Maid Molly - Molly Maid Cleaning Handbook: The Complete Guide to a Clean House

CLEANING
HANDBOOK

CLEANING
HANDBOOK

The Complete Guide to a Clean House

MOLLY MAID EXPERTS

PENGUIN
CANADA

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

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First published 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright MOLLY MAID International Inc., 2009

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Manufactured in Canada.

ISBN: 978-0-14-317204-8

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request to the publisher.

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When we started this company, our daughters were four and two. Cleaning experiments in our home were part of their lives as they watched while Mom and Dad searched for the most efficient ways of organizing the MOLLY MAID cleaning process. Over the ensuing years they would witness professionally uniformed maid teams improving that process with video-graphers present for the new MOLLY MAID franchise training video.

Our home was where it all started and where it continued for several years, as we trained maids, supervisors, managers, and franchise owners alike. And when MOLLY MAID went international, Adrienne trained the new foreign owners in our cleaning process right in our home as well. They needed to start by learning our business from the customers point of view.

Kimberly and Christine are now thirty-four and thirty-two and look upon MOLLY MAID as the sister they grew up with, ever-present and always growing with exciting new developments and accomplishments, just as they themselves have. Today Kimberly is a psychologist and Christine is a writer/producer in the film industry. MOLLY MAID is a multinational business with over six hundred franchises that clean approximately two million homes per year, one home at a time.

For nearly thirty years, each member of the international MOLLY MAID team has been part of the continual process of learning ways to improve the customer service experience. Weve always said The customer is part of our team because we make a point of learning his or her needs, whether through a general discussion while were cleaning their home or through customer feedback and focus groups.

We are proud to share the benefit of our experience in our customers homes through this book. And we hope that it helps to create the mood that you strive for in your home as you serve the needs of each member of your family.

Adrienne and Chris Stringer,
MOLLY MAID founders

MOLLY MAID has been cleaning houses for a long timeand weve perfected a strategic and efficient method for tackling all the chores that need to be done. Our method is sensible, environmentally preferable, and designed to keep your house clean and help make your life easier. (And you cant get neater than that!)

The company started in 1979 in Mississauga, Ontarioand its a wonderful success story. As modern life was becoming busier and busier, our founders, Adrienne Stringer, a nurse, and her husband, Chris Stringer, saw a need for a home cleaning service to help people just like them. They decided to start one: MOLLY MAID would be a high-quality housecleaning service, delivered by a team of professionally trained and uniformed cleaners. Adrienne settled on recognizable pink and blue corporate colours, and Chris decided that staff would drive company-branded cars.

And the name? Heres where it gets really fun. MOLLY MAID was named after The Unsinkable Molly Brown, a popular movie in the 1960s starring Debbie Reynolds. What you may not know is that Molly (her real name was Margaret) Brown was born on July 18, 1867, and spent her life surviving obstacles to become a famous socialite and activist. The movie shows how she survived a flood that consumed her family when she was baby (hence the description Unsinkable). Then, as a poor teenager and young woman, Molly used her indomitable determination to rise above lifes hurdles and accomplish her goals. She capped her extraordinary life by being a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. Molly was on the British luxury passenger liner en route to New York from Southampton, England, when it hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912. It was Mollys spirit and drive for accomplishment that the Stringers wanted for their new endeavour, and MOLLY MAID was born.

In England, Molly is a name for a trustworthy figureand that fits the company to a T as well!

Just one year after the Stringers started MOLLY MAID, Jim MacKenzie, the current chairman and CEO of the company, and other individuals still active on its board of directors invested in the business because they believed the idea was a good one. And they were right. MOLLY MAID has grown exponentially in Canada and around the world. Today the company has hundreds of franchisees the world over.

Incidentally, the Stringers remain involved. Adrienne Stringer served as a franchise trainer for the first ten years, and she and Chris still attend company functions and actively support franchisees.

The success of MOLLY MAID, which is now the most recognized name in the cleaning industry, has always been associated with quality. Of course, from day one the company realized that the people who most represent itthe cleaning teams who visit our customers homes regularlywould always be the most important part of the service. And they still are, as they provide unparalleled housecleaning to thousands of Canadians each and every day.

At the same time, MOLLY MAID has expanded not only across Canada but also into the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Portugal. This year alone, the company will perform more than two million home cleanings!

And we want to do the very best job every time. MOLLY MAID has a comprehensive training program, and all our Home Service Professionals (HSPs) pass the test for their cleaning acumen and enthusiasm. This guarantees consistency across the company in cleaning methods and products. All staff follow the same practical, functional cleaning system in every room of the houseand thats what we want to share with you in this book.