That Time We Talked to a House Cleaner

This is episode number 66 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams. Hello, hello, hello.

Welcome to The Homeowner Show. I wasn't talking to you, Kev.

Back off for a second. You jumped in last time. I thought it was my turn.

I'm talking to the peoples. All right, we're glad you guys could join us today. We got a great episode. Kev, how you doing, man?

I'm good.

It's appropriate for you to speak now.

Yeah, okay, thanks. Yeah, now that I have permission, uh, man, I'm doing really good. It was, it was great, um, being gone for Thanksgiving for a week and being with family. And you caddoed it up. Yes, I did.

Yeah.

Yep.

You fall in the lake?

No.

Did you push anybody in the lake?

Not this year.

And I don't want to hear anything else about it.

Um, although one of, one of the funniest things that I can remember Is whenever, uh, my dog Raider— you remember Raider?

Right.

Um, he, he turned around and knocked my wife off the pier into the lake.

He just turned around.

He didn't realize she was there. He turned around and his back end just bloop, there she was in the lake.

Did he even look like remorseful at all?

Oh no, he was kind of like, oh, that looks like fun. And I think he went in after her.

Nice.

Yeah.

Well, at least he tried to rescue her.

Yeah.

Good.

Yeah, of course it was all about, you know, 2 feet deep right there, but still, it was, it was fun. It was fun.

So good deal, man.

How are you? Good.

Yeah, this weather in— it's Texas, man. It's weird.

It is super weird.

It's like freezing and then like 80 degrees during the day.

Yeah, it gets cold at night.

I, I go to work in a jacket and I come home with like shirtless.

Exactly. So Well, don't, don't come to my house shirtless, please.

Well, last time it didn't happen so well, so—

No, it didn't.

People on the golf course were rioting. There was a line for autographs.

Oh my goodness. Wow. Well, speaking of, uh, my house, yeah, I, I should tell you, um, since the weather has been so weird, I'm kind of at this point where I've never winterized my sprinkler system and Even though we did a whole episode. We did a whole episode telling everybody that you should. I just never have.

Yeah. And do what I say, not what I do.

Exactly.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna listen to my own, my own words and I'm gonna go out here and I'm gonna winterize my sprinkler system, which it's really not all that difficult to do. But the first step in the process is you go and you shut off the water to your sprinkler system, right? The second thing is you simply just run the, run the zones and essentially get most of the water out right now. There are some other things that some people want to do, but here in Houston, that's really all we have to do. I couldn't find the shutoff. I don't, I don't have a shutoff.

No shutoff?

No shutoff. I mean, I have a water meter, and normally the shutoff will either be near the meter Or it'll be near the backflow preventer, right? So I go over to the—

There's no shutoff on the backflow preventer?

No.

That's crazy.

Yeah. So I, I went over to the meter and I start looking around. There's, there's no other— most of the time it's in like a, a 6-inch, uh, little— there's, there's a lid with like a 6-inch hole, right? And you just pull the lid off and there's a knob, turn the knob off. I look around, there's nothing else. So I go over to the backflow preventer and, oh, about a foot and a half, maybe 2 feet away, there's a little 6-inch lid. Take the lid off, there's wiring in there and there's nothing else. Nothing else, right? So that's obviously a zone, uh, deal. So, um, I, I call Samir.

I was supposed to say, yeah, call Samir.

So with Greenscape landscaping. And, um, he was on like episode, what, 4 or 5? 5 or 6. Yeah, it was early. And, um, called Samir and he was like, dude, that— it's, it's gonna be in one of those 2 places. And I said, okay, well, what if it's not? He said, well, you may not have one. So what do you mean I may not have one? He said, well, some— sometimes they put them in without them, especially here in Houston, because it doesn't freeze. It doesn't freeze. And even if it does— and this is something that that I try to explain to people. If it freezes for a night and the next day it gets back above freezing, you don't have to worry about your pipes. They're not, they're not going to bust. I mean, it's just,

it's a few hours. I mean, prolonged freezing temperatures will cause a problem.

We have like 2 or 3 days.

You have to have—

Which has happened, sure, but it's very rare.

Yeah, and even still, most of the piping is, you know, 6 inches deep and it's, it's not gonna get to it.

Yeah. Um, so anyway, um, I can just imagine like Connie and Bruce from, uh, Unlocking the Magic up there in New England right now, just like, we hate you people.

Yeah. Oh yeah. They're probably snowed in. They probably can't leave their house right now.

Yeah. Just, just hunker down.

Exactly.

Exactly. September.

Right. Well, awful. So anyway, um, I guess that's one less thing I have to do.

So, I mean, so you're not gonna put one in?

Well, I, I mean, I guess I could, but yeah, it's been 2 years and I haven't had a problem yet. So I don't know, I'm gonna have to think through that a little bit.

I've had that, I've had that backflow, backflow preventer blow on me, man. Yeah, when it's cold outside, that's just the worst.

Yeah. So, well, actually, um, this is interesting. So I did a little research because remember we were talking on that episode about Uh, that the faucet bibs are just about as good as you can get around here.

Yeah.

Um, well, they make those for backflow preventers, and you just— it's basically like a large, you know, insulated sack that you just put over the top of it to help insulate that thing as well. So I'm thinking about getting one of those.

I tell you what I might invest in is like one of those, uh, like $7 SharkBites. You know, in case it does blow, you can just cut that line and put it on there.

Yeah, that way it's Handy.

Yeah, I mean, it's not a long-term solution, but it'll at least get it done.

It'll work till Samir can get out there.

That's right.

Yeah, so anyway.

Yeah, so we got— we have a really cool episode for you guys today. We're gonna be talking about home cleaning with my good friend Chelsea from J. Bean Services. Did I say that right?

Yes.

Awesome.

So as long as I get it right, the rest of the show will be okay.

Yep, it'll be fine. I asked her if it was Mr. Bean Services.

Mr. Bean?

She said it was not.

It was not.

But the humor is there.

Okay.

The humor is there.

It's in the spirit of Mr. Bean. Yes.

Yeah. Well, cool. Well, Chelsea, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into the cleaning business.

Oh Lord, it's kind of a long story. Okay, we got time. So we're just gonna shorten this up as best I can.

Okay.

Well, as part of my services is doing pet care. And I've actually been doing animal caretaking for about 8 to 9 years. And that's how it kind of all got started. But that started in Phoenix, Arizona. And that's where I'm from. So—

A little bit drier.

A little bit. Oh, I will never go back. I say that, but then, you know.

Oh man. See, I love, I love the no humidity. I love it.

I guess I'm weird. I prefer it.

Yeah.

I absolutely prefer it.

It's fine. We can still be friends.

Um, it's very thirsty over there. I feel very thirsty.

Okay, I can see that.

