Here are the 3 things to look for when choosing a Seattle Maid Service:

1. Are they going to do a great job every time?

When choosing a cleaning company most of us want to be sure that we are hiring a cleaning service that is fast, friendly, flexible and reliable and who we know will consistently do a great job.

Read online reviews from sites who verify reviews such as Yelp.com.

The reviews should be mostly positive. If they are bad reviews is it because the client was asking for a service that the company doesn’t provide or is it because the home was not cleaned well? How does the business deal with bad reviews?

2. Do they use green cleaning products and practices?

Many of us want to hire a green cleaning company because the health of ourselves, our family, our pets, our cleaners and our environment is important to us.

Does the company use mostly biodegradable cleaning products? Do they reduce the amount of plastic that they use by choosing biodegradable bags over plastic bags? Do they reuse plastic bottles as many times as possible before recycling them? Do they use fresh cleaning clothes over paper towels? Do they have a commitment to reducing their carbon footprint? Do they do something to offset carbon emissions.

3. Do they hire and train employees or do they dispatch independent contractors who they are legally unable to train or manage?

It’s important that the maid service that you choose is a company who hires and trains their employees. Some companies, such as HandyBook, do not hire and train their cleaners. Instead they make all of their cleaners independent contractors. This results in bad service and low reviews because they are legally unable to train and manage the cleaners. It is also unethical because they are avoiding paying payroll taxes. It is exploitation of low wage workers. However, it is cheaper to hire a company that only has independent contractors because they pass the savings of avoiding taxes on to the consumer, at least partially.

Are you looking for a company that provides green cleaning in Seattle?

You’ve come to the right place! We will dazzle you with high quality green cleaning in Seattle!

Dazzle has had an emphasis on green cleaning practices since day one. Over the years we have become more and more creative in our quest to become the greenest cleaning company in Seattle.

So what makes us so green?

1. 1. We make most of our own cleaning supplies right here in Seattle. This reduces the amount of plastic that we consume and recycle. Instead of using a bottle one time we refill it hundreds of times before recycling it. And since most cleaning products are mostly water it doesn’t make much sense to ship all that water around. That’s a lot of unnecessarily burned carbon. This is why making our own cleaning products helps us reduce our carbon footprint.

1. 1. We don’t use paper towels. Isn’t it strange how many cleaning companies still use paper towels? At Dazzle we use fresh cloth towels which saves a bunch of trees. Guess what. They are better for cleaning too.

1. 1. After reducing our carbon footprint as much as know how to do we are still burning carbon. To offset that carbon we purchase carbon credits from an internationally respected carbon credit NGO based in Switzerland called My Climate.

Do you want to learn more about how we became carbon neutral?

Check out this video on how we became carbon neutral. It has cool information about the project that we are supporting in Kenya.

For more information about ways businesses and individuals can reduce their carbon footprint check out MyClimate.org.

Do you have any ideas about how we can become even greener? We’d love to hear them!

The Problem: you want clean stainless steel appliances but they look stained and dingy

Having clean stainless steel appliances is easy! Here’s how to make them sparkle!

It’s really nice to have a sparkling clean home but sometimes it’s hard to know how to make everything sparkle. Have you ever finished cleaning your kitchen only to realize that your stainless steel appliances are lackluster? That’s why we made this video to show you how to make your stainless steel appliances shine in two easy steps.

The Solution: clean with vinegar water and polish with baby oil

1) Using a mixture of 3 parts water and 1 part white vinegar, clean the stainless steel on your appliance. Do this by spraying the vinegar water either directly on the appliance or on a clean cloth. We recommend using cleaning cloths rather than paper towels because it is more environmentally friendly, and we love trees, and it works better.

2) Get a clean towel and moisten it with baby oil or another low viscosity oil. Now liberally apply baby oil to the stainless steel. Make sure you are applying the oil in the direction of the grain.

Voila! You’re stainless steel is clean and looks fabulous!

But maybe you’re too busy to make your stainless steel sparkle. If that’s the case then it could be time to hire a professional cleaning company. We would love to make your home sparkle and make your stainless steel appliances look brand new again! Give us a call or book an appointment today!

We didn’t choose being the gayest cleaning company in America, it chose us

Dazzle was born in a pretty gay neighborhood of Seattle: Capitol Hill. Most of our first dozen or so clients were part of the LGBTQIAA community and they began referring their friends to us like crazy!

