In Point Breeze, 35-year-old Angela Sultan has used home cleaners on and off for her entire adult life.
“It’s a game changer,” Sultan said. “For me, it’s a luxury. If I need to save money, I might skip it or spread it out.”
But “there were times in my life when it wasn’t a luxury,” she added. When she was pregnant and when her children were newborns, “it was a necessity for my mental health.”
Most recently, Sultan has employed the services of Fabiana Pons, owner of Fabi’s Cleaning Services.
Pons is among several Philadelphia-area home cleaners who said they have seen demand skyrocket since the pandemic, due in part to an influx of millennial customers like Sultan.
Pons and her crew usually clean more than a dozen homes a day, she said, and demand is so high they have to turn down some requests. This summer, typically a slow time, was as busy as ever, Pons said.
“People are working so hard,” she said. “They have no time or energy. And some people just don’t like cleaning.”
Several local residential cleaners said the rising demand from twenty- and thirtysomething clients marks a shift from previous decades. Their clients include single people and dual-income households, parents, and people without children.
When Warren Weiss was getting his business, Scrub! Cleaning, off the ground in 2008, he said young people seldom considered using his services, instead suggesting Weiss reach out to their older, more well-to-do relatives.
“People would be like, ‘Oh, you know, I have a really wealthy aunt, and she’s looking for somebody,’” Weiss said. Now, “it’s become almost like a utility. Everybody has a house cleaner, especially in the city.”
Why more people are paying for home cleaners
The professional cleaning industry is expected to keep growing, with the residential sector set to see the biggest rise in the next five years, according to a report from the market analytics firm Grand View Research.
The report said older customers and “younger professionals with busy lifestyles” are fueling the growth.
“People are career-driven, for better or for worse. It just doesn’t leave time for tasks like that,” said Sultan, a home-cleaning customer and a professional organizer with her business, Angie Organizes. “Families are really overwhelmed,” especially those without relatives nearby.
And “I don’t think people in our [millennial] generation were taught how to keep house,” she said.
In talking to her own organizational clients and others like her who pay for professional cleaning services, Sultan said they often express unnecessary shame about the fact that they hire professional help to keep their homes clean and tidy. Some of her clients don’t even tell their spouses they have hired her, said Sultan. She said she believes this embarrassment often stems from unrealistic expectations about how much modern parents, especially mothers, can multitask.
The pandemic also drove renewed interest in professional cleaning services, cleaners noted, as hygiene became a greater priority.
Hybrid work schedules have also led to people spending more time in their homes than they did a decade ago, noted Giana Dennin, owner of Dog Mom Cleaning Co, which specializes in pet-friendly cleanings during which pups can roam the home.
“A lot of my clients are parents with newborns, pregnant women, and a lot of people who work from home, ages 25-35,” she said. Since the pandemic, “everyone values cleaning and cleanliness more now. And now that they’re home all the time, they’re making their coffee and looking up and noticing dusty fixtures.”
How much professional home cleaning costs
Still, employing regular home cleaners remains out of reach for many without disposable income.
A recurring home cleaning, which is often scheduled once or twice a month, can cost anywhere from $150 to $300 per visit, depending on factors including the size of the home, according to local professionals. Deep cleans can cost $500 or more and are sometimes required before a company will start recurring cleanings.
Still, for some, the cost is worth it, especially when they consider how much time it would take for them to do the same level of cleaning themselves. Home cleaners often advertise that they can accomplish in a couple hours what would take the homes’ residents a day or two.
Jessica McQuilkin, owner of Cleaning with a Meaning Philly, said first-time clients often have the same reaction when they walk back into their spotless home: “I can’t believe I waited so long to do this.”
Sultan, the Point Breeze organizer, is taking a break from professional home cleaning this fall as she tightens her budget. But, she said, she’s planning to resume before the holidays.
Home-cleaning may seem like a frivolous expense to some people, Sultan said, but she has experienced firsthand how much peace of mind it can provide.
“Sometimes,” she said, “you have to throw money at a problem.”