Safety and training at the heart of specialized cleaning company
What is a charming axe thrower doing in a house that needs such a major cleanup?
Learning something new every day, said Alicia Nelson, who has been on the staff of Enviropure Home Services — rated as Ottawa’s premier cleaning business for twelve consecutive years — for the last year.
“I love working for this company,” said the 25-yearold, a former cook and kitchen worker, as well as an axe-throwing coach. “You never know what you are going to be doing the next morning. It’s always interesting, because things are constantly changing.”
Founded on the principle that a family’s health is vital, Enviropure’s cleaning packages, available throughout Greater Ottawa, include deep cleaning services, asthma and allergy cleaning and move-in and move-out cleaning. They also specialize in mould removal, asbestos abatement, hoarding cleanup and trauma and biohazard cleaning, all emphasizing the preservation of health of clients and staff and the rehabilitation of the site.
“What we do is very different from regular cleaning,” she added. “Looking back, I realize that before I started with Enviropure, I hadn’t followed proper cleaning procedures at all.”
For example, she said, on one occasion before she joined the Enviropure team, she was called upon to clean a carpeted room that “had basically been turned into a kitty litter box.”
“I wasn’t even wearing a mask when I vacuumed the carpet,” she said. “Knowing what I know now through working with Enviropure, we would have ripped out that carpet and everyone would have had respirators on while they worked.”
“Because we specialize in extreme cleaning, we take the health of our employees and our clients very, very seriously,” said Richard Sticklee, Enviropure’s vice president of operations. “Hazards that could leave or cause infection might not show up until years down the road, so training and professional cleaning are particularly important. And we demonstrate the difference between looking clean and professional cleaning in every job we do.
“We teach our people how to clean properly,” he said, explaining that the weekly classes comprising the inhouse instructional program ensure that every member of the 16-strong staff is conversant with the Enviropure professional cleaning standard in every part of the company’s mandate. “They are highly-skilled and highly-trained and fully understand the difference between disinfecting and sanitizing. Our home-cleaning services help reduce allergens in the house, get rid of harmful bacteria and increase overall health. We’re completely remoulding the extreme cleaning and disaster restoration industry.
“If people are properly trained, they don’t have to guess the best way to deal with a situation,” Sticklee pointed out. “When they walk in, they are there not only to protect the client’s property and health but also to preserve their own. This is why it is so important for them to be properly trained and certified.”
“We are learning constantly in classes or on the job,” said Nelson, who has completed her certification in carpet cleaning through the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) program. “Training is ongoing. You can do a job a hundred times and still arrive at a house and find something you’ve never had to do before.”
Enviropure’s founder, Tina Mongeon, agreed, “Being certified and properly trained sets us apart from some other companies who at times just guess at the best way to deal with these difficult clean ups.”
All divisions of Enviropure are certified by the IICRC, the standard-setting body for the inspection, cleaning and restoration industries and the American Bio-Recovery Association (ABRA) an international association of crime scene, trauma scene, hoarding and meth lab cleanup professionals dedicated to upholding the highest technical, ethical and educational guidelines of the biohazard remediation industry.
“The job may not be glamorous,” said Nelson, “but it’s always interesting and the management style makes all the difference. There are days when the team can feel disheartened by the sheer amount of work that needs to be done, but Richard and Tina are always behind us to encourage and support us.”
For more information on any Enviropure Home Services, visit www.enviropurehome.com or call 613 513-7873.