Shower Me With Love

I love, love, love people who squeegee their shower walls! I'm almost giddy when I go through a house with a client for the first time and they tell me that they wipe or squeegee their shower after every use...I just want to hug and squeeze them! It makes it so much easier to control soap scum and calcium and lime build up.

....buuut....unfortunately most people do not. Most people (I'm sounding like such a nerd!) like to hop into the shower to wash/rinse and get out of the shower. And really, I don't blame them. We're all on a time crunch.

That's okay too. It's those that keep me in business! I realize not everyone is a neat freak like me.

There are plenty of good quick tips to help yourself, your housekeeper or whoevever is in charge of cleaning your bathroom, keep your bathroom clean or easier to clean when it comes time to give it a good scrub-down. It doesn't have to be expensive or too time consuming.

1. Keep a cheap dollar-store toilet brush tucked behind the toilet and every few days, after flushing, give the bowl a little swishy-swish so that there isn't a build-up of you-know-what. Keep some vinegar and/baking soda under the sink and toss a little bit of both into the bowl before swishing if you so desire. This way the bowl doesn't get smelly.

2. Keep some old rags and/or paper towel under the sink in a cheap basket as well as a spray bottle of half vinegar/half water and give your toilet (and behind the toilet ) a spritz of your cheap-as-heck cleaner and give it a quick wipe down every week or two. This way, all that hair (and I don't get how a toilet attracts hair like it does) won't be an eyesore and make you scrunch your face every time you look at your biffy pot.

3. Keep a little squeegee hanging or set on the floor in your shower and give the walls a swipe after each shower. This is more for the people who shower every single day. Seriously, it takes under 60 seconds to run that thing along your shower walls and shower floor and you or your house cleaner will thank you for not having to scrub soap scum off the walls. Besides, this also helps with mold and mildew and makes your shower last longer...A LOT longer. Bathrooms generally mold and rot and need renovation first above all other rooms in the house.

...another thing I see some people do is spray down their showers with shower spray that you can "spray and walk away".... Ummm...I'm not so sure if that really does anything. I see people that use it (or so they say) and there's still a nice layer of shampoo and soap on the walls when it comes time for me to deal with their bathroom.

4. With that basket of rags under your sink and your cheap cleaner, spray down your mirror and sink/counter and give a quick wipe down at least once a week. It only takes a few seconds and it doesn't have to be perfect.

5. AND please, please sweep or vacuum your bathroom floor sometimes! Nothing like going into a bathroom (of a house that gets cleaned regularly) and they clearly skip cleaning the bathroom floor. I guess some think it's a small floor and nobody will notice. Have you looked behind the door?? I think I saw a mouse...no wait...it's your body hair in the shape of a guinea pig! Aaaack! I almost fell off the pooper!

6. Use your bathroom fan. Have it running before you jump into the shower and let it run for at least 20 minutes after you're done in the shower. Also, leave your shower door ajar so it dries and moisture doesn't get trapped and eventually rot the moldings and/or frame of the shower stall. If you've got a shower curtain, close the curtain slightly after use so it doesn't have folds where moisture and mold like to grow. You can also throw the curtain and the liner into your washing machine every now and then with some detergent and bleach to help control mold. Every six months to a year, just buy a new curtain and liner if it's not cleanable anymore or if it's falling apart.

7. Have a place to hang wet towels.....over the side of the tub, the shower rod, the shower door...or install more towel rods or hooks. Also wash or change those bath and hand towels every week. Believe me when I tell you that they make the bathroom stink like moldy dog biscuits. Same with the mat in front of the shower.....hang it to dry please...or wipe yourself dry as you step out of the shower so there isn't a sloshy puddle on the floor or bath mat. The mat will stick to the floor because that's how it will dry day after day.

Simple cleaners, like I mentioned earlier, are a spray bottle with half water/half vinegar. You can squirt some dish soap in the bottle too. Or 1 part rubbing alcohol mixed with 3 parts water also with a squirt of dish soap. You can add essential oils to the mix if you're feeling a little crazy! These are cheap and easy to mix up AND you probably already have these items in your home--if not, pick them up at the dollar store or your grocery store the next time you're shopping.

To clean grout, I put CLR into a spray bottle and spray the area and rub with an old toothbrush or kitchen scrubby. You can also dip a toothbrush into baking soda, spray with vinegar and scrub away. It takes some time but if you do it regularly it should only take a minute or two to catch all those black or brown spots in your grout.

With our busy lives we don't take care of our homes like Grandma and Grandpa used to. I get that. But I do believe that we need to take a few minutes and take care of these things sometimes. Our health and money rely on cleaning our living spaces.