What I’m saying is we didn’t choose to be the gayest cleaning company in America, it chose us.

We decided to stay the gayest cleaning company in America even after we diversified

As we continued to grow our client and employee population diversified. Still, we decided to continue calling ourselves, “The Gayest Cleaning Company in America” for a few reasons.

It may not seem like it in Seattle, but we continue to live in a homophobic, transphobic and othering world. It is our hope that when someone who is in an oppressive space sees our company it might offer a glimpse into a world not yet known to them. This is a world where people are not disadvantaged, beat up, raped or killed because of their sexuality. Of course that world already exists, and we are widening it.

Beyond connecting with the LGBTQIAA community, our brand connects with other people who have experienced different flavors of oppression. We have a lot of black and brown clients, Jewish and Muslim clients and clients who are differently abled.

Cleaning a person’s home is an intimate act. People hire us because even if they’ve felt othered they feel safe and respected with us.

We will continue to call ourselves, “The Gayest Cleaning Company in America” until lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer, intersex, a-sexual and allied people feel safe, welcome and embraced everywhere. And then we will all start wearing shirts that say, “Fuck You Donald Trump” as a reminder of the dark years.

-Logan Taylor
Owner of The Dazzle Cleaning Company

8 Things You Can Clean in Two Minutes

The easiest way to keep your home sparkling all of the time is to set up a recurring cleaning service with The Dazzle Cleaning Company. However, this is not in everyone’s budget but that doesn’t mean that a clean home is beyond your reach!

The trick to keeping your home clean is to do a little bit at a time. Most people don’t have 3-5 hours to spend cleaning their home all at once, and even if they did that doesn’t sound like a fun Saturday to some people. Though, I will admit I do love a good Saturday of cleaning. The truth is that if you’re not staying on top of keeping a clean home then 3-5 hours is not going to get you to sparkling anyway.

Here are 8 things that you can clean in 2 minutes:

1. Wipe out the inside of the microwave with vinegar water or vodka water. You already have the vinegar water in your hand; you may as well wipe down the outside of the microwave too. Does your microwave sit above the stove- wipe down those cabinets above the microwave too! They’re so greasy!
2. Grab the toilet bowl brush and scrub out the inside of the toilet. Use some toilet paper to clean the rim of the toilet and the hinges. Flush the toilet paper down the toilet and wash your hands for the count of two, “Happy Birthday” songs.
3. Re-heating that pasta? Grab a towel and clean a couple of the kitchen baseboards. The one by the dishwasher is the dirtiest. This is how we keep your home clean without hiring a cleaning company!
4. Is Grandma talking your ear off? That’s good! One day you’re going to wish that grandma was talking your ear off. In the meantime, enjoy and clean a shelf in the fridge while you’re at it! Look at you go, making your home clean to the point of shining!
5. Wipe down the windowsills behind the couch or any other windowsill that doesn’t have extremely easy access. You can bet they need it!
6. Tidy up one cupboard or drawer. Wipe out the crumbs. This is how we stay on top of storage space. Make sure to wipe down the top lip of the drawer too.
7. Put a little bit of vodka water on a cloth and remove the smudges from the light switches in whichever room you are in.
8. Do you have any glass doors in your house or a window that get’s particularly dirty? Combine ¼ cup of white vinegar with a ¼ cup of warm water, spray down the window and wipe it clean. This is a great way to make your windows sparkle using an easy green cleaning solution.

If you want to keep your home sparkling clean we recommend that you hire Seattle’s premiere cleaning company, us! Or clean a little bit every day to stay on top of it yourself.

Happy cleaning!

Most of us feel best when we have a clean home. However, getting that clean home can be time consuming and stressful. And stress is terrible for our health; it shortens our telomeres, eek!

One solution is to hire a cleaning company and preferably even a green cleaning company. This is great because it is an instance where you can buy back time, reduce the amount of stress in your life and get a clean home!

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that a study published this summer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and then later reported on in the New York Times suggests that spending money on things that give us more free time leads to being happier.

The NYT also reported that, as the researchers predicted, spending money to save time appeared to reduce time-related stress and increase well-being, while spending on material goods did not have the same effect. The same article went on to say that, “people benefited from buying time regardless of where they fell on the income spectrum.”