Um, but no, I— when I married my husband, we came to, uh, Texas for just a little bit because my dream was always to live in a tiny house and kind of travel the United States. And I actually accomplished my dream. And for the last 2 and a half years, we did full-time RVing, essentially.

Okay, cool.

Well, in between every stop, even in Beaumont, which is where we kind of started before we bought the RV, just as like an odd job or on-the-side thing, I would contact investors and I would go and clean cash homes as-is. Well, they're typically not so pretty homes that people don't typically like cleaning.

Sure.

But because it's an odd job, of course, I would, I wouldn't, I mean, there's nothing, it is going to look immaculate when you're done considering.

Sure. Yeah.

No matter what you do, it's going to look better. So I would just do that as an odd job. And then we went to Asheville, North Carolina, And again, I met with an investor and I somehow got on, you know, sort of his vendor list.

And when you say investor, you're talking about like a real estate investor, right?

Yes. Okay. I believe so.

Guys that own houses investing?

He would— what he would do is buy houses. I would go and clean them. He would either flip it or rent it.

Right.

So a real estate investor. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, let's get my terms right. But yeah, so that's essentially what I would do. And then in North Carolina, that's when I got on with this other guy. Um, I started being on his vendor's list and I'm like, oh, well, this could actually be a thing.

Yeah.

But I always had my pet care, um, business on the side because that's, that's my passion. I really love taking care of animals. And, um, I mean, I don't know where to go with that, but it was just when we moved here. The funny thing is when we moved here to Texas, I vowed I would not start a business. this year. I was going to get a regular 9-to-5er. And, you know, we would have a stable life.

Yeah, because you, I mean, you had a, you had a totally different career path before this, right? I mean, like you were— Oh, yeah.

I wanted to be an executive assistant.

That's what you were doing, right?

Yeah, like an administ— well, no, I have a very strong administrative background.

Okay.

Either working with law firms, or I actually used to process foreclosures. Which was an amazing job because it paid a lot. It was very stable, benefits, the whole nine, corporate America. And that's kind of what I was trying to get back into when we moved back to Texas in January.

Gotcha.

Well, 7 months later, I still don't have a job.

Yeah.

So I kind of fell into this, I guess you could say. But then, I don't know, I just, I'm motivated. I'm seeing how it's working. I love it. I love the connections I've made. It's just, I don't know how to describe it. I'm just so grateful to be, that I made the choice to do it and that I'm doing it and that I'm sticking to it. And it's just, it's amazing. I love it. And now I have a whole nother plan.

Yeah.

Starting next year to build it like Tanya.

Well, I think one of the things that, that's interesting about the way that we even got connected was, you know, I had reached out to you to come on the show because like so many people that I knew were referring you and you were very insistent that like, I'm not coming on your show till I clean your house.

Correct.

Correct. And because I wanted you to To experience it.

Right.

Because I want to, so I think what's different between me and other house cleaners is I really have a very strong integrity.

Yeah.

I genuinely want you to be satisfied. I genuinely want you to not stress.

Yeah.

But I didn't want to come on your show until you got to experience that so that firsthand you could have a personal recommendation or you could personally experience what—

Right.

I do.

Yeah. And I, just to be clear, we don't do pay to play here on the Homeowner Show. So we didn't, no, she didn't have to clean my house to come on the show. No, no, no.

I insisted.

Well, but I, I, I love that about you because I think it says a lot about the type of person that you are. Um, I mean, we growing up, I, I, I feel like I did all the cleaning at my house growing up. Um, all the time.

Does your mom listen to this show?

Yeah.

No.

Okay. But, uh, we, we— my mom did a good job of, of helping us kids know how to clean things.

And so, um, 'cause she's pretty active on social media, we might get some backlash on this. She is.

It's fine. Um, trust me, if I offended her, it won't be the first time. Um, but, uh, but it, you know, I, uh, one of the things that when, when my mom went back to work, uh, full-time, um, After my sister started going to school, we had some house cleaners coming here and there just because timing, right? We, 2 full-time parents and, um, you know, school and extracurriculars, all that kind of stuff. People just don't have time to clean their house.

Right.

And so we would have, we probably had half a dozen different house cleaners come through our house. And some of them were better than others at cleaning. Some of them were better than others at hiding the things that they broke.

Oh my gosh.

And I'm not joking. And so I—

That's, that's terrible.

It's terrible and it's sad. And I think that one of the things that is, is difficult about going out and finding someone to clean your home is different than, than a contractor coming into your house for a project and leaving is you would be coming into this person's house once a week, once every other week, or whatever the, the schedule is. And, and, and you're intimately in all of the stuff.

Yes.

And you're clean. I mean, you're on every surface of the house and you know, there's a lot of anxiety around, you know, that whole process.

So especially if you've never had it done before.

Exactly. And so I think one of the things that I want to hear from you, and, and, uh, you know, I hope our listeners are interested in hearing as well, is walk us through what it looks like for you to come into someone's house. What do you, you know, maybe the first time, it's the first time you're coming into our house, what are you and I going to talk about? And what What types of things should I be able to kind of know upfront, this is the type of person that I'm going to be whenever I'm in your house cleaning your house?

Well, what I do at— I'm going to call that the walkthrough. I do a walkthrough before I actually do a cleaning day typically. There are times where I'll do it before I am able to physically see it. At the walkthrough, what I do is obviously that's an introduction for you to meet me face to face. But it's also developing the energy because sometimes when you talk to someone over the phone or even like through Messenger, it can be conveyed a different way than when you meet them in person.

Mm-hmm.

So I like that intimate level of meeting them in person first because I want you to know me. I want you to trust me. I want you to— we develop that relationship. As far as the technicality of actually walking through the home, I usually point out things that homeowners owners aren't even aware of. For instance, I'm going to use a gal that I did a walkthrough today as an example. She is very particular about her cleaning, but there were things that I was pointing out, for instance, like the tops of your door trims. Most people don't actually look at that. One other area is actually the inside of the door trim. I can't remember what that's called.

The corner or the door jamb?

I think it's the door jamb.

Yeah.

Yeah. So the door jamb.

I like corner.

So no one ever looks at that, but there's actually a lot of dust that accumulates right there. Um, also the striker, or not the striker plate.

Kick plate?

No, the thingy with the thingy.

The thingy with the thingy. Kevin, this sounds more like your territory.

Oh, look, I'm good at what I do, but I don't know the technical terms.

You're obviously talking about the door hinge.

Yes, there you go.

See? I needed an interpreter.

Okay, so there's a lot of dust that collects there.

From henceforth, thingies with the thingies.

All right, door hinges, got it.

There's a lot of dust that accumulates there. And also baseboards. I usually point out, or the top of the refrigerator, or, you know, Some people don't even realize that there's cobwebs inside of their blinds, on the inside, on the upper side, because when you pull your blinds up and down, they don't go all the way up. So you're not going to see the inside of the upper part of that, which is where most cobwebs are.

