 We are now. Well, welcome to the Realty Success Hub. I'm Realtor Aaron Brown and you're watching the Realty Success Show. We're here today with clean fluencer, Angela Brown, and we're talking about her new book, The Ultimate Guide to Move In, Move Out Cleaning. Angela, how are you today? I'm excellent. I am super excited to talk to you about my book because for the very first time ever, you don't have to hire a cleaning service to do the move in, move out cleaning. With the book, and I'll tell you all about the book today, but with the book, a homeowner can go step-by-step through the entire process from the time they decide to list their home to the time that they are moving and they put their home on the market and they move out and it's a complete move out and the house is empty. So from beginning to end, it's all inside the book. Yay. I'm so, so excited and I've got a ton of questions for you today. But just briefly, I wanted to hear a little bit about you. I know you've been in the industry for a long time and you're writing all kinds of material and impacting the world in such a positive way. Could you tell us just a little bit about that before we jump into a bunch of fun questions? Yes. Thank you. And I want to say hi to all of my friends. Hello, everybody that's jumping in here to join us. I want to say hi and thank you so much for having your time to spend with us today. We're super excited that you're here. Glad to have you with us. So, yes, I've been in the cleaning industry for 32 years. I started a cleaning company back in 1991, and it was a desperate attempt to pay my bills in all frankness. I worked tables at a restaurant, I waited tables at a restaurant, and one of the managers had a cleaning business and she said, hey, check this out. We can wait tables at night. We can clean houses during the day. And I said, cool, I'm in. What do I got to do? And I grew up in a house with lots of brothers and sisters and we had inspections twice a day. I'm like, I got the cleaning thing down. She did not. She did not. She was the house cleaner that would lift up a rug and sweep stuff under it and hope nobody noticed. Oh, no. I know. And at the end of my first day, I was like, we are so going to get fired. And I made $150 my first day. And I was like, wait a second, I'm in the wrong business. I need to be in the cleaning business. But I knew that I couldn't stay in business with her because our work ethic was really different. And I felt that if people were going to spend a lot of money, they deserve to live in a clean home, not a home that was dirtier because the house cleaners came in and they took shortcuts. And so I left the end of that day. I took my money and I ran as they say. I was like, I like what I saw, but I didn't like it this way. And so I started my own house cleaning business the next day. I didn't take the client that we cleaned for, but I started my own business the next day knowing nothing, nothing about business. And then I went to a mad state of, oh my goodness, I got to take classes on business and accounting. And oh no, I've hired people. I don't know about managing employees and all the things. So I learned how to run a business by trial and error. And so now I train house cleaners and maids how to run their own house cleaning companies. That's what I do now for a living. But we are now in 37 countries in 191 languages. And we've certified thousands, like 17,000 cleaning companies over the course of the last several years. So I'm really proud of what we've done, but yeah, we're in countries all over the world now. Yeah, you've got some amazing training programs to certify companies through their process, correct? Yeah, and it's things that, I mean, like if you watch TikTok today, not to knock TikTokers, but like don't get me started. You'll see people with like happy music and they're dumping all kinds of cleaning chemicals inside the toilet and like, look at me and you're waiting for an explosion to happen. And it's one of the most irresponsible things I've ever seen. It's not safe at all to mix cleaning chemicals. And so we take the other approach that's kind of like the boring approach, like read the labels, read the safety data sheets, make sure that your employees don't woof fumes because they can end up in the hospital, like things like that. And whatever you do, please don't experiment on your customers surfaces and appliances. Oh, no, it sounds like some horror stories. I know. And I'm not the fun person that's like, oh, yeah, sure. A new cleaning thing, let's just use it on everything. No, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, fancy label, but before you use it, please, please, please, double check and triple check yourself because as a house cleaner, you're bonded and insured, but, but here's the caveat. If I have a cleaning solution and I'm using it in a customer's home, I'm being paid to be there to clean, that cleaning chemical is in my care, custody and control. And what that means is I'm expected to know how to use it. And if I don't, and I screw up the customer's surfaces or flooring or cabinets or whatever, the insurance company is not gonna help me. They're gonna say that was in your care, custody and control and you should have known better or you should have had training. And if you don't have any training and you're just kind of like winging it, you're gonna have damage. And I get to be on the receiving end of it where every day I get phone calls from homeowners. They're like, you're not gonna believe what my house cleaner used. And I said, please tell me they were insured. Well, they weren't because I went with the cheapest company. And so like, what do I do now? And I'm like, pray hard. One of the two of you is gonna have to come up with some money to replace whatever it is that's ruined. I'm sorry, but like next time, check the insurance before, you know what I mean? And then as a house cleaner, we can't recommend enough that people get training. And I'm talking about chemical safety. I'm talking about personal protective equipment. I'm talking about how to clean your equipment and supplies between jobs. Because I mean, like most people don't think about it. Like we have a cleaning company that comes to a house and they bring their vacuum. That vacuum has just gone over all of the floors in a house that has four dogs. And now they're bringing it to a home where this home has allergy sensitivities and no pets at all. And now they're vacuuming all their floors with the same vacuum that has all the pet banter and all the stuff on that vacuum. And it hasn't been wiped down or sanitized in between jobs. So I'm just saying there are certain rules that we wanna follow in order to keep ourselves safe and to keep the families whose homes they've put in our care safe, if that makes sense. This definitely sounds like information for a book. Well, that is not the book that we wanna share with people. It's like all the horror stories. And it's the rare being who brings the mental mindset to the cleaning process. Kair, thank you so much for your vote of confidence. I appreciate that. Thank you very much and hello. Yes for integrity. Yes, yes for integrity. That's what we're talking about. Integrity means a lot. Yes, yes it does. Customer service means a lot. Anyone in Atlanta you recommend? I'm willing to learn and train. Yes, I do. There are several people in Atlanta and I will leave links in the notes after we're done because I got to check in with my CRM to get you their contact information. But I got lots of friends that are trained and certified in Atlanta and they're spectacular. Yes, yes, yes. I love Atlanta cleaners, we're buds. But yeah, speaking of book, we are in an era right now where information is everywhere. And so I wanted, speaking of my book, I wanted for people to have the ultimate move in, move out cleaning guide. And this is important as a realtor because every single real estate deal, whether you're buying or selling at home, involves a move in or a move out cleaning. And there are a lot of people that have no earthly idea what that means. And so they hire a company and the cleaning company is like, oh, that's gonna be a thousand and a half dollars. And they're like, whoa, that's a lot of money. It is a lot of money, but do you know what it entails? Do you know what's involved? And when you start learning what's involved, you're like, whoa, I didn't know that had to be cleaned. Like you mean I got to open up the windows and the little cracks and crevices that are there that the windows slide down into have to be cleaned? I mean, that's icky. There's lots of gunk and cobwebs and stuff. I got to clean that too. There's a lot of stuff that has to be cleaned, which is why it takes so much longer to do and which is why it costs so much money. But for those people that are budget conscious and they're trying to save some money, there are some steps you can take today that will put you on the right path that will lead you to having a really clean house for the listing of your property and then check it out. There's a whole section in here on how to click clean your house between showings because we're gonna live in the house, right? And then the realtor calls and says, what does the realtor say? Hey, we're on