Keeping Fit: Hidden Germs In Your Gym

January 12, 2019
Typically people think of the bathroom as being the germiest, followed by the kitchen (surprise- it’s actually the other way around). When people think of an exercise space like a fitness center or gymnasium, the impression is “healthy”. After all, that’s what it’s used for. Yet research has found as many as 25 different types of bacteria in fitness centers. Setting up a home gym will cut that number back drastically, but not entirely; there are still some risky germs lurking around there. Working Up A Sweat Sure, having a home gym reduces the odds that you’ll get a cold, flu, or stomach bug- and that’s great, especially when combined with a healthy diet and supplementation. But all of the surfaces in your gym are a breeding ground for bacteria. Benches, the handle bars of stationary bikes or treadmills, the grips on free weights, and literally anything you sit or lay on while working up a sweat, can all harbor bacteria. The floor along with any exercise mats can also be a haven for bacteria, but that certainly doesn’t have to be the case - it’s easy to remedy. Easy To Wipe Down Surface areas like gym mats are easy to keep clean with a simple wipe-down. In fact, it’s recommended that you place mats down especially over carpeted areas especially for that reason. The bacteria that is likely building up in your gym is the contact-based variety (not airborne illness), the most common of which is staph or MRSA. While it’s the most common, it also poses the highest threat. Most of the time, you come into contact with this bacteria without even knowing, because it doesn’t often doesn’t cause any issue. In fact, many people have a form of staph bacteria present on the surface of their skin. Small cuts, scrapes, knicks, and any type of open wound allow the bacteria to get inside the skin, thus inside the body, and this is where things can become troublesome. Once it’s inside your body, it becomes an active infection. This usually presents with boils on the skin near the wound, but can also present with the usual symptoms of skin infections, like itchiness, redness, and swelling. Clean After Contact To eliminate contact bacteria in your home gym, wipe down any equipment, mats, and benches with sanitizing wipes (like Clorox wipes) or an all-purpose anti-bacterial spray and dry wash cloth. You should wipe down anything you’re about to use before you use it, and immediately after you’ve been in contact with it. Cleaning it right after use kills bacteria right away so it doesn’t have a chance to grow, and doing so right before use is an extra precaution - just in case you forgot, or some of the buggers got away the first time. Fungi is another little monster that might be hanging about. Fungi typically invade areas that are dark and wet, like gym bags, gym clothes left in a hamper, and inside sweaty shoes. This is what causes conditions like athlete’s foot. This is a pretty easy thing to avoid, though. Simply be sure to wash and dry your gym clothes, don’t re-wear dirty socks, and keep things dry. A home gym is a great way to save time, money, and stay in good shape. It’s convenient and economic, plus you’re in control of the environment so you can feel more comfortable and do as you please. Just because it’s your personal gym, though, doesn’t mean it doesn’t need a bit of maintenance. Keep your gym in good condition. After all, that’s what it does for you!

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December Newsletter 2018

December 30, 2018

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Keep Your Kitchen Clean To Stave Off Disease

December 03, 2018
Did you know that cutting boards contain 200 times more coliform bacteria than a toilet seat, or that kitchen tap handles contain around a quarter million germs? Dirty kitchen islands, utensils, and crockery can also build up bacteria quickly, potentially resulting in illness for your family. When tackling the issue of cleaning your kitchen, it is important to be realistic. This is because in addition to cleaning surfaces and equipment every time you use them, you will also need to deep clean your kitchen with regularity, to ensure stored items are kept hygienically and to get rid of grease and food remains that can escape your daily cleaning. If you find that you don’t have time to clean as much as you like, rely on a trusted cleaning company to keep your home safe for your family; make sure the company is a certified green cleaner to value sustainability as much as you do cleanliness.

What diseases can kitchen bacteria cause?