Right.

I mean, so it makes it— so this is going to sound really weird, but it makes me feel good when I point out things, especially if they're particular about their cleaning. And I can point out things that maybe they weren't aware of or they didn't know about or—

It's an attention to detail thing, right?

Yes, very much. Or underneath certain furnitures, like maybe their current cleaner doesn't move furniture. If it can be moved, it's going to be cleaned, especially with me, because I if I'm going to clean it how I clean my home, I want my home cleaned.

Right. Yeah.

I want it dust-free. I want it clean. And even my girls, when we just had a staff meeting on Wednesday— no, Tuesday. I wasn't invited, so I don't know.

I know.

I'm sorry. We just had a staff meeting at my house and I'm like, okay, I'm sorry. We've been busy, obviously, so I haven't had time to clean my own home. Well, they joke with me because my version of dirty is maybe a few dog toys on the floor.

Right.

From their perspective. But my version of dirty is I didn't get a chance to wipe down the counters today, so they're technically in my brain, not disinfected. So I'm very huge about disinfecting the doors, the light switches, anything that is touchable needs to be disinfected. Especially, I would prefer it every day, but if I'm only there for a weekly, biweekly, whatever, then it has to be disinfected no matter what.

Yeah. Okay.

Helps prevent spread of the flu virus.

Yes. That's right. You're in the disease prevention business. There you go.

Especially right now with everybody getting sick.

Yeah. Well, I know, like, I know one of the things, like when, like when you came in our house, um, which I think some probably are sort of like waiting with bated breath for you to like recognize how weird my house is.

But, uh, it's a paint-by-colors.

I love it. You just need numbers. That's right. That's all you need, just some numbers and finish that painting. Um, one of the— I remember one of the things you told me is like that the dust wasn't going to get under control unless, unless we had a few more cleanings.

Right. That's true.

And it was a lot of that was because it'd been under construction for the last 2 months, 2 and a half months.

Right.

Um, and, and so it was like, that was, that was pretty eye-opening. And it's like, no, this isn't going to happen right away.

You know, and it's very great. I love that you brought that up because most people don't understand from a house cleaner's perspective, we're battling dust. We're battling dander, especially when you've got animals.

Right.

There's no way, especially with the amount of dust with construction cleanup specifically, if you've had construction in your home, it's going to take 2 or 3 cleanings to get all of that dust out. And then again, it's not guaranteed. So, the whole deal is we're going to eliminate as much as we possibly can, as much as we humanly possibly can.

Uh-huh. Yeah.

But, I mean, the fact of the matter is, it is going to take 2 or 3 cleanings to get it under And especially since you had Affordable Air Repair come.

Right.

Um, so I know it's not gonna be recycled dust.

Mm-hmm.

So if there's recycled dust, that's when I refer indoor air quality.

Right.

But if it's not recycled dust, then yeah, in 2 to 3 cleanings, I guarantee you not— no, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, uh-huh, or your money back. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

Yeah.

Well, so how do you, how do you know that it's recycled dust? I mean, like, what would be like a good indication that that's going on?

And what is recycled dust? I mean, is that dust that you take to the recycling bin? Because I really have no idea what that means.

So what that means is basically like, you know how your airflow goes with your house? So air is being sucked in and then it's being pushed out through your air conditioning and everything else. If it's recycling dust, let's say I came and did your house weekly. If there's a particular area or I'm noticing that, let's say door trim, we're just going to use door trim as a great example. Let's say your door trim is accumulating weekly dust. Depending on the situation, that's probably an indicator that you need to either A, change your air filter, or B, there's probably ductwork that needs to be cleaned.

Okay.

I actually, when we went and got coffee, you don't have recycled dust.

All right.

Because you don't have dust. And I did you probably what, 3 weeks ago?

Yeah.

Yeah, you don't have dust in a lot of those areas. So you do not have recycled dust, Craig. Congratulations.

Good, because we have brand new ducts in the whole house, so.

Yeah, no, you don't.

No, you're good. So that's actually a good indicator. So hypothetically speaking, if you had dust in a lot of the areas that I had already done, I was looking for that.

Just now.

Just, yeah, coffee, sorry.

That's all right, no, you were peeking in. Uh-huh.

Well, I think the other thing that I'm curious about is, I mean, most people are looking at their budget and they're going, okay, I've got this many dollars in my budget. and I don't have time to clean my house the way I really want to, so it gets done. Let's say with someone who's really proactive, but it's still, they have a lot of life to live, and they clean every other weekend. You know, they just make sure it's done every other weekend. We don't have enough money to pay a cleaner to come in, or so we think.

Mm-hmm.

I guess the question that I've got for you is, How do you promote yourself in saying, this is really why you need someone like me to come in here and do this, and, you know, I can probably make it to where it's affordable on some level?

I guess he's— I guess kind of what Kevin's asking is like, what's the value?

Yeah, I mean, because at the end of the day, and we talk about this a lot on the show, like, there are certain things that you're gonna do and you're gonna hate doing it. And that—

not you, but like a homeowner will.

Like a homeowner.

A homeowner. Yeah, a homeowner is going to hate doing it, but they do it just because whatever reason they, they choose to do it. But at the end of the day, we, we ask ourselves sometimes, like, what is it worth to you? It may be worth— if, if it is going to take so much of your time, so much of your energy, so much of your quality of life Um, it may be worth—

Hiring a house cleaner.

Hiring whatever the job is, right? So that you don't have to do it. Um, so what is the value of having you, for example, come in and clean my house versus us just as a family cleaning the house and taking all of a Saturday to do it?

Well, would you rather have your Saturday back and go to the park and spend time with your family?

Absolutely, I would.

So right there, there's the value. You get your family back.

Mm-hmm.

You get quality time with your family cuz now you don't have to worry about that. And as far as affordability, I mean, there's really, you can't really put a price on that, can you?

Yeah.

No, I, I don't, I, I'm glad you said that because I, again, one of the things that Craig and I do like to promote is family. And yeah, I, I don't think there's a way you can put a, a price tag on that specifically.

Right. I mean, technically you can clean as a family, but that's not really quality time because who's going to get agitated? Mom, because you're not doing it correctly.

That's right.

So, it means it would make more sense for you to have a house cleaner come in so you guys can have that family time. In fact, while your cleaner's there, hypothetically, if it was on a Saturday, why don't y'all just go to the park? Go to the lake. Go spend quality time. Make memories. Go get pictures taken. by Laken. You like how I put that in there?

Yeah.

