Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast E22: The Cleaning Industry’s Dirty Little Secret: Why Your Cleaner’s Safety Can’t Wait

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Introduction

Coming up next on the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast: “At this point, I’m literally backing away. I’m on like, he’s on this side cleaning his neck around. I’m backing away, clearly uncomfortable. And I was like, I’m not interested.”

From your first dollar to your first million, welcome to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast presented by ZenMaid. Join your host, Stephanie Pipkin, founder of Serene Clean as she shares proven tips, tricks and hard earned lessons. Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale, get ready to discover how to build your own cleaning empire. Let’s roll up our sleeves and dive in.

A Personal Safety Scare

Stephanie: Hello my friends, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and on this podcast today, I’m gonna probably get a little ragey, so bear with me. Male owners, please listen to what I’m saying here, because I want you to take a little walk in my shoes and the shoes of all of your female employees, because we’re talking about safety today.

Last week and the week before, I had two instances where I myself felt fear. I walk my dog Lily, my border collie that you guys see every day, and I go for a nice, long walk through the neighborhoods. About two weeks ago, this guy stopped driving to leer at me. He was yelling at me like, “You got social media?” I was like, “No, but I have a boyfriend, go away,” just trying to shuffle him along. He was in his car and he cruised away. Unfortunately, not unusual, right? Either way, doing the glance behind my back, all of that stuff.

Last week, it happened again with the same guy. He already knows that I am not interested, so that doesn’t matter. That’s something that we often do all the time – “I have a partner” or whatever, “I’m not interested.” Multiple ways to say this, because many times these creeps will respect your hypothetical man more than just you being a human being. I’ll try not to go on some type of feminine rage, feminist rant.

When Uncomfortable Turns Frightening

So anyway, it happened again last week, but this time I was actually pretty afraid because he drove by me. I was just cruising along, walking, not really paying attention to traffic in the other lane. He stopped in the road when he realized it was me, and he backed up on a main road to get back to me so that he could shout at me. He was like, “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re so beautiful. I just have to, I just have to tell you that.”

I was like, “I’m not interested.” At this point, I’m literally backing away. I’m on like, he’s on this side, craning his neck around. I’m backing away, clearly uncomfortable. And I was like, “I’m not interested,” trying to basically have the biggest bitch face that I could. But clearly he could read in my body language that I was scared, because his exact words were, “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I don’t bite,” with a grin.

In that moment, it was kind of paralyzing, because you always think about situations like this, or if you’ve ever thought about what you’re going to do in a situation, it’s so easy to think you’re gonna have this perfect reaction, or do exactly what you think you should. But then the actual situation comes on and that fight or flight, that freeze response, your nervous system takes over.

I was afraid, and in those situations, yelling at a man is not necessarily the best approach. Is that going to enrage this person, right? Luckily, multiple things were good. It was daytime. There were people in the yard that were kind of witnessing what was going on. And number three, I had a gun in my pocket because I have concealed carry – exhibit A of why.

I know for my non-American listeners, that might seem wild to you, or you know if you don’t agree with that, that’s fine. It’s my right, and as American – ‘Merica – so I carry a gun. It just reiterated to me, thank goodness I do, because in that situation that feeling I had of the pit in my stomach – what do I do? What is this person going to react if I become aggressive to try to get him away from me?

He took off, and the people in the yard came down and were like, “What was he saying?” I told them the situation and that this is now the second time that this has happened with this man who I’ve made it clear I’m not interested in. He does not respect that.

Understanding Our Cleaners’ Vulnerability

I’m getting emotional about this, but it makes me emotional, because that feeling I had takes me right to my cleaners – the feelings that they must feel, and the feelings of all the cleaners who have been in any situation where they’ve been put in an uncomfortable situation.

If you guys do not know, this is a huge problem in the cleaning industry, specifically for female cleaners, which the majority of our industry is women. So to my men who are still listening right now, I know you’ll be like, “Why women?” And maybe you’re not thinking like that – maybe I’m just projecting, but there’s a reason I’m focusing on this.

