Want someone to clean your house? There’s an app for that.
An Edmonton-based company is helping to keep homes clean and provide employment opportunities for residents in the Capital Region.
CleanNow was launched in November as an on-demand service in Edmonton, Sherwood Park and St. Albert. The app connects residents with cleaning entrepreneurs who are hired through the app to clean your home.
“We’ve all heard stories about people that have had cleaners that have been really good and then they’ve lost them or they’ve had trouble finding them in the first place, so it really felt like we could bring a technology solution to make house cleaning reliable,” CEO Angus Gastle said.
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The service offers regular, deep and move-in and out cleaning. Prices vary depending on the kind of cleaning and length of time it will take.
Users enter information about their home and the type of cleaning they want, and the app then provides a price quote.
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Gastle said cleaners have had a criminal record check done, are fully insured, and have completed a CleanNow training program.
“We’ve recruited 5,000 cleaners across Canada.
“They’re all vetted, professional cleaners. These aren’t folks that do this on the side; they do this as a full time job,” he said.
LISTEN: Hear from CEOs of two local start up companies, including CleanNow, on the 630 CHED Afternoon News.
CleanNow removes the task of finding work for those interested in cleaning homes.
“They get up in the morning, they turn on their app, we’ve scheduled a whole day of work for them, and they work as little or as much as they want to every day,” Gastle said.
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Gastle said the app has turned out to be a great resource for new Canadians who may otherwise struggle to find consistent work in the industry.
“Most of our cleaners are coming from visible minority communities. We’re very connected to that community. We have friends and family working together, starting family businesses and working with us and going through our training program and creating opportunities that might not have been there before,” he said.
It has only been two months since the app launched, but Gastle said so far the feedback has been positive.
“We’ve all heard stories about people that have had cleaners that have been really good and then they’ve lost them or they’ve had trouble finding them in the first place — so it really felt like we could bring a technology solution to make house cleaning reliable.”
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The goal is to expand the on-demand service across Canada by the end of 2019.
“We’ve got the cleaners that are ready and they’ve been through the training program. They’re ready to work. We just need to manage our scale so we can do it sustainably,” Gastle said.
The app is available on the App Store and Google Play.