On Friday I was blown away by the price another company charged. It was $380 for a cleaning I bid at $135. The client had already paid the other company $380, but it was a second bid. The other bid was $400.

Now I may be wrong, but at $100 for a team of three an hour, and a half seemed like enough. That’s four, and a half person hours. The other company had four people in there all day. I understand people need work, but there was no way to get 24 hours of work out of that house.

Does that seem right to you? Does it seem like it would take 24 hours to clean a house?

I saw the house, and in the time the other company was there they missed a lot. There were cob webs, the floors were a mess, there was an accumulation of dust on the glassware, the book case, the windows, bedrooms, and laundry. So I couldn’t see really what they had done, and the client couldn’t tell me either.

This is the forth time in a month that I have heard really high prices. So, in the interest of settling out pricing, I’m proposing $100 per hour for a team of three, and $120 per hour for a team of four.

What do you think?

We went to this system about three years ago. Two people teams were our regular referral. What we found is that two people took much longer to get a house done than when we sent three. Three people can rotate through tasks during a day. That helps to take the tedium out of the day.

When you send in three or four people every one takes a task. One is cleaning the bathroom, the other the kitchen, and one or two to vacuum, and dust. When one person finishes they can help the others. Each house has a time limit according to what they pay. If a team goes over time it is much less of a per person set back in a day. The day flows better, smoother, and much more efficiently.

Teams make more money, because the production time is greater. They can do more in a day, they can take on more in a day. From the change from two people to three or four people to a team the increase in individual compensation rose about 20%.

You get a better job, a happier cleaning team, and a more energized experience. We have found it to be working well.

He is a computer programmer. It was obvious how the whole thing spun out of control for him. He has an area around his desk that was some what clear, the rest of the place was piled with stuff, mail, recycling, shipping boxes, and pizza boxes. In his case there wasn’t any garbage. He had a system for that by hanging a plastic bag on the front door knob. The accumulation was about five years worth.

My wife says that she saves me from being just like this guy. I am Chronically Disorganized. She keeps me on the straight, and narrow. I spend a lot of time here, at the computer, or go out into the field. By working constantly it sets the priorities. That sounds like an excuse, and it probably is, but some things just don’t bother me. I think that’s why we relate with those who ask for help getting cleaned out, and organized.

We assume going in that there is a method to the madness. Most people who accumulate a lot of stuff have a degree of reasoning. They have a mental process for everything. I’ve asked for things that the person of the house knew exactly where it was. We are talking about true hoarders. Being messy is something different. 

What we get a lot is a family member who calls, or the land lord is coming, or in some cases a social worker is visiting. In other cases people call us at some one else’s insistence, or some one is insisting on visiting. In these cases there may be some resentment, but the point is that some outside influence is driving the call for help.

We try to figure out the patterns. We take out garbage first, clear as much space as possible, then start sorting. I start in the kitchen sink, because we need water. Some times, or many times we move things from one side of the room to the other. Moving stuff causes a lot of anxiety, so we clean, and put back.

If we are allowed to come back on more than just a one time cleaning we can get a rhythm. We had one person almost completely organized. She took over, and called us occasionally. Her daughter also helps, so it’s kind of a friends, and family thing.

We are by far the most experienced at one time cleanings. We have a system that works extremely well. There is a catch that, like them, these cleanings need to be scheduled in advance. We can, on some occasions, accommodate a rush job.

The other thing is that we do limit our service area to Seattle.

We are considered a bargain by many of the top Real Estate professionals, and we still have a niche for preparing properties for sale. 

You can call most any time, and find me answering the phone. It is one of the little things that sets us apart.  

You can put the solution in a spray bottle, but we also use cloth that is saturated. We wipe down windows, and sliding door tracks. Bathrooms can get a complete wipe down. For some reason kitchens aren’t as bad, but there are areas where the bleach can help kill bacteria.

This time of year when the house is closed up, and the heat may be on is the time we notice mildew the most. You can get started cleaning it up now, but keep in mind that as the spring, and summer come around it would be a better time to open windows, and doors for ventilation, and really kill the places mildew spores may grow.

You have a beautiful home that once a year turns into a festival. No matter who you are or what you believe the dead of winter gets a face lift by the Holiday Spirit.

We take some of that enthusiasm, and use it for cleaning. Once the tree is down, once we get into the New Year, it’s a great time to get a fresh start. We wash a lot of floors this time of year. It’s an excellent time to get to corners you don’t normally see.

You are also probably digging through a bunch of stuff you don’t need that could go to charity. Cleaning out closets, or storage areas while you are shifting things around can give you another feeling of satisfaction.

This year is special. We are very grateful to have weathered a storm that came, and for us, went in the past three years. We want to thank you all for your support, and remind you we are here to serve.

This coming year we have some programs that will fit every budget. We know that cleaning is a boost to our emotional spirit.

D.A. Burns, and Emmanuel’s are the high end shops, that include your fine specialty carpets.

You can also choose Chem Dri which is a carbonated cleaner that is worked into the nap of your carpet to be vacuumed up. We especially recommend this for homes that may have had pets. Steam cleaning can encourage bacterial growth below the pad.

You don’t want to over wet your carpeting, and you want to do carpet cleaning sparingly. For all the removal of dirt that cleaning can do the moisture can also cause damage.

Truck mounted systems are preferred because they extract more moisture. The cost difference is slight considering how much more you get from the process. The stand up carpet cleaning machine is fine. We run into them a lot in high rises, but you have to be able to trust the operator knows what they are doing. There should be less spray, and more suction.

We of course encourage you to vacuum your carpets more. That will add more life over a longer period of time. Once every couple of years a good quality carpet cleaning is worth the expense.

We have dogs, because we have kids. I always had a cat while growing up, and when I was single. The kids liked the cat, but when the cat died they wanted a dog, then another one. The dogs are now mine, and the kids now want a cat, because it’s easier to take care of.

So we get it about the pets. It’s more of a challenge to explain to some of the people who work with us. Some of the people who work with us were raised in other countries that didn’t have animals in the house.

What we have emphasized is that the family pet is a part of the family. We take extra time to make the pets comfortable. It does take time for the pets to trust us. We make a lot of noise. We move them off the furniture as we clean it.

It just makes every one more comfortable if we simply make the pet a part of our team.

For cleaning we use terry cloth, kind of like a wash rag. For drying we use a bar towel, and for dusting we use a micro fiber cloth.

This post came up when I was asked about a post I made about water being your main cleaning ingredient. The terry cloth can hold a lot of moisture to do the initial passes on all surfaces to be cleaned. I do a pass on all surfaces first, then a send pass with the cleaner, like Windex, and a rinsed, damp cloth. To finish I use the bar towel to dry.

The microfiber doesn’t leave lint. We used that with the Pledge or Stainless Steel polish. Micro fiber can also be used dry for dusting if you shake the rag occasionally.

All cleaning rags need to be washed a couple of times before use. That helps to get rid of the fuzz. My best rags are about a month or two old, and we rotate those rags regularly.

I’ll mention that some people have linen, gauze, or diapers that they swear by. We’ve tried them all.