But, I mean, seriously, you get your family back, you get that quality time with them. And you really, I mean, if you knew me personally, happiness is so important in life because people, you gotta love life, you gotta live it, you gotta love it. And if you're agitated, if you're irritable, if you feel too busy, you can't do something, then you've gotta bring someone in to help you even just manage life, I guess. Because if you're not living it, then—

Well, and so many people are working well over 40 hours a week and then coming home and Saturday, then they got to turn around and mow the lawn. They got to clean the house. They got to do the laundry. They got to do all of these things. And so, yeah, it makes a big difference. I guess one of the other things that I'm curious about though is like, Um, do you bring your own equipment? Do you bring your own, uh, cleaning supplies? I mean, because at, on, on some level, those are things that I'm spending money on that it would, you know, if, if, if I wasn't spending money on those things, I might be able to afford a little bit more here or there.

Yes, I provide all the cleaning supplies, my own vacuum, my own mop, um, everything that we need equipment-wise to get the job done, we have.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, she— and I, I, I will, I will speak to this a little bit. She's very particular about the things that she's going to use in the home because like before the show we were talking, I was, I was telling her about a particular scent that I enjoy, which is— and we're not promoting this product here on the show, but the, the Fabuloso.

Oh yeah, the Dollar Tree stuff.

No.

The lavender-scented Fabuloso. I love the smell of it. Sure.

Oh my gosh.

But she lit into me because like it's apparently it's not very healthy.

So most house cleaners will. Maybe it's just not manly enough. I don't know.

No, it's not even that. It's just so not healthy for you. Yeah, because people don't realize, yeah, you might like the smell of it, but from a— let's just even say from a scientific perspective, when you get that on your skin and that absorbs into your body, right, you are absorbing harsh chemicals. If you've got dogs or babies or kids walking around barefoot on your floors, ew.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know what else to say. That's so bad. Do your research.

Yeah.

So what do you use? I use all organic. Okay.

I use all organic or, um, anything that's eco-conscious. We, we actually use Method. Um, if that's not available, Miss Myers, Mrs. Myers, or Simple Truth.

Okay.

I like the Myers stuff.

Mm-hmm. Right now, peppermint.

Oh, I don't like peppermint though.

Oh.

I know, I'm weird. It's fine.

It's so good. Well, see, right now our biggest fragrance that is a really big hit is Pink Grapefruit.

That I like.

Pink Grapefruit.

I get it.

Pink Grapefruit, because it's very citrusy and it smells clean.

Why the qualifier? What? Why Pink Grapefruit? I mean, isn't all grapefruit pink?

It's not ripe till it's pink.

Red grapefruit? Okay, I guess there's ruby red. Okay, I'm getting off topic.

Hysterical.

Oh my gosh. Shocker that I would get off topic. Um, no, but that— I, I appreciate that. I mean, one of the things that, that I'm hearing, and, and, and again, this goes back to a lot of things that we wind up talking about here on the show, which is know what you're getting yourself into whenever you're hiring someone out.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and, and I think asking questions like, you know, how do you treat my house?

Exactly like my own, meticulously and delicately.

Yeah, I appreciate that because I wasn't joking whenever I said we'd had multiple things broken.

That's so bad.

Yeah, and again, it's not the problem of it being broken.

You know what though?

It's the problem of them not telling us.

Right, and that's actually something, I mean, I will tell on myself. I have a client that is biweekly and I accidentally, it's minor, I mean, I absolutely, would replace it, but she refused to allow me to. But you know those toothpick, those plastic, not toothpick, I'm sorry, Q-tip.

Q-tip, okay.

The plastic Q-tip holders.

Yeah.

I accidentally broke the bottom, which she had already superglued on. So it was already broken before, but I felt so bad and I immediately brought her in because, oh my gosh, you need a new Q-tip holder.

Yeah. No, I appreciate that.

At least I wasn't the thingy in the thingy.

Oh man, because we might not have figured it out.

If I wasn't there to interpret, you know, we could have been in big trouble, man.

I think of it in terms of if someone came into my home and broke even anything of mine, like, and didn't tell me, I'd be livid. That's the biggest thing is that I'm going to treat you exactly how I want to be treated.

You know, I appreciate that because if you break something of mine, I'm old school, baby.

Yeah.

But if you break break something of mine, I— you just probably got to it before I did, you know?

Oh my gosh.

Because things break, right? But I just don't want to go looking for that thing going, wow, right? How did this get broken? And I'm probably gonna go ask one of my kids. They're gonna, you know, swear up and down it wasn't them because it actually wasn't this time. And then I'm gonna probably think one of them is lying, right?

And so, um, you know, I But the other topic is, not to cut you off, but house cleaners are the ones that get blamed the most for things that happen too, though.

Well, sure, but if you— but if I know you're the type of person that's gonna come tell me, right, right, right, that, that changes, that changes everything.

That's a good strategy. What you need to do is break something small right at the beginning.

Oh my gosh.

Then bring it to 'em.

No, no, Craig. Yeah, that's not good business.

Oh man, your theory is good.

It's—

the logic is spot on.

Yeah, it absolutely is.

Oh my goodness.

No, but you— I mean, obviously, you know, when, when we talk about house cleaning, the types of chemicals you're using, right, whether you're using, you know, harsh chemicals or not, I want to know, right? You know, I want to know what the types of things that you're using. Um, you know, I'm actually kind of glad I don't have to store a vacuum cleaner anymore.

Right.

If I've got you coming, I don't have to worry about it breaking.

I don't know, because if you have animals, I still, you know, I would really hope that any of my clients don't just wait a week or two to vacuum.

Oh, they do. Oh, they wait till you come back.

No.

Yes, they do. Every one of them does.

They don't.

Every one of them does.

I vacuum every day.

Oh my goodness.

How?

Every— well, because I'm neurotic.

Well, what you need—

I wipe down my counters daily because they have to be disinfected.

If you're neurotic, then you need something robotic. You need one of those Roombas or something.

Well played. Thank you.

Because I'm telling you right now, people do not vacuum all day, every day.

I mean, obviously I know that, but—

But you'd be happy to do that for them though.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I have one client that I just do her floors. Yeah, literally.

Yes.

Well, she has a lot of glitter on it.

Oh my God. I know who you're talking about.

I know who you're talking about. I hate glitter. When you do realize that whenever glitter was created, Satan smiled. You know that, right? Okay.

It's also not biodegradable, but we're just gonna leave it alone.

We're gonna get some comments on that. So I want to, I want to, I want to stay on this topic of products because we had some questions come in from Facebook.

And one of these is related to that.

But before we do that, I want to— because one of the things you mentioned is that your products are organic.

Yes, and pet and kid-friendly. You can eat off your floor and not be affected.

Right.

But one of the things I want to point out is that doesn't mean that they're safe in every single way imaginable. And I'll give you a for instance. When I was in college, we actually had a door-to-door salesman come to the door and he was telling us about this organic cleaner. That he had. And he was like, no, watch. And he drank some of it, right? And I was like, no, that's, that's not— there's, there's lots of things that are organic you should not ingest.