All of my staff, for the most part, are women, and they are alone in situations. They are alone in other people’s environments, which is inherently more dangerous than perhaps working at a restaurant where I have been sexually harassed before as a waitress. But it’s a totally different environment, because there’s people all around me. In a house alone with somebody, that is a totally different ball game. You are so much further, inherently at risk if the opportunity is there, and that person is of that mindset – they can more easily take advantage of the situation.

I thought about, what if I had been alone in a house and this was a client who did that? Just how amplified my feelings of fear would be. Despite being in a public place on a street in the middle of the day, I felt afraid, rightfully so. How I would feel in that situation with the house, and that has happened to my cleaners.

The Necessity of Safety Protocols

If you haven’t listened to my full-on safety video on the ZenMaid YouTube channel, we’ll link it below. I go into actually several different scenarios where my cleaners have been in very dangerous situations, whether that be from a client, or just a situation where they got hurt – dogs, all sorts of reasons.

Safety is not talked about enough, and it’s not thought about until something bad happens. That’s why I’m talking about this, because I want you guys to be proactive, not reactive, and not wait for something horrific to happen to actually have plans in place and to communicate with your staff about this.

I want you guys to know that it is our job as owners to protect our staff members as much as possible. They are putting their safety into your hands, and I don’t want you to be dismissive of it. I also want to give you guys the tools and some guidelines to what we do at Serene Clean to emphasize safety.

Serene Clean’s Safety Guidelines

I’m going to go over a few of those things, just to give you guys examples. Check the show notes – we will have a downloadable template that you can edit to your heart’s content for your cleaning business. That is basically a safety reminder template that we use at Serene Clean. All of the cleaners have a copy of this, and we go over safety super regularly so that they understand that this is priority and top of mind.

At the end of the day, nothing else matters. No job should ever top your cleaners’ safety. So I want you guys to take this seriously, because it could be life or death, frankly. That sounds really dramatic, but it’s not. Look up the sexual assault statistics on female janitors if you need any reiteration on that. This is a problem, and this is not me being dramatic. It’s a big problem.

I know that I will see stories in the comments on this, of anybody who’s experienced something or something that their cleaners have gone through. Again, it could not even be another human, it could be a dog. It could be biohazard situations that you got to get your cleaners out of there. It could be drugs that people are using, or heavy drinking that’s happening during the cleaning when you show up. There are all sorts of things that can put you in an uncomfortable situation that you shouldn’t have to be in to do your job.

We’re freaking house cleaners, guys – we should not have to be dealing with safety problems. But unfortunately, this is not a fantasy world that we live in. It’s the real world. So that’s why I’m talking about this. That’s why you guys will hear me say stories like this periodically, or if anything ever happens. I want to share that so that it’s top of mind, and also to give you guys some parameters as to how to operate around safety.

Key Safety Practices for Cleaning Staff

On the safety sheet that you guys can download, number one is teaching your cleaners to be alert and paying attention to their surroundings. This means not being distracted. Do not let your cleaners have both earbuds in ever. We, of course, let our cleaners listen to music or podcasts. Obviously, they’re all listening to this podcast right now, right? My cleaners – it’s funny, I did get a message from – Hi Lori, if you’re listening to this I saw your message, I promise I’ll respond when I get a second – saying she’s listening to the podcast.

We do not let them have both earbuds in, because they have to be able to hear not only about other people, but also if there’s a forklift, what if something falls, what if there’s a dog – there’s so many reasons to not be basically taking away one of your senses of hearing whenever possible.

No earbuds at all when they are going through transitional spaces. That is going to be places like the facility or home to their car, between the office and their car – basically anytime you’re going from one space to another. That is the most likely place for your cleaners to be at risk, because they probably have a handful of supplies, they’re trying to find their car keys, they’re dealing with their phone and they’re listening to music. They’re literally like a blind duck that’s just waddling to their car.