Some of the many diseases that can be caused by viruses and bacteria in the kitchen include colds, flu, and foodborne illnesses. As noted by academics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, those who handle food can pass diseases such as Hepatitis A, noroviruses, or diseases caused by staphylococcus and streptococcus, to others. Bacteria in raw foods such as uncooked hamburger and other raw meat and seafood, meanwhile, can cause a deadly disease called uremic syndrome. Those who prep food can sometimes neglect to clean their kitchen as is required because "nothing has happened so far." But all it takes is one incident to drastically change your family’s health and wellbeing.

How often should you clean your kitchen space?

Those who are very busy may not like the answer to this question. Kitchens should be cleaned daily - that is, countertops and any other items that touch food should be cleaned immediately after use. Research shows that some of the dirtiest areas in the kitchen include the sink area because we tend to use contaminated sponges that contain food bacteria. Sponges should be kept for no longer than one week to reduce the chances of illness. Microwaves should be cleaned once weekly, while fridges should be disinfected once a week. Make sure to throw away old fruit and open packages and cans that can leak or drop onto your fridge trays. Ovens, meanwhile, should be cleaned every three to six months. If you clean your oven regularly, you can rely on steam or natural ingredients like vinegar and baking soda, rather than having to use grease removers with a high chemical content.

Keeping dishes and utensils clean

If you are worried about bacteria build-up on sponges, you might wish to opt for a dishwasher instead. You have two choices when it comes to dishwashers. You can either opt for a standard model (which doesn’t get so hot and sanitizes dishes using chemicals) or for a commercial dishwasher, which uses high temperatures to clean dishes and utensils. If you have a large family that goes through various dishes a day, a commercial type dishwasher may be more suitable. Look into certified green machines, which will enable you to save water and energy yet kill potentially harmful bacteria.

Kitchen floors count too

Be vigilant of floors; steam vacuum them frequently since food often spills onto the floor and those who walk into a kitchen can bring bacteria from the kitchen into other rooms. If you don’t use a steam vacuum machine, sweep the floor first to remove crumbs and potentially sharp pieces of food. Use warm water and a mop, adding a couple of drops of dish soap and a cup of vinegar into your mop bucket to remove stubborn stains. Use a microfiber mop to dry the areas you have cleaned. When cleaning your home, carpets, and floors may be most important for aesthetic purposes and to lend the home a tidy look when guests arrive. However, it is also important to pay special attention to the kitchen, since contaminated food can have serious health consequences for you and your family. Plan your cleaning routine, using your phone calendar to remind you when specific cleaning tasks are due. Clean countertops, crockery, and utensils immediately after using them, and pay as much attention to floors as you do cooking spaces.