Correct.

Yeah.

So he's not with us anymore.

Very, very, very short career.

Oh my gosh.

It was one of those things when he did it, I was like, how many times a day have you done that now?

Like, there's a lot of doors on this street.

Yeah. I mean, so anyway.

I mean, I was originally using vodka and vinegar.

Which are consumable, but—

No. I wouldn't ingest it.

Right, right.

So anyway, organic doesn't mean—

Right, you're right. Well played, Craig.

So anyway, Ricky sent us a note on Facebook and she wanted to know the products that you use to clean. And so you've already listed some of the The organic cleaners that you use, what are like some of the, like, do you have like a specific brand of vacuum cleaner? Do you have, what are some other products that you're like, these are the best?

I specifically use for my vacuum bagless.

Okay. Is there a brand that you really like?

Shark.

Shark?

Even though that's not the vacuum I currently have.

Okay.

But I do love Shark.

Okay.

And eventually coming soon, I'm actually going to be investing in steam cleaning for the floors.

Oh, okay.

Nice.

Because that's actually way better for the floors anyway.

Is that going to add?

That makes me happy because we do that.

I'm proud of you.

Oh, thank you.

I'm so proud of you.

I'm done, y'all.

You sanitized your floors even.

Yeah.

You're so wonderful.

Oh man.

That's why we got rid of the carpet because I wasn't going to do it.

Yeah.

All right, let's just, let's just go through the, uh, through the list here then. We got it. We got another note from our, from our good friend Chris Turner, um, and he wanted to know, what is the weirdest thing you've ever had to clean?

This is a dangerous question.

It is a very dangerous question because, um, so in Asheville, North Carolina, I had to move out Cleaning. And in order to clean the fridge, in her freezer, in the way back from a previous bachelorette party. Uh-oh.

I like where this is going. Uh-oh.

It was the ice cube tray of In the Shape of Things.

Oh, not Things and Things.

Not Things and Things. These were Thingies. The Thingies with the Thingies. Very different.

There's a big difference between a thing and a thingy.

Well, hopefully for most of you gentlemen, it's a bigger thingy, but— Still small.

I really like what you did there, Craig. It's good.

But the gal, she started laughing because she couldn't find them.

Oh, she'd been looking for them?

She had been looking for them, but her freezer was so full, she forgot where they were and couldn't find them. I found them and cleaned them.

Oh, wow.

That was fun. Yeah, that was a good laugh.

Oh, that's laughing.

I don't—

okay, at least you laughed.

It was— I mean, at least it was just like, you know, the ice trays. That's— it could have been other things.

That's true.

So he's all moving on. No, no, I don't want— I was gonna— I was gonna see if we had a shared experience with walking into people's homes, but I'll move on. Um, we'll talk off the air later on. Let's see. Here's a fun one. Heidi wanted to know if she can have your autograph.

Absolutely. Yeah, I feel like a celebrity.

This is fun. So there you go, Heidi, reach out to us. We'll make sure and get you a— I'll tell you what we can do. We'll get your autograph on a Homeowner Show sticker and we'll get that to Heidi. So Heidi, yes, reach out to us. We'll get you—

The interesting thing about that is I've already cleaned her home. She technically already has my autograph because I signed my Okay.

Well then, I don't know what you're talking about, Heidi. You got what you wanted.

'Cause she's so silly, but she's so beautiful too.

There you go. All right. And then Heather wanted to know, why did you choose this profession? Which sounded a little judgy, but we're gonna ask it anyway.

Why did I choose this profession?

This profession chose her.

Because literally the profession chose me.

Yeah.

Um, actually my girlfriend, ironically, my girlfriend Heather in New York, she, um, I helped her, I was the maid of honor at her wedding.

Right.

And she had to do a whole bunch of stuff. She did a lot of do-it-yourself projects for this wedding, and she was stressed beyond all stress. And so I basically— it wasn't a deep clean, but I did help her clean. I helped take care of her dog so that she didn't have to worry about certain things. And one of the comments that she made was, I make a very Great out of the, out of the light back office assistant. So like, I'm like the, what is it called? It's on the tip of my tongue. When you're not in the limelight, you're actually backstage.

I don't know.

I don't know either.

I'm gonna go with thingy on the thingy. Background.

Background person. Background person.

I don't know.

I'm making words up.

Making words up.

I mean, background.

They know what, they know what I'm saying.

Yeah.

The thingy with the thingy. Thingy with thingy.

Word of the show.

But I'm like, I'm great at that stuff of the, you know, that not being in the limelight, just doing all the backend stuff.

Right.

And helping people de-stress. And she expressed to me how much that helped her. And it was kind of like light bulb.

Yeah.

I really love helping people de-stress. Because yeah, house cleaning is one of those things.

Oh, it's the thing that people dread doing.

Yeah.

I mean, and honestly, the unfortunate thing I think for a lot of people is that it just doesn't get done.

No.

I mean, I mean, I mean, I should say—

No one disinfects their doorknobs.

No, well, that's true.

And no one disinfects their light switches.

No, but well, we do every once in a while, only whenever like our kids are sick.

You steam clean and you disinfect?

We like to spray Lysol on it. That's about it. But like, um, but only whenever like our kids are sick and it's like, okay, we really don't need this today.

I was gonna say I spray Lysol on my kids.

Yeah, there you go. But like, I, I can't tell you how many— You just need to have a visitor. Yeah, that's true. Um, but I— there, there have been times when my wife and I have been like, let's have some people over so we'll clean our house.

You know what I mean?

It's like, oh, we're gonna have— we're gonna invite people over so that we clean the house.

Yeah, I got you. So literally an incentive.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, we— plus, we would just like to have people over. We enjoy doing that, something we enjoy doing. But we also know that it's going to force us to, to clean our house, um, because I think it's just so easy. You get used to it, and then— but you don't want people to walk in and be like, this is how you actually live. Everybody lives that way, I think.

No, my mama always taught me, you have your home In the state in which if you have unexpected company, what would they think?

Okay.

And I've had unexpected— I'm talking even your toilet.

Yeah.

If they're gonna go into your bathroom, do they feel comfortable and sanitary enough to use your, your facility?

I hope, I hope they do at my house. I, I think they do.

I, I will, I'll say, I, I just, um, I'm about done with this new book I've been reading called The, uh, The War of Art. You guys ever heard of that one?

Yes.

Really, really good book. Um, so far. I'm gonna pretend I do. Okay, cool. So I can be Yeah, come on, join in. Um, but one of the things that he talks about in the book is that everyone is creative, but the reason that most people don't get to interact with their own creativity is because of resistance. And he said one of the biggest forms of resistance is, is clutter and an unclean house.

Yes.

