CLEANING UP

Terri Brown has a degree in international travel and tourism from the Sanford Brown Business College in St. Louis. She even worked in the industry for a few months.

"I just couldn't sit still," said Brown. "Dressing up every day for work, wearing all that makeup -- that's just not me."

While working at a local travel agency, Brown was cleaning houses on the side with a friend, to make some extra money.

But when she left her job to started her own cleaning company, Peerless Cleaning Service, Brown's moonlighting became a new career.

"When I was growing up, my mother was a fanatic about cleaning," Brown said. "She taught me well, maybe too well. Now I have trouble finding people who will do the job that I would do."

But Brown employs five others to clean homes and businesses in the area.

Brown's cleaning service got off the ground by word of mouth -- the same way she gets many of her clients today. A listing in the yellow pages of the phone book put her over the top.

"If I'm going to take on more clients, I'm going to have to hire more help," she said.

Even as she spoke with a reporter in the kitchen of her Cape Girardeau home, a woman called insisting upon Brown's services. The woman explained that she has a friend whose house Brown currently cleans.

"If I had more time, I could do more," said Brown. "Clients have a hard time accepting the fact that I can't be there on all the jobs.

"So I will work alongside my employees for a few weeks, until the people get to know and trust them," she said.

Brown said the bulk of her clients aren't wealthy, but rather working class people who do not have time for upkeep of their homes.

"I only clean one monster-house," said Brown. "It has seven bathrooms and takes me four hours a week just to maintain.

"The rest are homes where both parents work all day and don't want to come home and clean the house."

Terri Woods also owns and operates a cleaning business, but unlike Brown, she only cleans houses.

"There's a big demand out there for good cleaning services," Woods said. "A lot of places are just doing businesses now -- that's where the money is -- and people can't get them to come in and clean their homes."

Woods said that "really normal people" are having their homes cleaned today.

"People out in the work force just don't have time to clean their houses themselves," she said. "They want just the basic stuff done -- vacuuming, dusting."

Fridays, weekends and the holidays are the busiest time for house-cleaning companies, Woods said.

"Right now we're booked," she said. "If I were to take on more houses, I would have to hire more people."

Brown said clients want to spend a certain amount each week, and others want certain things cleaned inside their homes.

"A lot of people want to pay $30 per week to have their house cleaned," said Brown. "That's an hour and a half for two people.

"Usually with that kind of set up, we need to come in twice a year to do the extras -- like the baseboards, the door frames, the windows, the edge of the carpet, heat registers, cabinet fronts, the oven, the vanity; things like that," she said.

Most people will pick up the house before the cleaning crew arrives, Brown said.

"People don't want to pay $10 per hour to have me pick up after their kids," she said.

When she cleans a home, Brown will "split supplies" with the homeowner.

"When I go into a place, I take one caddy filled with my supplies, and an empty caddy, which I fill with the owner's supplies," she said. "I keep one caddy, and one of my employees keeps the other as we clean the house. It really saves time and keeps us from running back and forth to share the Windex.

"I also insist that the homeowner have their own vacuum for me to use," Brown said.

If a person is not happy with the work or wants something done in a certain way, Brown insists that her clients tell her up front.

"We really try and do things their way," said Brown. "Sometimes people like a certain cleaner or type of mop, which is perfectly reasonable. It's their houses.

"When I first started out, I couldn't sleep at night if I thought I had missed something -- no matter how small it might have been," she said. "There have been times when I have gone back to a place the next day to dust a television set or to dust under a cabinet which I had forgotten."

What does Brown clean most?

"No one likes to clean the bathroom or mop the floors," she said. "We also do a lot of dusting and vacuuming."

But there are also things Brown does not do.

"We don't do steam cleaning or carpet cleaning, and I don't do linen service," she said. "You would be surprised how many people ask for things like that; you have to draw the line somewhere."

Brown does all the accounting for her company -- from payroll to insurance and taxes.

"All my employees are bonded, have workmen's comp and liability insurance," she said. "That really means a lot to people -- knowing if something happens, we're covered."

With house cleaning services, you get exactly what you pay for, Brown said.

"If you need someone who is dependable, reliable and who you can trust to do the work you want, when you want it, you're going to pay a little more," she said.

"It's been the hardest thing I've ever done building this business," she said. "I'm very proud of the work that I do.

"I've learned that you have to take the good with the bad. Some people you're never going to please."

Brown has made a living of cleaning other people's homes and businesses, but when it comes to her own, it's another story.

"If I could come home and just clean, that would be one thing," she said. "But the laundry machine is going, the phone is ringing, I have to pick everything up, and it's just a real chore."

Woods also hates to clean her own home, as well.

"My husband is an electrician," she said. "I ask him if, when he comes home, he feels like running wires through the house, He understands."