Adventures in Cleaning How Sara Grows Up* or Blooming your Cleaning Business

Scrambling to vacation!

2012-01-19T17:08:00.000-06:00

So I'm getting ready to go on vacation!

To do so, I am scrambling in the office, trying to get things ready to leave. I am scrambling to make it to the work out -I just joined a 9 week challenge. I didn't make it tonight. I am scrambling to get the house ready to leave 2 standard poodles in, and write up a 4 times a day dog chart for the lovely people who are caring for them though out the day while we are gone. I am scrambling to find clothes that fit, I have to run to the mall when I'm done here in the office, everyone else is gone. I am scrambling to help my husband who is short staffed in his office. I am scrambling to get someone hired before I leave so my staff has a place to put new homes we clean. I am scrambling to eat well, I meant to have super planned tonight so we can all eat together. HA!

People keep asking me if I am ready to go and excited. Am I excited? NO! Will I be? YES! When? When I am on an airplane pointed South!

Tulum Beach

PS, I am going to Tulum Mexico with my little family, so yes, I will have a great relaxing do nothing beach time and I PRAY that I don't worry about things while I am gone. Is'nt that what all this scrambling ahead of time is for?

2011-12-17T22:06:00.000-06:00

Jobs. Ames. People. Trust.

2011-12-17T21:59:00.000-06:00

Jobs. Ames. People. Trust.

These are the things we deal with day in and day out at Professional Home Ames. We ARE Ames' residential cleaning service. We provide GOOD solid jobs to 18 people in the Ames area. (as of Dec 2011) As many hours as they want, as much as they want to work. We work our "rear ends" off in the the office to keep schedules full, to provide moms with enough work to pay for the dentist, to buy new tires, for groceries, to Live.

And we work hard to make sure that that job, is something they can be proud of. Just as we are proud of the work our cleaning techs do, the work that goes into creating a clean home...we want them to be proud of the job they have, the company they work for.

I want them to be proud of me.

The longer I own this business the more I know it is not about cleaning. Anyone can clean (relatively speaking). Anyone can open a cleaning business. Anyone can have a spiffy facebook page and get lots of hype. No, this is about people. The staff we have, the staff that earns their place at Professional Home Ames, deserves to be here. Deserves to be proud of their job, deserves to be acknowledged for their hard work and great care for people. Our clients trust in us, and we continue to earn that trust at every cleaning we do.

We are not tricky. We are not fancy. We are steady, and reliable. Trustworthy and local. This is my family base, my town. This is where our staff is from, where they are proud to call home, and where they are raising their families. I want to be the business that creates jobs. Ames Jobs. That people trust. Most importantly, that our staff trusts and has pride in.

I am feeling the weight of 18 families on my shoulders tonight, and feeling grateful for the jobs we can provide, because Ames trusts us to be their residential cleaning service.

Thank you

Four-legged family members don’t have to rule the home

2011-08-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

As summer ends, pets will spend more time indoors which means more of everything – hair, dander, dumped water bowls and the occasional “accident.” Even the best-behaved dog or cat will create some extra work which is why we put together a list of tricks to minimize the mess.

Clare, our old cat, is Queen of the home!

Place mats under animal food dishes and water bowls to keep food spills and water drips easier to clean.
Damp wipe painted walls to help remove sticky cat dander.
Use washable slipcovers over the furniture pets prefer. Make sure to wash in hot water to kill allergens and other bacteria.
If you allow pets on beds, bedding must be washed at the same high temperature at least every two weeks. Always wash sheets and slipcovers separately to keep hair from migrating to other fabrics.
When removing pet hair from draperies, carpets and upholstery, don’t automatically reach for the vacuum. Use a rubber latex glove, wet or dry, to do the job because hair will cling to it.
For a dog or cat that sheds like crazy, check out vacuum attachments with rubber strips that have the same effect as the glove. Use them for vacuuming around the house, not vacuuming your pet.
To clean urine stains, blot thoroughly to remove as much moisture as possible then rinse the affected area with a mild solution of dish-washing liquid and water; dry thoroughly. Next, sprinkle baking soda over the area; let sit to absorb any remaining moisture, then vacuum.
Vomit is a combination stain that requires a two-step approach: First scrape as much of the solid bits with the back of a knife into a plastic dustpan. Then blot and treat the remaining stain with an enzymatic product to remove the odor.
Deodorize pet bedding with baking soda. Sprinkle heavily, wait 15 minutes then vacuum.
We love pets as much as you do. We want your home looking like humans are in charge – even if they’re not!

