[wade8069]

One thing I've noticed when watching Trek is that a ship never seems to get dirty inside, except perhaps during battles e.t.c.

Now surely there would be dirt e.t.c accumulate just from the sheer fact of a groups of living beings working and playing together. Heck you can't tell me that some of the ensigns and cadets quarters wouldn't be messy to a degree.

So who cleans the ships? Do they have civilian contractors? Are they cleaned by the crew themselves (like in real world military I believe) or do they have advanced cleaning systems that only come out when the cameras are off haha.

I know I would have loved to see Wesley with a mop and bucket swabbing the head.

[Samuel]

Dirt does not exist in the future... just like money.

[kevin]

It's all done on the Night Shift!!

[Bright Eyes]

I often think about the impact of Real Life in the lives of TV and movie characters. The thought of James Bond washing his laundry doesn't quite make it for me.

Most shows don't show cleaning and the general drudge of life, but if one ever even thinks of this I suppose it's assumed to happen in the bits between the stories. In Star Trek, however, it's a future environment and there may be a new technology to take care of such things.

I have sometimes told jokes about the cleaning contractors who sign up for a 5 year mission of cleaning toilets while being shot at by Klingons and Romulans, in a Federation in which money has been done away with and people seek only to 'improve themselves'.

The only scene I can remember of actual cleaning was at Starfleet HQ, when Kirk looked curiously at someone cleaning the floor as he and Spock walked by.

[Odradek]

In TWOK you can see a guy with a vacuum cleaner crossing the way of Kirk and Spock in the Dickens scene.

[Beetlescott]

I know there are many of you Trekkies who know much more than I do about this subject, but I saw on more than one show, where someone said that Starships, "clean themselves". Can anyone remember anything like this???

[Buckman]

they should have done an ep with a cleaning crew like they did with B5

[FanWriter45]

All surfaces aboard starships are made from rather exotic (by todays standards) nano material that resists dirt and schmutz. The only thing that has to happen is the occasional cleaning of the filters, which is then fed to the enigines as the matter that gets injecteed into the matter/antimatter core...

But, I'm with you... there should at least be some shaving scum in Riker's sink...

[MrQ1701]

Why would the things get dirty if everything is clean to begin with? Where would the dirt or dust come from in a sealed environment such as a Starship? Sure, on away missions people may get dirty and bring back mud and grime, but that would not be something difficult to deal with. Shaving and showering is also completely different. I remember a scene that showed someone chaving and it was like a wide beam phaser was removing the facial hair, no mess there!! I also remember a scene with B'lana in the sonic shower and everything seems to vaporize and come off her body, no scum to deal with there either. Of course there will always be situations where things break or get spilled. I'm sure the stain-guard of the future is much better than today!!

[Roysten]

Dirt and grime will be a lot less like MrQ says with it being a sealed environment but hair and dead skin is shed all the time so dust will still be a problem, all the kids running round the Ent D will have probably spread a lot of dirt and muck.

I reckon that there's a transporter or tractor beam like device that moves all the dirt from the corridors and surfaces and takes it to the waste depository, which we know to exist as there's been many references to waste extraction of the crews waste before it gets recycled.