We know our clients should have a healthy living space.

But what exactly does that mean? We believe that having a healthy living space is more than sanitizing surfaces and moving on. Creating Healthy Living Spaces informs everything we do, from our choice of cleaning products, to what vacuums we use, and how we treat your home and possessions. We aim to do more than just clean your home. We want to protect your health, your home, and your time. Let’s look at some of the most important ways that we do this.

We believe in using the safest, least toxic cleaning agents that will get the job done.

Obviously, we want to use products that work and give you a clean house. However, we also want to do it in the safest possible way. We want to limit any negative impacts on our client’s health. It is also critical to protect the health of our cleaning technicians. To this end, we chose deionized water as our general cleaner.

Paired with hospital-grade microfibers, this is effective for most general cleaning. In fact, in laboratory tests, the microfibers we use have been shown to remove 99.99-99.9999% of germs using only plain water.

There are places where DI water is not enough. In these cases, we look for the safest cleaner that will do the job. Sometimes we try a cleaner that seems perfect, green certification and all, but it just doesn’t work. Other times we find a green-certified product that actually works better than its traditional counterpart.

We have not yet found a non-chlorine product that successfully battles the mold build up in showers. The one we use has a controlled fume solution. This makes it safer to use than chlorine bleach and many other bleach products.

Not only must a cleaning agent be safe to use, but it must also be safe for the surface it is being used on. The surfaces in homes today are much more susceptible to chemical deterioration than was true 25 years ago.

Town & Country meets regularly with flooring, tile and stone manufacturers to make sure we are using the most appropriate cleaning agents for these new surfaces. There have been times where we have alerted manufacturers to potential hazards they haven’t yet identified. A recent example of this would be solid core laminates where the core is sensitive if exposed to acid cleaners such as a vinegar and water mix.

We believe that your air quality should be better after we leave than before we arrive

Vacuums should capture small particulates, not spew them back out into your air.

Many vacuums allow significant amounts of allergens and other fine particles to escape, often around the filter. They even might use a real HEPA filter. The problem is twofold. Firstly, these vacuums are not properly sealed to prevent air leaks. Secondly, many consumer-level vacuums are not powerful enough to pull air through a HEPA filter.

We use vacuums tested as a complete system to be 99.9% effective at trapping particles down to 1 micron. For scale, a human hair is about 50 microns thick. The human eye cannot see anything smaller than 40 microns. Our vacuums carry the American Lung Association Seal and the Carpet and Rug Institute’s Gold Seal of Approval.

We limit the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in our cleaning products so that our cleaning products don’t negatively impact your air quality. If you ever have a problem with any of our cleaning agents, let us know and we will try to find a work around.

We believe that the improper use of disinfectants is not only ineffective but can cause harm and should be used sparingly if at all.

This topic is quite deep, and we have discussed it further here.

 

We believe your home and your privacy deserve respect and we pledge to honor both.

We understand that you are giving us a position of trust by allowing us to clean your home. You have the right to feel that your possessions are secure. You also can rest knowing that any details of your home or life will not become the subject of gossip. When you allow someone to clean your home, you are allowing them into private areas of your life. How many of your regular guests ever see your master bedroom?

We do not take this responsibility lightly. Our house keys are given a random alphanumeric coding. No personal information conveys with a key. Without access to password-protected software, no one can see where a key is to be used. We take notes of delicate items so that our cleaners know to be extra careful with them.

Additionally, we seek to vet every employee that we send into a home. To this end, all employees must undergo a criminal background check before hiring. They also complete an opinion survey, which is used by many major corporations for high-level positions. This in-depth survey to help ensure that prospective employees values align well with our core values.

 

We believe in our employees. They are trained professionals who both deserve respect and the opportunity to earn a decent income.

Our cleaning technicians are trained professionals. We believe in their abilities. We have vetted them and trained them to handle the challenges of modern cleaning. Some of them have achieved the House Cleaning Technician certification. The HCT Certification is an international certification offered by the Institute for Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC).

Home surfaces in the past were pretty forgiving to a wide array of cleaning agents. Yet today, many surfaces are far more prone to damage from cleaning agents. We instruct our cleaning technicians in the basics of the science of cleaning. This ensures our technicians know the proper cleaning solutions to be used on today’s surfaces.

We are committed to paying our cleaning technicians at or above the North Carolina living wage once they complete training. In addition, we offer regular bonuses for excellent weekly reviews and other performance-based criteria. We want to recognize excellence when we see it. Town & Country aims to be a vehicle to help our employees get where they want in life.

We believe in education to keep us at the forefront of cleaning knowledge and up-to-date in the proper care of emerging materials and finishes, as these can markedly and quickly change.

Each year we meet with manufacturers of flooring, stone, and tile at the Surfaces Convention in Las Vegas. At Surfaces, we get to talk in-depth with manufacturers technical staff. Additionally, we also get to speak with flooring inspectors, who are the ones who go out to inspect damage claims. We have learned that over half of all claims are due to incorrect maintenance (YIKES!). Town & Country always seeks to ensure that we are not creating problems. We want to prevent them from happening. 

We also attend the ISSA Convention, the largest convention in the world for the industry. This keeps us up on the latest trends, tools and cleaning agents. Both of these allow us to take classes and network. We also follow industry publications to keep up. All this assures you that your cleaning tech is giving each of your surfaces its proper care.

Important Note: Often, what the manufacturers tell us is not what the installers are telling customers. Ironically, installers do not always know the best way to care for the product they sell.