About us
We could not find the company we wanted, so we started one
The Preferred Cleaning Co. is family owned, based on West Main Street in Carmel, and run by James and Tori Castek.
James and Tori Castek
The story
It started with two small kids and a house nobody had time for
When James and Tori started this, their children were four and two. Like most households at that stage, the cleaning was the thing that never got done, and neither of them wanted to spend what free time they had on it.
The obvious answer was to hire someone. The problem was that nobody seemed to know who to call, and the companies they looked at all felt like a coin toss on who would turn up and what standard they would hold. So instead of hiring a house cleaning company, James told Tori they should start one. She said no. He had been in sales his whole life, so he kept selling it, and eventually she said all right, whatever, let us try it.
It grew quickly, and within four months it was doing real volume with contractors doing the work. That is the point at which most cleaning companies keep going exactly as they are. Instead James switched the whole model to employees, because you cannot build a culture, train to a standard, or run a background check policy across people who do not work for you.
The team
Ten plus people, and it is hard to become one of them
It takes five or six interviews to work here. That is not a boast about being selective, it is the practical consequence of employing people rather than booking them: a bad hire is ours to live with.
- Every cleaner is an employee of this company, not a subcontractor
- Everyone is background checked before they are ever in a customer's home
- Everyone is trained to our written cleaning standards
- Everyone is covered by our insurance
- We hire against one core value: do what you say
How we operate
What actually keeps quality from drifting
Do what you say
It is the core value we hire against. Every job, every follow up, every time.
Written standards
We run off detailed SOPs for every part of a clean, down to which product is safe on which surface. All purpose cleaner never touches wood or marble. Disinfectant goes where it is actually needed.
The same bar every visit
Quality does not depend on which cleaner shows up. That is the entire point of training to a written standard.
We follow up
A text after every clean, including for weekly customers. If anything was missed we want to hear it that day.
What we are aiming at
250 recurring customers, and then something bigger
The near term goal is simple and specific: two hundred and fifty households on a recurring schedule. Not two hundred and fifty one off jobs. Recurring, because that is the version of this business that actually helps people.
Further out, the plan is to bring other services to the same community with the same standards, and to keep building something worth handing to our kids.
What we take on
- Recurring house cleaning, weekly, biweekly or monthly
- Deep cleaning as a reset and a seasonal option
- Move in and move out cleaning on empty homes
- A limited amount of recurring commercial and church work
In their words
5.0 stars from 99 Google reviews
James, the owner, personally came out to our home and spent quite a bit of time walking through our house and taking detailed notes about what we would expect with each biweekly cleaning. He tries to use the same team at each home for consistency.Andrea Sartorius · Google review
They are great about communication and do a great job actually cleaning. If they miss something or don't do something to satisfaction, they make it right.Mona Patel-Sheetz · Google review
They have been very thorough and timely and professional. They have been easy to work with regarding scheduling and communicating.Jen Weglarz · Google review
Next step
Start with a walkthrough, not a quote
Every new customer gets a free in person visit before we talk price. James does them himself, it takes about half an hour, and there is no obligation and no deposit.