This article first appeared in TheMaids informational blog.

Summer Cleaning News

2011-06-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

Summer is finally here! June has been a busy month for us at Professional Home Ames. By the end of this month, we will have reached our 150th regularly cleaned home in Ames. That means we are caring for 150 homes on a regular basis, mostly bi-weekly. That means we are cleaning over 300 homes each month, plus one time occasional and spring cleaning.

What that DOESN'T mean is that our staff is overloaded, tired or taking on too much work. Quite the contrary! We use the single cleaning staff per home model. So each of our staff has a home in the AM, one in the PM if they are full time, and that is it. When we grow, we spend lots of TIME and attention, training someone new. We add quality staff, we don't team up, or over load the staff we have.

With Summer in full swing, we are carefully making sure our staff has the support they need, that our clients are encouraged to communicate and give us feedback, that our quality checks, and our training via weekly updates and meetings continue to be our focus.

Rain: natures spring clean solution~

2011-04-07T19:20:00.004-05:00

This is the years first spring rain in my book. The snow has been gone a few weeks, the buds on the lilac bushes are big and green, and the steady fat rain is dropping from the sky, washing away all the grim and stiffness of winter.

Sometimes we can forget that water is one of the best cleaners there are. Yes, soaps help, a little de-greaser in the right spot can answer prayers! But water alone, and a nice microfiber cloth, can clean over 80% of your home! Hot water vs cold does an even better job.

Letting water help you clean, whether it is soaking those dishes before you start in scrubbing them, or letting a little hot water sit on your vinyl floor a few minutes before you get out your scrub brush, will save you time and muscle power.

Let's not forget that your yard, your streams, your rivers and your children will appreciate a little less "chemical" and a little more "safe and clean" running down your drains when you ease up on the hard core cleaners, and let water work with you where appropriate. I know that after this spring rain shower ends, I will enjoy walking outside and smelling the new fresh clean.

A Woman Should Know

2010-07-07T22:32:00.002-05:00

I got a call today. A female applying for a job said, “every woman should know how to clean a home”.

Should we pause a moment right here . . . take it all in. Men, ponder. Women, deep breath.

I know what she was doing. She was trying to sell herself as a potential great staff member. Her femaleness alone has qualified her for this position. Every woman should know how to clean her home. She has not had official “paid cleaning” experience, but she cleans her home, and hey . . . Every woman knows how to clean, or should know, so it is OK. Job is half in the bag.

Are woman innately born knowing more about cleaning then men? Or is the supposition, “should”, the thorn. And if so, why? Why should we know how to clean? Why should I know how to do one thing more then another? And if we should know, then what about men? They should not know? Or is the implication that they should not know how to do it as well as we do.

Are we going to talk about changing a tire and winning the bread? No. I should be able to mix all these things together and bake a lovely croissant for you, complete with a flaky crust of reasoning, and soft layered inners which build on each other like a lawyers final argument, combineing the ideas in one scrumptious buttery bite. But I can’t. Hopefully, “every woman should” not have to possess those skills. Every lawyer, every writer, but not every woman.

My answer to her statement was: Every woman does NOT know how to clean a home. Is this an insult to our female clients who call on us every 2 weeks to keep the upheaval of life at bay, if only in the area of home care? No. These women know how to clean a home. They know what a clean home looks like to them, they know they want it, and they know that the reality of life is that they can more efficiently achieve that goal by working with us.

I have an admonition to someone who thinks they know how to clean your home, that anyone can clean homes, especially any female. I have witnessed so many kinds of cleans, that “cleaning a home” has no meaning. Can you clean a home to satisfy your own personal subjective judgment, or can you clean a home in accordance with our guidelines and policies? Who defines clean? If every woman should know how to clean their home, then why do homes vary so, in their state of cleanliness? Or perhaps, every woman should know how to clean a home, but that home is their home. Not everyone else’s. I would agree with the statement that every woman knows how to clean their own personal home. It may look clean to some people, or dirty to others, but they know what they need to do to feel like they have cleaned it. By the way, many men think they know how to clean a home too.

