It creeps in silently and is everywhere at once. It is totally invisible to the naked eye, but often carries potentially dangerous materials. It can cause sickness and discomfort without ever being detected. What on earth could it be?

It's air—and it's high time you clean up its act.

With thousands of construction projects going on all the time, typical city pollution, grease from millions of restaurants, pets throwing dander everywhere, and more than a few cigarettes, the air out there is already a potential hotbed of allergens, irritants and other not-so-nice particulate matter. In a multi-unit building, air quality has another hurdle to jump—it has to filter through a system that is often neglected, dirty and totally out-of-date.

Keeping your building's chute, vent and duct systems clean and functional is a high priority—as important, you might say, as the air we breathe.

Why Care About Air?

"It amazes me that million-dollar apartments have gorgeous lobbies complete with fresh flowers but often the worst indoor air quality," says Maria Vizzi, president of Indoor Environmental Solutions, a Bronx, New York-based company that has been providing air quality services to individuals, management companies and businesses for over six years. Vizzi says ventilation issues, proper air flow/indoor air quality, duct cleaning, trash chute and compactor cleaning, disinfecting and deodorizing, video inspection and recording to detect air flow "blockages," and dryer vent exhaust cleaning are all steps a building can take to assess and improve its overall air quality profile.