And he goes most people get so frustrated that they can't, they can't actually interact with their creative self because their mind is wandering because they can't comprehend the mess around them. And it's overwhelming. And it's distracting.

It's true.

And all these kinds of things. And so like, it creates a space that's actually unsettling and unpleasant for them to do the thing that they were meant to do in their home.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, my wife is working from home for the first time in a long time. And recently, whenever she kind of started that, she said, I can't, live this way. I mean, it's not that we have a horribly— I mean, I'm, I'm making our house out to be a pigsty. It's not. But her deal was like, I mean—

I'll be the judge.

Yeah.

I'm just kidding.

Fair, fair enough. Um, but, but it was one of those deals where she was like, you know, I mean, I can't even deal with there being a dish or two in the, in the sink. Mm-hmm. Because I have to, I'm around it all the time now. And so, um, you know, a lot of times you go— if you work at a desk job, you know, there's a cleaning crew that has come through the night before, right? You know, the, the clutter on your desk is clutter that you know where it is. I mean, it—

Right.

You know, whatever. But, uh, I, I think that when it's your home, and a lot of times people are coming home and they live in their home for a few hours a day and then they sleep the rest of it, and it's like, okay, well, this is just This is just how I live life. But I, I'm a, I'm a believer that, uh, of what you said, Craig, that, I mean, you, you, so much anxiety and frustration happens whenever you come home and there's stuff that you need to do and all you really wanna do is sit down.

Yeah.

Um, I'm gonna tell you that one of the qualities that we have with JBean Services is, and it might be different from other cleaning services, I do have a knack for reading the client and what really stresses them out and what really— I'm going to use another client for example. When we did the walkthrough and I was there to clean, she looked over at, I'm telling you, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

6.

There was 6 piles of clothes of literally full bins.

Mm-hmm.

Of laundry, right, stacked up and sitting there. And it was very briefly mentioned. It wasn't even something that was part of the conversation. But the way she looked at it, the way that you could just sense the energy of it, was just so overwhelming to her. No matter what I did, if I cleaned that house top to bottom, that was still going to be— That was still going to be there. And that's something that she was still going to stress out for. So I was going to be there a while. I knew that this was going to be a large job. So she obviously left for work. When she came home from work, not only was

that whole thing cleaned out, and she couldn't figure out what was off. And she's like, what? Something's off. What happened? And I said, well, you don't have your laundry there anymore. I did it. She's like, but that wasn't— but that's not part of your deal. We didn't discuss that. And I'm like, I know, but I saw that it really stressed you out.

Yeah.

And I wanted to provide that for you because I genuinely want you to be destressed. That is, I'm not just providing a cleaning service. I'm not just providing animal caretaking. I'm providing, I genuinely want you to let that go.

Yeah.

Let it go. Live your life. Pay attention to your family.

Well, and I, you know, I—

If only I could take my own advice, but you know.

Well, I, I think again, folks know who you are hiring. I mean, you could hire the Molly Maid company or whoever, and they're going to come in and use Fabuloso on your, on your floors. And, and, you know, at the end of the day, your house got cleaned and all those sorts of things. But, um, I think it does matter who you're bringing in your home. And so So I appreciate what you're saying and—

Now I do have, I have created a group of Houston house cleaners. So hypothetically speaking, if I'm overpriced or if I'm unavailable or XYZ, if we need help, how do you remove this? How do you guys do this? We have a network of house cleaners that actually we help each other.

Um, so I won't, and I think you even said, I'm not gonna, before the show that like they're in different parts of town.

They're in different parts of town.

Houston's a big place.

Yes.

So we've actually had inquiries come in at JBean Services for Sugar Land. I don't service Sugar Land.

Right.

So this house cleaning network, um, we help each other and support each other and empower each other because, you know, I may be doing things differently than they do, but they do just as good. You know, as far as the house cleaning's concerned and they service that area, I don't. So let's refer each other.

Yeah.

Um, that's the point of this house cleaners group too, is we're, we're actually referring each other business too. And that's, you know, not necessarily unheard of, but I mean, house cleaning can be a catty, can be a catty niche.

Yeah.

But we're not like, I, that's, I just appreciate all the girls in that group because we help each other and, you know, What product do you use to remove hard water stains? Things like that. And so I don't know personally the big commercial ones, but I really appreciate the girls, you know, like if they don't choose me, that's okay. I've got, I've got a whole network, you know. I'm not going to be offended because no matter what, I want that client to be taken care of.

Sure.

No matter what. Whether it's me, whether it's, you know, any of the other girls, it doesn't matter. Yeah. If you've got a need, let me help you find it. Home concierge. I'm just kidding.

Yeah. You mentioned, you mentioned the hard water stains and, and since you, you have cleaned my house, I mean, I don't, I don't know if you noticed that was a big design part of the shower that we did was no glass.

Yeah.

Because I hate that.

Yeah.

I, I hate, because I know it builds up over time. Yeah.

Because you're, you know what, you're gonna bot— you're gonna battle something else.

Yeah.

You're gonna battle hard water on your stones.

On the stone?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Oh, well.

Let the battle begin.

Bring it on. It's better than— I mean, like, I don't know why it bothers me on glass so much.

Oh, it bothers me.

It's hard to get off.

It is.

Yeah. I mean, even if it's clean, it's really hard.

Did you guys know hard water actually etches glass?

Yeah, it does.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you can't— it's not a matter of getting it off.

Sometimes you can't because it's, it's literally etched in, right?

Yeah. Well, I think that probably might, I mean, kind of raises a question I had because I mean, like, I, you're probably walking into situations either where, you know, people have been cleaning their own homes for a while or someone else has been cleaning it and maybe not doing it right. What, what do you find that most people are cleaning wrong?

Ooh, that's a great question.

Yeah. That's why I asked it.

Honestly, I'm gonna call out toilets.

Okay.

Because most people just, they just use the toilet brush and everything, and there's still that ring that needs to be pumiced. Or if it doesn't need to be pumiced, it's that pink algae.

Okay.

Dryer sheets.

Oh, really?

Yes.

It gets away the green, the pink algae?

I mean, I would heavily suggest using gloves, but yes, dryer sheets. It'll get that pink algae. Now, if there's still a ring, that clearly needs to be pumiced.

And some people may not know what that is.

A pumice stone?

Yeah. What is that?

It's a volcanic stone.

Most people rub their feet with it.

No, no, no. Okay. So look, this is actually hysterical.

After you clean the toilet?

No, look.

Well, I mean, it depends on how— I mean, it's been a hard month, Craig.

Okay.

So I—

Money's tight.

So I'm gonna tell on myself because this is actually really funny. So I use Grove Collaborative for most of my— like when I order cleaning supplies and my trash bags because they're biodegradable.

Okay.

