When you are involved in cleaning other people’s houses, you are doing what you do at home, every day. You need to be familiar with a lot of little tasks and all of these are very simple to perform. Conducting a business in this fashion can be a very flexible, and motivating activity.

Planning what you are going to be cleaning is an important first step in your new business. Many services will clean only things such as the Kitchen or the Bathroom. Some will also clean the living areas, some the bedrooms and still others will also do the laundry. Decide what it is you will do and plan the average times accordingly. Many house cleaners will do all kinds of cleaning for a price.

The name for your business should command a little attention. It should sound professional and state what it is you are doing. The proper licensing for your company should be looked into and a DBA might be required in your area.

Equipment and supplies are things that many people get confused about. All that is needed are things that you already have at home. They need to be clean and serviceable and easily transportable. The very minimum that is needed for all tasks in a basic cleaning process is a bagged vacuum and several small items. A bucket, several cloths, some cleaning agents and a mop will round out the basics. Other items can be included to help with other tasks and can be purchased with the first billings.

Your start up costs can be very small. Most of the equipment you need you will already have in your home. You want to make sure they are in good working order and that they, themselves, are clean and serviceable. Pricing your work can be as simple as selecting a good hourly rate and basing all tasks around that. You might want to call some of the other companies that clean houses and ask Pretending to be a potential client, ask what they clean and how much they charge. You can base your prices on that.

Now comes the time to start. You might need to do a couple of cleanings for free. Find some people who need this service and can promote our business to their friends and neighbors. Provide this very valuable service, do a very good job and let them talk you up. Word of mouth is very important in this industry as initial advertising can be more than you might have at this point.

Your house cleaning business can pick up fairly quickly if you have taken the time and care to perform the first several cleanings. Advertisements, after this, is the next step. The Internet will have local postings available as well as the community boards in many locations in your own neighborhood.

Happy Homes Maids are your answer! I have experienced their friendly, efficient cleaners in my own home. They take the pressure off of you to provide a sparkling clean home for your guests. Go out shopping, wrap gifts, play on the computer, all while your home is being cleaned.

They have several cleaning options. You can have them out for a one-time clean before guests come, you can have them come out once a month, bi-weekly or weekly. Just want your bathrooms and kitchen cleaned? Check! You can see on their web site that they cater to you and your specific needs.

Don’t be shy, I admit I was. I actually cleaned before they came out the first time. I have since let my guard down and look forward to them not only seeing, but cleaning up the grit and dirt.

Give them a call at             (208) 853-0757       for a FREE consultation. They have gift certificates available as well, great for a holiday gift or new parents.

(From Macaroni Kid http://boise.macaronikid.com/article/55535/let-happy-homes-maids-make-mom-happy-too)

After working all day, it is difficult to find the energy to go home and clean the house on weekdays. Weekends are precious, and housecleaning is the last thing you want to do with your time. But, it is neither healthy nor possible to stay in a residence with dust and dirt all around you. Therefore, it is not surprising that an increasingly large number of homeowners in Boise are turning to maid service professionals to get this messy job done.

While you are busy in maintaining a work-life balance, the job of keeping your house neat and clean can be taken care of by the pros. Hiring professional housecleaning services is extremely beneficial and has four distinct advantages. The first and the most important benefit is that it ensures peace of mind.

You do not have to worry anymore about returning to a dirty home after a busy day at work, you’ll have time for projects, and best of all time for your family. The second advantage is that it helps you save a lot of time that you can invest in other important activities.

From keeping things clean and straightened up to washing the sinks and toilets regularly, a Boise professional maid service can do it all, and do it on a consistent basis. The third benefit of hiring Boise home cleaning services is that they can be employed on a weekly, monthly, or a bi-monthly basis to take care of all the routine maintenance chores regularly.

Professional maid services provide the training and scheduling for your home, and deal with all of the human resource issues. You can count on your maid team to show up when they say they will, and you don’t have to hire, fire and discipline. The fourth advantage is that a professional maid service handles the ugly part of employment

You can hire professionals from national chains, or from smaller, local companies. Professional, smaller maid services in Boise hire and train skilled and highly professional maids, and offer great services at comparatively cheaper rates.

Find your professional maid service online, or better, ask your friends for a reference. Hiring professional house cleaning in Boise is worth every single dollar paid as it not only helps you to free up some valuable time for yourself but also keeps your house neat and tidy.

 Always clean every room from top to bottom. In the kitchen we start with high dusting the ceiling, lights, and the tops of your cabinets. Take a quick inventory of the fronts of your cabinets. If they have fingerprints, Wash them with a wet terry cloth rag and wipe them dry to prevent spotting. Only use gentle cleaners on your wood cabinets such as a neutral floor/wood cleaner from your professional janitorial supply store, or with only water.