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November Newsletter 2018

November 18, 2018

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October Newsletter 2018

October 20, 2018

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August Newsletter 2018

August 20, 2018

Labor Day & Back to School  Summer is rapidly leaving us, and we are heading into fall, which means school is starting as well. As a reminder, we will be closed on Monday, September 3rd in celebration of the Labor Day holiday. We will be back open for business on Tuesday the 4th. Since it's time to get the kids ready for school as well, we wanted to provide a few handy tools to make sure you (and the kids) are ready. For those of you sending your young adults off to college this fall, congratulations. We have a number of clients that have mentioned this to us, so we thought it might be a good time to provide an "off to college" checklist, which can be found here. We also ran across a nice checklist from Good Housekeeping for normal back to school activity, and that can be found here. We hope you have all had a wonderful summer. Also, we would be remiss if we didn't remind you all that fall in Colorado is gorgeous and looks even better through clean windows. If you haven't tried our super green, really cool window washing yet, please give Angela a call and mention our fall special! Here's to a great fall and go Broncos! The End of PowerPoint? Long before we got into the housecleaning industry, some of us spent some time in corporate America. Not sure about you, but we saw our share of PowerPoint presentations. They weren't all great, and certainly were not all effective. Then we ran across an article where Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has outlawed PowerPoint presentations in favor of a more creative (and effective it seems) approach. Early results of this new "narrative" methodology are promising, and the science behind how we learn and assimilate information best seems to back it up. Visit Inc. here to learn more about this revolutionary approach to presentations. Colorado Etiquette Those of you that have been in Colorado for a while (including the few natives that are left) can relate to all the new faces in our state. We have discussed the burgeoning population here quite a few times, and the effect it has on our city. But beyond traffic and overall congestion, we thought it might be a good time to remind everyone about Colorado "etiquette". The nice folks at 5280 Magazinepublished a fun list in this month's magazine about how to behave in our fine state. Everything from trail etiquette to little quirky Colorado things are covered, and the full article can be found here, and it's pretty entertaining. So, for newcomers and long-timers alike, let's all be kind to one another and enjoy this beautiful place we call home. What M Will Buy you in Denver  Short answer? Not as much as it used to. Some fun facts.....the median home price in the Denver metro area was 0k in July. Also, 2.65% of all homes in Denver are valued at million or more. That is good for 10th nationwide. Home inventory dropped again, pushing prices upward in what seems like a recurring theme here. So, if you are curious or have million burning a hole in your pocket, you came to the right place. The Denver Business Journal published a slide show with 46 examples of homes in the million range and it's impressive. To see those homes and what a million dollars can bring you, visit the DBJ for the full slide show. Regrets, I've Had a Few We hate regrets. In fact, most of us have likely spent most of our lives trying to not have too many. While we don't like to look backwards too often, there are some lessons in there for sure. One of the untapped resources in our civilization is the wisdom of our older citizens. They have seen more, done more and have much to share, if asked. The folks at Medium Daily Digest did an exhaustive set of interviews with folks in their 90's, posing the question, "what do you regret most". The answers might surprise you, but our favorite quote from the article:  “Do you wish you accomplished more?” He responded, “No, I wished I loved more.” The full article can be found here, interesting read for sure. Monthly Award Winners Please join me in congratulating our best performers for July 2018. Our top Cleaning Associates for the month were Ana Solis, Josefina Quinonez, Aurora Dominguez, Jessica Rios and Juana Luna. In the Team Leader ranks, our top Team Leaders were Rosa Chavez and Natalia Olivas. Thanks to all our team members for their hard work, and a special thanks to our award winners! Congrats ladies! Queen Bee Corner by Angela I hate to see the old buildings torn down.  We should be so thankful for the hard work of the preservation societies that fight to guard our city's history. A recent example is the makeover of Union Station.  There really is nothing else like its ambiance in Denver, and the bustle is reminiscent of a much larger and more diverse city. It feels like a city within a city and the station itself is just stunning.   What an incredible salute to the glory days of our railroad town. Quite a few of our clients have historic homes, which I praise.  And much of the newer architecture is innovative and quite beautiful; a segue into the future of our city. Hopefully the changes will be gentle and not jarring.  Supporting whatever efforts are being made to balance past and future is a step toward the gentle, so let's get on the train! Bee