Anytime you see your cleaners do that, correct it on the spot, get on to them, because it’s a nasty habit, and it’s one that is following them not only at work, but they’re doing it in their personal lives. When they’re getting groceries, they’re being distracted. That is when people get attacked. So teaching them and correcting that – you do not want that to be happening.

We also require that before they update all of their ZenMaid notes, they need to get into their car first, which brings us into number two, lock yourself in whenever possible. We want our cleaners to be locking themselves into whatever space that they’re cleaning whenever humanly possible. Sometimes it’s not possible, but if it is, lock the door after cleaning, especially when we’re talking about vacation rentals, vacant home cleanings, really any home at all – lock yourself in.

Businesses – a lot of times we can do that too. And then, of course, when you get in your car, immediately hitting that lock button. Again, not just going to the phone, hitting the vape, all of the things our cleaners are doing. Is that just my cleaners, or every person in their 20s, 30s and 40s nowadays, it seems like? I actually don’t vape. I’ve never vaped, nor have I ever smoked a cigarette, because I have a very addictive personality. So all those candy flavors of the vapes – I’m sold. I can’t even try it once, not even once. So if I got some heavy vapers listening, go ahead, raise your hand. You can admit it.

Handling Visitors and Unexpected Situations

Number three is not answering the door at appointments. It is not our cleaners’ job to let people in that we are not notified are going to be arriving. Say an electrician is supposed to show up and the client did not notify us of that. That could be anybody saying they’re an electrician. Has anybody seen The Sopranos? You can say you’re anybody and just burst into the door.

So do not open the door unless you have been told specifically, like, this person is showing up at this time, and they’re doing this. Even so, we just prefer no service providers in the house when we are cleaning, because just because they’re from an electric company or they’re a plumber or whatever else they are doesn’t mean they’re not necessarily a risky person. The ideal is to just limit the amount of people that our cleaners are exposed to as much as possible in this very vulnerable position.

Think about cleaning a tub. Think about all of the different positions that we are in, where your back is turned, you’re just not ready for somebody to take you by surprise. I know that this, again, may sound psychotic like, “Stephanie, are you just on red alert to be attacked at all times?” No. This is called situational awareness. I would hazard a guess that anybody who has been attacked in these situations would have wished they had had more time to react.

So that’s what this is about, being aware of your surroundings and mitigating risk as much as possible. Accepting packages as well – we don’t expect our cleaners, or we do not want them to go meet the driver. If UPS dropped off a box, we are going to wait. We will pull that in if it’s in the rain or something. But even then, we just don’t like to touch it, because what if it goes missing? There’s some liability in there as well.

Trusting Your Instincts

Finally, the most important thing is listening to your intuition and your gut instinct. I think so many times as women, we have just shoved that gut instinct far, far down so we don’t seem like a bitch, right? So we don’t seem mean, because being a bitch – well, and getting older, apparently – is like the worst thing in society as a woman, like the worst sin that we could commit. I said I wasn’t gonna go on a feminist rant – I’m sorry, guys, I can’t help myself.

But honestly, you need to listen to your gut and be firm. That guy who did that to me last week – I felt like I was being pretty not nice, and it still wasn’t working. So when we are nice, or we are trying to be polite because we’re at work or anything like that, that means that that person is going to be interpreting your behavior through a certain lens.

I literally teach my cleaners: it’s whatever means necessary – you need to get out of that situation. You are not going to get in trouble, whatever you need to say, whatever you need to do, you get out of there, because your safety is number one. And if they are feeling any sort of way, just leave. Just get out of there. Make your excuses, do whatever you need to do.

I want you guys to definitely use that template, print it off, give it to your cleaners and talk about this every time situations come up. For us, orientation is the first day of their employment. We literally talk about safety. We provide our cleaners with pepper gel and an alarm. If they want it, we’ll also link to those as well. If they want to have pepper gel, Serene Clean will provide it. If they want to go get their concealed carry, I will pay for it. Because whatever I can do to make women feel empowered of their safety, I am going to do.

