The only great unresolved problem in startups is how to police the kitchen. While VCs might think that most of ingenuity in startups is directed towards solving problems defined in business plans, in reality, people in startups spend disproportional amount of time solving the problem of keeping the place clean and healthy. The root of the problem seems to be that startups are predominately inhabited by adolescent males who also happened to be objects of obsession of their mothers (whose favorite pass time activity is cleaning the room after their beloved sons).
Some of the solutions involved include loud yelling at each other or installing camera to catch culprits, but at Zemanta we are experimenting with more civilized technique of kitchen police. This means that each week we dedicate two people as janitors whose responsibility is reminding everybody to clean after themselves and, as last resort, clean after unknown offenders themselves (Any resemblance of this technique with some educational principles employed in kindergartens is entirely coincidental). We are practicing this experiment for the past two months with mixed results. The sanitary conditions have somewhat improved, but they are not yet on the acceptable level for our only female team member.
How do you keep your place clean and healthy? What strategies do you use and are you successful at it? Please share your experience in the comments.
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Hire a cleaning lady. Another female in your team
We had an even better idea of requiring everybody to bring his mother along to work
The place would be clean and mothers could marvel at their sons the whole day. It’s a common practice in kindergartens, so why not adopting it also in startups 
I don’t think it’s a good idea, because then they can bring their home relationships into the office (like Oedipus complex, spoilnes….), which can significantly impact the work in good or bad way.
They are perfectly fine if I ignore the kitchen. And it will be ignored! But of course I’ll warmly welcome all new species from the planet Fridge… at least until other members of the brogramming clan figure out that sanitary conditions are not on their level of acceptance. Hairy food is good! Long live full sink and dirty cups!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/krisandapril/166166082/lightbox/
I don’t think any of us are particularly messy or spoiled. I believe most of us come to the kitchen as a break from the immersive state of focusing on work. It’s where the best ideas happen and in those moments we run back to our laptops in order not to forget.
As far as kitchen is concerned I am a fan of Broken Window Theory.
Dirty kitchen syndrome is an invitation that turns people to the dark side. Dirty kitchen is just a first step people take and then it ends in serious crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
Clean your kitchen, don’t let engineers slip to the life of crime.
–Andraz