our way over. Get out of that house. And you have to say, absolutely, come on over, right? And then you need to be in a mad dash to like how do we hurry and quick clean this house so it's show ready in like five minutes because they're on the way over and then we got a bolt and run out the back door so that we're not here when they get here. How do you do that? And then also when all your stuff is moved out then what happens for the final clean? And so we've got checklists for every room and in every checklist, I have a breakdown of the supplies that you're gonna need and I have a breakdown of the personal protective equipment that you're gonna need. And then I have a list on how to do that task. So it's a really great book. I forget what the price of the book is. I think it's on sale right now for like 10 bucks or something. It's an awesome Christmas gift coming up to the holidays but for realtors that are out there that want to help their customers and they don't wanna pay for the big clean, they can give their customers a copy of the book and let them do the cleaning. So hopefully realtors will. I have to jump in really quick. I've used your book with clients and I'll tell you I usually pay for cleaning when I'm getting a home listed and giving your book to clients before the home goes on the market has been invaluable. I have never had a better resource to hand a client than your book. And that's what I'm so excited about today. And I wanted to really jump into it in detail. The experience I've had with clients that have gone through your book, their house has been absolutely perfect for the listing. I mean. That's what I wanna hear. It's known to the windows. So I can testify that your book is phenomenal and thank you so, so much for putting it together. Every realtor out there, if you're a realtor, buy this for every one of your clients. I promise it is worth the investment. No question. And hopefully, and I've talked to a lot of realtors over the years, a lot of realtors are actually paying for that cleaning for their clients. And I would love for the realtors to keep the money that they earn and not reinvest it at such great expense to make sure that the house is show ready to sell. Well, and just to put that into perspective, a typical cleaning runs anywhere from about $600 to $1,500 for a home. And Angela's book you can get for 10, 15 bucks. So it's worth it. It's a deal. It's a deal. All right, well, let's have your questions. And thank you for the vote of confidence. By the way, this is being recorded. So every day when I wake up, I'm gonna play your recording of your kind words and it's gonna give me a boost for the day and put me in the right frame of mind. So thank you. Well, wonderful. Well, for those of you that are just joining us, I'm realtor Aaron Brown and you're watching the Realty Success Show. We're here today with clean fluencer, Angela Brown and we're talking about her new book, The Ultimate Guide to Move In, Move Out Cleaning. And Angela, I wanted to start with why is the move in, move out clean so important for homeowners to get right before putting their home on the market? I love that question. And it's a question that's often overlooked because people live in a space that they use every day and because they use it every day, they walk past a box of stuff that's right there and they don't see it, they become house blind to it. And as a result of that, they don't see what actually needs to be cleaned. So when they start looking at the home with new eyes and they're like, hey, wait a second, somebody's gonna come in, oh, there's been that box that's been there for 14 years, that box needs to move. And they're seeing it for the first time in 10 or 12 years, like it's been there every day, but they've become house blind to it. So in the process of doing the move in, move out, cleaning the very first thing that's gonna happen is they're gonna discover a whole bunch of stuff. And I hate to say this, I'm not trying to make it sound like people are stupid, but it's gonna make them see a whole bunch of stuff that has been right underneath their nose the entire time. It's like if you ever go looking for something and you look everywhere for it and can't find it and then lo and behold, it's sitting right there on the desk in front of you. It's that kind of thing. And so as you go through to do the move out clean, you're gonna start discovering a bunch of stuff you didn't know you had, a bunch of stuff you know you shouldn't have, and then it's gonna also uncover some home repairs that you're like, oh, wait a second, we probably should fix that before we actually even call people over to have them come take a look at our house. So it's gonna uncover a bunch of things that your home needs in order for you to get the highest value and the highest dollar for the home that you're about to sell. Fantastic. That's absolutely right on point. I was just in a house and they had caulking all over the outside of the house. That was a different color than the paint and had done it years ago to keep ants out of the house. Okay. But they had become completely blind to it and it was just glaring when you walked around the house and then also like in their garage, he smoked cigars in the garage so that the smell was overpowering but also one of those things, like he was just used to it and didn't think twice about it. So it'll be fun. It'll be fun to jump into some of those here shortly. So. Jay Weber says, house blind is a great term. We're not moving, but I've been focusing on decluttering amazing how many things collect that you just stopped noticing. You know what, that is so true. That is so true. And by the time that you, if you ever do this, like we do a decluttering Saturday, where if my husband rents a truck, he'll say, oh, wait a second, I have a truck. What can we get rid of just because I have this truck for the day? And so then we go looking for things like, hey, if we were gonna take a load to the landfill, what can we get rid of today that we're not using? And all of a sudden we discover all kinds of things that we've just been walking past week after week, month after year, didn't realize that we had them and weren't using them. So yeah, it's a term that really becomes important when we start talking about a move in, move out, clean. We're like, wait a second, we're not ready to move yet. Well, I have another couple of questions for you here. And for those of you that are just joining us, I'm Realtor Aaron Brown and you're watching the Realty Success Show. We're here today with co, with the clean fluencer, Angela Brown, and we're talking about her new book, The Move In, Move Out, Cleaning. Angela, what should homeowners be looking for during the initial move in, move out, clean in terms of wear and tear on the home? There are a lot of things that we don't pay attention to, again, because we are house blind. And so it goes into the cleaning slash repairs and you're not gonna find them until you start cleaning. So when you start cleaning there, things like I have soap scum in my shower. And so as I start cleaning the soap scum, we realize that at the bottom of the shower, there's this little tiny piece of rubber and it fits inside the bottom of the shower that when you close the door, it seals the door so that no water leaks out. But what you'll notice as you're starting to clean that is that it has been torn so that needs to be replaced. But also as the door swing open and here's this little hanging piece of shower door rubber, that wet rubber hit the side of the baseboard on the other side of the shower. And now that baseboard is waterlogged and damaged. And now there's a little bit of gunk down there. And because there was water and moisture in the air, the dust that's just regular tracking dust throughout the house has like settled on those baseboards. And not only do the baseboards look nasty, but now they're warped and the baseboard needs to be replaced as well as that little rubber strip at the bottom of the shower. It doesn't seem like a very important thing. But a homeowner or a prospective homeowner that's gonna come in, the first thing they're gonna see is they're gonna see this lovely shower and then like this torn piece of rubber, right? We're house blind, we don't see it. They're gonna look over there and they're gonna see the water damaged baseboard and they're gonna think, oh no, there's a bathroom leak in this house. And so then they're gonna want an appraisal on the house and they're gonna want an inspection and to make sure that there's no leaking water or whatever and you're like, there's no leaking water anywhere, right? You know there's not. But because that weird little piece of rubber hit the baseboard and it wigged out the baseboard, it's gonna look like there's a whole lot more damage than there actually is. That's just one- Absolutely makes sense. One suggestion. Yeah, I was gonna say, there's so many of those little things, right? Well, it's little things like the dryer vent. We use the dryer all the time, but do we check the dryer vent? And when you start doing a deep cleaning, you're gonna check the dryer vent. Did you know that one of the biggest causes of household fires is that vent, what do you call it? This vent gunk, lint that