Busy Lives Call For Professional House Cleaners
As a busy professional with a family, maintaining a clean and well-maintained home can be a challenge! Hiring a house cleaner should help, right? Having someone to do the things you don’t like to do should offer peace of mind. And it does! Still, there are ways that you can get even more. One of the easiest ways is to hire a professional house cleaner. But what separates a professional house cleaner from the cleaning lady down the street?
Being A Professional Requires Standards
Skilled trades all have standards. Not only do they have standards, but they have certifications that show when someone meets those standards. Mechanics have Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certifications. HVAC professionals have certification programs. Carpet cleaners have certifications too. So do plumbers, contractors, and any other home service professional. Shouldn’t house cleaners?
As it turns out, house cleaners can have professional certifications. The Institute of Inspection, Cleaning, and Restoration Certification, or IICRC, offers the House Cleaning Technician Certification course to professional house cleaners. The IICRC also certifies other professional trades. These include mold remediators, water damage specialists, and carpet cleaners.
At Town & Country Cleaning, we believe having an educated house cleaner is vital. That’s why we are involved in teaching the House Cleaning Technician certification course. Town & Country, in partnership with the IICRC and ISSA are also actively involved in developing new, more modular, courses for busy house cleaners.
Our founding owners, Bruce & Sarah Vance, are published authors of the “Professional House Cleaning Technician’s Manual” and certified instructors for the IICRC. Both of them carry a laundry list of IICRC certifications. Many of our own technicians have taken, or are set to take, the House Cleaning Technician Certification course. Demand for the course has skyrocketed since 2020. We estimate that Bruce has taught cleaning technicians representing over 400 companies, from over 16 countries across 5 continents since 2020.
Why Hiring an Educated House Cleaner is Important for Your Home
Cleaning Is A Key To Maintaining Health
Our society as a whole is becoming more hip to the knowledge that what we put in our bodies matters. The things that we are exposed to can have all kinds of ripple effects on our health. Many people know this applies to cleaning. Thus, a cottage industry of “healthier” and “natural” cleaning products has arisen. And, while the rising tide floats all the boats, there is often more beneath the surface.
Many “green” cleaning products are anything but. Terms like “green” and “natural” are almost totally devoid of meaning. And unless you are versed in some basic chemistry, and reading safety data sheets, you can easily be fooled. Professional house cleaners are able to look beyond ad copy, and can understand what really works, and what is simple eco-friendly snake oil.
Proper cleaning is a key part of maintaining a healthy living space. A healthy living space does not need to be at the same level of a laboratory clean room. In fact, microbiologists would say we need at least some microbes around us. Regular maintenance cleaning is enough to keep our homes safe and healthy. We do not need to spray disinfectants indiscriminately to keep our children safe.
Advances in cleaning technology such as microfiber cloths are allowing us to get amazing results with just plain water. No need to buy essential oils, which can actually have their own issues. And don’t get us started on vinegar! High filtration vacuums allow us to actually improve indoor air quality, which is often significantly worse than outdoor air.
Modern Homes Require Special Care
An educated house cleaner is knowledgeable in the proper care of surfaces and materials in the home. They understand that modern home surfaces require much more specialized care than in years past. For example, granite countertops require stone-safe cleaning products, and hardwood floors need to be cared for with the right cleaning techniques and products to prevent damage. Improper cleaning is a HUGE liability. Manufacturers of flooring estimate that over half of all warranty claims are the result of improper care. As a flooring inspector so wryly put it “the number one enemy of the wood floor is the maid.”
It does not have to be this way! By hiring an educated house cleaner, you can avoid costly damage to your home’s unique surfaces and materials. An educated house cleaner knows the right cleaning products to use to preserve your surfaces. They understand proper cleaning techniques to keep them looking their best.
Innovation Means Information Is Changing
Being certified once is definitely important. But being certified is meaningless if the knowledge is out of date. The world of home surfaces and furnishings is rapidly changing. Town & Country Cleaning has been around long enough to see many ground breaking products come and go. Ideas that sound great on paper often meet their match in the real world.
15 years ago, bamboo flooring was going to change the world. Bamboo was eco-friendly. It was supposed to be harder than red oak. It was also supposed to be relatively affordable. Then it hit the market. Turns out, its weaknesses didn’t show until it was put into homes. Bamboo, although hard to break, is easy to dent. And, because it’s a dried grass, bamboo swells with moisture exposure. This makes cleaning it incredibly difficult. As a result, this past year at the Surfaces, only 1 out of several thousand vendors was even showing bamboo products.
Staying on top of this rapidly changing world is crucial for a professional house cleaner. We are often the ones who have to discover that the care instructions from the installer were actually wrong. The success or failure of a surface in a home is literally in our hands.
Your Time Is Important Too
In addition, educated house cleaners are more efficient in a home. They have a fuller understanding of best practices and processes. This makes them able to clean your home in less time while still maintaining a high level of quality. You can enjoy a clean and well-maintained home without spending hours cleaning yourself or worrying about the quality of the cleaning.
A Story To Illustrate
“A giant ship’s engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one ‘professional’ after another but none of them could figure out how to fix the broken engine. Then they brought in a man who had been fixing ships since he was young.
He carried a large bag of tools with him and when he arrived immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
Two of the ship’s owners were there watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away and the engine was fixed!!!
A week later, the owners received an invoice from the old man for $10,000. “What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything..!!!”. So they wrote to the man; “Please send us an itemized invoice.” The man sent an invoice that read:
- Tapping with a hammer………………….. $2.00
- Knowing where to tap…………………….. $9,998.00
Effort is important but experience and knowing where to direct that effort makes all the difference.”
How This Applies To Professional House Cleaners
Because many people *can* clean their house, they will judge others by their own standards. Many homeowners find that it can easily take them a full day to get their home clean the way they desire it. They are often upset when a professional house cleaning technician comes in and takes just a couple of hours in their home. They begin to feel that they were cheated on time, and that the cleaner must have taken short cuts. The homeowner goes to work to find any and all mistakes, and begin hiring and firing cleaners until they find someone who is as slow as they are.
The mistake here is assuming that time spent is in direct correlation to quality of work. The fact is, a professional at anything will be able to do something faster than an amateur. They have practice. They learned how to do it better. The professional is a product of their expertise. Efficiency in anything is a product of knowledge and practice.
Spend a day alongside a Town & Country Cleaning technician, and you will quickly see that they do not mess around! They know how to leverage product dwell time to accomplish other tasks, while getting a surface cleaner than elbow grease alone. They know how to get around a living space efficiently to avoid missing areas. Our Technicians have it down to such a degree, that we can accurately predict how long a house will take to clean AND have data to back it up. How many cleaning people can say that?
What Does This Mean To Me?
At Town & Country Cleaning, we pride ourselves on providing highly trained and educated cleaning technicians. Our team is equipped with the latest cleaning techniques and equipment, ensuring that your home is cleaned to the highest standards every time. As a locally owned and operated business, we take pride in serving Pittsboro, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, Hillsborough, and Western Chatham County. We are energized by providing top-quality cleaning services that exceed your expectations.
We believe that house cleaning is a professional trade. As professional tradespeople, we have standards to uphold. There’s a lot more to house cleaning than knowing how to scrub a toilet and vacuum a floor. We are often the first line in protecting the health of your family, and the integrity of your surfaces and furnishings.
In short, hiring an educated house cleaner is essential for the proper care and maintenance of your home. They have the knowledge and expertise to preserve your home’s unique surfaces and materials while providing efficient and high-quality cleaning services. Contact us today to schedule your first cleaning and experience the difference that a PROFESSIONAL house cleaner can bring.