Do you want to know how many homes my husband and I looked at when we were searching for a new(er) house, that looked beautiful at first glance but then we noticed rotting bathroom baseboards? Or a soft spot in the floor in front of the shower? Or a water stain on the ceiling? We knew that it was gonna cost us more money right out of the gate!

I'm no cleaning guru so if you have any other tips, let me know!

....and so here we go.....

When I walk into a house, I usually know exactly how I'm going to tackle it.

I start on one floor, usually top or main, many times starting with bathrooms, then I dust, wipe down the kitchen and then vacuum/wash floors and work my way around the house. Basically it's a similar pattern in every house. If the house is quite large I will break down the cleaning into smaller sections or areas. Once I have a good routine, I stick to it because I can then be the most efficient even if I insert an extra task here or there.

Every client has different priorities. When I first meet with a client to go over what they'd like done, I listen to what they point out as we're talking. If my client makes a comment about how the dusty piano drives her crazy, I always make sure I get the piano dusted. Or they may make a comment about how there's always fingerprints on the hall closet door, then I be sure to always wipe that area and be on the lookout for build-up from hand oils.

Little things that I always do are things like wiping doorknobs and light switches. I always try to run my swiffer duster along baseboards, door frames and ceiling fans where I can reach easily or with the extendable duster. If my clients specifically ask that I clean baseboards then I will take a damp cloth and move furniture (small pieces that can easily be moved) and do a proper job of it.

I have used mostly the same products for the past 7 years....it took about a year of trial and error to figure out which cleaners are the most valuable to me. When I try out a new one I will either talk to somebody that has used it before or I use it in my own house first....don't want to be destroying Mrs. Nesbitt's bathroom mirror from 1940 with a cleaner that stains the antique frame!

The safest items I find are vinegar, rubbing alcohol (great disinfectant), dish detergent, Murphy Oil Soap, a couple of Vim products and one or two "green" products that I found at a local cleaning supply store. I make a lot of my solutions with combinations of these. I use swiffer dusters for dusting so I can just throw them away...I know, not very environmentally friendly but I find dusting cloths are just not my bag although I also carry a dampened cloth for wiping fingerprints and smudges as I make my way around a house. I also use paper towel to clean toilets because, you know, I don't want to deal with washing cloths with human waste on them. I buy disposable gloves that I change frequently too.....don't want to go from bathroom to kitchen with same gloves on! Yechhh!

Every house and client is different but in many ways, the same. I try to do what suits the client and the house. Some of my people say "Do what you do" and the next will say "Do it this way and this way" so I need to be flexible. I generally don't like to use too many products because it's a waste of time to constantly be switching products as I'm cleaning so vinegar water will be kitchen cleaner, glass and mirror cleaner and dusting cloth spritzer and maybe even bathroom cleaner.

I do my best at every house, every day because I care. The client may see something I cleaned in a different light after I've left and they may tell me that I didn't do a very good job on that hallway table and that's okay. I'll just try to look at it from a different angle after I've cleaned it the next time. But for the most part, my people are just happy with what I've managed to accomplish in the time I was at their home.

Memoir of a Housekeeper

Housekeeping isn't what I grew up telling myself that I wanted to do. I had other plans but....that's a different story and to be honest with you, I don't want to talk about that part.

I worked retail for many years, among other things, but decided to be my own boss while the kids were still young. I wanted to make myself available to them before and after school. Cleaning houses for other people, I decided, was something I could do and wouldn't require a whole lot of start-up costs AND I could create my own hours. At least I feel like I am helping people too.

Well, here I am.

I have the best clients in the world! I maintain 10 of them right now. I started off cleaning rentals and new houses but once I had a steady base of clients, I gave up those kinds of cleanings. I didn't feel like working weekends and evenings like I had done with all the other jobs I held in the past. I wanted to call the shots.

Right now it's only me working for me. I employed my son, Brody, at the beginning when I had a commercial contract and when I was cleaning rentals but I gave those up to concentrate on regular maintenance of private households. (Besides, Brody grew older and got a "real" job.)
It took a few months to get a substantial amount of clients but once the ball was rolling, I had more business than I could handle. I threw around the idea of making it a bigger business by hiring a few employees but decided against it.
I have it set up like a small business with a city business license and liability insurance to keep it up to a professional standard.

My cleaning biz gives me time to do other things I enjoy such as quilting, scouting, blogging, family stuff.....so it's been hard to give up.

Every job I've ever held has taught me a lot of things. As these last seven years have passed, I've learned a lot about cleaning, a lot about people and a lot about myself.....it could possibly be because of all the time I spend alone...thinking. And that's okay.