gets caught inside the pipe. And then oftentimes it will go outside because the air is supposed to go outside. What happens then is that builds up and then there's moisture outside because of rain and humidity and whatever. And it like gunks it around the vent. And so you've got this lint that's trying to come out and then you've got rain and stuff. And now it blocks it. The clothes are not gonna dry, but people don't know why. They think it's actually the dryer itself that's broken. And if somebody were to try the dryer, they're gonna have to close, don't dry. It's busted. Gonna go like, no, I'm pretty sure. It's like, you know, just a couple of years old for a dryer. It's just the vent. Your vent is clogged. And now that lint has like gunked up. And if we were to clean that, suddenly the dryer works and we can prevent fires that happen when that lint catches fire, little things like that. It makes me wanna go check mine right now. Like, absolutely. Yeah, that is so true. It's hard to remember all of those little things. Well, a lot of people don't know them. And it's because you don't spend a lot of time, like I clean, that's what I do every day. And so I have these like little spidey senses of things that I'm looking for. And I mean, I can't even go to a restaurant and eat without like looking at the dust on the lights or whatever. Across the room, I'm like, I see dust, you know? But we're all acutely aware of whatever our profession is. So I'm sure dentists see people's teeth the same way that I see dust or whatever. You know, we're all aware of our own industries. Something that really caught my interest in your book is you talk about PPE gear. And I believe you even had a list for each room. Could you talk to us a little bit about that right quick and why that's important? It's something that had never entered my mind until I read it. And I was like, that is just so obvious now that I read it. Well, it's a great question. And we don't, I think the world became aware of PPE during the pandemic. It's like personal protective equipment, like what masks, face masks, and what's really weird is we've been wearing face masks for years before the pandemic. It was just like, if you're gonna do a heavy deep clean somewhere and there's a lot of dust, like if you clean a library, the first thing you're gonna put on is a face mask because you don't want to breathe all the dust that's there. So every job has its own set of PPE. And so if you need it, you wanna have it. And if you don't need it, there's no sense wearing it. But you may wanna wear like an apron, for example, to prevent splashes on ruining your nice clothes. So if, for example, you have to run in the bathroom and do something quick, a quick apron. And I use like the bib aprons that just pull on over your head and it covers from here all the way down. So nothing splashes on your clothing. And that way, if you have to use bleach or something, you're not ruining a pair of jeans. You're not ruining a pair of shoes. You're not splashing on your shirt. And it's something little. I mean, you could be using like a spray bottle of bleach, but those little sprays, they like turn into flecks. And those little flecks suddenly ruin the best of the clothing that you're wearing. And so do you need personal protective equipment? And so room by room, I walk you through, here's how to do the job. And if you're gonna use a heavy duty chemical, and I'll kinda give you a secret, there's a pH scale. And I do like this, like this is seven, it's neutral, it's in the middle. And then all the way over to the side is zero. And all the way over to this side is 14. So seven is in the middle. And on one side, you have acid. On the other side, you have alkaline. So the closer you get to the other ends of the scale, you're gonna need personal protective equipment on the other ends of the scale. If you're right smack in the middle, you're probably okay if you don't have it. I guess this goes back to reading labels to determine where chemicals might fall on the scale. Yes, and then also to determine what you're doing. For example, if I'm cleaning out my oven, lots of oven cleaners are very strong. They're on that 14 scale. They're like very strong. And the logarithmic pH scale works like this. Every number is 10 times stronger than the number before it. So eight is 10 times stronger than seven. And nine is 10 times stronger than eight. So this would be 10 times stronger. This is gonna be a hundred times stronger. This is gonna be a thousand times stronger and so on. So by the time you get to 14, it's really strong. And you're talking about oven cleaner, that's like 13, 14. And so when you go into a 13 or a 14, that is so strong that your respiratory system is like, please don't. I deserve better than that. So you wanna be wearing a face mask. And if you're gonna touch it, it's corrosive to your skin, it'll leak right through your skin. So you wanna make sure you have gloves on. They sell gloves very inexpensively. You buy a pack of them for like a hundred in a pack. And they're like 10 bucks or 15 bucks or whatever. These are the gloves? Yeah, people use them to color their hair or they use them if they're gonna be changing oil in their car or things like that. Every house needs a pack of gloves for disposable gloves for these kinds of things. But when you go to clean out the oven, you do not. You do not wanna get that on your hands. And so if you're touching the cleaning chemicals, you don't wanna breathe it. You don't want it in your eyes. You're gonna want some personal protective equipment like some goggles. Hopefully the goggles cover your eyes. Think like swimming goggles that like suction onto your eyes so that you don't get stuff in there. You do not want that stuff in your eyes. You don't wanna breathe it. You don't want it to touch your skin. I mean, it's corrosive. That's corrosive stuff. And do I say stay away from it all together and only use organic stuff? No, there's a time and a place to use heavy duty chemicals, but we need to protect ourselves if we're gonna use it. So. Yeah, well, and you have so many great ideas. I know that I don't remember, I don't know that it was in your book, but I remember you talking about putting a sheet down in your oven to help clean. Ah. Like foil and things like that just to speed up that cleaning process. And you have so many great tips on each one of those things. I used to think you could just spray your oven full of oven cleaner and then hit the self clean and walk away. Then it would just clean it until I break the stuff. All right, wait. Whatever you just said, don't anybody do that. If you spray oven cleaner, that's what you decided to use to clean your oven. And if you hit the self cleaning, that's what you decided to do to clean your oven. And if you do them both, you are gonna create the most toxic fumes that are gonna knock you out flat on your butt and you are gonna be in the hospital. Okay. This is why your book is so important. Do not do that. All right, that actually happened to a customer, not a customer of ours, but somebody that we know and they called us and they said, what do I do now? And I said, get out of the house as fast as possible. Open the windows and get out of the house. The guy, I'm so sad, they were seniors and the guy's like, well, my wife is not in good health. I said, she's gonna be in worse health if you don't get out of the house right now. You do whatever you gotta do, call somebody, get a neighbor. I don't care what you gotta do, we get out of the house and do not come back tonight. She's like, oh, I didn't mean to do that. And I said, no, you did not mean to do that, but you can't stay in the house tonight. The fumes are so intense. And I said, get your cat out of the house too. Your cat will be dead in the morning. I mean, it's that serious of a thing. If you spray oven cleaner and then you do the self-cleaning, the self-cleaning oven is gonna heat up upwards of a thousand degrees. And so now you have that toxic fume that's just kind of like exemplified. It's a human can't withstand it. Don't do that, please. I'm so grateful that you wrote a book for these types of things. Thanks. Because I was running to clients every day that tell me stuff like this and I'm like, in retrospect, this is crazy. And so just handing them your book has been absolute gold, but it's just little things like that where people just don't know. Well, and it's not anybody's fault because a lot of people didn't grow up in the cleaning business. And so a lot of people don't know about cleaning chemicals. And if you are bamboozled by fancy advertising and I'm not knocking the advertisers because advertisers pay all of our bills, okay? And I love our advertisers and I love our brand deals. So thank you guys. But there's some really fancy advertising on TV and it shows people using something in a way that's really inconsistent with how it typically is used. And people are gonna go, wow, that's so easy. I better run go buy that. And then they buy something that has a fancy label on it or they think they saw it on TV and then it works really well. And they're like, oh, that's so cool. And I'm half out of this product, but I got this other product over here that I bought that also works really well. I