STYLE NOTES
Deep Cleaning Your House is All the Rage The demand for professional housekeeping tends to dip during the post-holiday months of January and February. But the spread of the COVID-19 during the late winter and early spring months this year impacted demand as consumers panicked. The two or three months that most Central Ohioans spent locked down created more demand as many began to work and cook at home. Continued concerns about keeping the coronavirus out of the house then had homeowners welcoming back housecleaners and demanding deeper cleans. “We’re spending more time disinfecting surfaces as part of our regular cleaning,” 12
says Pablo Freitas, owner of the Brazilian Cleaning Solutions in Lewis Center. “We disinfect the places people touch the most,” such as fixtures, countertops, switch plates, vanities and doorknobs. Even deeper cleaning involves windows, carpeting, appliances, doors and baseboards. Columbus Merry Maids co-owner and operations manager Jill Eberhardt said housecleaning services have become more cognizant of cleaning their equipment and changing vacuum filters before entering the next client’s housing in a bid to reduce the spread and exposure of COVID and other pathogens. Of course, the cleaning staff wears masks and shoe covers
COLUMBUS MONTHLY HOME & GARDEN FALL/WINTER 2020-21
along with gloves. “We’re taking extra precautions,” Eberhardt says. Rosemary Stader of Elite Home Cleaners and Michael Levy of You’ve Got It Maid agree that they have iimproved the sanitizing chemicals used as deep cleaning becomes more of a basic service. “You have to protect the client and make them feel more comfortable,” Levy says. Stader says deep cleaning has an attraction with more and more adults working from home and even school-age children spending part of their class time on the computer at home. “The home’s becoming dirtier because more people are in the home longer, with a lot more activity,” Strader adds.
ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK.COM/IRINA GRISKOVA
BY BRIAN R. BALL
