Almost anyone with a mop, bucket, and a business card can open a cleaning business. But not all cleaning services have a social component like Tremendous Maid, said Victoria Amador, cofounder of the Dorchester cleaning service. A native of the Dominican Republic, Amador hires an all-Latino staff and has received accolades for her business’ effect on a low-income neighborhood. “We are a social company helping our employees to grow and develop — and we just happen to be in the cleaning business,” Amador saidAmador spoke about her family-owned and -operated cleaning company.
“My mother was a housekeeper and commercial cleaner who sometimes worked two to three jobs at a time. She was a single mom and worked hard to earn enough money to bring my sisters and me to the US.
“At one point, I was embarrassed to say I was the daughter of a housekeeper and a cleaner myself. But five years ago, because we had so much experience, my mother, sisters, and I decided we wanted to bring a really excellent high-end cleaning experience to the Boston market.
“I had to empty the small amount in my retirement plan to launch the company. Now we are approaching $1 million in bookings.
“We have 33 employees. For some, this is the first job they’ve ever had in the US. We have to train them not only on how to clean, but also on how to read street signs, so they know where to park.
“People think cleaning is easy and can be done by anyone. But if you clean five large homes a day, or 10-20 toilets, scrub 5,000 square feet of floors, dust a facility, remove trash, and clean 14 elevators, at the end of the day, it feels like someone beat you up with a baseball bat. But all of us love cleaning and making our clients happy. There’s nothing like walking into a sparkling space and seeing everything shine.”
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Cindy Atoji Keene can be reached at [email protected].
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