NASA space center asks employees to clean bathrooms during shutdown

Credit: Loren Elliott/Getty Images

Credit: Loren Elliott/Getty Images

The 200 employees still working without pay at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston were asked to do an additional job for free: Clean the bathrooms and take out the trash, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday.

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A NASA manager, identified by The Hill as Elizabeth Blome, tweeted a photo of a sign asking for volunteers to clean up the bathrooms once a week until the government shutdown ends. The funding for the custodial contract at the Johnson Space Center was halted Friday, the Chronicle reported.

"This is our reality at the Johnson Space Center," Blome tweeted. "We now have no custodial services while we work without pay to keep the International Space Station operating."

The Space Center in Houston is the home of the International Space Station's mission operations, and the employees -- who make up about 6 percent of the total federal workers at the center -- are making sure astronauts aboard the craft remain safe, the Chronicle reported.

Workers are being asked to sign up to help "clean toilets, wipe toilet seats, handles, and sink faucet handles with disinfectant wipes."

In addition to cleaning the bathrooms, the employees have been asked to dispose of trash by their desks, the note reads.

"Please bring your personal desk-side trash to the brown bin (across from the men's bathroom) so we don't attract ants or rodents," the sign read.

Gloves will be provided for workers, according to the sign.

A spokesman for Native Resource Development, the custodial service that services the Johnson Space Center, said there are still custodians working on the site, but much fewer than normal, The Hill reported.

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