Next, we’ll wash your microwave. Microwaves usually have food stuck hard to them due to the high heat involved in cooking foods.  Liberally spray professional degreaser inside the walls, ceiling and inside the front door of your microwave, and let the chemical work for five minutes. This process should make it easy to wipe the microwave clean with a wet cloth. Take the plate and stand out and wash them with the degreaser in the sink.  Wipe the microwave out with a dry cloth to prevent spotting. Clean the outside of the microwave, and then wipe it dry to polish it. If you have stainless steel on the outside, wash in the direction of the grain with a wet cloth, then dry in the direction of the grain with your dry cotton cloth.

Let’s tackle the fridge. We won’t clean the inside of it; that is a chore for another day. Use a glass cleaner to clean all of the prints off the outside front and sides of your fridge. Open the doors and wash the prints off the inside of the door trim pieces. Take the ice dispenser tray out and soak it in vinegar for ten minutes, then scrub the white mineral deposits off it. Clean around the dispenser with vinegar. Place the tray back after drying it. If your refrigerator is stainless steel, you can use Endust or a similar cleaner. Wipe the fridge with the grain until all finger prints are gone. You can scrub the fridge first if it is sticky, then wipe with the Endust to get the streaks off.

Let’s move on to the counters. Sanitize the counters with a professional disinfectant, and let the disinfectant sit on the counters for 10 minutes to kill all the bacteria. Wash them with a wet cotton rag, and then dry them with a cotton cloth. Remember to clean beneath and behind all items on the counters. Also, wash the backsplash clean of all grease and grime. Behind your stove you may need to use degreaser.

The process to clean your stovetop and oven is different depending upon the type you have. If you have a gas stovetop, take all the pieces off and put them in your sink. Fill your sink with hot, soapy water and scrub them clean. Use a wet SOS pad to get off the remaining buildup. You can use the SOS pad on buildup on the stovetop as well, but be careful! It can easily scratch. A regular electric stovetop can be treated the same way. If you have a glass top, don’t use an SOS pad. Only use a non-scratch pad (usually white in color) on your glass top. You can use degreaser or hot, soapy water to clean it, and then wipe it dry to get rid of streaking and fingerprints. I like to take off all my knobs and clean under them. Wash and dry the front of your oven to finish it.

Let’s do the floors. I like to vacuum my floors so I can use my vacuum edger to get up under the cabinets and fridge. One the floor is vacuumed, it is time to mop. You can use your sink to wet your mop and rinse it. Use hot, soapy water or spray the floor as you go with a floor cleaner. You can use a plastic scraper as you go to scrape up sticky spots your rag can’t get.

Now that the whole kitchen is done, it is time to clean the sink. Sprinkle Comet in the sink and spread it around with a wet sponge. Let it sit for 10 minutes to bleach. Scrub the sink well with the sponge and rinse the sink. Dry it all down with a dry cotton rag to polish. Enjoy your clean kitchen!

Please go to www.happyhomesmaids.com for more cleaning tips and information about maid service in Boise, Idaho. Author: Stephanie Curtis, Happy Homes Maids

Use professional tools to get professional results. Professional tools make any window cleaning job go by easier and look better. Good professional tools include a squeegee, cloths, sponges, and white non-scratch scrub pad. You don’t need any specific kind of cleaning product, since liquid dish washing detergent does a great job. Simply add a squeeze of the detergent in a bucket of water and you are ready to go.

Make sure you have the right squeegee. The quality of your squeegee will determine how well your window will get cleaned. Look for a squeegee that is around 14″. You can find great squeegees at professional janitorial supply stores. If your have tall, hard to reach windows purchase an extension pole.

Clean off the windows before you start working on them. If there are cobwebs and dirt on the windows you will just smear a lot of dirt around on your window. Avoid this by knocking down cobwebs with a broom, or brushing off dirt with a pole duster or power washer.

Work one window at a time. Don’t try to tackle multiple windows at a time. Instead, focus on one window and then move to the next. Start by dunking your scrubber in the water and scrubbing the window down. Before the mixture dries on the glass take out your squeegee and move it from side to side.

Then, work your squeegee and move it from side to side to clean off the scrubbed area. You should use your dry cloth to clean off the squeegee with every pass. When you have finished using the squeegee on the window take out another dry, clean cloth to wipe dry any wet edges or streaks that you missed.

If you have hard water deposits on your windows, they will need some extra work. The best thing that we have found is Barkeepers Friend, which is easy to find at Walmart and many other stores, mixed with enough water to make a paste. Scrub at the hard water deposits with the mixture and a white (non-scratch!) scrub pad. Even with a non scrub pad, you still need to be careful about scratching your windows, so take it easy. After working on the hard water deposits, you will need to wash your window again.

