Sunday, March 8, 2009
Squeaky Green Mission Statement
Squeaky Green Housekeeping is a cleaning service using all non-toxic, life-friendly products to keep you and your home healthy. SGH encourages clients to make conscientious, ethical and wise choices about their home and lifestyle by providing a variety of environmentally sustainable services and products. Through this blog, SGH will inform clients and a network of housekeepers of faster, easier, cheaper and greener ways of keeping a health home. Soon enough, as an employer, SGH hopes to empower young people (notably but not exclusively women) by providing a comfortable living wage, positive work environment, life skills and an entrepreneurial spirit.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Why a Green Cleaning Business?
While I was away at college in Vancouver, Canada, I wasn't able to work legally since I wasn't a citizen. So, I put an ad on Craigslist saying I was looking for extra cash and could do just about anything around the house. I worked under the table digging trenches, cleaning toilets, pulling weeds, making weekly lunches and watching kids. I met plenty of people in the community that really needed an extra hand. I knew I was taking care of them through my service as much as they were taking care of me through my paycheck.
But I had conflicting ideologies. I was in my "romanticizing poverty" phase. While I thought it was cool I didn't have to pay taxes, I also felt like my work was illegitimate. I had a lot of philosophies about how the people I was working for were just looking for cheap labor because I was (technically speaking) an immigrant. I felt like I was cleaning homes that I would never possibly be able to afford based on what I was being paid. I felt like I was enabling laziness. I can remember clearly, showing up one day and seeing the plumber, landscaper and dog walker there at the same time. We really were working for The Man, just on a microcosmic scale.
I struggled with the the question: is working as a housekeeper anti-feminist? (a topic I have a lot of ideas on and want to talk about later). If I had a college degree and a strict feminist ethic, what was I thinking, doing typically devalued "women's work?"
Now I can laugh about those negative attitudes because I have learned the real value of my work and connection to the community. I know that helping a client keep a clean and healthy home is in fact enabling a more productive and sustainable lifestyle, not laziness.
After I left Vancouver I traveled for a few years, finally landing back in SLC. I've had quite a few jobs since then: nanny, yoga instructor, wrangler, sales bitch at an art supply store. I quit my job at the art supply store because I was written up for trying to implement a recycling plan since the company didn't have anything in place. That was the last straw. After that, I knew there was no way I would ever feel satisfied working for someone who didn't share my same respect for the wellbeing of our planet.
I decided I needed to make a living on my own terms; start my own business. I went back to housekeeping for community members. Shortly after I started, I realized that my years of moving towards an organic lifestyle had made me very sensitive to the chemical cleaning products I was using from under my clients' sinks. Then I heard that the air inside your house can be up to 5 times more toxic than the air outside due to all chemicals products we use to keep "clean." I started using earth friendly and home-made cleaning products and was pleasantly surprised that the sinks shined more, the homes stayed cleaner, and my hands and lungs were much healthier because there was no toxic chemical residue.
Providing an excellent standard of care for my clients' homes is my main reason for running a green cleaning business. On top of that, is a desire to impact my community and my planet in a positive way by prospering as an environmentally responsible and sustainable business, providing alternatives to poisonous lifestyle choices and influencing my clients to treat themselves and their Earth kinder.
But I had conflicting ideologies. I was in my "romanticizing poverty" phase. While I thought it was cool I didn't have to pay taxes, I also felt like my work was illegitimate. I had a lot of philosophies about how the people I was working for were just looking for cheap labor because I was (technically speaking) an immigrant. I felt like I was cleaning homes that I would never possibly be able to afford based on what I was being paid. I felt like I was enabling laziness. I can remember clearly, showing up one day and seeing the plumber, landscaper and dog walker there at the same time. We really were working for The Man, just on a microcosmic scale.
I struggled with the the question: is working as a housekeeper anti-feminist? (a topic I have a lot of ideas on and want to talk about later). If I had a college degree and a strict feminist ethic, what was I thinking, doing typically devalued "women's work?"
Now I can laugh about those negative attitudes because I have learned the real value of my work and connection to the community. I know that helping a client keep a clean and healthy home is in fact enabling a more productive and sustainable lifestyle, not laziness.
After I left Vancouver I traveled for a few years, finally landing back in SLC. I've had quite a few jobs since then: nanny, yoga instructor, wrangler, sales bitch at an art supply store. I quit my job at the art supply store because I was written up for trying to implement a recycling plan since the company didn't have anything in place. That was the last straw. After that, I knew there was no way I would ever feel satisfied working for someone who didn't share my same respect for the wellbeing of our planet.
I decided I needed to make a living on my own terms; start my own business. I went back to housekeeping for community members. Shortly after I started, I realized that my years of moving towards an organic lifestyle had made me very sensitive to the chemical cleaning products I was using from under my clients' sinks. Then I heard that the air inside your house can be up to 5 times more toxic than the air outside due to all chemicals products we use to keep "clean." I started using earth friendly and home-made cleaning products and was pleasantly surprised that the sinks shined more, the homes stayed cleaner, and my hands and lungs were much healthier because there was no toxic chemical residue.
Providing an excellent standard of care for my clients' homes is my main reason for running a green cleaning business. On top of that, is a desire to impact my community and my planet in a positive way by prospering as an environmentally responsible and sustainable business, providing alternatives to poisonous lifestyle choices and influencing my clients to treat themselves and their Earth kinder.
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