Fair Oaks Health & Rehabilitation: Dirty Elevators - VA
The walls were scraped and dented. The floors were visibly dirty. He said he would start fixing it immediately.
That conversation happened because a federal inspector had asked for it.
An inspection completed October 8, 2025, documented conditions in both of the facility's elevators that inspectors found that morning and again at midday. At 7:58 a.m. and again at 12:15 p.m. on October 7, inspectors observed large scrapes and indentations across the wall surfaces of both elevators, and floors carrying visible dirt and grime. Not one elevator. Both.
At 1:03 that afternoon, the regional director of maintenance and the facility administrator were brought to look at what inspectors had seen. Both agreed the walls needed cleaning and painting. Both agreed the floors needed to be stripped and cleaned. Both acknowledged that residents used these elevators throughout the day and evening. Both agreed the elevators did not give residents a clean, homelike environment.
The administrator said he would begin correcting it immediately.
By 4:53 p.m., the director of nursing and the regional director of clinical operations had also been notified.
No additional information was provided before inspectors left.
What makes the finding unremarkable in one sense is exactly what makes it worth noting in another. This was not a medication error. Nobody fell. The harm level recorded was minimal, or potential for actual harm, affecting a few residents. The violation, catalogued under the federal standard requiring facilities to maintain a safe, clean, comfortable and homelike environment, will not appear on anyone's list of catastrophic failures.
But the elevators were dirty. Both of them. For long enough that the walls had accumulated scrapes and indentations significant enough that two senior facility managers, shown the conditions, did not dispute them. The regional director of maintenance did not say the marks were cosmetic or the floors had just been missed that morning. The administrator did not say a cleaning crew was already scheduled. They looked, and they agreed.
Residents at nursing facilities depend on the physical environment around them in ways that people living independently do not. For someone using a wheelchair, or a walker, or being transported on a gurney between floors, an elevator is not incidental to daily life. It is part of it, every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Scraped walls and grimy floors are what they see. That is the homelike environment the facility provided.
The facility's own written policy, reviewed during the inspection, states that residents will be provided with a safe, clean, comfortable and homelike environment, and that the facility will maximize characteristics reflecting a personalized, homelike setting, including clean, sanitary and orderly equipment.
The elevators did not meet that standard. The people responsible for the elevators said so themselves.
Fair Oaks Health & Rehabilitation sits on Lee Jackson Memorial Highway in Fairfax, a suburban facility drawing residents from one of the wealthier counties in the country. The gap between what families expect when they choose a facility in that setting and what inspectors found on two separate walkthroughs of the same two elevators in one day is not a gap that requires explanation. It just requires someone to clean the floors and fix the walls.
The administrator said he would start immediately. The inspection closed the next day. Whether the elevators were cleaned before inspectors left, or after, or sometime after that, the report does not say.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Fair Oaks Health & Rehabilitation from 2025-10-08 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: June 25, 2026 · Our methodology
FAIR OAKS HEALTH & REHABILITATION in FAIRFAX, VA was cited for violations during a health inspection on October 8, 2025.
The walls were scraped and dented.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.