Take advantage of empty spray bottles. If you want a quick pick spot cleaner, mix the Barkeepers Friend with a little more water than normal and put in a spray bottle. Then simply spray mixture on spots on the window that need extra help and wipe dry. This is a great way to keep windows clean in between washes.

For more helpful information on cleaning, contact Happy Homes Maids, a Boise house cleaning company. This Boise cleaning company is dedicated to hard work and will make your house shine.

What are the benefits of maid service? When you are trying to justify the additional cost of having a maid service as part of your usual budget, consider these benefits:

1.     Extra time you can enjoy with your family. A maid service allows you to have a clean house and more time with your children. When your children are grown, you’re not likely to look back and think, “I wish I had spent more time cleaning!” Time is always of value, because it is finite.

2.       Clean and healthier home. Is your house cleaned often enough or well enough? Sometimes time is a factor in getting your house clean often enough or well enough, and sometimes it is just not high enough on the priority list. Hiring a maid service to do a full clean on a regular basis will help you if you can’t get to your whole house often enough. Professional maid services will use professional products and tools, including a HEPA vacuum, to keep your home healthy! Happy Homes Maid Service in Boise, Idaho, has a program called 24 Steps to Healthy Homes that will keep your home clean and healthy!

3.       Professionally trained cleaners. Professionally trained maids do things you may not do if it was left up to you, such as regularly high dust, wipe baseboards and trim, or edge your carpets.  Experienced cleaners can deal with all sorts of stains and cleaning jobs that you may not know how to treat.

What is important to look for in a maid service? Maids must be well trained and certified to provide the house cleaning services, should always understand your requirements and have quality controls in place.  It’s always important to hire maids from a reputed and known maid service company who have a team of professional maids. Consider these things when looking at services to hire:

1.       Insurance and bonding to protect you and your home. What if you hire your next door neighbor, or a friend-of-a-friend, and she trips over your rug or cracked cement walkway, and all of a sudden you are covering her medical bills and loss in pay? Be sure the service you select is fully insured to protect you. Bonding helps you collect on theft through the police and court systems.

2.       Background checked employees. Consider this: you are inviting people to be a part of your home, unsupervised. A service that performs background checks on their employees is essential. Background checking needs to be done through the police department, and includes a full FBI background check.

3.       Green cleaning options. You will want to find a service that provides green cleaning options if it is important to you. Do your research on this; “green” chemicals will not kill bacteria, but there are many arguments for both sides of this new movement. Happy Homes Maid Service uses many green cleaning supplies and products are part of our cleaning process, and we have 100% green cleaning products upon request.

4.       They provide equipment and supplies. A professional maid service will use a top-of –the-line HEPA filtered vacuum to keep your home healthier.  A maid service that brings its own products and supplies is much more efficient, and can do a better job. One reason this is important is because the maids will be trained to use specific chemicals and tools, and have the right tools for every job. If they need to use your products and supplies, they will have to stop and read labels or re-scan your products over and over to see what is available.

One-Time Cleans. Many maid services will have some time available for one-time cleans.  If you aren’t ready to hire maids on a regular basis, you might consider hiring a maid for heavy wear times, such as holidays or after having guests. Giving yourself a gift of just two or three housecleaning services can help you get through the stress of having parties and guests, or allow you to enjoy your holiday season and feel a bit pampered.  You will want to call weeks in advance to get on their schedule, if not a month in advance, especially for holiday cleaning. Getting a spring clean once a year will help you keep up on your deep cleaning.

Hiring a maid service is certain to lighten your load, and help you keep a healthier and happier home. Call Happy Homes Maid Service for a free estimate at 853.0757.

One-second pick up. When you enter a room to clean it, this rule is vital. Take one minute or less to gather stuff up that doesn’t belong: clutter, shoes, papers, etc. If it is really bad, you can accomplish this task quickly by throwing everything quickly into a bag or bucket. The items can be put away later, but if you get lost in the details of picking up a room, you’ll lose your focus on the task of cleaning it.

Dusting. Grab your high duster and start sweeping your ceilings, lights, and everything that is out of your reach by hand. Then, start hand-dusting and feather dusting in one corner of the room; work clockwise until you have completed the outside of the room, and then dust the center. Picking up items as you go, hand-dust all flat surfaces and furniture with a damp rag. You can use a neutral floor/wood-cleaner to spray your rag damp, or just use a bottle of water. Use your feather duster on those items that are not able to be hand dusted, such as knick-knacks, frames, books, etc. Remember to always damp dust your wood work; your trim pieces around windows and doors, and your baseboards.

Clean the Glass. Use glass cleaner and a cotton rag to clean glass tables, mirrors and picture frames. It is always a good idea to touch-up the inside windows, if needed. If the room has sliding doors, wash both the inside and the outside of these each time the room is cleaned.