Eco-conscious. Well, I saw pumice stone on there, right? So I order 2 because I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be so awesome with these volcanic pumice stones. They're gonna be so organic and I can blast them. Well, I used them on a couple houses and I'm like, why are these not working? This is ridiculous. So I had to run and I had to go get a pumice stone that obviously said for toilets. And, um, and I just couldn't figure it out. And I'm like, why are these not working? So I went back to Grove Collaborative and I'm like looking at the pumice stone and I'm reading the description and it's for feet.

Yeah, there you go.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, how could I misread that? Because Well, now I—

The toilet had no more calluses, I'll tell you that.

I had to throw away a very expensive pumice stone because I used it on a toilet.

Oh man. There's not enough soap that'll get that thing clean.

No.

I just couldn't believe it wasn't working because I'm like, I thought it was made for this. But no, there's a difference between a foot pumice and a toilet pumice.

All right. I'm glad we clarified that.

Well, and I just—

Very important.

This will tell you my ignorance. I, I didn't know that what you're talking about is a thing. And, and of course we don't have rings in our toilet either, but—

I'll be the judge of that.

But so, so if you've got, you know, like a ring where, where the water line comes up to, right?

Right. Or even the water that comes down underneath.

Okay.

Yeah.

You take a pumice stone.

Yes.

And scrub.

You scrub that baby.

And it comes clean.

Yes, sir.

I'll be the judge of that.

And all the house cleaners are like, you do that.

Well, but that's, that's good.

Or hire us.

Yeah.

No, no, seriously. It's, it makes a very beautiful toilet. I wish I had my phone right here so I could show you a picture, but none of the listeners do.

But what you're saying is most people just get like a scrubber brush and like some—

They just literally use a regular toilet brush.

So like, so like, not like one of those things that like you hang from inside the toilet bowl and just let that do it. No.

And actually, if you use the— I don't even know what the product is, quite honestly. If you use the one that turns your water blue, you've now stained your toilet.

Ooh. Bad.

Bum bum bum.

Bum bum bum. And also, while we're on the topic, for people that do use the scrub brush, their little toilet brush, highly, highly recommend at least once a month, Soak that for about, I'd say, 6 hours in vinegar to basically eliminate residue on the scrubber.

And then immediately throw out the vinegar.

Yeah. In the toilet.

You gotta be clear with these people.

Oh my goodness. Okay.

I mean, it's no longer good for cooking.

Shouldn't be making pickles.

Right. Sorry, I couldn't even keep a straight face when I said it.

These pickles taste like—

Keep it clean. This is a family show.

I know, I know. Yeah, we gotta keep our—

It tastes a bit nutty.

Oh gosh. Oh man, no, it's good. We have not crossed the explicit thing on podcast yet.

Yeah, we haven't had that box checked yet.

Let's not start yet.

I didn't say anything.

No, I didn't say you did. No, nope, that's good. Um, good question.

Anything else? We got, we got blue water toilets that are bad. Anything else people are messing up? It's okay if they're not.

I mean, uh, most people don't get behind the door in the bathroom. I don't know why we're stuck on bathrooms, but behind the door in the bathroom or on the bathroom, um, trim, like where the shower meets the wall.

Oh yeah.

No one, no one ever touches that, ever. Or the shower rod.

Ooh, shower rod's always dusty.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm, interesting. So, okay, let me ask you this question because we're talking a lot about dust and you said we're battling dust.

I mean, that is a battle.

Yeah, we're battling dust. What is so bad about dust?

Uh, first of all, it's, it's dust mites.

Okay.

It's dust mite droppings. Or it's—

Saying what the dust is, right? Is that—

Is that what your question is?

I'm just wondering.

I mean, if you've got a lot of dust, it's gonna affect your respiratory system. It's going to cause, um, like for instance, if your kids keep getting sick, uh, there's probably a lot of dust in your house. I've noticed that the people with the dustiest Most houses, especially dander when they have animals, they've got respiratory issues. They've got asthma issues. They've got allergy issues on their skin. And usually that can be related. They're going to chalk it up like, oh, well, it's just Texas weather. It's high pollen. No, it's probably your house.

That's exactly the reason I'm asking that question. Yeah.

If you're constantly taking Benadryl or anything, And there's no pollen out, it's probably your house.

Yeah, I just think that a lot of us, again, we just live with what we live with.

Yeah, because you're so used to it.

We see what we see and we don't see what we don't see. And, you know, we're walking up and down the hallway and it's dark and I'm not looking at the top of the doorway, you know. So I appreciate knowing a little bit more about that because I Also, it's icky. Well, I mean, there's that, man.

Our—

I'll tell you what, guys, our vocabulary is on point tonight.

Yes. Well, you're with me.

Uh, you bringing out the best in all of us.

I am very intelligent, you know. I just, for some reason, you put me on the spot like this and suddenly I'm just like, I'm a 5th grader.

What? And it— I was actually— and this is, this is a question I wanted to ask because I knew that you wouldn't mind me asking. I was, I was having a conversation the other day with somebody and they're like, what do you call the person that's coming to clean your house? Because someone— I, I said, I said something to someone about it, like, do you call them the maid? Do you call them the house cleaner? Do you call— what do you, what do you call them? What's, what's not offensive?

I don't know.

I don't think any of it's offensive.

Because I was talking to someone, they're like, you never call them the maid. That is so offensive. And I was like, I don't understand. Why is it?

No, it's not offensive to me. I mean, I don't know about anybody else.

If it is, I want to know.

No, see, but the difference is a maid is someone that you have in there daily. Okay. A housekeeper is someone that I would— I personally envision doing linens, making beds, doing laundry. Um, upkeeping the house.

Sure.

A house cleaner is cleaning your house. They're a cleaning specialist, essentially. Um, so I am a house cleaner.

Okay. So if someone called you and said, I need a housekeeper, it's like, well, that's not my thing.

Well, no, because—

But you would have to go through and like make sure that you're talking about the same thing because these terms are confusing.

These terms are confusing. I need a maid.

Okay.

So do you, what exactly are you looking for? Daily service? Or are you looking for weekly and biweekly? And usually I'm not going to correct somebody because that in itself is probably offensive. And then now all of a sudden you got them on defense. But no, I'm just going to figure out, I'm going to gloss over that and I'm just going to ask them exactly what they need.

Which is what I would think most people would do. But I didn't know if we're actually dealing with like, are these—

I have never heard that that's offensive.

I hadn't either. So that's why I'm asking you because I didn't know.

I'll ask the house cleaners.

And let us know if that's different than what you told us. Now, uh, so, so you bring up a good question in my mind, and that is how often— let's say we were going to hire you— how often would you suggest ideally, this is when I would like to come clean your house? Ideally.

Every house is different. Every situation is different.

Okay.

