To Clean A Cage

A little bit ago,
We had this guinea pig cage returned to the store. -as it ended up being too small for their guinea pig and they wanted to get a bigger cage.
I saw the return happen, but didn't think more of it.
Until I saw we were using it, to temporarily hold a chinchilla in our backroom because he had a bit of hairloss we wanted to monitor just to be on the safe side.
I didn't think much of it besides "Oh, we're using that."

In any case, we eventually returned our Chinchilla to the floor to be sold.
And the cage...
Was just placed in a back room, to be cleaned again for later.

Only...
It sat there.
and sat there.
and sat there.

Finally I asked one of my coworkers to clean the cage out for me.
(As I couldn't ever find time to do it myself.)
So I expected it to be cleaned the next day when I came in.
Because that coworker is usually really good at getting tasks done that I set to them.

Yet, when I came in...it wasn't cleaned.
Apparently, she told another coworker that she'd tried everything to get the cage apart, but she couldn't get it apart at all to clean it.

Which, my mental response was..."So don't take it apart?"
I mean, we have these little dustpan/broom combos specifically so we can clean out smaller cages.
Why couldn't my coworker have just taken that and used it to scoop out the bedding and then spray down the cage?
It seemed rather logical to me.
Especially if you can't get the cage apart....

Perhaps I'm the only one in my store who tries to find other solutions when the first one doesn't work.....

In any case.
I figured I would have to clean it.
Because obviously since their one method didn't work, they don't have to clean it...
*shakes head*
So the cage sat for another few days.
Until today.
When I finally had time to go in the back and actually look at and clean that cage.

And I went with my first plan,
To grab the little broom and dustpan and just scoop everything out that way, then spray it down.
But before I did.
I wondered....maybe I could get it apart?

So I took a look.
Saw a little latch thingy on the side of the cage holding the wire top to the solid bottom.
Pulled it.
Discovered another one on the other side.
Pulled that one out.

And guess what?
Yah.
The cage came apart. Easily.
Super easy.
So easy that I'm left confused as to why my coworker couldn't take the cage apart?

Did they even try to clean it? Or did they forget, get reminded and decided to make an excuse that they couldn't take the cage apart to clean it?

I mean....most of our cages, get taken apart in a different way. So if they were expecting this cage to come apart the same way as our usual temporary cages to hold animals....
I could see why they wouldn't be able to get it apart.
But.....
Still, I'm so confused.
It was so easy to take the cage apart and clean it.
I mean, I was confused when it was first mentioned how difficult it was to get the cage apart, as I would have assumed that customers would have told us (as they are really good at doing so) if something ends up being difficult to do.

Lift the latches. Lift the cage. Tada! Super easy.
*shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi