WHERE TO FIND IT: Warriors in the Battle Against Grime – December 14, 1989
”WE’RE the little elves,” said Vance Baxter Vogel, president of the Little Elves professional housecleaning service in Manhattan. They do not wear green caps and pointed shoes, but Mr. Vogel or one of his 12 employees will whisk into a house and vacuum, dust and scrub.
”My motto is that everything should be touched,” Mr. Vogel said. ”Otherwise, it’s not clean.” That means cleaning all the nooks and crannies – between radiator coils, inside air-conditioners, even in medicine cabinets. ”After you keep taking things in and out,” he said, ”there are always those little circles, and it gets to be a mess in there.”
Little Elves can be hired to do light housecleaning regularly or to tackle one-time heavy-duty jobs, like restoring order to a newly renovated apartment. After the carpenter and the painter leave, the service will come in, clean and move the furniture back into place.
Mr. Vogel started the company 12 years ago to help support a dance company he founded. The dance company folded, but the housecleaning business flourished.
Mr. Vogel says he prides himself on hiring employees who are sensitive to fine art and valuables. Little Elves used to clean Andy Warhol’s Factory, and Mr. Vogel said they knew never to throw away or disturb his unusual artistic arrangements, even when the art was disguised as a pile of gourds fresh from the market.
The service does the housekeeping for banks, art galleries, recording studios, doctors’ offices and welfare hotels. One of its regular jobs is to clean a lighting fixture store, filled with about 300 lamps and chandeliers.
Mr. Vogel advises anyone planning to use a cleaning company to put away everything – all dishes, papers, magazines and clothes. Otherwise, he said, a thorough cleaning is more difficult. The service does not shampoo carpets or wax floors. ”Nothing with heavy machinery,” Mr. Vogel said. ”We do fine detail work.”
Housekeeping costs $15 an hour per employee, with an additional charge if customers do not provide supplies.
Heavy-duty cleaning is $18.50 an hour per employee, not including supplies. There is a three-hour minimum for both heavy cleaning and housekeeping. In general, heavy cleaning is defined as the occasional job – spring cleaning or post-restoration work – whereas housekeeping is considered regular maintenance. ”We’re a maid service; we offer both heavy and light cleaning,” said Bruce Cohen, vice president of Maids Unlimited, a Manhattan company that has been in business since 1958. Services include waxing floors, doing laundry and cleaning refrigerators.
Before the maid arrives, he suggests, put away all breakables. Light housekeeping is $12.50 an hour per worker; clients must provide supplies. Heavy-duty cleaning is $20 an hour if supplies are provided, $25 an hour if not. There is a four-hour minimum in Manhattan, six hours in the other boroughs. ”We do residential cleaning,” said Lester T. Berkley, president of the Imacuclean Cleaning Company in Manhattan. That includes cleaning Venetian blinds, shampooing rugs and sanding floors.
After 50 years of business, Mr. Berkley has received all sorts of calls – ”from husbands who have left their wives or old folks who’ve neglected their apartments.”
When a new client calls, the first question Mr. Berkley asks is: How dirty is the apartment? ”People say, ‘I haven’t had it cleaned for a while. I’ve been subletting it.’ As soon as I hear the word ‘sublet,’ I know we have a big job.” Housekeeping costs $12 an hour per employee; clients must provide supplies. Heavy-duty cleaning is $17 an hour per employee if the client provides supplies, and $25 an hour if not. There is a four-hour minimum. HERE’S WHERE LITTLE ELVES, 143 First Avenue, at Ninth Street; 212-674-2629. Office hours: Monday to Friday, 7 A.M. to 9 P.M., Saturday, 8 A.M. to 2 P.M. They work on weekends at no extra charge. MAIDS UNLIMITED, 767 Lexington Avenue (at 60th Street), Suite 601; 212-838-6282. Office hours: Monday to Friday, 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. IMACUCLEAN CLEANING COMPANY, 799 Broadway, at 11th Street; 212-995-8686. Office hours: Monday to Friday, 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Cleaning on Saturdays costs extra.
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