So like for Craig, I would suggest monthly. His dust situation though, he's gonna need to get it done before my 4 slots expire. But no, but like for instance, for Craig, it would be monthly. For, let's say, a busy, busy professional who can't go, if you can imagine this person can't go more than 15 to 30 minutes without taking a phone call, that person clearly doesn't have time to do the dishes. They don't have time to do the laundry. They don't have time to change out their bedsheets. They don't have time to, you know, they're all over the place. They would probably be weekly. For someone who is, you know, regular 9-to-5 job, they've got a set schedule, they know how things are kind of going, maybe a busy mom, maybe a

busy dad, but they still have sort of a routine.

Yeah.

And but they can pick up sort of like on the fly and keep their kitchen fairly clean on a regular basis. Those ones I would suggest biweekly. Okay. And then there's those people that just keep their homes absolutely immaculate, and those I would just suggest like a spring cleaning for the deep, deep clean.

Okay, that's good.

Yeah, like if they're not neurotic like me, but I wouldn't need a deep cleaner because—

Yeah, but you, but you would do— I mean, do you do laundry and change the sheets and those sorts of things?

I personally, my JBean Services does not.

Okay.

However, like that situation with that one client, now I'm not asking everyone to like start thinking, you know, but if I notice that it's a need, sure, and as long as they have it for instance, that client had it all over, like, in piles. As long as I am comfortable with their— I have an intimate enough relationship with them that I know it wouldn't bother them for me to, like, you know, I mean, I'm gonna be touching your chonies. So, right, if I have that relationship with them that I know that they would be comfortable with that, absolutely, I would do that.

Okay.

I do have a client that she She has the folded bedsheets readily available and then I just make the bed. But every client's different.

You're gonna cater to what we need to, or you're gonna refer us to someone else.

I'm gonna find out what is your biggest stress. What area are you struggling with the most in your home? For your wife, I'm listening. For your wife, I'm probably gonna heavily focus on the kitchen.

Yeah.

Because that seems, just based off what you said, that seems to be her problem area.

Yeah.

For some people it's bathrooms.

Yeah, no, that's good. Well, what, what have we not talked about that you would like to discuss? Have we missed anything?

I don't know.

You don't know? Oh well, I guess we did it all.

We did.

Wipe cleaned the conversation. I don't know.

We scrubbed it.

Well, that just means that we have one more thing we still have to do.

Absolutely.

And that's the Final Four.

The Final Four, which incidentally causes a lot of stress in our guests.

It does.

No, I was totally stressed for this whole deal, but—

For the whole show.

Whole show.

Well, you, you've done great.

Thank you.

Yes.

No, I've got a surprise for you guys after we do this.

Oh.

Nice.

Yay!

Okay, well, I'll be looking forward to that. But until then, same 4 questions we ask all of our guests.

Okay, ready?

All of this we business. Kevin asks all the questions.

I ask, I ask most all of the questions. Uh, so the first question is this: what's the must-have tool you won't leave your house without?

The must-have tool that I will not leave my house without is a general cleaner and a microfiber towel.

Those are 2 tools.

Okay, general cleaner. I can always use my shirt.

Sounds like a different service.

Oh Lord have mercy. Oh no.

Oh well, okay, general cleaner.

I always have a general cleaner on me.

Always have one with you?

I literally do.

Okay, good. Well, um, I can attest to that because before I walked into the studio—

well, I used Craig's wife's. for fairness.

Okay, but you could have.

I, I did. I, I had to wipe down the table.

Yeah, I don't really know why. I mean, this place is—

It was dusty.

This studio is spotless, y'all. Spotless. Yeah, um, could be worse. And it has been.

It has been.

All right, second question. Um, so what is a job that you've walked away from? Um, We, we always qualify this question with it can be a career if you want it to be, but when we originally asked the question, we were thinking about, you know, the homeowner show.

Mm-hmm.

So is there something that has happened at your house, it's, you know, you've, you've looked back and gone, I'm not touching that, I'm not dealing with it, I've got to hire someone else out to do this, it's, it's a job that I'm just I can't do, um, or anything in between. I'm gonna let you, you know, read it for what you want it to be, but what is a job that you've walked away from?

So in our 2 and a half years of being full-time RVers, I dabbled with, uh, selling dog grooming products on Etsy. Okay, homemade dog grooming products, uh, massage bar shampoo thing and repellent spray, ear cleanser. And then I think I just threw in there for kicks, Poo-Pourri. But I enjoyed doing that. But that was a lot of— I've considered doing it again, but there's a lot of like dynamics in that, that is always having the product in stock. Or in this case, for some reason it just never took off. I guess I didn't have a Biz Connect group to— no, I didn't have that. I mean, I probably could do it again, but it's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work.

Anytime you're making a product and shipping it, especially out of an RV.

Yes, yes. The shipping part is, I think, what killed me.

Yeah. Is when I did get a sale, it was like, now I got to work.

Now I got to work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I enjoyed making it. I just didn't enjoy shipping it out. I hate the post office.

Yeah.

So, yeah, no.

Okay.

Good to know. All right. Number 3, how do you wind down at the end of a long day?

Oh, my goodness.

I mean, just answer the question.

I sit peacefully on my back patio And I actually, you know what? I actually have to do that. I sit on my back patio with the door closed so I can't hear any other noises, even though I live off 105 and there's obviously like traffic noises.

Sure, but it's at least constant, right?

But it's constant. That is correct. It's almost like fan noise.

Yeah.

But I have to decompress by not hearing anything. I don't have the radio on, the TV on. I can't, it's overstimulating. It's, it's— I have to just have silence.

Okay. No, that's good. In fact, I would say—

Sometimes I'm drinking a beer, but no.

Well, nobody has a problem with that.

Nope.

Um, but I, I, man, I think that's a, that's a really, really healthy thing to do.

Absolutely.

I mean, I— if, if we were to survey 10 people, the number of people that would tell you that they spend time in silence, you're, you're gonna You're gonna be lucky if you get 9 of them.

It drives my husband crazy because I have to have silence. Meaning you need to turn the TV off, please.

No, that's good. That's good. I think that some of the healthiest people in the world spend time in silence. So that's good.

I appreciate that.

All right, last question. What's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice that you've ever received?

I don't know at all. And have grace. Well, that's 2 pieces of advice.

No, that's fine. You don't know it all and to have grace. Okay. I like it.

And I can, well, I mean, to go along with the, I don't know it all, I mean, to be teachable, coachable.

Yeah. No, that's good. That's good. All right. The last kind of question that we ask all of our guests, that's—

The secret question.

Secret question. How do people get ahold of you?

Well, they can either call me.

Okay, what's that number?

936-206-0245.

All right, great. How else?

Uh, you can email me at j.bean, B-E-A-N, services@gmail.com.

All right, and I, I assume, um, Social?

Yes.

Facebook.

Facebooks. And the tag name on that is @jbeanservestexas.