients three things and we hold to them. We will put the scope in writing. We will staff the account with people who have been trained and screened. And when something goes wrong, because occasionally it will, you will get a person on the phone who can fix it rather than a ticket number.
If that is the kind of cleaning company you have been looking for, get in touch and we will walk your building.
More about this service
What should a procurement team ask a cleaning vendor about supplier diversity?
Ask for the four details that decide whether the spend can be reported at all:
- The exact legal entity name printed on the certificate
- The certifying body and the certificate number
- The expiration date, so the vendor file can be flagged for renewal
- The service or commodity categories the certification covers
Diversity certification is not self declared. It is issued by a third party, attached to one specific legal entity, limited to particular categories of work, and given an end date. That is why the entity name on the certificate has to match the name on the contract and the W-9 exactly. A certificate issued to one entity name will not clear a buyer's vendor file for a slightly different one, and a certificate that lapses mid contract stops counting on its expiration date rather than at renewal.
Two terms come up constantly in these programs. Tier 1 spend is money your organization pays a diverse supplier directly. Tier 2 spend is money a prime contractor pays a diverse supplier and then reports back to you as part of its own supply chain. If a cleaning contractor would be working under a general contractor or a facilities management firm rather than for you directly, ask which tier your program credits, because the reporting path is different.
Timing matters more than most buyers expect. Vendor documentation usually has to be in the file before a bid closes rather than at award, so it is worth collecting while you are still gathering quotes. If your organization has procurement requirements, raise them at the walkthrough so they are settled before a start date is agreed.
What is a cleaner actually trained on?
The fundamentals are the things that cause damage or complaints when they are guessed at: chemical dilution and label reading, which product belongs on which floor material, restroom sequence so a surface is not cleaned and then recontaminated, cross contamination control, and equipment operation.
Cross contamination control is the one that sounds abstract and is not. In practice it means dedicated cloths and mops for restrooms that never travel to a break room or a desk surface, kept color coded so a cleaner can tell them apart at a glance rather than from memory.
Alongside the task list there is a rule about what is never touched: paperwork, samples, screens, cash drawers, and anything inside an area you have marked restricted. If a desk has to be cleared before it can be wiped, it does not get cleared.
The rest is specific to your building. A supervisor walks the written scope room by room with the crew, along with access points, alarm procedure, chemical storage location, and the areas that are off limits or need an escort. People interested in joining our cleaning crews can apply directly.
Can the scope change after the contract starts?
Yes, and it usually does. What matters is whether the change is a one time addition or a permanent revision, because the two are quoted and recorded differently.
| Aspect | Temporary add on | Permanent scope change |
|---|---|---|
| Typical trigger | An event, a spill, a departing tenant, a one time deep clean | New tenant, added square footage, changed operating hours, a new floor material, a change in headcount or compliance requirements |
| How it is priced | Quoted as a single charge before the work is done | Priced by re-walking the affected area and revising the scope |
| How it is recorded | A work order attached to the account | A dated revision to the written scope |
| Effect on billing | Appears once | Changes the recurring rate from an agreed start date |
One term is worth pinning down before you sign anything. A periodic task is any task on a cycle longer than weekly: floor burnishing and finish maintenance, vent and ledge dusting, carpet extraction. Periodic work is the part of a scope most likely to drift, because a missed month is far harder to notice than a missed trash can. Confirm in writing whether it is bundled into the recurring rate or bought separately, and on what cycle.
Reductions work the same way. If a floor empties out or a shift is dropped, the scope should be revised down and the rate should follow. A contract that only ever moves in one direction is a contract nobody is reading.
What happens when something gets missed?
Tell us the building, the area, the date and what you found. The first step is to correct it. The second is to work out which of three problems caused it, because they have three different fixes.
- A scope gap. The task was never in the contract. Nobody failed. The fix is a scope revision or a quote, not a conversation about performance.
- A performance miss. The task was in scope and did not happen. The fix is supervisor re-inspection, retraining, or a staffing change on that account.
- An access problem. The door was locked, the room was occupied, boxes were stacked on a floor that needed machine work. The fix is a written access plan, and it usually needs something from both sides.
The distinction is worth making out loud, because a scope gap treated as a performance failure never gets fixed, and a performance failure treated as a scope gap turns into a change order you should not be paying for. One missed trash can is an incident. The same missed trash can three weeks running is a scope, staffing or access question, and it will keep coming back until the right one of those three is answered.
Which jobs belong to a different trade?
Anything that requires a license, a discipline or equipment belonging to another trade: abatement of regulated building materials such as asbestos and lead paint, large scale structural mold work, biohazard and trauma cleanup, hazardous waste disposal, and pest control, which requires a licensed applicator.
Some of these arrive dressed as cleaning. A stained ceiling tile looks like a housekeeping problem and is usually a roof, plumbing or HVAC problem. Replacing the tile without finding the source just means staining a new tile. The same is true of a recurring odor with no visible source, or a damp baseboard that keeps coming back after it is dried.
That is a different question from whether a job is wet or dirty. Water extraction, drying support and post loss cleaning after water damage is cleaning work, and so is construction dust and debris removal at the end of a build. The dividing line is regulation and licensing, not mess.
Common questions
More answers on the FAQ page.
Do you supply the cleaning products and equipment, or do we?
Both arrangements are common, and which one applies is written into your scope. In most janitorial contracts the contractor brings products and equipment. Consumables are the part worth settling early: paper towel, toilet tissue, hand soap, can liners and dispenser refills can either be supplied and billed through us or purchased by you. Decide before the first invoice, because unclear consumable terms are a common source of billing surprises.
Do you clean after hours or while the building is occupied?
Either, depending on the building. After hours work suits offices and any space where vacuums and floor machines would be disruptive, and it lets a crew work in sequence without interruption. Occupied hours work suits buildings with security or escort requirements, medical spaces where rooms are cleaned between uses, and retail floors that need attention while the store is open. Occupied hours cleaning is not the same scope moved earlier: it needs a different task order, quieter equipment, and realistic expectations about how much can be finished in one shift. Tell us your constraints at the walkthrough and the scope gets built around them.
How do you handle keys, alarm codes and building access?
Access belongs in the written scope like any other detail: who holds a key, fob or code, who is listed as an alarm contact, what the procedure is if an alarm trips, and what happens to keys and codes at the end of the contract. Whoever you hire, get those terms in writing rather than leaving them informal, and revisit them whenever your own staffing changes or a code is shared with a new vendor.
What happens if the person who normally cleans our building is out?
Another trained cleaner covers the account, and the supervisor walks them through your building's written scope before the shift. This is one of the practical reasons the scope is documented instead of carried in one person's head: coverage should mean the same tasks in the same rooms, not a best guess. If a substitution runs longer than a shift or two, ask your supervisor to walk the building with the covering cleaner.
Let's talk about your building
Call (716) 444-3622 or send us a message.