In my last article, I covered "5 Tips for Selecting Your Next Cleaner". I lay out an analytical and emotional approach to selecting the right cleaning service for your home or office. But what if you have a cleaning service now and they don't exactly meet the criteria of a legit company or they're not COVID prepared & educated? Don't fret! I have this follow-up article for you on how to break up with your current cleaner.

First off, let me make this disclaimer. I don't want any cleaning service to lose their job. We are not competitive with each other as most of us in the industry realize that there are way more houses and offices than cleaning companies. Secondly, if you're happy with your cleaning service, please ignore this advice!​

I was asked by cleaning industry leaders to give a state of our industry talk on a virtual summit. I completed the talk today and thought some of the takeaways would be useful for my own community.

COVID-19 has raised the bar in our industry. Prior to COVID, the typical house or office cleaner had no governing body to report to other than the Departments of Labor and Taxation. There was also no formal licensing requirement in our state, nor was there an obligation for cleaning providers to be insured against liability. Cleaners had the right and freedom to self-select their own standards of excellence. Thus, the industry has been flooded with uninsured, unskilled, and unprotected cleaners.

During COVID, the Department of Health and Governor Wolf threw their hats in the game by qualifying our industry as "essential" under personal services to home and small business owners. By allowing our industry to operate when others could not, a microscope was placed on each of us. The post-COVID client is ultra concerned about germs and containing them. They want to minimize the spread of the virus and other pathogens. They want cleaning companies that are fully insured, fully protected, and implementing a COVID-19 disinfecting protocol.

Therefore, the leaders in my industry believe that cleaning company owners will start making the shift from teams to solo cleaners in your homes and offices. This is a WIN-WIN for the client and the company. The company achieves more efficiency and higher profits with solo cleaners for their clients. They are also providing safety measures to protect their cleaners and train them in the science of cleaning & disinfecting to better service their clients. The clients get the same single cleaner in their home EVERY time. They will never wonder who will clean, how many cleaners will be in their home or office, where they've been, and who they've been in contact since the last visit.

As you bring your cleaning services back to your homes and offices or as you screen companies to hire, please keep these trends in mind. The government is still NOT regulating us. However, there will be many companies reported and I personally believe that many of the cleaners I mentioned above with low standards of excellence and safety will be shaken out. This is a good thing as it gives you, the consumer, more trust when you search for a cleaning service to know that if they're still standing, they've probably fought to do so.

I operate my company, Carfagno Cleaning Incorporated, as a solo (or single cleaner). My COVID-19 Disinfecting Protocol is outlined on my website. As always, feel free to email me if you have any questions on the cleaning industry or have questions about your specific cleaning need. 

​In this video, you will learn a basic system for efficiently suspending soil (aka 'dirt') so you can remove it! TACT is an acronym that will give you the knowledge to remove the guess-work from cleaning as there really is a science!

T – Temperature – The dial goes from cold to hot.

A – Agitation – This dial goes from wiping to steel wool and blades.

C – Chemistry – This dial goes from 0 to 14 on the pH scale.

T – Time – This dial goes from immediate up to 10 minutes, typically.

Keep TACT in mind and fully understand each letter. This allows you to clean difficult & layered soils quicker without damaging any surfaces! Once you understand how to remove dirt, you can begin to clean more efficiently without damaging surfaces. I'll share some examples on upcoming newsletters!

​Before you can effectively remove dirt, you need to understand what it is! This video is part one for this month's newsletter theme of "Cleaning Science Tips". You will absolutely be disgusted, but it's for the best... I promise!

Dirt or soil varies greatly depending on which part of the home you’re cleaning. At the macro-level, get ready to deal with:

• Hair (human, cat, dog, etc) – Primarily in the bathroom
• Soap scum & the byproducts of the body – Primarily in bathrooms
• Grease – Primarily in the kitchen
• Foot traffic material from clay, soil, grass, etc – Primarily on floors
• Food & the byproducts of food – Primarily in the kitchen and floors
• Dust – This includes dead skin, furniture & carpet fibers, outdoor soil, pollen, mold, fireplace coal & smoke, construction-related, household chemicals, and other allergens.
• Cobwebs – Primarily in basements, wall corners & ceilings during the “spider season”. This season is different depending on where you live.

And you’re dealing with pathogens at the micro-level, which are bacterium, viruses, and other microorganisms (like mold) that can cause disease. These are found throughout the house. Make sure to check out my educational series, "The 9 Mistakes in Disinfecting", to learn more about this.

Once you identify the DIRT you're dealing with, you need to suspend the DIRT to remove it. We'll cover this next week in our "Cleaning Science Tips: How to Use TACT".