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July Newsletter 2018

July 20, 2018

Green Cleaning and You Every now and then we feel compelled to remind you that we were the first Green Clean Institute certified cleaning company in Colorado, making us a charter member in our fine state. Since we started this movement across the Front Range, many have followed. Most companies just do it for marketing because it makes clients "feel good" about using them. That isn't why we do it. Since we just renewed our certification with the Institute, we thought it might be a good time to remind everyone why this is important and just why we do it. Here are five good reasons for cleaning your home with green, eco-friendly products. 1. Environment-This is the obvious one. Using green products ensures you won't be putting harmful, non-biodegradable substances into our environment. Many cleaning products found in stores have harmful ingredients that should be avoided. 2. Health-Feel better with green cleaning products – literally. Unlike conventional cleaning products, you’ll know that what you’re using won’t harm you, your family, or your pets. Considering many of the hazardous chemicals in conventional products are often carcinogens, neurotoxins, mutagens, teratogens, or endocrine disrupters, it is worth ditching them in favor of natural green cleaning products. 3. Air Quality-Did you know that the use of conventional cleaning products can contribute to higher pollution indoors than outdoors? Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), which have been associated with a host of health problems like damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system, are released when products are used and stored and can also linger in the air long after use. 4. Safety- Flammable/Toxic! With labels like these on some conventional cleaning products, you get a pretty good idea that they aren’t really that safe. Many chemicals (e.g., chlorine and ammonia), when mixed together, can be downright dangerous. Small children and pets are especially vulnerable due to higher exposure levels because of their size. Plus, household cleaning supplies are one of the top five substance classes accounting for calls to the National Poison Control Center. 5. Know What's in Your Products-Shockingly, manufacturers of cleaning products aren’t required by the U.S. government to divulge ingredients; however, many green cleaning manufacturers make it their policy to be fully transparent, whereas some conventional manufacturers don't and may only list a portion of their ingredients. Rest assured that every product we bring into your home is fully vetted and green certified. We use lots of natural things as well, such as plain old vinegar and water to ensure that things are naturally clean. Thanks for your support of Denver Concierge and our efforts to make your homes clean and safe for your family and pets. Just How Expensive is Colorado? Last week, someone told us that Denverwas the 3rd most expensive city in the U.S. to live in. Being naturally skeptical, we decided to research that for ourselves. The folks at Expatistan did the work for us, with the most and least expensive places to live. They also provide a nifty calculator in case you want to compare two cities and what it costs to live there, anywhere in the world. Anyway, it turns out that it's expensive here, but not quite yet on the scale of many California cities or New York, for example. Boulder checks in at 15th most expensive, followed by Denver at number 24. Colorado Springs is 55th. So, it isn't as bad as we think (yet). But, when it specifically comes to housing, things are a little worse. We found this piece by the DBJ that shows just how many square feet 0,000 will buy you across the country. For example, in Cleveland that number gets you a 3,700 square foot home and in Denver that gets you 661 square feet, 10th most expensive in the U.S. Most expensive? Still Manhattan at 126 square feet, take solace folks. The full slideshow can be found here, fascinating stuff. Summer Cleaning Tips Summer brings with it another set of challenges for keeping your home clean. Kids are out of school and the warm weather opens our homes for lots of potential messes that we don't see in the colder months. Between visits from Denver Concierge, we know you all like to keep things tidy and we wanted to share some tips for making that easier for you. We found a few resources that might help! DIY network published a great list of quick summer cleaning tips that we thought we would share here. We also like this list by the Huffington Post, which contains some cool tricks like cleaning your microwave with a lemon! Finally, there is a list of cleaning tips by Clean and Organized Family Home that we thought was creative as well. That list can be found here. Meanwhile, you can rest assured that we are on the job and will do our best to keep dirt and grime out of your homes this summer! Don't forget that our ladies also do things like sweeping off your patio or deck for those outdoor parties. If you have special requests this summer, don't hesitate to let us know! State Health Insurance Increases Dropping No, health insurance costs aren't dropping, but the amount of increases in Colorado could be significantly smaller in 2019 than we have seen. In 2019, small group policies will go up by an average of 7%. The good news is that individual policies look like they will rise about 6% in 2019. This doesn't sound like good news until you realize that those increases were 34% in 2018 and 20% in 2017. Interestingly, for the first time, less than half of Coloradans will have a plan through their employers. In short, it seems like the health care market in Colorado is stabilizing a bit. The full article from the folks at the DBJ can be found here. You Are who Your Friends Are? Businessman and motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with". This caught our eye. We found a great piece by Medium that illuminates this idea. From the article, "According to research by social psychologist Dr. David McClelland of Harvard, the people you habitually associate with determine as much as 95 percent of your success or failure in life." Building a group of competent, smart people to surround yourself with seems to be a pretty good strategy for improvement in life. Lastly, we also found that common wisdom (and science, from the British Journal of Medicine) says smarter people have fewer friends. This caught our eye as well, and the details of why this is can be found in this article. Interesting stuff for sure! Monthly Award Winners Please join me in congratulating our best performers for June 2018. Our top Cleaning Associates for the month were Josefina Quinonez, Aurora Dominguez, Brenda Garcia, Maria Zapata and Josefina Puga. In the Team Leader ranks, our top Team Leaders were Maria Varela and Socorro Ibarra. Thanks to all our team members for their hard work, and a special thanks to our award winners! Congrats ladies! Queen Bee Corner by Angela Clients have asked me how our ladies manage to get the shine on stainless steel appliances.  Stainless steel is beautiful but easily shows water spots, drips and streaks, ruining the effect in no time.  A quick fix between Denver Concierge visits would be helpful, and I happen to have one! Nothing is quicker or more effective than a simple clean microfiber cloth and a solution of water and green dish washing liquid.  Be sure to immediately dry with another clean microfiber cloth.  This works on brushed stainless steel, stainless steel sinks, and faucets too. It's amazing how the complete kitchen will look cleaner simply by taking care of the stainless steel!  And then we'll be there to take care of the rest! One product.  One solution. Bee

