Tips on dealing with dirty and careless people at the office ?

This is a pandemic across the USA. The office coordinator here got OK from the HR director to put a notice on the fridge stating that every Friday anything that wasn't clearly marked and dated from that week would be mercilessly tossed. It worked for us.

Yep, we have a written rule: "everything but unopened pop cans gets thrown away on Friday at 4:00." Including tupperware, or even glass containers. Marking with dates didn't work for us (no one did it) so we trash everything.

Throwing away good stuff like reusable containers and leftovers that someone means to eat Monday is just stupid and vindictive. There's a saying I'm fond of: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by carelessness. There's a lot of easy corollaries to this, and you should mind this one: don't call the most effective and simple solution vindictive just because it disadvantages some people. In 20 years in the workforce I've never seen any solution other than "X time at Y day, everything gets tossed" work, even in situations where someone was assigned to spend notable time policing things. Well, other than simply stopping providing any services for employees. Asking for a workplace that is clean and pleasant isn't childish or dramatic. It's certainly possible to do the asking in a childish and dramatic way, just as it's possible to respond that way to the people doing the asking. However a calm and reasoned statement to everyone that there's an ongoing problem with old food and this is the solution can work just fine. Anyone who takes issue with the basic rules regarding using the communal fridge can get themselves a small soft-sided cooler and lug ice packs back and forth. You can soften the blow by saying that any re-usable container in the fridge with a name on it will be brought to the person. If they don't care enough to put a piece of masking tape on something OR remove it from the fridge then what more can you do?

It's tough to be an admin because everyone expects you to have all the answers but they give you no power to effect any changes. I've had about 6 years of admin-experience with a variety of weirdo bosses and types of academics. My usual practice would be to reply, "Why are you complaining to me? I'm not a maid, and I don't even use the break room!" but it sounds like we have different styles. So, answer two: I'd document complaints, then go to my boss and say, "Look, in the past month, 20 people have complained to me that the break room is dirty. How do you want me to respond to these complaints?" Then the onus is on your boss to come up with a way to get it fixed. If the answer ends up being a new cleaning regimen for you, then you have a chance to negotiate with your boss on what tasks are required for your job ("Well, boss, I'm happy to spend 4 hours a week cleaning if this is part of my job. Which of my other tasks will you reassign to other staff in order to make time for cleaning? Or shall I simply put in for 4 hours of overtime a week?"). You may also be directed to put up notes, or start a rotating cleaning schedule, or hire a maid. Whatever you do, though, the decision has the power of the boss behind it, so people will comply even though it's coming from you.

you cannot fault employees for using the facilities and not cleaning them when that is not part of their job description Sure you can. There is no maid in an office building. Nor is there a wife, mother, butler, housekeeper or dish drone. It's every wo/man for his/herself and everyone knows that, they're just being irresponsible and selfish because there are no consequences to their behavior. No one is bringing it up in divisional meetings, no one notes it during your annual review. (Of course, the people who are most likely to notice it and/or receive complaints about it are the low people on the totem pole, like support staff like KogeLiz.) You're an adult. You know how it goes. You use dishes/cutlery, you wash them. You spill sugar by the coffeemaker, you wipe it up. (Similarly, if you drain the coffee carafe, you take two minutes to start a new pot brewing.) If you put something in the fridge, you don't leave it in there to grow a penicillin colony. No one should have to tell well educated adults these things, and it's pathetic that people are making excuses that being a decent, cooperative adult isn't in their job description so they won't do it. KogeLiz, put up a sign. Tell people that they must be responsible for their own things or they will be trashed. Follow up. Get the office manager or facilities people on board. Make sure other support staffers aren't cleaning up after their people and letting them out of their obligations. Ride herd on them like children, since they're determined to act that way. And ask for a raise for doing so, because it's not in your job description to do it, either.

I'm a 'male 'ngineer'. As much as I love signs being posted by people who think they're my mom, there IS a reasonable solution to this problem: If it bothers you, clean it up. If not, let it go. Your priorities are clearly in the minority. Find a way for you to work around the situation, rather than attempting to control others. Note: this advice has fallen on deaf ears for the last two decades. It has led to signs, rules, tantrums and all manner of lectures. Nobody has ever been able to force their will on the others for more than a short period of time. Perhaps this can be a learning opportunity for you. Perhaps not.

I don't understand why companies generally pay someone to clean some common areas but not others. It's as if they thrive on the http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2008/10/08/seriously-distruping/ it causes. So many of the answers above involving schedules and notes and throwing away things whether they're good or bad will increase the level of drama in the workplace. If you have 35-40 employees why doesn't one of them clean the place? How hard is this really? Why was it important to tell us it's male engineers anyway? Throwing away good stuff like reusable containers and leftovers that someone means to eat Monday is just stupid and vindictive. "Getting a few people together" and having them "marching" around demanding this and that from their bosses makes a workplace suck. It's childish and overly-dramatic. (beagle is part of the problem, not part of the solution, ignore.)

You can't. And you can't have a clean break room without either forcing the cleaning task off on an employee or paying a maid service. When our lunchroom got this bad, the office manager threw everything in it away and locked it so no-one could use it. About a month later, it was reopened and about three months later, it was disgusting again.

Steal their food. They'll care about it a lot more if they have to be protective of it.