Can cleaning be bad for your health?
By Shana White
Art By Wesley Vara

If you are washing dishes or doing your laundry you probably don’t think about what is in the cleaning products. You’re probably only thinking about how good it smells and how white the clothes will be. But in order to get a sanitized house, people, especially those who clean for a living, are placing themselves in harms way.  Cleaning products cause eye irritation, rashes and over time, breathing problems like Asthma. But rather then slowly suffer over toilets and tubs, some women are learning the effects of chemicals in cleaning products and changing the way cleaning is done today.
 
Many women in my family are house cleaners and use a lot of dangerous cleaning products everyday.  They decide on what products to use based on how it will make the house look or smell.

 I remember when I used to go with my mother to clean people’s homes. She would bring along a bucket of cleaning supplies -- Pine Sol, furniture polish, a few old rags and a vacuum. We would clean the bathrooms, countertops, furniture, floors, and kitchens. By the time it was time to leave, we’d go home feeling drained and dizzy.
 
Even as a teenager, I knew that using all these cleaning products could hurt my health.  But just like other people who clean their own homes, my mother people don’t stop using them because they want a clean home and think that bleach or Lysol is the only way to kill germs.  But my mother over the years now knows more about mixing different cleaning solutions. Now when doing laundry for the people she house cleans for she uses biodegradable washing powder. My thought is since that biodegradable products cost more chemical based products are more cheaper or it can be that house cleaners are not aware that there are product that do not harm you.  I went to the store to see what the prices were on chemical and non-chemical products.:
 
Dish washing liquid:
Seventh Generation (earth friendly) -- $7.39 16oz
Ajax ultra concentrated -- $1.49
 
All purpose spray Cleaner:
Seventh Generation free and clean all purpose spray cleaner --  $4.85
Formula 409 spray cleaner – $3.79

Tub and sink cleaner:
Bon ami—$1.19 14oz
Comet –.99 cent 14 oz

But in environment conscious California, the house cleaning industry is starting to change. Some cleaning services are starting to use “earth-friendly” cleaning methods, which is helping not only the environment, but the cleaners as well.

 
Eco-Care, a professional housecleaning service located in Morgan Hill, knows the effects of harsh chemicals. Four years ago, they decided to create their own business and stop using dangerous cleaning chemicals.  Eco Care is a woman owned business. Mayda Iglesias, one of the founders, says that all of the women cleaners have come to the company after suffering the effects of chemicals. She says they would complain about being unusually tired at the end of their workdays. Going through her staff list, Mayda says, “Some complained about having headaches and being nauseous, I remember one young woman said that one time she passed out from constantly mixing bleach and ammonia.” She says the issues these women faced at work were also compounded by the fact that used the same cleaning products at home.
 
Mayda says that since they have begun, business has been good and the demand
is high for chemical-free cleaning. The company now has nine women, and are hiring constantly because business is growing. “Its not just the because of the clean products, we are all partners in the business, and the pay is good.”  Cleaners earn around $24.00 an hour, when the industry standard is around $12 for in a month, a pair of cleaners tackles about 20-25 houses a month and that is including new customers.  Since environmentally friendly products are now in high demand, Mayda says that customers do not mind paying a little extra to get their homes cleaned.
 
Some of the customers that they serve are people who are not just environmentally conscious, but also have allergies, asthma or even cancer. I asked Mayda how, for example, they would clean a tub, which usually involves some bleach to kill mold, and Ajax to scrub the tub basin.  She says they use baking soda, Ecover, or Bon Ami -- a cleaning scrub like Ajax but works without bleach or other chemicals. They use white vinegar, and vegetable-based soaps.
 
 
 
My mother said she wanted to have a well-paid cleaning job and I do think that my family will eventually see the value of using non-chemical products, and start their own cleaning service that uses safer cleaning products. But if not, their bosses need to be willing to spend more money paying the house cleaners and to buy these product because they don’t come cheap. But you cannot put a price on someone health.