The day before the Super Bowl, PopUP received a last minute call in the afternoon for a request, “We need five cleaners for…tonight?” The woman sounded like she knew she was asking for the impossible—and she was. When I told her we were all staffed out at the moment, she followed with, “What about tomorrow?” Yeah….um, no. With eight parties going on, with such late notice for a weekend when most people don’t want to work because they’re at home or at a party watching the Big Game, it’s not an impossible request, but it’s pretty unlikely.
Cleaning is a low-margin business. We are often asked for discounts for non-profit functions, but unfortunately, this is not something that we can oblige. We don’t—and can’t—keep cleaners in a green room somewhere so we can send them out last minute if someone calls, desperate for help. This is also why we insist on a four-hour minimum. You can’t get cleaners to go to a job for less than four hours. It’s not economically worth the trip.
There’s a process that we go through when people hire us so that we can make sure that we are appropriately staffed and so that your event is appropriately managed. The most important information we need ahead of time is the square footage and number of attendees on the list. Event cleaning is not the same as house cleaning or even commercial cleaning. We charge per square footage and per number of guests and we staff accordingly.
A 20,000 square foot space with 200 guests will require different staffing needs than a 20,000 square foot space with 2000. The same is true for the scope of work. Does the event just need bathroom attendants? Or are you looking for a deep clean, decor and furnishing setup and breakdown, or significant trash removal? One event we serviced required cleaning a warehouse space that hadn’t been inhabited for over three months and required scraping black paint off the windows. That’s not the same thing as picking up discarded wineglasses off side tables and managing overflowing trash.
After we have an approved estimate, which often entails some back-and-forth communication, then we require a signed contract, a fifty percent deposit on the invoice, and a service hold authorization for the balance. While we can expedite this process, that still doesn’t take into account the backend process of staffing and getting them the necessary supplies and equipment.
So don’t wait until the last minute. Plan ahead. Many underestimate just how much cleaning needs to be done for a party or an event. If you’re running around cooking or dealing with caterers, trying to play host, and managing the timing of everything, the last thing you need to worry about is the upkeep of bathrooms, cleaning up afterwards when you’re exhausted, and dealing with the proliferation of trash.
This is where PopUP CleanUP comes in. Events are our specialty. We clean up rather well.