think I'll just mix them together and then like I'll have a full bottle. And then what they've done is they've either neutralized them because one is a high pH and one is a low pH and they've neutralized each other by diluting them or they've mixed two really strong chemicals that have a reaction with each other. And then it creates these toxic fumes and I kid you not. I'm in a situation where I get a lot of phone calls from cleaning business owners to say, I have an employee that did something unusual and they're in the hospital right now, what do I do? And I say, please tell me that you have workman's call. Please tell me that you did not claim full responsibility and like don't take blame for anything that you do not have to admit to yet, right? Listen, don't talk. And so until we can resolve it and we can figure out exactly what happened and what the chemicals were and all those things, let's tread with caution, okay? And there are ways to maneuver those situations. But my goal first and foremost is educate yourself. If you're gonna be using chemicals, this is not a game. This is not you making a salad and trying a new salad dressing, okay? These are chemicals. People that work with chemicals go to school and they become scientists, they become chemists. And then they go into controlled environments and they work in a lab and those labs are outfitted with like eye wash stations. An eye wash station is if something flips up and gets in your eye, you run over there and you rinse your eye out. It's a machine designed specifically to wash your eyes out. It's like a little fountain, but for your eyes. And if you don't have one of those in your house, do not mix chemicals. Do not play around with chemicals. I'm not fooling you. I deal with so many situations on a day-to-day basis that breaks my heart because it's a stupid move that could have been prevented and just with a little bit of knowledge and we live in an era of information. I mean, we've got ChatGPT and we have Google and we have all the search engines and we have all the websites like Bob Vila and The Spruce and Martha Stewart Living and we've got all these places that have already covered all the stuff that you're thinking of. You're not the first person that wanted to mix chemicals but don't do it, please. Yeah, I only smile because I'm in people's homes all the time and I see people mixing just weird stuff like, oh, we've got a weird spot on the floor. Let's just pour all of this into the mop bucket and see if it'll come off. It's those kinds of things. And it's like, please take this book first and just read through it because... And then they call me and they say, I got this big white spot on my floor. It looks like it ruined the finish on my floor. How do I fix it? And I'm like, dude, you just ruined the finish on the floor. I mean, I'm not a miracle worker. Like, there's certain effects that this chemical has and you just put it on something it wasn't designed for. You ruined it, you know? 100%. No, but it is so true. And I don't think people realize how crazy when you start mixing chemicals, how crazy that can actually get and just how it can burn your throat and all kinds of things. And so really, really important to keep an eye on for sure. So, but that brings me to our next question. And for those of you just joining us, again, I'm Realtor Aaron Brown and you're watching the Realty Success Show. We're here today with clean fluencer Angela Brown and we're talking about her book, The Ultimate Guide to Move In and Move Out Cleaning. And one of my favorite things in your book is checklists. And I don't know why people haven't used these before, but it's one of my favorite things about your book. Can we talk about your checklists? How you came up with them, why you came up with them? It seems like there's one for every room. There are lots of reasons I use checklists. And yes, thank you for bringing them up. There is one for every room. And here's the reason why I use checklists. If I'm starting a project and I'm going to budget my time because time is of the essence, especially if you're getting ready to sell your house. There's so much to do in a short amount of time. Don't waste your time just like wandering in a room and not knowing what to do. If you have a checklist that tells you these are the cleaning supplies you need, this is the personal protective equipment that you need, here's how to do the task. You can go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and you can check the stuff off the list. If you didn't get to it and you have to leave, you gotta go pick up the kids from school or something. When you come back, you can pick up exactly where you left off and you can keep going. If time is of the essence. And let's say you're an entrepreneur or you are an executive or you're a busy person and you don't have the time to do it yourself, you can give someone else the checklist. And you can say, hey, listen, I'll pay you however much dollars per hour, follow the checklist, do the items, let me know when it's done. And you can outsource that task. If, for example, you decide you wanna hire a professional cleaning service and there are lots of cleaning services, lots of cleaning services here today joining us. If you are a cleaning service joining us today, leave a comment in the notes below and say you are a cleaning service. I wanna give you a shout out. But what I want to pay attention to is if you hire a cleaning service, how do you know the job is done? And how do you know what you're looking for? And so with the checklist here, even if you hire a professional service, you're gonna go through the checklist and say, oh, this is what I'm looking for in this room. Now you know exactly what to ask for. When the cleaner says what do you want done? You say, well, on page 34, I need these things done, okay? Now, a real savvy cleaner will also have their own checklist. But what you're gonna do then is you're gonna make sure that no stones are left unturned. And if you know everything that needs to be done in a room, if you hire a service and they say it's gonna be $1,500, you won't be surprised. They'll say, oh my goodness, there are 832 things that they have to do while they're here. I don't have time for 832 things, but that sounds like a really nice price now that they're gonna do 832 things. And so it helps somebody that's gonna pay for a cleaning service to justify the price. And somebody that's not gonna pay a cleaning service and they're gonna do it themselves is gonna be able to do it as they can do it and fit it into their schedule. And they may say, I can only do three things a day. And they'll do those three things today and check them off the list. And then tomorrow they'll do the next three things. And by the end of the week, they'll have a room cleaned or if they wanna do one room a day, it's entirely up to them and the schedule that they're on. So I'm a big fan of checklists because it keeps everything in order. And what's really cool about the checklists is if you have family helping you, like, hey, it's Saturday, let's do a family project. Everybody in the family can pick a different item on the checklist and they can work on that item. And so now there's no cross-stepping where I thought you were cleaning that. Well, I thought I was cleaning this and back and forth, everybody cleans their own items. And at the end, everybody checks it off and you can see exactly what's been done. So it's a really great way to track progress, whether you're working alone or with a team or you're hiring it out. Just from my experience, talking with a lot of people, they usually think mirrors, countertops and floors is the only thing that need to be cleaned. Nothing else enters their mind. I want that job. I noticed like on your checklist, like you have ceiling vans as an item. Most people would never even think of their ceiling pan. Again, people usually bring up two or three things and they're like, oh, countertops and floors, what else is there? And it is so fun to actually see a list of what should be cleaned in a room, the materials and chemicals that you should use and then how to protect yourself while using them. It's really brilliant. And I'll tell you, as a realtor walking into a room and all those little things being done, it is such a different world. And there are things that you wouldn't notice until you notice them. When the furniture is gutted out and then there's that ring around the bottom of the floor where the baseboards are and where the furniture was, there's lines and just have all those things done. Or the dogs have clawed the walls apart and then you move the sofa and there's like this brand new piece of wall that you're like, whoa, look at that. And now it glares in comparison. Yeah, just again, these lists make all the difference in the world. And it seems like you talk a lot about priority. And I know that people have a lot of different interpretations of priority. Is there a set rule for priorities or does it vary depending on the house or the person? Talk to us a little bit about kind of tasks and the priority of those tasks and why? I love that question. And that's a great question to answer because when you're showing a home, your priorities are going to be different