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March Newsletter

March 20, 2018

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February Newsletter 2018

February 15, 2018

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July Newsletter

July 17, 2017

Make them Green with Envy 

Each year, we invest time and money into making sure that our products and our processes are 100% environmentally friendly. This requires a constant review of everything we do to make sure that we not only clean your home the way you want it, but also that we don't harm the planet as we do it. We also don't want to use anything in your homes that might be harmful to your family or your pets. We get a lot of requests to use things like bleach (because that stuff really works) that we just cannot accept. Our commitment to the environment extends beyond the traditional sense and things like bleach can harm our employees as well. Recently, our Green Clean certification was renewed for 2017 with the Green Clean Institute . We are very proud of this achievement as it requires a great deal of diligence to maintain. If you are curious about our certification, you can see all the details here . We are still one of a handful of companies to invest in official certification, and we were the first in Colorado. While most companies claim to be green, we think certification is important and that it provides you peace of mind when we are in your home. So please trust that we are using only the best products in your home for both cleaning and safety. Should you have the desire to use products of your own (we use Bona on hardwood floors when requested, for example), please check with Angela first to make sure we are in compliance. As always, thanks for your continued loyalty and your trust.

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June Newsletter

June 17, 2017

Summer Vacations and Dad

Summer is finally arriving! Our favorite day, the Summer solstice, is on June 20th. That is the longest day of the year, which makes us happy. We also wanted to take this opportunity to remind you all to let us know if you are going on vacation or if you are planning to be gone for an extended period this summer. As we have mentioned in past newsletters, the labor market in Denver is incredibly tight and consequently, we are very booked and are running an extremely tight schedule these days. Therefore, lockouts and cancellations become more painful for us, so please let us know your plans as soon as possible. Meanwhile, enjoy summer and all that it has to offer. We have thrown some events your way (see below) to get things kicked off!!! Finally, Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there. If you forgot it's Father's Day on Sunday the 18th, we have a last minute gift guide here .

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May Newsletter

May 17, 2017

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is our unofficial gateway to summer. We have had a wonderfully mild winter, and our spring has been quite pleasant as well. Along with the coming of summer, Memorial Day is also a time for cookouts and hanging out with family. It's also the first real three-day weekend of the year! With all of that wonderful stuff in mind, it is also a time to say THANK YOU. To those of you that have lost someone serving our nation, we thank you. We here at Denver Concierge value the freedoms that we have across our great country and we realize that it could not be possible without the selfless giving that people in our military offer. We hope that you and your families get some time together and that you all stop to appreciate the sacrifices that have been made so we can enjoy our holidays freely and without restrictions. This respectful holiday has a long history, dating back to 1868, with Logan's General Order Number 11 . To learn more about the history of this remembrance, you can click here . Thanks again to all of you that have served and to the families of those that have been lost serving our wonderful nation.

