We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michaela Longoria a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Michaela, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

I needed extra money on the side of my full-time office job, so I discovered an app called Taskrabbit. People would pay others to help with small or odd jobs in their homes or offices that needed to be completed by hourly pay. I started organizing, painting, or even sorting items for people who needed the extra hand. I found joy in acts of service and they asked to contact me outside of the app and asked if I did this professionally. When I realized I had the capacity and generated enough referrals, I launched a business Facebook page first to see how I could reach locally in my county. Once that set off, I applied for an LLC got insured, and launched my website on Wix.

Michaela, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After navigating the organization and housekeeping world I noticed that there was a need for compassion and respect in helping those who were already hesitant asking for help. There were more and more referrals coming my way that had a niche that needed to be met in the community. People who suffer from depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses not only need help in these areas of life but need a certain audience that will be not only positive but considerate of their healing journey.

I decided to cater my services to be affordable and based on the size of the space, as hourly wouldn’t be quite fair as each client requires different amounts of time for socialization and comfortability. I didn’t want people to feel pressured or rushed and wanted to ensure that people would be able to meet their needs and goals in a way that feels self-initiated versus bullied.

Some of my clients have been overshopping or over-collecting due to grief, stress, COVID-19, and other serious life changes that made this inconvenience a negative aspect of their place of peace. It was then my goal to not only serve my community but to ensure that I can give these people the tools they need to address the issues that started the problem in the first place.

While I do have run-of-the-mill house cleans, even those people are special in their own ways. They maybe had trouble with a big company or were overcharged based on square footage but didn’t need those rooms even touched. They may also have sensitive home members or pets that are not friendly or have posed a problem with cleaners in the past. That’s where I come in as I’ve become more educated on domesticated animals, especially those who have been rescued or come from previous trauma.

Instead of being fearful or interacting with a reactive pet, I come to do my job and not ignore but not react when they are threatened, growling, or visibly upset. I’ve had to take my time and let them warm up to me, my equipment, and my smell as I too have pets so if a pet is vital to my client then I need to ensure the relationship I have with it is strong as well.

I think my services are very effective in helping middle-income earners who have extra money but don’t qualify for those catch-all companies who charge by the hour or square footage and have a team come in to just clean and leave. I think it’s clear that I never JUST clean. There’s more of an intimate way of doing things that makes people feel both at ease and safe in their smallest or biggest messes.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to understand that some hoarders, or people suffering from depression or anxiety, are not ready to heal. It made it obvious that I needed to learn how to detect this and ensure that my clients never felt pushed past their breaking points and also how to distinguish a person who wasn’t ready to become a client in the first place. While there’s a want to help every person I come across I know that there are indicators that can be present that mean that this person is not ready yet to proceed. This isn’t detrimental to me nor does it put them on my “NO” list but means they’re simply not ready YET.

This first was noted when I had a client who wanted to pay for me to do her double garage. She couldn’t send photos for a number of excuses but explained to me she had a lot of items she didn’t need anymore and wanted to declutter all day and reorganize what she did want to keep back In her garage. We stated that her goal was to get rid of things she no longer needed and to establish walkable pathways to navigate her garage and its contents. Me and my team of 2 employees arrived and realized soon that this was in fact a hoard and she had all the red flags present in person versus our interview and first consult.

She all of a sudden didn’t want to get rid of anything, she denied ever knowing we were decluttering and didn’t agree with the decluttering process at all. Since we had been there for an hour or so, I said it was okay and we could just put everything back and go. She then said no, she wanted us to take everything out and put it all back in but organized so she could get to things. I explained that since this was a floor-to-top hoard there would be no way to organize things in a way that she could navigate them, like a store’s inventory, unless we got rid of a good amount of things to ensure space was made for this option to be present. She didn’t agree and was emotional, and this was clearly causing her distress. In the end, she asked us to leave what we had done, and anything she did want to get rid of she proceeded to put back into her garage. She refused to pay us for our time and I learned a hard lesson at that moment, after paying my employees and leaving, that when someone first presents those red flags take note and not make excuses for their reactions as it’s my job to help those who want the help. Not hope they will want the help as we go, but make certain they are people who are in the right headspace to even begin. This was the first and last instance like this that has ever happened.

Any advice for managing a team?

I think that when you get in and actually do the work with your employees it becomes a clear team effort versus feeling like you’re a step down from management or ownership. There’s nothing worse than working for a boss or company where you feel like just a number. I’ve worked in an office for someone like that who was taking vacations every month while the rest of us had no AC and were paycheck to paycheck living off benefits just to get by. In that experience, I realized I never wanted to be that type of company owner.

I also, in the interview process, vet people who clearly want just an easy job and explain that they can do either the traditional cleans or if they want the more sensitive jobs involving hoards and organizing that they have to truly hold specific aspects and qualities to ensure they will get the job done in the same way I would and for the right reasons. It’s one thing to complete a general clean for someone and it’s another to reorganize and declutter the kitchen and pantry of a woman who has PDD and recently lost her husband who’s child doesn’t speak with her anymore. That takes a special person who’s working with this client for the right reasons.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/michaelasays
• Facebook: facebook.com/itsbasicallylove
• Other: https://medium.com/@itsbasicallylove91