Obviously, I have male staff as well. I am talking statistically what is most likely. A cleaner could get attacked by a giant dog – you might need some pepper gel for that, too. So whatever it is that they need to do to feel comfortable, I am going to help facilitate that.

Using the ZenMaid SOS Button

The second part of this, and something that I want to talk about, of how to handle this tactically – steps to handle this is, of course, the ZenMaid SOS button. Last August, I went and saw ZenMaid in Amsterdam. We had a really fun trip, we had a big retreat, and I off-handedly, just like I did at the beginning of this podcast, started telling horror stories. I started talking about, like, “Oh, this happened. This happened. Nobody ever talks about this, but this is a huge problem.”

Literally, within a couple days, they surprised me with the prototype of the SOS button, which now, a few short months later, they have fully released to every single user of ZenMaid. What the SOS button does is it silently alerts everybody who is assigned to the appointment, as well as the management, that that person has pressed the SOS – they need help. They need immediate assistance. Nobody else is going to know – it’s not like some loud alarm or something. Obviously that would put them in danger even more potentially.

So it is a silent alert to let us know something is going wrong, and we need to get a hold of that cleaner. They need our help as soon as possible. And of course, if they just broke their leg or something, then that would be a call 911 situation.

Handling Uncomfortable Situations

This is a perfect example of sometimes there is subtlety to uncomfortableness. Last year, I had cleaners being propositioned very directly – “Will you join me in the bedroom?” Not exactly subtle what that man was trying to do. But there are other situations where it’s kind of insidious, that discomfort. It’s comments on our appearance, it’s things like that.

I literally told my cleaners, if a client compliments you, like your appearance, that’s reason enough. You’re a professional service provider. There’s no reason that they should be telling you that you’re pretty. Any men that are listening, this isn’t about “women can’t take a compliment.” If we’re at our job and I am alone in your home and you’re complimenting me, then that is you testing the water. And if I accept that, all of a sudden, the lines blur and you keep pressing. So if we don’t say no and slap that damn wrist, all of a sudden, you think it’s okay.

Again, I’m not saying you, my listener – not you. You would never do this, but some men do this. And I’ve experienced it myself – again, waitressing, experienced a lot of stuff. People were crazy, and I was a minor too. So even worse.

What To Do When the SOS Button Is Pressed

So a cleaner presses the SOS button, you get the alert, and then what? What do you do? This is what I want to talk to you about.

If a cleaner at Serene Clean presses that, the first thing to consider is, is another cleaner at the appointment? Because at that point, the other cleaner also got the alert that their co-worker – something’s wrong. For us, our cleaners are always cleaning in different spaces of the home, so you need to direct your cleaners that, if they are on a job and their co-worker hit that, they need to go find them. They need to go seek them out and figure out what’s happening, because at the end of the day they are the fastest, they’re on site.

Or if they are driving, that is another scenario where we don’t necessarily want them to walk into a dangerous situation. We want that other cleaner to be calling us so we can try to figure out what’s going on. So keep that in mind – is the other cleaner on the job, at the job, or are they commuting to it because they’re all meeting? Different considerations to keep in mind. If you’re already at the job, go find your coworker. If you’re not at the job, we don’t know what the situation is. We don’t want our other cleaner walking in to a potentially dangerous situation.

Obviously, that comes with pros and cons, because if their co-worker needs help – but what if the guy has them at gunpoint or something crazy like that? We don’t know what the situation is, so I’d rather not add potentially another vulnerable person to the situation, and now we got two cleaners in danger. We may say, “Hey, they just broke their ankle. Get there,” because we figured it out, but we want them to not go there yet.