But please don’t call me up, and tell me that because you are a woman, you know how to clean a home. Call me up and tell me that you know how to LEARN. To LISTEN, to FOLLOW DIRECTOINS, to CARE about others wishes and opinions, to WORK HARD at doing the job at hand. This will get you hired in a flash, and will negate the subjective harangue that can follow such a statement as, “every woman should know how to clean a home.”

Rethinking Bar Soap

2010-06-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

We have noticed, after cleaning 300 tubs or showers a month, that BAR SOAP leads to soap scum, far more often then liquid soaps. Specifically: men's deodorant bar soap. Let's talk about this. It does not have to be this way. Irish Spring, why do you torture us so? It is no fun having to scrape down the sides of your shower walls to get through the thick layer of soap scum. I advocate liquid soap all around!

Professional Home Ames ~ your residential cleaning service

2010-06-13T11:36:00.002-05:00

I have been playing with Picasa and making a movie! Who knew you could send 3 hours figuring out movie making, u-tube posting, etc....? I wanted to put together a few shots of the office. We are proud that we have a professional office to work out of. Most non-franchised residential cleaning individuals work out of their homes. We find that by having a dedicated office space, our professionalism increases, our focus stays on clients and client communication all day long (as opposed to doing the laundry or dishes instead of following up with clients). We are also reachable to our cleaning homeowners, as we have office staff to answer emails and phone, even if I am doing an estimate or quality control checks!

It doesn't have to be an adventure...

2010-06-08T21:18:00.004-05:00

I have neglected the blog! Primarily because I have been running a business. I would say that the aspiration of growing up has been in full swing. Running a business has little to do with cleaning, and I admit to missing the days of starting a job, working hard, and ending it. There does not seem to be much definition between the off and on brain mode required of a "boss", a small business owner, responsible for the cleanliness of the good folk of Ames, Iowa; responsible for paychecks staff and their respective families rely on.

I will report that I have the best staff ever! Wonderful caring and respectful people to work with. My loyalty and concern for them and their well being has surprised me. As much as I want to make my clients proud of our service, I want to make our staff proud to be a part of this business.

As far as blogging, socializing, networking go...it has taken a back seat to scheduling, training, communicating and paper working. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when I shall wear my comfy clothes, and participate in two cleanings, some quality checks, and general companionship with my staff in the field.

I will try to do better with my writing. It reminds me of the other facet I enjoy. The rambling creative part of my brain. Not that growing a business is not creative, it is all sides of creative, but a rambling blog post seems gentler, more grounding... and the only person who is looking to me for this post, is me! Goal accomplished, smiles all'round!

When last I traveled....

2009-09-22T19:09:00.001-05:00

This weekend I went to see my sister. She has a beautiful child, almost two years old. She lives $186 dollars away, on a good day. $380 dollars away with poor airline planning. I don't see her enough.

This was a long weekend, 3.5 days long. Which is pretty good for a weekend. All weekends should consider being this long, as it would give us more time to fly off and see our loved ones, while still pretending to have real jobs. I say that it was a long weekend, but for my mom, it was a regular weekend. The way she made it seem long was by missing work on a Friday and a Monday. She took me to see my sister in Washington. No, not D.C... but my sister would have loved to be in D.C. during the inauguration. No, we are talking Washington State. Home of apples, and twilight fanatics.

Mom was very generous to take me. It sounds like a great mommy thing to do doesn't it? Did I mention her foot is in a cast and she needed a wheelchair escort? This left both my hands conveniently free to pull two carry-ons and my bag and hers. I also seemed available to untie her one tennis shoe, and fetch waters, coffees and sandwiches. Now I would have willingly done all this for my mom, ticket or no ticket...notice the word willingly substituting for gladly. But I would have done it all anyway, the ticket just seemed like a nice way to assure that my compliance went the extra mile.

My sister picked us up in Portland. This is the airport we flew into. After an hour and a half drive, we arrived at our final destination: the baby. The baby is my niece. She has effectively taken the throne from my own child, who gladly shoved it her way, as most fifteen year olds are want to do. Being the second grandchild in a family, with so much time past since the first one, is basically being the first one. It comes with the authority to call grandparents to you from across the country, and to seem cute, no matter how you smell. I do admit she is cute. Almost as cute as my baby was. I can say this out loud because my sister understands. She is a mom now.

