My wife and her sister are thinking of starting a business. They are thinking about starting a service to do site clean up on new homes. The service would include total clean up of the site and the interior of the home. Making it ready for the new occupants.
Do any of you use a service like this? If so can you tell us how they charge?
Thanks Kip
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I have no idea what they charged, but they also gave our Supers a complete list of any dings or damage they found along the way.
Basically, they became part of the punch crew. Educate them, they will score points and become in demand.
Yes, in two forms. There's a hauling service that has made the effort to cater to contractors and wow did his business take off like a flash. He can do roll offs like any other guy, but most wont do small drops, and he has boxes from 8 to 30yd, and a handful of trucks from pickups to small boxes that go around town doing just what you said - cleanup and small pickups. Example, trim guy shows up and the drywallers left mounds of junk all over. Granted, the right answer is call them and gripe, but you could call him, in an hour he'd have guys and brooms over there making it semi tidy.
His charge for a short pickup (1 guy under 1/2 hour) - which I use a lot, is $35. You swap a couple of windows and a slider door out on a remodel, the HO sure doesn't want it on the lawn, you both want it gone, make a neat stack at the end of the drive and call. He's there. But the biz isn't totally just pick up trash, its customer service, and he knows how to do it. That's what sets him apart.
Final cleaning has happened a couple of ways. First, paying a maid service for it, then saying man that costs too much and having a clan party with the wife and kids pressed into service, then saying forget it this stinks and paying for it again. Evolution. Most of the merry maid types here provide basic supplies (their own dust spray, brooms, etc) but nothing major. We're talking can operate out of a Toyota trunk here. About $20 an hour. Windows, for whatever reason, are excluded, and you can have that done at bid rates, which depends on size and whether you want the outside done while it's snowing or not. heh.
For remodels, I use a carpet cleaner that does an awesome job most quick, and the stuff is dry again in 4 hours. Show up gets you 400sf for $69, and it's priced per foot after that. Not bad at all. Go through a house and get all the DW and paint done, and for $70 it looks better when you left than when you got there . . . all around. The HO's generally think this is just me being super nice, but yes, it's in the budget. And worth every penny.
The people you want to target aren't necessarily large tract firms. They probably have their own trucks. Look for the guys that build onesy twosy and the remodel types. One and two man outfits that dont have the time or inclination to spend that much time cleaning when they could be doing something more suited to the talents they're trying to market.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
There is another potential clientle :) Folks like me who "live in" during renovation and don't trust a "regular" house cleaning crew to really understand how to advise and clean once or twice a month to keep the family sane.
Brickman House uses a heavy duty service twice a month and it is keeping them sane. I've toyed with the idea. After a week full of stripping molding and recreating storm windows and putting in insulation and so forth, I walk into our living areas and want to cry/collapse. Same old plaster dust, dog hair, etc. etc. Makes me feel like Sisyphus.
Just for my sanity's sake, I would ask for a service like this as a gift for my birthday and every other major holiday :)
Ski hill developments are good candidates for a clean up service. The developper or the GC want their sites to look clean as vacation rental customers are constantly driving by, looky-lukes, etc. In some metro areas, isn't there a market for recycled construction materials, even drywall?
There were plenty of companies like that doing new construction in Las Vegas. They'd do rough-cleans during construction- sweep out the house prior to drywall, and another cleanup prior to carpet. They'd then do the final cleaning prior to move-in- vacuum, windows, bathrooms, all horizontal surfaces.
It was mostly hispanic labor out there (legal/illegal- I don't know), and they'd get around $500 a house for the package of three cleanings.
Bob
Here, most of the GCs have their own preferred people; some use spouses of their regular guys. I discovered the bad way that if you call a regular type cleaning service, and ask if they know how to clean a brand new house, no matter what they say, they really don't.
I had to go in and vacuum out the ducts. And properly clean the dust off the windows. And a whole lot more.
It's a whole different ball of wax from the regular type cleaning, but every new house needs it. If you're planning to start a business doing that, talk to the GCs to see what they do.