Her day officially begins at 7 a.m., long before many University of Massachusetts students wake up for class. Jazz, blues or the deep vibrato of an opera vocalist bouncing off the ceramic tiles and toilet stalls of bathrooms in Field Residential Hall usually supplements the rattling of her cleaning cart.

After two decades of cleaning up after students, Deanna Pontonio said it’s a rare occasion when something makes her look twice.

“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Pontonio said laughing.

Pontonio, of Sunderland, has been maintaining buildings on the UMass campus since 1992, around the time most students who reside where she cleans were born.

She began the job as a single mother of three. Pontonio, who also worked a second part-time job cleaning homes around Amherst, said it was also necessary to support her family.

“I was a fourth generation single parent. It’s just something we did,” Pontonio said, adding that as a single mother she had to make many everyday decisions when it came to raising her children. With this job, “I liked the fact that I didn’t have to make a lot of decisions,” she said.

Pontonio works five days a week from 7 a.m. until 2:45 p.m. She is responsible for cleaning the sixth and seventh floors of Field Hall as well as a third of the first floor, she said.

“It’s very, very busy for the most part,” Pontonio said, adding that since she began this job it has become increasingly more structured in terms of how her day is spent.

“I wish it was a little more relaxed,” she said.

Pontonio said her favorite part of her job is at the beginning of the semester when students move in.

“I like move-in. I like the beginning of the semester and the end of the semester,” she said. “Everyone is so excited and I like that.”

What Pontonio doesn’t favor as much is what the summer season brings: heat and construction. Pontonio added, “the heat is terrible.”

Pontonio said she feels that cleaning residence halls is different from cleaning at home, remarking, “I’m actually cleaning up so that (the students) can do something important,” like going to class and attaining a degree.

Larger messes — including an increase in vomit — in the residence halls occur mostly “after the weekend or after a concert,” Pontonio said.

When she first started, she said, there was one instance after the school year ended when she and some other maintainers had to literally shovel trash out of a dorm room after students left.

Overall, Pontonio said student messes have intensified over the past couple decades, including an increase of vomit during the past 10 years due to what she believes to have been bulimia. Pontonio said in the past, finding vomit “happened too often” to be solely attributed to excess drinking. She said the past couple of years have been “better.”

Her interaction with the residents she cleans up after “changes from year to year” regarding the level of friendliness displayed between herself and students on her floors.

“I don’t want to be invisible, so sometimes I purposely say hello,” Pontonio said of interacting with residents.

Some of Pontonio’s hobbies include reading, mostly science fiction, playing online games and reading or watching the news.

Chelsie Field can be reached at [email protected].