Being a mom has brought a lot of changes. There is only time for baby, and the brief eating and breathing. Throwing a full time job into the mix, even if it is flexible and you get to do some of it from home, is almost unmanageable. She kept asking my mom how she did it having 3 children. Mom just rocked back and forth facing the corner and singing row row row your boat, to no one in particular. Yes, having a child leaves a lot less time for everything. Friends, sisters, yourself, reading, relaxing, and the most important thing of all...cleaning. (And no, mom was not rocking in the corner, but despite not being able to remember a lot of details, "they just all seemed to smash together into one big tired", she did tell me that she remembers not having time to clean.

That may be the other reason I got a free ticket. "Free" being a description for something that costs, but what, you are never quite sure. My sister has a nice new home. Not huge, not ostentatious, but a good happy new home. She and my brother in law built it almost 2 years ago. Same timing as the baby, they both came together. If they ever forget how old their child is, they can think of how old their house is, and then they will know. The most wonderful thing, in my opinion, about a new house is how easy it is to clean. Things slide off the smooth counter. Warm water wipes all your troubles away. It is easy! Unless you haven't had time to really clean since your child was born, which in this case, was almost 2 years ago.

I want to be clear on one point here. My sister is very neat. She is a careful clean health conscious person. I can't really call her a woman, because she is my younger sister, and that would make me something older that a woman. Which I am not. I am barely an adult sometimes, how can I be an older woman. Let's drop that line right now. Getting back to her...My sister is an organic certification specialist for WA state. She is very careful about what she allows into her home. For example, there is no bleach, no 409, no Lysol all purpose cleaner. There is no scrubbing bubbles. There is no --Lots Of Stuff I use-- to clean with every day in my job and in my home! This makes for a difficult situation when your older sister comes to hang out for a long weekend with you and your baby and baby's grandma. What am I to do? I am not mom, I am not grandma... so that makes me a number three on the baby's list of choices standing in front of her. I guess that is better than being a number 2. But still...

So a cleaning diva such as myself becomes confounded when faced with cleaning jobs to be done, (i had a long weekends worth of time on my hands you know), and lack of appropriate cleaning tools to do them with. There was no razor scraper for the top of the solid surface stove they swore was doomed for life. There was no 409 for the outside of the fridge, and even if there was, not one micro fibber rag could be found. I had to focus all my energy on over coming these, and other obstacles in the pursuit of being useful to my sister. My favorite moment was when she said she just could not get the bathtub and fiberglass surround cleaned. I asked for a shower cleaner, of which there was none. I asked for a scrubby brush. Again, nothing. All we had to work with was eco-friendly cleaners, and not many of those, and some old rags and a blue scotch pad. She assured me the scotch pad had been applied, adnasium.

Imagine my joy at 11:30 pm, after several glasses of wine, when I showed her the triumphantly cleaned tub. Apparently the lavender dish soap has some grease fighting bang to it. That, accompanied with the blue scotch pad and my brute strength and non-mommy no interruption time.... and you have a tub that looks like new! Yes, I had many small triumphs that weekend. Explaining that pink stuff can be killed with bleach and water, or, if that is not good for the earth, a vinegar solution kills bacteria as well. Describing the uses of microfiber rags and hot water, which can pump up the power of any eco-friendly product.

I almost missed my bus, (which was her car), to the air port when I decided I would take my final shower in her bathroom. This master bathroom is a place that not many people visited. It did not get the cursory cleaning before the relatives came. Cleaning, meaning wipe down with a paper towel and some patchouli scented sticks stuck in a pretty oil bottle. I was in a rush for time, what with the plane leaving soon, but I felt I had not done enough, not helped out this tired working mom who I cherish, even if she is my sister. Into the bathroom I snuck, with a razor blade I had purchased at Super Wal-Mart the day before, tucked into my towel. (They apparently did not believe in those either). I disrobed, and entered the shower with my blade.

Now, you can think what you may, but far from that being a cry for help, I was being efficient, I promise. While I let the hot water and good for you farmers market soap, but terrible for shower walls . . . clean me, the steam and hot water relaxed the blanket of soap scum that had accumulated on the walls and floor of said shower. To say I could write my name in it, would be an understatement. Once clean myself, I set to work running the razor blade, at a low angle, methodically down the walls of the shower, past the curve at the floor where scum likes to rest the most, and on to the floor. Before I was done the floor of the shower looked like someone had been whittling sandalwood soap, the shavings had to be removed in handfuls!

By the time I was done, I had people frantically knocking on the door, then later pounding, about the time and we had to go and hurry hurry! My trained eye had underestimated the time I needed to de-soap scum the shower . . . but it was worth every hurried second to give my little sister the only practical thing I brought with me that weekend, peace of mind. Knowing that she could sit and read with her little baby a bit longer, not fretting about lurking cleaning chores was satisfying. But not half as wonderful as seeing the look of amazement on her face when I proved to her that YES, I could make her shower shine, and I am right about everything. She never said that I was, but being her older sister, I know that that is what she was thinking.

Martha Missed Out

2009-04-23T17:09:00.005-05:00

So you know those things that come with your Pampered Chef stoneware? You know; brown square flat plastic scrapers. You use them to scrape the burnt on gunk in the corners of your pans, although why would you have burnt on gunk if you were cool enough to be using Pampered Chef stuff? I don't have the answer to that question. I just know that those little scrapers are the best things ever made. If not the very best things, then they are right up there, how about we say that they are in the top 20 best things ever made list, if I were making the list. Now that you know what I am talking about, and how great I think it is, let me tell you why.

This small flat brown scraper helped me clean a floor the other day that would have been Martha Stewart's nightmare. It would have been, had she been there with me. Which she was not. It was not that she declined, it was more like, I neglected to invite her. I think she may have declined had I invited her though. That woman is too busy Tweeting to do anything like clean a kitchen floor, let alone the floor I cleaned. So this floor had possibly over a years worth of use on it. Literally, everything that had been used for the last year was adhered to the floor, or ground into it, or crammed into the corners and edges. You can tell a lot about a family by what is on their floors, and this family had kids. The evidence was all there: hardened jelly, cheerios particles, crayon shavings, gum so flat you couldn't be sure where it ended and the floor started. I would call gum like that, "dirt flavored gum". Whether it started out as watermelon or peppermint is irrelevant to the hard flat fact that it was now dirt flavored. I know that Harry Potter has already run with the idea of bug and dirt and vomit flavored jelly beans. Maybe dirt flavored gun isn't so strange after all.

Speaking of gum, there is really no way to get the aged stuff off the floor in a quick and efficient manner. I mean, I need to be quick and efficient if I am going to charge people to clean their homes. They are not only entrusting me with their home, but with their money, in hopes that they are spending it wisely. So efficiency is very important to me. So are my fingernails. Yes, I clean homes and still have some fingernails. They are not very long anymore, but I can still put a shiny clear coat of polish on them and they look nice. Often I am torn by my desire to be quick and efficiency, and my need to maintain some fingers nails to polish. It is not like I polish them and go out on the town very often, but I have my moments, and I need to be prepared for those moments with something to polish.

I am sure you can see then, why I am beaming with joy over one of the top 20 best things ever made, the Pampered Chef scraper. I had one in my basket of tools. Yes, a basket. It has a handle and you put stuff in it. It is not a bucket because it has a divider down the middle, it is my basket. Anyway, I pulled out my scraper and with a quick flip of the wrist, that dirt flavored gum popped off the floor like it had been dying to do for the last year! My fingernails rejoiced because I had not put them through the usual riggers of picking uselessly at jelly and gum and other family treasures saved up on the kitchen floor. My little brown square got a pat on the back and quite a work out that day, and I trust that a family came home and marveled at their beautiful floor for about 3 minutes before all hell broke loose and the the cheerios and jelly started flying again.

2009-02-28T18:26:00.001-06:00

professionalhomeames.com

This is my website! I made it myself... what do you think?

We specialize in cleaning high end homes in Ames, IA

2009-02-28T18:19:00.001-06:00

This is my first blog.

Life of a self employed single mom.

shall we begin?

*Adventures in Cleaning * How Sara Grows Up* or *Blooming your Cleaning Business*