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April Newsletter

April 22, 2016

How May We Help You?

Did you know that Denver Concierge has been in business for nearly 20 years? The company started back in 1998 as a full-service concierge business. We were walking dogs, buying groceries and running errands. It was a lot of work! Back in the early 2000's we became exclusively a housecleaning company, and our current owner, John Kitts, bought the company in 2006. Since then, we have spent all of our time on being the best housecleaning company around and based on your feedback we feel like we are doing a good job, although we always strive for perfection. While we love making your homes shine, many of you have requested that we offer other services. Some examples include carpet cleaning, window washing, handyman services and the like. Our question for you today is simple. What other services could we offer inside your home that would make your life easier? We would love to hear from you. Just click on the services that make the most sense to you, then hit submit. It's super fast and easy, just one page! The button below shall set you free. Thanks for your feedback! Take me to the fast and easy survey!

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Cleaning as a Workout - How to make the most of it!

April 04, 2016
Home cleaning is one of the most time-consuming chores that you have to take care of. It is undeniable that it requires a great deal of effort and hours just to finish the most urgent tasks. This is normal, because if you want to be effective at it, you need to devote time and effort. Often times it feels like cleaning is a task that does not have a finish line. Once you are done with one room, you immediately have to move on to the next one. This should not be a problem if you enjoy a good exercise, and there is no reason to hate it really. It is through physical activity that you can feel less stressed and energetic. The problem is that when you are too busy cleaning your home, you won’t have as much time for a workout. The alternative would be to transform your cleaning service in such a way that it will resemble a workout. It really is not that difficult as you may think, considering that cleaning is a physical activity which requires a lot of movement. Here is what you should consider to make the idea a reality:

• Put on fast music in the background - music has the potential to make you feel way more energetic and alive. Consider the fact that all gyms have music in the background; this is no coincidence, because it can really help a person with their physical exercise. This is why you should definitely implement music in your household cleaning routine. You have to make sure you play not just any type of music though, but rather some dynamic tunes that will really make you want to move and clean around. You will notice that time passes faster and it is easier for you to concentrate on the task at hand. Additionally music will keep you entertained and energised throughout the work so that you feel less tired, even as you do more.
• Pick up the pace - cleaning as a workout will obviously not be that effective if you are too calm, slow and steady about it. If you truly wish your cleaning service to matter and to burn some calories, you have to pick up your pace. Don’t just stroll around your home with a duster and a vacuum cleaner; instead move around like you are in a hurry and try to finish a task quicker than you normally would. At the same time you should try not to sacrifice the quality of the work, or else you will be stuck doing the very same home cleaning chores all over again very soon.
• Work against a timer - set a time for your home cleaning chores and try to beat the time. Here is where you will need to challenge yourself in order to be truly effective about the work and for it to really matter. You can consider giving yourself a few minutes for window cleaning, or 10 minutes to perform proper carpet cleaning. That ought to make your home cleaning a lot more difficult but at the same more rewarding in terms of physical exercise and calories burned.
• Include weights in your cleaning - it is true that cleaning is already a difficult task, but you can make it way more challenging by adding some wrist and ankle weights. This should be executed with caution, as it can be truly challenging. The extra weight will make movement more difficult, pretty much the same way you exercise with weights in the gym. The only difference is you will be busy with dusting and vacuum cleaning and not lifting weights alone. See to it that you are comfortable and stop for a rest if you feel too tired.
• Take regular breaks - remember that any workout activity requires frequent breaks. When you finish a certain cleaning task, or part of it, you should take a break so that your body can rest and prepare for the next set of cleaning.

Follow these tips and you can truly transform your cleaning into a workout session. Be careful with it and you will be able to enjoy an activity that is both good for your home and for your body as well.

