Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993 TAG: 9304080375
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-22 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KAREN L. DAVIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
HOUSECLEANING BUSINESS `A VERY PERSONAL THING'
Peggy Dannel of Bedford County doesn't view her business clients as merely customers."Most of my customers are like family," she said.
Dannel is a housekeeper. A former sewing factory worker, she started her own business, Clean Sweep, in 1980 and now cleans three or more houses a day.
"Cleaning someone's house is a very personal thing," Dannel said. "I feel about their homes just like I do about my own home. I watch their children grow up. I do the parents' home, then do the children's homes after they get married."
Because of word-of-mouth recommendations, Dannel said she has never had to advertise. Instead, she has a waiting list.
She cleans as many houses in the Roanoke Valley as she can handle in about 30 hours a week.
"You have to have a lot of physical stamina to do this eight hours a day, 40 hours a week," she said.
She cleans a few offices, too, but not many because "They usually want someone at night," she said. She restricts her working hours to weekdays only.
She likes to be at the first house by 7 a.m. Two days a week, she takes a part-time employee with her to help.
"It takes two people about an hour and a half to clean a house," Dannel said.
Her fee starts at $25 per job, depending on the size of the house. Initially, she visits the home and gives an estimate for basic housecleaning, which includes dusting, vacuuming, emptying trash, mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms and kitchen.
She doesn't do laundry. However, Dannel said, she has a few elderly customers for whom she takes sheets home to wash, then brings them back and puts them on the bed.
Some clients hire her once or twice a year for full spring and fall cleanings.
People willing to pay for housecleaning services don't fit any particular description, Dannel said. She said her clientele run the gamut from wealthy to average income, from elderly to young couples, from working women to women who don't work. She does, however, clean for more women than men.
"Housekeeping is something everyone can afford, at least as a treat once in a while," Dannel said.
As an independent contractor, Dannel furnishes her own equipment and cleaning supplies, which she hauls around in a station wagon.
"Since 1983, [when she got the car], I've driven 200,000 miles to clean houses," she said.
Also as an independent contractor, Dannel pays self-employment taxes.
Self-employment taxes cover the burden of Social Security taxes for both employee and employer, according to Brenda Ivery, a service representative for the Internal Revenue Service.
Because of taxes and other expenses, a housekeeper's overhead is more than one might expect.
Dannel said, "My accountant told me it takes just about half of what I take in to run my business."
Although Dannel declined to say how much she earns a year, she said she believes a woman can support herself in the housekeeping business.
"It's tough to go into business," she said. "You have to be determined to stick to it. You have to be dependable. And you have to feel that the customer is important and that what you're doing for them is important."
According to Cornelia Flora, professor and head of the Department of Sociology at Virginia Tech, "Domestic work used to be the occupation of last resort. It was the most common way working women, particularly minority women, supported themselves. But that has definitely shifted. What has emerged is that a lot of women, even with college degrees, are now saying, `I like being my own boss. I can command work and earn good money.' We're seeing the growth of cleaning companies, where the woman becomes an entrepreneur.
"I think women with options choose to do this work because they are so incredibly appreciated by the people for whom they work," Flora said. "There is now a degree of respect that wasn't there before."
Flora speaks from personal experience as well as from professional observation. "My sister, who is a college graduate, did this work for a while in California. Now she specializes in carpet cleaning and has her own business."
Marjorie Skidmore, job service manager for the Virginia Employment Commission, said the VEC gets occasional requests for housekeepers.
"We have almost zero luck trying to find someone to do that. People won't work for $4.25 an hour to clean house. We advise the [would-be] employer to advertise in the newspaper," Skidmore said.
An increasing number of housekeepers, like Dannel, are self-employed independent contractors who operate their own businesses, serve many clients and pay their own taxes and expenses.
Still others establish a clear-cut, full- or part-time employer-employee relationship within a household.
"If it's a clear employer-employee relationship, there are laws on how you have to pay them to protect that employee," Skidmore said.
For instance, an employer must report wages and pay Social Security taxes if he pays a household worker $50 or more in a three-month quarter, according to the Social Security Administration.
According to a Covered Employment and Wages in Virginia quarterly report ending June 1992, there were nearly 300 people in Roanoke, Roanoke County, Botetourt County and Salem employed as domestics, excluding independent contractors. Their total taxable wages amounted to $557,979, Skidmore said. The average wage for those domestics was $170 per week, Skidmore said.
For Dannel, domestic work has some special rewards, because of the personal relationships that evolve.
A member of the Vinton Art Association, Dannel has exhibited her work in area restaurants and arts and crafts shows. She said a client who lives near Bent Mountain once drove all of the way to Vinton just to see her artwork in an exhibit.
"That was really special to me," she said. "All of my customers are good to me," she said, adding she agreed to be interviewed as a way of thanking her clients.
But after cleaning other people's houses all day, how does she feel about going home and cleaning her own?
"It makes you want to go home and do your own. You don't want everybody else's looking good and yours looking awful."
Peggy Daniel can be reached at 947-2290.