It's not a good idea to call cleaners and others "idiots" as their job is not to develop IT policy or data center cleaning procedures. Their job is to follow procedures for how to clean a data center and to be supervised when cleaning, especially if the data center has critical systems.

Hence, the problem is not "the cleaner" but the management and the administrators of the data center who seemingly did not put proper cleaning procedures, controls and supervision (if required) in place to insure that anyone who worked in the data center understood the proper procedures on how to clean and vacuum in a data center.

Even in my home, I don't permit our biweekly housekeeper to clean and vacuum around my key IT devices unless I am there.

So, for a data center with critical data and business systems, the responsibility falls on the data center management and administrators, not the "cleaners," to insure all personnel working in the data center understand how to do their job in a careful and responsible way.

FYI, forum rules do state:

When we founded these forums decades ago, we have always been careful to insure that everyone is treated with respect (unlike many other site, where anything goes and name calling is normal); and although we may disagree, we do not call each other names.

We would never call my housekeeper a bad name, for example. She is nearly blind and cleans the mirrors and glass with her face a few inches away, and if she needs to be supervised, we give her gentle instructions.

I have worked in many data centers, some very critical and highly secure. Data centers should have clear procedures for how to clean, how to vacuum, where to plug in appliances, how close to get to the electrical gear and more.

It is typically the fault of data center managers when these types of incidents happen; as most are simply too distracted or not "very detailed oriented" to create housekeeping procedures that insure safe housekeeping operations in a data center.

Honestly, who in their "right data center management mind," who runs a data center, would have a cleaning person or team just "plug in" wherever they wanted or to clean near wires and racks without clear procedures and supervision if necessary?