Mother Nature Isn't an Easy One to Stop

According to experts, the unusually cold Southern California winter we have just experienced together with the wet spring have combined to create the perfect storm of misery.

If you live in the Conejo Valley or Malibu, or many other parts of Ventura County such as Camarillo in Southern California and particularly if you visit some of the area’s best parks such as the Conejo Canyons or Marvin Braude Mulholland Gateway Park, you are most likely to have witnessed the massive blossom of desert wildflowers happening across the area, following the five-year drought broken by long overdue record winter rainfalls. 

The Super Bloom, as it has come to be known, has been making headlines as it travels from south to north, tracking with the warm spring weather. There are some fascinating satellite photos that show, side by side, just how landscape-affecting the Super Bloom is for the desert. The Super Bloom has even earned a modest hashtag following on Instagram. 

With the Super Bloom comes massive amounts of pollen. Now, whilst that is great for the bees, for me and many others, it’s as if a giant pepper bomb has been dropped on the entire area. What are all of those orange dots covering the mountains, you may ask? Those are wildflowers, also known as the bane of my existence.

On a Monday evening last month, I sneezed so violently that I believe I coated the entirety of my TV screen, which I couldn’t quite see anyway because my eyes were streaming with a river of tears.

In the end, I gave up and took an antihistamine, which meant that I woke – 14 and a half hours later – on the sofa, feeling like I’d been force-fed absolutely everything from Charlie Sheen’s weekend away travel bag.

Drowsy? Nope. That doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt as I got into the office that Tuesday morning and gazed at my computer screen. A tad livelier than dead would be a more accurate way to describe how I felt at the time.

And that’s a worry because there are around 20 million allergy sufferers in California alone.

Worryingly, some of them are probably driving right now on the 101 or Pacific Coast Highway. Some may even be carrying out dentistry on our children or intricate surgery on others. And then we have all the kids who recently sat through their exams.

And that leads me to my house. For our clients who have met my wife or had any interaction with her on the phone, they will attest to the fact that it is only natural that Lizzie would head up our cleaning business.

And I say this for one reason. When I first met her, within a week of dating, I realized that I was actually dating Monica Gellar from Friends and not a girl from East London. I had begun to wonder that writers David Crane and Marta Kauffman had based Courtney Cox’s character on my now wife. Her obsession with cleaning knows no bounds. If she has a spare 5 minutes, rather than doing the very British thing of sitting down with a cup of tea, she picks up a mop, or a duster and starts to clean the house.

As a result, after our clients, we probably have the cleanest house known to mankind. In fact, I’d probably disagree with myself there. With the exception of maybe 2 or 3 of our clients who have us visit every other day each week, most of our clients have us visit weekly or bi-weekly to clean their homes, so I’d say that as I get an every half hour maid service at home, ours probably is the cleanest home on earth.

That being said, our house doesn’t quite resemble a family home, not even with me a man living in it or our 5 year old daughter, it resembles a show home of a latest property developer such as a KB Homes brochure. I’m reliably informed from my contacts back in the UK that Her Majesty The Queen would probably aspire to have a house as clean as ours.

Now, you’d think with the dust free environment I live in from a 6 times a day, daily maid service, it would be hard for me to suffer from allergens even with Ventura County being a largely agricultural community.

But Oh No!!

On our client’s homes, we use HEPA Filter vacuum cleaners. However, for reasons unknown to me or my wife, we don’t yet possess a HEPA Filter equipped vacuum cleaner at home, and therefore our house is not nearly as allergen free as our clients are. Which is why as much as we are dust free due to the incessant cleaning by my wife, we still have allergens in the house as we don’t use an industrial strength HEPA Filtered vacuum, and our TV is frequently covered with sneezes similar to that from a small elephant.

These vacuums are reserved solely for our client’s homes. When our maids use these industrial strength HEPA Back-pack and upright vacuums, these capture and remove nearly 100% of all dust, allergens, bacteria, pet dander, and pollen.  

Which is great … not for me but for our clients. But then I whole heartedly say, if our customers are happy, then so are we.

Now, when our clients have us clean, they’re not just booking us to clean their house. They’re booking us to change their lifestyle. Most will book us for a thorough 52 Point Spring Clean first before scheduling us for a Weekly or Bi-Weekly service.

Dust leaves your house, we don't just subdue it.

When we clean, unlike some of our rivals do, we don’t rearrange the dust around a bit and then expect to charge our clients for it. We entirely remove it from your home.

We use microfiber cleaning cloths which have a weave that scientifically traps and removes 95% of all dirt, grime, bacteria, and germs through their positive charges. We hand all of your wipe door frames, window frames, light switches.

From top to bottom, it's a thorough deep clean.  The maids hand wash and wipe virtually every available surface in your home, creating a healthier environment. Our comprehensive cleaning system covers every detail, with special focus on kitchens and bathrooms, floors and dusting.  

In your kitchen they will clean & sanitize the inside of your fridge, removing every item, but we do not presume to throw anything out... that is the only thing you have to do, throw out anything you don't want.  We completely clean the inside of your oven; we just ask that our clients leave the Self Cleaning Feature on the night before so it's cool to the touch when we arrive.

As I said, we use industrial strength HEPA Back-pack and upright vacuums that capture and remove nearly 100% of all dust, allergens, bacteria, pet dander, and pollen.  Our clients breathe better air! We get the carpets thoroughly and we also take the cushions off your couch, get under the couch and get wherever we can easily access under the beds too.

If you have sliding glass doors?  We get the tracks, and the glass on both sides, as well as any glass you have on or next to the front door.

We are committed to using green cleaning products that are healthier for you, your family, your pets, and the environment.  The maids will vacuum, scrub, and shine their way through your home until everything is cleaned just the way you want it, and Bring Peace into Your Home.

Afterwards, You’ve Got MAIDS will offer you a reduced rate to maintain this level of clean with regularly scheduled weekly or bi-weekly home cleanings.  

You’ve Got Maids of Thousand Oaks, Malibu & Camarillo offers a full service weekly, bi-weekly or monthly maid service. We also offer 52 Point Spring Cleans, Move in or Move Out Cleans, Pre-Party or After Party Cleans.

Our Maids are all background checked and drug screened. They all have to pass a comprehensive training program. We are licensed, bonded and insured and we offer a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee.