The Secret is Out! Vinegar cleans and disinfects!

I have finally decided to reveal the final super ingredient that we use for house cleaning. The secret is out!

The grand thing about vinegar is that it goes so nicely with all of our other products. You can make a cocktail with dish soap and water. Put a little Bon Ami on a sponge, and no worries! You don't get any toxic fumes like you do when you mix other products. For some jobs, we spray vinegar directly onto the surface or on our sponge. Vinegar has acidic properties that are useful for cutting through grease, lime, and vinegar also disinfects and kills harmful bacteria. We mix vinegar with essence of lemon to make it more fragrant. Click on the following link for 1001 uses of vinegar.

How to communicate to your Hispanic house cleaners

Here are some very important Spanish words:

sigame = follow me
pon = put
limpia = clean
sucio = dirty
talla = scrub
otra vez = again
con cuidado = carefully

Ways to reward your maids or house cleaners
You can say:

good job = buen trabajo
excellent = excelente
fabulous = fabuloso
incredible = increible

What you can buy:

sweet bread = pan dulce
Mexican hot chocolate = champurrado
Mexican cornbread stuffed with meat = tamales

I hope you can use this!

My Maid Uses Liquid Bleach and Won't Stop

If you have asked your house cleaners to stop using Bleach and they continue to use Bleach, you need to be assertive. There are a lot of cleaners that think that they need chemicals to clean. They are WRONG! Especially when it comes to everyday cleaning. I have worked with house cleaning "professionals" that clean everything first with a multipurpose spray or degreaser, then Comet or Ajax, then Bleach, and finally Fabuloso.

Why do all this cleaning with three different chemicals when you can do the same job with just dish soap. Just put a dab of soap on a Scotch -Bright sponge, spread the soap around, then rinse it with water or wipe it down with a cloth. For those tough jobs, use Bon Ami and a scrub brush. You can clean anything with this combination. 

Think to yourself, what's more important, the safety of my family, or having a chemically cleaned home. If your cleaners persist on using chemicals, you need to tell them, that it is NOT ok! If they persist, then you can call Aloha. We use mostly natural biodegradable products. Say goodbye to bleach and hello to clean and safe! Say hello to Aloha!

How to be a Green House Cleaner

How to go GREEN

Most jobs can be handled with dish soap and a scotch bright sponge. For more difficult jobs, you will need brushes. The more brushes you have the better. When we go to clean a house, we always fill our buckets with soap for all our basic cleaning needs. We prefer Dawn, because it smells nice, and also works well on windows. We also carry Bon Ami. Bon Ami is a non chemical scrubbing agent that has been around for over a century and has very similar qualities as Ajax and Comet. More important, we always carry brushes.

Here is how you clean the dirtiest of stains. For every job, you want to start with degreaser and a scotch bright sponge. If that doesn't work, you have to scrub. Just apply the Bon Ami on the mark or stain, and then scrub with a brush. This has worked for centuries. I know that their are many chemicals that will give you the same results, but consider the consequences. 

In the same time that you wait for chemicals to do the work for you, you can scrub out stains much faster. You will benefit from the exercise, and you will also be safe from breathing in deadly chemicals such as chlorine and hydrogen peroxide. This works on all surfaces and any room. 

How to choose a home fragrance soap

HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION
POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS
EYE CONTACT: Causes eye irritation on direct contact.
SKIN CONTACT: May cause skin irritation on prolonged or repeated contact.
INGESTION: May be harmful if swallowed in large quantities. 
                                
INHALATION: Overexposure may cause respiratory tract irritation. 

Have you ever asked yourself why the smell of Fabuloso is so strong? The same people who clean with bleach also like the toxic cover- up, Fabuloso. Fabuloso is the only chemical that can cover the toxic stench that is left behind when you use bleach. We don't recommend fabuloso. If you want a fragrance cleaner, there are plenty of non toxic biodegradable fragrance cleaners.

We like Festival products. They are cheap, environmental friendly, and they offer a variety of aromas. There are many other fragrance soap products, but the others are much more expensive. You can by over a gallon of Festival at home depot for less than $7.

How to use:

1. Add a small portion of Festival heavily diluted with water
2. Use your mop to mix fragrance soap with water
3. We recommend using a deck mop, or traditional cotton 4ply yarn mop
4. Can also be used as a final touch up on the bath tub, toilet, or shower.

Why you shouldn't use bleach to clean your house!

Bleach STINKS!

Almost every house I have gone into has stains on the carpet. They always come from either their pets, or house cleaners who are carrying their equipment from one bathroom to another. Most often, the culprit is Bleach. Bleach always has a way of finding its way out of bottles and onto the floor. 

Bleach has left it's mark in many places, including the minds of the stubborn and insane. Did you know that Bleach has poisoned more children than any other household chemical? 

Some people are addicted to bleach. Maybe it's the strong fumes that have killed their brain cells. With the many products out there, why would anyone in their right mind choose bleach?

What's amazing about the cleaning industry, is everyone seems to think that the answer for keeping your house clean is a magic potion. The truth is, even with bleach, you still need to scrub, you still need to wipe, and you still need to search for dirt in hidden places.

My alternative is this, a Scotch Bright sponge, some dish soap, some brushes, cloths, and to scrub those marks and stains, I recommend, Bona Mi. With this combination, you can clean dirt, dust, bacteria, and mold, and you don't even have to STINK!

How to find the perfect mop

The Traditional Mop

When I started this business, I thought the best thing that I had bought was the Bona mop. I did a ton of advertising telling the world that we had the world's best mop. The Bona mop cost me $50. It misted as I mopped. I thought I had the best floor cleaner in the country. The problem was, everyone told me it wasn't cleaning their floors.

After many complaints, I listened to one of my clients. She said, the best mops are the traditional mops with the twisted cotton threads.

Here's why. When you mop with other mops, you are told it is best to push back and forth, like a vacuum. When you push back and forth, you are just pressing dirt further into the floor. With the traditional mop, it is best used if you sweep it from side as you walk backwards.

I usually make a figure eight, in order to ensure that I am collecting all the dust particles and hairs. While I am moving the mop from side to side, it absorbs dirt. The dirt becomes caught in the threading while pressing soap into and along the surface of the floor. This mop is not to be lifted, but instead pulled. With the traditional mop, you can reach under furniture. It is difficult to handle at first, but it is the best way to clean the floor. Here is how to use the mop.

1. First, sweep the floor really well
2. Fill a bucket with water and soap. If you floor is really dirty, you will need a degreaser. We like Dawn dish soap. For fragrance, we like Festival Caribbean Breeze All Purpose Cleaner
3. Press the mop inside the bucket 
4. Ring the mop with both hands
5. Walk backwards as you pass the mop from side to side. Start from one side of the room and work towards the other.

Now your floors should be all nice and clean. For Wood floors, try to ring the water out of the mop as best as you can. Too much water can cause the wood to swell. Use a mop that is soft and has no metal or plastic parts, because hard parts can scratch wood flooring.