than if the house is gutted and there's nothing inside the home. And so if somebody's coming over like in five minutes and they're gonna come see the home, the very first thing I want to pay attention to, my first priority is gonna be their first impression. And so while I'm talking about the house, what I'm looking at is even before we clean the house, let's make sure the porch is clean. Let's make sure that the shoes and the boots and the packages and all the stuff is off the porch. So as they're approaching the house, their first entrance of the house and their first impression is like, oh, this could be my new home. When they walk inside that front entrance, if there are books and shoes and a coat rack and there are like gobs of coat hanging on the coat rack and it's overflowing, that's gonna be an experience of like, whoa, there's just a lot of crap here. And they haven't even seen your home yet before they can even make a fair judgment on your house. They're already kind of like, this is like, whoa. So you wanna make sure that everything moving in. And we talk about the ceiling fans. If you have like a two-story great room or a two-story entrance and they walk in and there are cobwebs on that chandelier up there, that's the first thing they're gonna see. They're walking in like, looking around, what is this gonna be my new home? So what you wanna do is you wanna stand at the front door with new eyes and pretend like you're the first time that you're walking into this house, what do you see? And that's your first priority. And then where are they gonna go? Are they gonna go to the right or are they gonna go to the left? And as a realtor, do you take people to the right or to the left when they walk in the door? It's usually right through the living room to the kitchen. So that would be the path of priority. And so if that's where we're going, that's where we're going. If the people get two feet in the house and they're like, ah, this isn't for me, what have they seen? And we've seen this a lot where people will go to check out a home and they get halfway through the house and they're like, nah, I'm not feeling it. And they leave, okay? So going in and saying, I'm gonna hurry and gut my closet and the back bedroom is not your first priority. You might think it is, but it's not. You wanna get all the areas of your house show ready in order so that as somebody walks through the house and they walk into the living room, they walk into the kitchen and they spend a little bit of time there, they might be more forgiving of a bedroom closet that's actually used, that's busy and cluttered rather than a front entryway, for example. So what you have to do is you have to look at it from, this is the first time I've ever seen this house, what do I see? And then let me ask you another question. This goes back into the home repairs. If I'm approaching the house for the first time and they're coming at six o'clock at night, is that during dusk? And those burned out bulbs that are in the little lights that are right outside my front door, that's the first thing they're gonna see. The first question that goes through their mind, whether it's at a conscious or an unconscious level is do they have electrical problems? Why is that light burned out? Light bulbs are a dollar apiece. How come they didn't replace that bulb before I came? So they start looking for a bunch of damage that doesn't exist, right? But if you're cleaning the house and those are your priorities and you're looking at the house with new eyes, the first thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna replace the dollar light bulb. You're gonna replace the coats, like, oh, it's June, your house blind. It's June, get rid of all those winter coats and go put them in the coat closet. You're not using them right now and it's not part of what you're doing for the summer, right? Get rid of it, move it. It's so interesting you say that. Listing so many homes. I wanna say hi to our buddies. We've got lots of buddies here. Hi, Joe. He says hi, Angela and Erin and everyone here in the chat. Hi, I'm glad to see you guys. Colleen says glad to see you're still going strong. Angela, you've been my inspiration. Thank you for keeping me going on my solo cleaning mission. Oh, you just made my day. Thank you. I've been nervous about taking the jump to the next level though. Moon says, I add, do you have any tips for us with ADD and ADHD? Yes, I do. And Jay Weber says, I'm curious if you have a checklist just for everyday life. I'll check your social media channels and see if you do that would be helpful for someone like me. A checklist for everyday life. Let me sidestep for one second. I don't have a checklist for everyday life but I am doing a series right now called content creator burnout. And it's for people that are living everyday life to the max and what happens when they reach burnout. And that is as close to an everyday checklist as you're gonna find from me. And it's every morning, it's a live session that I do every morning for about 15 to 20 minutes. If you go to youtube.com forward slash and then the at sign life long productions. You'll find it over there. And that is me jumping in everyday giving you life's checklist. All right, anyway, back to you, Erin. Oh, I was just gonna say and maybe on that checklist too, maybe also like for people who don't do cleaning maybe as often as they should are there like maintenance type things? And I know your book talks about that so. Yes, there are things like, for example, when we want to clean between showings and this is where the maintenance clean comes in. If you have to do a mad quick fast clean like, oh, they're coming over in five minutes I better hurry and clean up. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna look horizontally. We're gonna look at all the horizontal surfaces or all the countertops cleared off. If we have dressers or the tops of the dressers cleared off if there's a bed stand is the top of the bed stand cleared off. If there's a vanity in the bathroom is the vanity cleared off. And so there's a series of steps like the vanity is in most people's bathrooms is super busy. That's where they brush their teeth and they shave and they put perfume on and lotions and all this stuff. And they got lots of bottles of lotions, potions, powders and pills and all the stuff. But if you'll use it and then put it in a bag and put it underneath the counter and you'll train yourself to do that during the whole process of the time that you are just train yourselves right now it's a good habit to get into but the process of selling your home and literally in the morning when you get up take all your makeup out of the bag put it on a little cloth, lay it out and then as you use it put it back in the bag. Now you've done putting your eyeliner on or whatever put it inside the bag. So now you've gone through the whole process all your makeup is on and the bag is full. Zip up the bag and put it underneath your counter you're done. The vanity is clean. Take a little Swedish dish cloth I do like this they're only about six inches by six inches and a Swedish dish cloth is a replacement for a paper towel. It replaces about 15 rolls of paper towels it's made of cellulose which is made of a wood fiber and you can rinse it out and wet it and rinse it out and rinse it out and squeeze it tight and fold it in half and put it over the faucet in your bathroom sink. After every time you brush your teeth or you put your makeup on or whatever wipe down that vanity and wipe out the sink fold that and put it over there. Then when the realtor calls and says hey I'm coming over in five minutes grab the Swedish dish cloth and just tuck it inside the drawer and close the drawer because it will already be dried out by then. They walk in, the bathroom is sparkling the horizontal surfaces are clean everything is wiped up and you cleaned it earlier that morning just in case the realtor called, okay? So there are lots of little tiny tips and I wanna stop for the comment on ADHD because this is for the society we live in I don't know why but it seems like we're all sped up in this society and there's no time for anything and all of us are multitasking on 12 items at a time, right? What I want you to do is don't focus on cleaning build cleaning into your life clean up as you go. So for example, if you are eating something you have a plate in your hand you have to put it somewhere we'll just go put it in the dishwasher don't put it down on the counter don't go put it in the sink don't go put it anywhere else it's already in your hand you're already holding onto it just go put it right in the dishwasher when you're done and if you're walking that way make sure you grab the spoon in the glass that goes along with it, right? Do it as you go and that way if you're making a sandwich and you have all the sandwich toppings out that you don't leave them out you're like, well I'm done making my sandwich now put it away and if you're making a sandwich as three items from the refrigerator pull them all out at one time or as you pull one out put the next one away like I'm putting one away taking the next one out now I'm gonna put this one away take the next item out, right? Do it as you go and what happens is