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It’s not the most important decision you’ll make for your home, but keeping it clean is a chore you can farm out to good results.
Dan Smith
The rules to follow in hiring somebody to clean your house on a regular basis are fairly simple, logical and easy to follow. We talked to four professional cleaners—Emma Beall, Tammy Buchanan and Ralph and Gia Wiens—and they all agreed on the basics:
1. Be certain the person/company you hire is bonded and has workers compensation.
2. Check references of current and previous clients.
3. Be certain there is a checklist for the services you want and go over them room-by-room.
4. Establish rates and determine the costs of occasional extras (windows, for example).
5. Ask about turnover. If it’s high, check elsewhere.
Tammy Buchanan, 57, of Helping Hands Cleaning Service has been at it for 20 years and has four employees in two teams. She offers a wide range of services, charges up to $200-$700 for cleanings and does what many other services don’t or won’t. That would be windows, appliances (inside, outside, under), feces, floor stripping and waxing, dishes, laundry, carpet shampooing. You get what you pay for, she reasons.
“We talk fragrances and allergies,” says Buchanan. “We use biodegradable products and I’ve discovered that in this business, you never say ‘no.’ There’s not much we won’t do.”
Ralph (63) and Gia (48) Wiens of Got It Maid Cleaning Services clean 220 homes a month with a crew of seven. Ralph, retired both military and real estate, and Gia have been married for seven years and the company was begun by Gia as a sideline, one she enjoyed. Ralph does the managing and Gia handles the crews and cleans (because she loves to clean).
Ralph estimates the jobs (“I have a cheat sheet,” he says) and says Got It Maid is one of the least expensive services in the Roanoke Valley. But it won’t do outside windows, wash walls, move heavy furniture, or clean excrement.
He says his company’s normal rate for a 2,000-square-foot, four bedroom, 2.5 bath home is about $95-$110 every two weeks. The more frequent the cleanings, the less expensive. The first cleaning does not cost extra if the client contracts for multiple cleanings, says Ralph.
Emma Beall, 58, owns Mom’s Right Hand and Senior TLC, which began as an errand service for the elderly, but segued into cleaning “because not many elderly people can afford paying to have errands run.” She began 21 years ago with one customer and has kept her service relatively small and concentrated since (she also owns the Dandelion antique shop in Salem). “I have 30 or 40 regular customers,” she says, and they know what to expect of each other.
Her prices run about $85 for a two-to-three bedroom home with a contract for multiple cleanings in a month. “We settle on a base price, depending on what the customer expects,” she says. She prefers multiple cleanings in a month because “a house can go all to hell in a month.”
The professionals all agree that the business is one where turnover is problematic, and finding good employees is one of the most difficult challenges of the business. Tammy Buchanan says she is strict, fair and demanding of employees and that “I pay them well from the beginning because keeping good employees is vital to our reputation.”
Gia Wiens oversees her crew and interacts personally with the customers, earning their trust.
Emma Beall says, “You don’t want to hire [a company] that has different people cleaning every time they come.” Continuity is important, she insists.
So is a clean house.
... for more from our September/October 2017 issue, Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!