Floors. Vacuum your floors with the correct attachment. With carpeting, slowly go over each spot four times (forward, backward, forward, backward). You are not just vacuuming up what you can see, but also trying to get sand and dirt out of the fibers and pad. This is why it is a good investment to buy an excellent vacuum with strong suction. Move everything that is easily movable to vacuum under, such as light chairs, ottomans and baskets. You don’t need to edge your rooms every time you clean them, but you need to do it regularly, such as every other month. Carpet will start to build up dust and gunk around the edges if they aren’t vacuumed with an edge attachment. If your room has wood or hard floors; damp-mop them now.

Finishing Touches. Remember to leave your room in order before you leave it. Put pillows back where they belong, stack magazines and straighten other items you may have moved, fold blankets, return rugs, straighten chairs, close doors, and turn out lights.
Isn’t it funny how people notice when things are messy, dirty, and out of place, but if a home is clean and in order, no one notices? Ah, well. A house of order is a peaceful place to come home to.

The first thing to do in preparation is to gather your professional tools. Happy Homes’ tools include vinyl gloves, professional toilet bowl chemical, disinfectant, a bowl scrubber, rags or paper towels, and a pumice stone. Professional companies such as ours always use rags to clean the toilets because they are cleaning hundreds of rags a day, and it makes more fiscal sense. I use paper towels when I am cleaning at home, because I only clean 3 toilets a day, and it makes more sense to me to not have gross rags go through my washing machine that also cleans my clothing.

Our professional maids spray the toilets with disinfectant and douse the bowls with toilet bowl chemical when they first enter a bathroom to clean it. The reason is that professional disinfectant requires 10 minutes of soaking in order to be effective against bacteria. The maids move on to dusting and other bathroom jobs and let the chemical do its work before coming back to the toilet. So, start with your chemicals and let them work for 10 minutes.

Grab a clean rag or paper towel, and start wiping the toilet down from the top of the tank to the bottom of the bowl. Be efficient with your towel or rag by folding and re-folding it to keep using clean surfaces until it is all used up. I go through a handful of paper towels when I clean a single toilet.

Clean every surface thoroughly from the tank to the base, and especially concentrate on the spot where the lid attaches to the base. Be sure to lift up the plastic pieces that cover the lid screws and clean inside those spaces. The base of the toilet is another spot that often gets ignored and really needs detailed attention.

To clean the bowl like a professional maid, get your toilet bowl scrubber and scrub the entire surface of the bowl. Flush the water to fill the bowl with clean water, and then lower the water by plunging your toilet bowl scrubber down into the hold a few times. Inspect your bowl now to see if there is material in the bowl that was missed, or a ring at the water line.

If you have a ring, use your pumice stone to do the work. Always give the underside of the toilet rim a good scrubbing with the pumice stone because the water inlets build up with deposits. Remember to use your pumice stone wet.

Flush the bowl again so the toilet water is clean. This gives you the opportunity to look again at the bowl and make sure it is finished. Our professional maids check over the entire toilet once more before calling their job done. As the last finishing touch, fold your toilet paper into a triangle (it looks a lot like an envelope lid), and your throne will be cleaned like a professional! Take a curtsy.

For more tips and tricks on how to clean your house, or certain things inside your house, visit Happy Homes Maids, a Boise house cleaning company. Visit our website to read more articles in our Boise house cleaning blog.

· To safeguard you and your loved ones, we daily use HEPA vacuums and reusable microfiber dusting cloths and mops—preferred by the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, that reduce impact on the environment and your health.

· Since 2000, we’ve protected our Happy Homes family and yours by using highly-concentrated household cleaners that require less to clean more. That means reduced exposure for our housekeepers and your family. These concentrated cleaners also reduce packaging and shipping, reducing the use of fossil fuels for a decreased carbon footprint.

· Recycling is an important business practice too, and at Happy Homes we embrace it as another element of our Green Clean Program. Reusing these cleaning bottles also allows us to conserve the resources of our planet.

· Keeping germs and harmful bacteria away from your family requires using disinfectants. That’s why Happy Homes recommends allowing residential maids to use our concentrated, disinfectant house cleaner during, at least, your initial house cleaning. For some customers that may not be acceptable.

· Our flexible green cleaning services take your preferences into account. Happy Homes can use all green cleaning products, or we could alternate the use of disinfectants and green house cleaners. For example, that could mean using disinfectants in your bathroom during your weekly cleaning service, or rotating the use of green cleaning products with disinfectants in that room, or any other room, of your home. Please call us to customize your clean.

It’s your home. We’ll clean it your way!

Customize your green clean at your initial in-home estimate, or call us at 853-0757 for any revisions!

A Happy Homes clean home is a healthier home for you and your family.