unconsciously that becomes your new norm and you will start cleaning and tidying up after yourself as if, oh that's what we're doing now but then what happens is everyone that lives in your house goes, oh that's what we're doing now and they won't make a sandwich and leave all the toppings out they'll start putting stuff away as they go as well but cleaning up and tidying up your home is a multiple time a day thing it's not something that you do on Saturday morning because what happens if Saturday morning it's busy, right? There's no time so you do little bits of it throughout the course of your day every day and it's just part of your life it's just part of your life that's what you do I love that so much that sounds like such a time saver too cleaning can get so overwhelming and the task seems so monumental for the ones of us that don't do it all the time I love the idea of just those micro cleans as you're going throughout your day well it's like if you are going somewhere in the car what do you do? Without question you get your car keys and you get your wallet and there are just certain things that you take with you but if you had a routine when you get out of the car and you come back in the house like you bring the groceries in you bring the wallet in you bring the keys in and you bring any trash that you accumulated on the way if you brought all that in it's just part of the process and you don't think about it every time you just do it naturally like we have a rule in our house every time we get out of the car we take whatever trash is in the car and wherever we're going there's a trash can so like if you're going into a store but you just ate something and you have a wrapper don't leave the wrapper in your car just I'm walking into the store and there's a garbage can right there in the parking lot I'm just gonna put in the garbage can on my way in and so you get out of the car you take whatever's in the car out with you and so there's never any garbage in the car because you've cleaned it out after every use boom, boom, boom, boom it's just part of the process I love that when it comes to time management can you give us some tips on that because especially talking about people who have ADHD and ADD it seems like when they jump on a task they'll go to take the garbage out and then trip over something and then they're on to another task and sometimes hours can go by there's a lot of movement and commotion but nothing really gets done I find that like when I cleaned before I got your lists that's how all my cleaning was it was stumbling from one room to another working on something and then I'm fixing a light bulb and then working on something else and then I'm working on the car next and at the end nothing got done but there's a tornado through the house and 15 projects that got started so tell us a little bit about how important time management is how you manage it when it comes to cleaning and how much time we should set aside for cleaning those are all deep questions have you ever used a spray bottle and it has a little nozzle on it and if you twist it one way it just kind of sprays a fine mist and then if you twist it the other way it sprays in a laser focus all right think of yourself as the multi-tasker that goes in every room and does a little bit here and you go into to change something in the kitchen and you're like oh while I'm cleaning I could have something in the crock pot and you stop and you make something in the crock pot while the crock pot's going I could also have the washing machine going let me hurry and start a load of laundry soon you're all over the house doing all these fine mist type activities and so some of them may get done just like a mist actually hits where it's supposed to land in kind of a fine spray and it doesn't have that laser focus that just a stream does right so you have to decide are you stream cleaning or are you mist cleaning because if you're gonna mist cleaning and you're doing a whole bunch of little things the stuff is gonna get done but you're not gonna see the results you want and so with a checklist it keeps you on task and so what I love to do and this is what I recommend if you're doing a move in, move out cleaning because I asked you to see your house with new eyes okay when I'm a house cleaner as a professional house cleaner and I clean my own house this is gonna sound super weird if you guys didn't know this already you're gonna go man Angel is a lunatic I walk in my house from the front door not from my garage but from my front door and I walk in in my cleaning uniform with my cleaning caddy and I walk in as if I was a paying customer on my account okay for this reason when I walk into a customer's house I walk in through the front door there's a series of routines that you do in every house and you work your way out of every room when it's your own house you get sloppy and you're like I don't feel like doing this I'm just gonna sit down and have a Coke and watch some TV and then I'll get back to it and you don't but you don't do that on a job your laser focus you're on a timeframe and you have a certain window in which you're gonna clean your house and if you're gonna move do a move in move out cleaning there has to be a timeframe because again we're really busy people and time is money I don't care who you are I don't care how rich or how poor you are you have 168 hours in a week and if part of that is gonna be dedicated to move in move out cleaning you better be crystal clear what the value of your time is and how much time you're going to spend because if you missed clean your house for a move in move out clean it's never gonna get done and you're gonna be frustrated because you're gonna spin your wheels replacing the light bulb and doing all those things you replace the light bulb when you say hey listen it's possible we're listing our house right now it's possible we could have showings as early as tomorrow what do you do today? You go outside and you replace the light bulbs and if you're doing that don't replace the light bulb out on the front porch without replacing every other light bulb in your house simultaneously do a quick walk around the house and on your checklist right now we're replacing light bulbs check every single light does every light bulb work does every light socket work does every plug work now you're gonna notice your electricity work is there a breaker somewhere that's flipped and if you can flip the breaker does it work now because you don't wanna have an electrician come out and you gotta pay for an electrician for him to flip the breaker switch that's happened so many times because a breaker flipped and people didn't know it and they're thinking oh I have broken wires a mouse must have chewed through my wires no they did not your breaker box flipped that's it right go fix it but if you're laser focused you're thinking of that stream it's that laser stream it's not a mist so are you a mist cleaning or are you laser focused stream cleaning that's my question I love the analogy I love that analogy I've never heard that but likened to cleaning that is so wonderful for life so I love that that focused stream or mist also touching on the light bulb thing for just a moment can we talk about that just in terms of so many people go out to their garage and open that random drawer of light bulbs and start plugging them in all over different colors some are LED some are giant over the bathroom vanity there's like four different types of light bulbs going on at listings could you speak to that for just a moment to our listeners how important it is when it comes to lighting your home yes lighting is actually not a cleaning question but I do wanna share this with you and this goes back to the cleaning how you present your design whatever the design is of your home however you present your home that is your product that you're selling okay your home is the product that you're selling and I wanna stop for a second and move away from houses I wanna take you to a restaurant for a second imagine that you're in a restaurant what you're selling is a burger and fries a burger and fries that's delivered in a little tiny red plastic bin with a little white and red checkered paper costs how much $7.95 but if I take that same hamburger and fries and I put it on a glass plate and I put it on a white tablecloth with a really expensive looking spoon and fork and it's with a really nice setting how much does that burger and fries cost right now it costs $28.95 I just earned $20 more because of the presentation of that burger and fries right so if you have a home how are you going to present your home so what you're asking about is you're asking about ambience so when I come into the home what does this make me feel like and if I walk in and there's like a bright fluorescent light and then there's like an LED light and an incandescent bulb and they're all in the same bathroom and they've got dust on the top of them and one light is burned out what the heck right you've created this weird and chaotic frenetic energy where now instead of feeling like you're getting the little basket of fries in the burger or getting the really nice fancy burger and fries what you feel like is you feel like you've gone through the drive-through