Communication Protocol During Emergencies

The next part is very important. We don’t know if your cleaner can speak freely or not, because we don’t know what the situation is. So it’s very important that you reach out to your cleaner in a neutral way that does not hint that something is amiss. We are going to first try to call our cleaner. We are then going to text, wait five to 10 minutes. Well, we’re going to call several times. I would call a couple times, then text at the same time. Give them some time to call, and then immediately we’re going to authorities, because if they press that and then all of a sudden, they can’t answer the phone – they were just on their phone – something is horribly wrong.

So I would rather be on the side of caution, because if they’re pressing this, this is some type of emergency, or they’re feeling uncomfortable. Ideally, they are able to pick up your call and you’re going to say something along the lines of, “Hey, we need to reschedule or rearrange the schedule, and we have to pull you from this job. Please pack up and get ready to leave. We’ll explain it to the client.”

Because I don’t know if you’ve ever heard somebody talking on the phone, you can hear what the other person is saying. If that person is in close quarters to them, then again, we need to be very careful. So the cleaner, if they are unable to speak freely, will say, “Okay, thank you. I’ll let the client know.” That means that somebody is around them. If they can speak freely, they’re going to speak freely. So just direct them to have that kind of dialog back and forth. If they say that, then we know that they are not safe. They are not in a place that they can speak freely.

The goal is to get them out of there as quickly as possible. So I would say, “Great. Can you just stay on the phone with me while you walk out to your car,” or however they traveled there. So that means, again, they can’t speak freely. They can say to that person, “Hey, my boss is on the phone. They need to change my schedule. I’m going to go take this call. It’s my boss.” So that gets them out of the situation. So hopefully, it solves two problems: It gets them away from the danger if they can talk or if they can’t talk. And two, it gets them to a place that they can hopefully talk, which is their car, and then they can let us know what happened or what is happening.

If they can speak freely, they’re going to tell you right away – “Hey, the customer’s son is here, and he’s making these comments. He’s in his bedroom right now.” At that point, we do not wait to contact anybody. The cleaner leaves. The whole goal for us: get the cleaner out first. We can explain anything or communicate with the client later. I don’t care about that part at all. I care about my cleaner’s safety. So getting them out first, we can handle everything else later, even if they have to leave supplies, depending on the volatility of the situation.

Establishing Clear Communication Protocols

The biggest part for you guys is to establish what do the code language and code communication look like for you. I would suggest teaching all of your staff: We are going to call you, if you can pick up, we’re going to say, “Hey, I need to rearrange your schedule. Can you start packing up?” And they say yes, and they start packing up. Then you keep them on the phone. If they can speak freely, that is the time to do it. So we just don’t want to alert anybody who is in hearing distance.

Obviously, if another cleaner is at the job, we want to get in contact with them as well. You’re also sending a text of the same, because you don’t know who’s able to see their phone or anything like that, with the goal of them calling you back. But again, don’t let too much time pass. Five minutes if you don’t hear back from them – they just hit that button. They had access to their phone to do that. I don’t care. Go, call the cops, welfare check, immediately.

That is the chain of events that we are going to be taking place in Serene Clean if somebody presses the SOS button. So I want you guys to come up with a plan for this. We will have an article on the ZenMaid magazine release that kind of lays this out for you guys as well.

Preparing for Safety Situations

I love the SOS button. I hope I never have to have use for it, frankly. I really do. But over the past six years of business, I’ve had multiple instances where this would have been very useful. It would have been great for our cleaners to be able to have that silent alert, even if they press it, and then they can get out of the situation, and they immediately do so.

At the end of the day, we teach, first and foremost, we want our cleaners to get out of the situation. They don’t need to tell us, but if they swipe that, they get out, they call us back to let us know while they’re high-tailing it out of there, just so that we are aware something is going on and we are not waiting till after the fact.

If there needs to be back and forth, it’s probably going to be a little chaotic if this happens, because all of a sudden, everybody’s going to drop everything and try to get a hold of that cleaner. So just know that.