​Emily is a working mom that I'm sure many of you will relate to. I cleaned for her family for a year as they were transitioning to having twin girls and job changes for her husband. Emily battles stress and so much of it revolves around her sanctuary, the place where she lived, worked, and connected with each of her family members. In one conversation, I brought up a science correlation between clutter and stress in women. Emily related so much that it opened the door to some great conversations of how my cleaning service was de-stressing her life.

Emily would see the dirt and disorder around her house and it would create overwhelm and anxiety, causing her to get less done. "When my house was clean, that stress was gone and I could function better." The other intriguing point Emily made was this. "Knowing the cleaner was coming, forced me to organize my house and pick things up before you showed up." I was scheduled biweekly, which created a 14-day cycle of accountability to "clean before the cleaner" by picking up, straightening up, eliminating stuff, clearing counters and desks, etc. Emily shared something powerful. "A clean house improved my emotional state every time you left". I am not a psychologist. I'm a cleaner that has seen the story of Emily year-after-year in every household that hired me to clean. Let's dig into the science of clutter and dirt, so we can help the women in our lives to DE-STRESS!

Sherrie Bourg Carter wrote a powerful article in Psychology Today on March 14, 2012 entitled, "Why Mess Causes Stress: 8 Reasons, 8 Remedies The mental cost of clutter". I would like to extract the 8 points that Sherrie makes about clutter and add my own comments. 

1. "Clutter bombards our minds with excessive stimuli (visual, olfactory, tactile), causing our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren't necessary or important." This hits the nail on the head for Emily. She works in a corporate recruiting role from home while caring for 3 little girls. She is home all day and has the time to see, feel, and smell every single stimuli. The dirt and dust has a distinguishable smell and texture that makes her squeam and emotionally tighten. It's easy to see how impactful a recurring house cleaning service can be!
2. "Clutter distracts us by drawing our attention away from what our focus should be on." Emily said this exact comment above. Her mind and emotions would wander to the dirt and clutter, causing her to be less productive during work hours. This point alone proves how vital it is to hire a presentation cleaning service that knows how to help you create space in your home office and business office. Can you imagine how much more time we would all have with our families if we had less distractions during work hours?
3. "Clutter constantly signals to our brains that our work is never done." This one is deep! It's more science to back up Emily's comments.
4. "Clutter inhibits creativity and productivity by invading the open spaces that allow most people to think, brainstorm, and problem solve." Emily's quote above echoes this exactly!
5. "Clutter frustrates us by preventing us from locating what we need quickly (e.g. files and paperwork lost in the "pile" or keys swallowed up by the clutter)." These last two further prove the priority and importance of a clean work space. If you work from home like Emily, hire a presentation house cleaning service and get on a regular schedule. Or if you work at a business office, make sure you stress the importance to your office manager or boss the need for an excellent office cleaning service so you can perform at maximum productivity. Personally, I've been cleaning both houses and small offices for years and I see the same things in work spaces. For example, there are 2 offices I clean every Thursday night and the employees clean their desk clutter before every cleaning visit so I can clean their desks. There is no doubt these workers are more productive the next day.
6. "Clutter makes us anxious because we're never sure what it's going to take to get through to the bottom of the pile." I've been married for 16 years and have 5 kids. I rarely see the laundry pile empty and have seen first-hand the stress it adds on my wife. And that's laundry, where we all have a plan to clean it on a regular basis. Clutter just keeps piling up. If hiring a cleaning service is all it takes to get you to attack the clutter, do it!
7. "Clutter makes it more difficult to relax, both physically and mentally." We talked about the working hours part of our day. What about the relaxing part after a long day? We have the kids to bed and just want to veg! I, like most husbands, am totally fine. But the women out there like Emily are seeing and smelling the dirt and clutter. Although they are trying to relax, they feel unable.
8. "Clutter creates feelings of guilt ("I should be more organized") and embarrassment, especially when others unexpectedly drop by our homes or work spaces." This is the one Sherrie! Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two times of year where these feelings of guilt and embarrassment are at their peak. Emily pointed out that they have guests come over during the holidays and at other times throughout the year. Sometimes these visits are even "unexpected". Knowing they have a cleaning service takes one more thing off their list and reduces their overwhelm on the guests. Prior to having a quality presentation cleaning service, Emily and her husband would literally get out of bed and clean the house for these unwelcome, er... I mean, unexpected guests. When Emily told me this, she sighed and said. "Now, we just relax and then go to sleep in peace."

How do you FEEL when DIRT and CLUTTER rule your home? Do you feel like Emily? Stay tuned! My next newsletter will dive into "3 Tips to Finding Your Next House Cleaning Service".