and they gave you an order and you're looking at it and going is this what I ordered? Is this someone else's order? Is this even mine? You don't even recognize it so what I want you to do is this when you are walking through if you have multiple light bulbs and many people do pull them all out of one different places and match them up put all your incandescent bulbs in one place put your bright LED lights in another place so that that room that's what that looks like in that room and if you have dimmers put them on the dimmer switches you want everything to be well lit but not like blow you away so bright right it's really great that there are different types of bulbs that can be anywhere from like 15 watt to 60 watt and so you want something that's easy on the eyes but if nothing else like if you don't know about lights and you don't know about wattage and you don't know any of those things walk into the room and do this here's the easy test walk in and say how does this room make me feel? and if this room is like I like this room this room makes me want to be in here good on you but if you walk in and you're kind of like hmm and you live there oh my goodness you have the power to change it because light bulbs are only a few bucks they're actually more expensive now than they were before but they're only a few bucks and note on light bulbs because this is this goes back to the cleaning please do not ever clean a light bulb when the light is on do not clean it when the light is on it's called a hot light bulb and if you go to clean it with something like let's say a swiffer duster okay this is a swiffer duster head if you clean it with this and it's hot it's going to like melt that duster right through the light and if you're lucky it will just bust the light and it will free the the the duster okay but it's going to bust the light and I can't tell you how many people on jobs or people in their own homes will bust lights and then they're like oh now I go to buy a light bulb yeah you do you busted it do not clean light bulbs when they're hot that they will break really really good advice and also on the the light thing if your light has a remote please put it somewhere where we can find it I can't tell you how many homes I've sold where we've had to contact the seller or get an electrician out only to find out there was a remote for the light a matter of literally just turning the power button on yeah somebody took it and threw it in a dresser drawer because they didn't put the little hook on the wall next to the light and the light switch won't make the light go on and so now an electrician has to come out so so that gets that gets really expensive for everybody don't be that guy don't be that guy for those of you that are just joining us again I'm realtor Aaron Brown here and you're watching the Realty Success Show we're here today with the clean fluencer Angela Brown and we're talking about her book The Ultimate Guide to Move in Move Out Cleaning and Angela in your book you make a list of items needed for cleaning each room I want to know how important it is that people have those specific items or tools and can we just use whatever we have in our closet yes and no I don't want you to go out and buy a whole bunch of cleaning supplies but I don't want you to randomly use stuff under the sink just because it's there so we've done a lot of moving move out cleanings and I can't tell you how many times don't do this to a house cleaner if you're going to pay them just pull everything out from underneath the kitchen sink and go here use all these supplies because cleaning supplies believe it or not have a shelf life and most of the time once it's opened and the seal has been broken it's between 12 to 18 months and there are people that have cleaning supplies that are five six eight years old and now they're going to try to clean the things in their house with those old either diluted or evaporated or whatever cleaning supplies and one of the risks that we run and this is really really important one of the risks that we run in many homes is that there is somebody in the house that was like cleaning the wheel on their car and they're like I need a spray bottle to spray something so they took a cleaning solution from underneath the kitchen sink and they emptied what was in there and they put their whatever their fluid is for the car wheel they went out there and they cleaned it and then they're like oh I'm tired I'll just put it back under the sink and I will remember that it's like stuff for the car and it's not really what's on the label okay then the next person comes in and they don't know that and they're like oh this is the stuff I'm supposed to use on my granite countertop and they spray that stuff all over their granite countertop and it ruins the surface okay so the reason there's a list of what is inside the book is I want you to know what you can and can't use and if you're using a particular cleaning solution and we talked about reading the safety data sheets or the labels if it says this is a and it always tells you this is an orange solution or this is a clear solution if it says it's a clear solution and you open it up and it looks like car oil that ain't what's what's on the label right do not use that and there are times where people have just like written with a marking pen like this is pest control or whatever on something that is supposed to clean windows now I don't trust whether the label I don't trust the label and I don't trust the handwriting I have no idea what's in there right and so please don't please don't do that do not play that game and do not play that game when you're getting ready to do a moving without clean because if on your way out the door you ruin your beautiful expensive surfaces guess what you get to replace them and you don't have insurance unless it's a homeowner's insurance you don't have like a cleaner's insurance for that and if you damaged it while you're cleaning I mean tap into your homeowners and pay a fortune but don't do that just don't do that so yeah it's important to use the right solutions yeah and on that note I mean most cleaning solutions aren't that expensive you have a resource library of the types of things to use in your home when it comes to cleaners and even down to types of dusters and vacuums and I have found at least for myself and my clients it is so much more inexpensive just to get your list to just go to your resource library and buy those items as you're out buying items if you're gonna buy a cleaner buy something off the list and thanks thanks for saying that but my list is cultivated over 32 years as a professional house cleaner so I'm not going to lead you astray and I'm not going to give you sorry solutions that are just one time use when you move to your new house now you have all the cleaning solutions that you need for your new house and it's going to be stuff that's going to help you maintain your home in the the way that you deserve to live in a clean home and so one thing that I've done that's really interesting with the way this book is set up is instead of just listing stuff that could be out of stock or it could be out of I don't know maybe they change the label or maybe they change the product or whatever what I've done is I've sent you a resource guide and the book is also available on Amazon and so is the checklist and so there's a link in there when you click on that link or you go to that resource page it's going to take you directly to the aisle in my Amazon store where you can buy everything online and the reason I like that is because if something goes out of style for example there's a particular degreaser that I recommend and there are a lot of versions of it and I don't think the rest of the versions are as good as the one that I recommend but if you go to that one and it's out of stock then there will be a solution and I can replace that online version quicker than I can reprint a book so if I have to give you a replacement like I know during the pandemic one of the main cleaners that we use as professional house cleaners went on hiatus during the pandemic because the company that manufactures them also manufactures a disinfectant and they went into high disinfectant more 24-7 around the clock and they stopped putting their other products that were like their sub-products they put all those products on hold and we were like whoa which has happened to all of our cleaning supplies and I mean if you remember during the pandemic the whole world ran short on cleaning supplies but if something is out of stock then we'll give you a replacement that is equally as good that you're not left hanging so check that out as well yeah I really it makes such a difference and I know a lot of people when they go into the cleaning aisle they'll just grab something random all purpose general whatever makes so much more sense just to get the things on your list and accumulate those over time then you have the perfect tool and the perfect cleaner for each situation in your home and you're not using you know tile cleaner on your windows and thank you for saying that somebody says and it's Jay Weber I actually meant an every day or weekly checklist cleaning checklist the daily or weekly checklist is the