Please, if you have not, if you’re a ZenMaid user, and you have not talked to your cleaners through this or come up with a game plan, this is your trigger to do so. This episode – please take some time, go read the article, download the staff safety reminders sheet, and get these things in place. It will not take you long.

And if you need to call a staff meeting or you need to record a video and send it to your staff because you can’t get a meeting together anytime soon, this needs to be taken care of immediately, because you just don’t know. They may have seen that button and just don’t understand, or don’t know what’s going to happen if they press it and are worried that an alarm is gonna go off, or you’re going to start calling and being like, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong,” and then they’re maybe not apt to press it.

The Importance of Having a Plan

So you need to explain what’s going to happen and have a process in place to follow, because when this happens, just as I described in the beginning of the episode, you don’t know how you’re going to react until you get to a situation, unless you have laid out a plan. You need to have basically a script in place of what you’re going to say, so that you know. We always fall to our lowest abilities in moments of stress.

It’s just like, we all say we’re gonna diet and exercise when we have the time, when I’m gonna take care of myself when I have the time, etc. But it’s like, well, no, you need to be figuring this out when you don’t have the time, so that when life is how it usually is, which is not perfect, you actually still are able to maintain this. Because if you’re only doing things when situations are perfect, well, you’re most likely never going to be doing it, because nothing’s ever perfect.

We need to come up with situational plans, and that kind of applies for literally every aspect of our business. We need to have a plan in place for when any fire happens. Cleaner calls out, client cancels, client needs rearranged, you get a complaint. Those are the things that could happen in our business that cause you some havoc. So what’s the plan? What are we going to do in those situations? Maybe keep listening to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast and we’ll talk about it. But you have to have a plan, guys.

Closing Thoughts on Safety

That is why I’m talking about this. If you want to hear all of those horror stories, go listen to the original YouTube video that I made, not the podcast episode. I just felt the desire to share about this again, because I just had that situation, and it made me so hyper aware. Feeling that fear was so visceral for me, and reminding me that we’re putting our staff at risk. Inherently, this job can be risky.

Not that every job doesn’t have danger. But is it danger from another human being? We’re not policemen and police women. We are not Secret Service or FBI agents. We’re house cleaners and business cleaners. I just don’t think that we should have to be considering this, but we do. So that’s why I’m talking about it.

I will always be a champion for safety, because my staff mean everything to me. Their safety means everything. I’m just so emotional about this, because some of the worst situations that have happened – it really shook me to my core, and nobody got hurt even. But all I could think of is, what if? What if he didn’t back off? I had a cleaner cornered one time, and this guy was just being awful, and I just thought, what if he had attacked her?

So I know you may think it’s extreme to talk about having a weapon or having a knife or pepper spray or anything like this, but these things happen, guys. All I see it as is making it an equalizer and empowering our staff – and also letting them know fully, 100% I have their back.

I want you to have your staff’s back, and I know you do. But do they know? Do they know that they’re not gonna get in trouble? Do they know that if they’re aggressive and tell that guy to back off, or they drop everything and run out of a cleaning to get out of there – do they know that they’re not going to get in trouble? Have you explicitly said that? If not, today’s the day to say it.

So I know this was a heavier one guys. I know I got a little heated, but it’s just so important. I care so much about this, and I know you guys do too. So there’s safety! Alright, I’m gonna calm down. Maybe I’ll record another episode about something more lighthearted, to cleanse my palate.

But please go take care of these things. The resources are linked down below. Hit that subscribe. Do you have a story you want to share? Go ahead, share it in the comments. I’d love to hear it, and I will see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, guys.

If you enjoyed this episode of The Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, please be sure to leave us a five-star review so we can reach more cleaners like you. Until next time, keep your work clean and your business filthy rich.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Staff Safety Reminders Template – Downloadable template
• How to Keep Your Cleaning Staff Safe – Stephanie’s Video on ZenMaid’s YouTube Channel
• Pepper Gel and Personal Safety Alarm