To be sure, having your home professionally cleaned is a luxury that is not afforded to everyone. If you can’t afford to hire a home cleaner then read this blog I wrote on, “How to Keep Your Home Sparkling in Minutes a Day.”

If you’re ready to take a step toward decreasing your stress level and increasing your overall life satisfaction by reducing stress and having a sparkling clean home then book a cleaning service with The Dazzle Cleaning Company!

The Dazzle Cleaning Company is the best choice for hiring a Seattle cleaning service or a West Hollywood cleaning service.

Dazzle is proud of being the premiere green cleaning company in Seattle and West Hollywood. We’re always looking for ways to innovate and become an even greener cleaning company. Do you have any suggestions or creative ideas on what we can do to provide an even better cleaning service? If so, please reach out to us, we’d love to hear your ideas!

Try these steps for a green home cleaning experience:

1. Ditch the paper towels and instead choose washable towels. Pick them up here or if you’re a client of Dazzle shoot us an email and we will leave a bundle at your home at your next home cleaning service.
2. Get rid of other disposables such as Clorox wipes, Swiffer pads, disposable duster heads, etc.
3. Make your own cleaning supplies! It’s easy, it’s cheap and it is much better for the health of you, your loved ones and the health of our one wild and precious Earth as Mary Oliver might say.

There are three main problems with buying rather than making our own green cleaning products. First, constant exposure to toxic and corrosive chemicals is bad for our employees, it is also bad for our clients and it is bad for any of our client’s friends who might be a dog or a cat. Second, cleaning supplies are mostly made of water and it just doesn’t make much sense in 2018 to spew greenhouse gases into the air to have water shipped to us when we can use tap water in Seattle or West Hollywood. Third, we homo sapiens must reduce our consumption of plastic. By making our own cleaning supplies and refilling our bottles hundreds of times before we recycle them we have massively cut the amount of plastic that we consume.

Okay, so what are the best cleaning supplies to make at home? Let’s start with what I like to call The Fabulous Four. These are our most used cleaning products. Click here to download this free PDF that shows how to make your own green cleaning supplies.

Were wishing you a happy, healthy, eco-friendly cleaning experience! And if it’s all just a little too much AND you live in Seattle or West Hollywood click here to get a quote! We’d love to keep your home sparkling using our natural cleaning products and green cleaning techniques.

It seems like you made it to this page because you might be thinking about hiring a cleaning company, and we’d love to be that cleaning company! However, if you’re not ready to hire cleaners right now then hopefully this will help keep you get and stay organized and keep your home cleaner than it is right now.

I run a business and have a super busy life and one thing I’ve learned is that trying to complete big tasks at one time is almost never the answer. It is daunting and it’s often difficult for us to carve out large chunks of time.

Instead, I use these techniques to stay on top of work, correspondence, cleaning and general organization.

I don’t like to clean when I first wake up in the morning or last thing before going to bed. Instead I usually spend about 10 minutes twice-daily cleaning things up.

The trick is to sprinkle deep cleaning into your everyday cleaning schedule. One morning I might spot-check the blinds and in the afternoon I might wipe out a shelf in the fridge. When talking on the phone I like to wipe down my baseboards or clean out the microwave. The key is that there is rarely a good time to scrub your home from top to bottom, but there are lots of mini-opportunities to keep your home clean. And, of course, if you live in Seattle or West Hollywood, just give us a jingle and we will make your home sparkle from top to bottom.

When I do have a larger chunk of time I like to embrace Power Hour. Sometimes I have a cleaning and organizing Power Hour and other times I have a correspondence Power Hour.

Just set the alarm on your phone for 60 minutes- of if time doesn’t allow for that then 30 or 40 minutes. Now, scramble around knocking as many things off of your written and non-written to do lists as possible. The trick to Power Hour is to complete things as you think of them. No procrastination. Stamp and address those envelopes, clean and sanitize the dog dish, empty the compost, wash the sheets, etc.

I also like to have correspondence power hour often enough that within that hour I can bring my email inbox down to zero.

If you’re just too busy to keep up with everything and you’d like to have a sparkling home then contact us and we will be happy to be your cleaning company! Dazzle currently serves Seattle and West Hollywood.

Related Links:

• 3 Tips to Keep Your Seattle Home Clean All Week
• Gift Certificates
• The Minimalists Guide to Simple Housework