one that we as professional house cleaners use it's great for every home at Walksheets or every room with the home and all the things to clean you can find that at SavvyCleaner.com forward slash worksheets and I will leave a link in the notes to that as well so that you can pick that up but that's the regular every day cleaning list for a maintenance clean wonderful thank you so much hey real quickly when it comes to decluttering and cleaning your home what comes first when it comes to putting your home on the market I know people kind of get lost between like cleaning and decluttering maybe you could talk to us just real quickly about that that's going to go back to the tidy up as you go but we call it a one touch method so if you're going to touch something once we touched on this really quickly when we talked about the dinner plates it's already in your hand that's one touch don't set it down somewhere don't set it down over here don't set it in the sink those are multiple touches so every time you use something think I'm using something right now what is my next step and so if you're taking off your clothes in the morning when you're getting dressed what is my next step they don't go over the chair they don't go in the chair they don't go on the bed they don't go on the floor the next step is they either go hung up because you're going to wear it again or it goes inside the hamper that is the next touch and so if we only touch things once it's the one touch method and really literally if you take off your socks at night where do they go and literally ask yourself where do these go am I done with these for the day do they go in the hamper and if they do then in the hamper they go that's your one touch the next touch is they go inside the washing machine right don't keep touching stuff and moving stuff around and busying yourself with all these extra things because that's the spray method and it doesn't it's not as effective right so one touch every time you touch something like I'm done with this book right now where does it go it doesn't go on the chair it doesn't go on the table it goes back on the bookshelf if that's the place for it it goes back on the bookshelf I'm done reading the book boom it goes put away and so if you'll train yourself in that habit there's not a lot to tidy up because you're doing it as you go which is a much simpler method I've always wondered why your house looks so beautifully staged and it makes perfect sense now you live the one touch method well I do because I too am ADHD I'm always raced I'm always pulled in a bunch of different directions and my philosophy this is my personal philosophy in closing I know we're I'm trying to hang on here because I could keep talking to you all day and I respect your time and all of our guests so I want to be respectful but as I go through the course of my life my philosophy is this I'm not coming back I'm not coming back I'm going to go through because I'm moving forward in my life and I'm not coming back I'm not coming back to hang stuff back up to tidy stuff up to put stuff away I'm going to do it right now as I go and I'm not coming back and so if we follow that thought all the way through every time we start a project we're going to finish the project because we're not coming back we're not going to do it later we're not going to come back with sometimes we have to and that's the exception to the rule but if your main stream of operation is I'm moving forward and I'm not coming back we will finish the tasks that we do along the way and we will be that laser focus that is so so good that I just I have to ask this because I run into this every day in real estate and it seems like it would be fixed with your one-touch method but people have this way of accumulating things that are sentimental or whatever it might be and they accumulate accumulate accumulate and then they don't feel like they can get rid of it when they go to move and we're talking garages full of stuff closets full of stuff etc how do how do we work through that when we're getting ready to sell a home and how do we emotionally I guess work through that just kind of in closing because it's such a big issue and I think everybody runs into that and I really like your one-touch method and moving through life and maybe you could speak to us a little bit about that because it's such a big issue for all of my clients emotional attachment is a very real thing and there are different levels of emotions do you remember how sometimes you're like really happy and then sometimes you're just kind of like okay happy you're not you know everything's okay stuff that we own is the same way some of our stuff is really emotional to us and some stuff is just kind of emotional to us and so if you'll take an item and it doesn't matter what the item is ask yourself this question if I had to pay money for this item again today would I buy it again today and a lot of times we're like no can you get rid of it then if you would not buy it today and pay full retail price for it can you get rid of it most of the time you're like yeah okay then get rid of it if you're not if you're not able to let go of something because there's some really strong emotional hold that represents something really deep and dare to you grief or something that you haven't worked through then don't get rid of it that's something that you still you still have issues with and you still need to work through that and until you can work through those issues getting rid of the thing is not going to fix it you'll still have those same emotional issues and if you're hoarding or hanging on to something for a particular reason either it makes you feel safe to be surrounded with clutter or whatever it doesn't matter if getting rid of it if you get rid of it even if you get rid of it you will re-amass those things because you haven't resolved those issues and I'm glad you bring that up I'm not trying to be really self-promotional or anything but we have a group called Hoarding World and you do not have to be a hoarder to participate I know personally I have hoarding tendencies even though my house is really tidy I have hoarding tendencies and so what does that mean I can collect a bunch of stuff without even trying right and so we have a Facebook group that's a support group over at facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash hoarding world also if you go to hoardingworld.com we've got a weekly podcast called The Clutter Corner where every single week we've got licensed therapists and mental health professionals and people that are joining us to help us work through those very issues so if it is a real issue to you I want you to grieve but I also want you to resolve the past so that you can understand your future Can anyone from the public join that group that's dealing with these issues can I send clients over there that are emotionally dealing with with yeah absolutely if you go to youtube.com forward slash hoarding world it's the at sign and then hoarding world that's our group oh that's it's going to be so so helpful and by the way speaking of which that bag of cables that everyone has I got rid of mine here a year ago and I'm okay still so just FYI um I'm so glad you brought that up and in closing I want to say this there's a website called nextdoor.com and in every neighborhood on every street there's a person that has the box of cables and so all you need to do is say go on next door and say hey listen I need a cable for this does anyone have an extra and within a matter of like two minutes you'll have like 12 or 15 people going hey I have an extra one right there and then you can offer to buy it from but usually they've got a box of them they'll just give it to you for free so there you go do not keep yours there's a neighbor of yours that already has one they'll give you for free I didn't think I could live without mine and once I got rid of it I realized I was okay it's a lot of letting go but I'm okay life goes on Angela has been so fun having you today thank you so much for jumping on the Realty Success show can you please tell us where we can find you where we can find your book where we can find out what you're doing all across the social medias and online yeah thanks so much and in respect of your time it is the ultimate guide to move and move out cleaning thank you so much Aaron for having me on your show today I'm really happy about this book and I'm really proud of it because I think it's going to save homeowners a bunch of money it's also going to help the house cleaners that do the move and move out cleanings and it's going to help realtors so yay that you can find me on all the social medias at Ask Angela Brown Ask Angela Brown and I'm on all the social medias so come find me come hang out and let's clean together thank you so so much I know we're at the top of the hour do we have time for another question or two here from the audience or is that something we can answer later I can answer those in all of the show notes I do want to be respectful of everybody's time we're at an hour and nine minutes so thank you guys so much for joining us so so much appreciate you appreciate everyone who joined in today thank you guys have a great rest of your week take care thank you