Cleaning Was Always The Number One Option

I have probably read a hundred cleaning-related blogs (I don’t exaggerate, it is a kind of lame hobby), and it is easy to notice the common thread. Even successful cleaners with long years in the industry or business owners admit that cleaning came their way accidentally or wasn’t their dream job and first choice. I guess I will have to be the exception that proves the rule.

Hi, my name is Marie Wynter, and I have been an end of tenancy cleaner in one of the most successful local teams in Wimbledon for nearly fifteen years. I’ve got so many funny and interesting stories to tell, but I decided my first blog post to be about my background and how cleaning has almost been my destiny since the cradle.

My story begins even before I was born in 1984. My mother was a chemical engineer (she retired a few years ago) who created the formula for one of the UK’s most successful and well-known floor-cleaning detergents. My Dad was a cleaning entrepreneur who started his first business at age 23 en route to becoming one of the leading carpet-cleaning specialists in South West London. Some of their good friends jokingly called them “The Wimbledon power couple of cleaning”, and while I didn’t understand what it meant, I do remember people visiting our house to ask Dad for professional advice – both technical and career-related.

I had my first cleaning job when I was seven years old (I kid you not!). Actually, my Mom doesn’t know about this, so I hope she doesn’t read this blog – otherwise, Dad will be in trouble. He picked me up from school, and we were supposed to go cake-hunting for Mom’s birthday, but he had squeezed in a “quick” carpet-washing appointment. I ended up helping him pour the detergents, move small items around, and ensure the rotating cleaner’s cable did not get all tangled up. Only later did I find out that he had ordered the cake in advance and everything had gone according to plan – no problem with me, I had a royal time running after the carpet cleaning machine.

By the time I was thirteen, I often accompanied him on cleaning appointments during the weekends. While my classmates and friends were obsessing about the latest Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movies, I could explain the difference between steam washing and hot water extraction, what was the best way to treat a fresh coffee stain, how not to clean a window, or how to communicate with a landlord for a tenancy cleaning job. Of course, at this age, I just wanted to spend more time with my Dad, but in retrospect, I recognise that the world of professional cleaning had become a natural part of my everyday life.

If I took my love for cleaning from my Dad, I inherited the ability to analyse a problem from every angle using logical arguments from my Mom. She used to tease Dad that he was the muscle and she was the brains of the operation, which rarely elicited a negative response. In my last year in high school, I had already decided – I wanted to be a professional cleaner. I had analysed the issue and prepared my arguments for the whirlwind I was about to face.

To my surprise, the negative reaction came from Dad. He had always seen me accompanying him at cleaning jobs as the perfect way to spend more time with his only child, not picking up the trade. At first, he waved it off as a momentary whim, then tried to talk me out of it for hours. It was a back-breaking job; I could achieve so much more if I put my mind to anything else, and so on. But he could not answer a simple question: If the job was so bad, why had he done it for nearly thirty years with such delight and success? Finally, he resignedly waved his hand, saying, “You are just like your Mom, there is no chance of winning an argument with you!”

Mom’s initial support compounded my surprise. Years later, she admitted that she had expected my infatuation with cleaning to run its course in a few months, and I returned to my senses. So she asked Dad to back off.
If that was their plan, it misfired royally. I started working as a domestic cleaner for one of London’s leading home cleaning agencies in 2004. Three years later, I switched to end of tenancy cleaning, which professionals in the industry consider somewhat of a “horizontal promotion”.

In 2008, I received an offer I could not refuse – to join a Wimbledon start-up as a crew supervisor and build something from the ground up. Life has a twisted sense of irony – I had watched dozens of young professionals come to visit my Dad for advice, and now I was about to do the same.

By then, his anger and disappointment with my career choice had dissipated. They had given way to surprise and then silent pride in my advancement. So when I found him in the backyard of our house (he had taken up gardening, of all hobbies), he didn’t have much to say. “Most kids who came for advice back in the day didn’t know what they wanted. They had stumbled upon cleaning and were surprised they were good at it or wanted a shortcut to easy money. You are neither. You have a true heart and a good head on your shoulders, follow your gut, and it will tell you the right answer.”

There, in thirty seconds, was the jump start to where I am today. It was the best professional advice I could have wanted, given by the person most responsible for my career path. And while I don’t believe in fate or predestination, cleaning barely had an alternative.