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March Newsletter

March 20, 2016

We're Number One!!! Yes, we love our home city. Evidently lots of people agree, as Denver was named the NUMBER ONE place to live by U.S. News and World Report . We pulled a 7.8 out of 10 overall, but 9.9 on desirability! Colorado Springs sneaked in at number five, giving Colorado two spots in the top ten. They also did a wonderful job of creating a spot where cities can be viewed, evaluated and sorted. You can find out average commute sorted by zip code, the job market, housing market and pretty much anything else you wanted to know about our fine city (and others, but just so we can gloat)! Full details can be found here .

Spring Break It is that time of year again and many of you will be taking a break either with your kids, or for your kids this spring. Either way, we know that our kids will be off from school for some portion of time and often, that messes up your cleaning schedule. If possible, please let us know immediately if you are going to change your scheduled clean in any way. We are doing everything we can to control our costs, and we still haven't figured out a way to solve our lockout problem (yes some people just aren't home when we arrive, or don't call to cancel...you would be amazed). So if there are changes to your schedule this spring, please let us know so we can manage our schedule and keep that efficiency up. In the meantime, enjoy the end of our winter and the beginning of a wonderful spring! Denver's Changing Skyline Man, things are changing fast in Denver. On top of being named the number one city to live we are growing and expanding downtown like crazy. We see all of the construction and we wonder what it might look like in a few years. An enterprising young man used Google Earth to project what our city will look like with existing and soon to be approved projects going forward. The bottom line? Our skyline will look radically different pretty soon. The link takes a while to load, but is worth the view. Data was pulled from denverinfill.com, which is another good resource to find out what is happening with development in Denver. The skyline link can be found here.

American Express Users It has come to our attention that our American Express billing label is incorrect. This is not an issue on our end, but one that we are attempting to resolve directly with them. Evidently AMEX charges for your cleaning services are sometimes labeled “Concert Concepts” rather than Denver Concierge. We don’t know who “Concert Concepts” is, but we are receiving the money in our account. So, there is no action required on your part, but we wanted you to know that we are aware of the issue and hope to have it resolved in the next week or so. Thanks for your patience and thanks to those of you that pointed this issue out to us! The Power of Words Yes, we love words. We write lots of them each month, and we sure say a lot of them. The folks at Buffer have written an exceptional piece on what words (and phrases) motivate us the most. They also list some of the ones that don’t. We found this to be a pretty impactful piece and gathered some ideas we are going to begin using immediately. We hope you agree, the link to the article is here.

Queen Bee Corner by Angela I will be out of the office part of this week for a medical procedure. Jenny will be answering your calls in my absence (she is a sweetie).  If you have any schedule changes that you usually email to me, please call the office and run them by her. Any other non-urgent correspondence please go ahead and leave on my email.  I will be back on email within a couple of days. Until this occurrence I have been self- sufficient and unaware of all the wonderful home help that is out there in Denver.  Our concierge partner at As You Wish, Allison Farrar, found a great dog sitter who will come three times a day and take care of the beasts.   King Soopers delivers groceries within a two-hour window and I even found a company that cleans up the yard after the dogs.  And of course I have a super house cleaning company! Bee Our Fleet We wanted to share a photo of our fleet, getting ready to come make your homes shine! Our ladies are sure happy to be in our new fleet of Kia Sorentos. We hope you like the new look when you see us roll up to your home. Special thanks again to our friends at Erlich I-25 Kia and the best GM anyone could ask for in Ron Volk. If you are in the market for a new vehicle and have been considering a Kia, please reach out to Ron and he will take excellent care of you. Mention Denver Concierge for a special offer! You can email Ron directly here.

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Happy New Year

January 20, 2016

Happy New Year

Another year has passed and this is our 3rd year sending out our sometimes informative newsletter! We want to say thanks for reading and want to wish you the best for a fabulous 2016. Lots of stuff going on at Denver Concierge, including our new vehicles, roll out of health care for our employees and other changes to try and become more efficient. In short we are doing everything we can to keep our costs down without raising prices. One of our big cost issues is lockouts and access, if you want to learn more see below. We sure appreciate your business and hope that 2016 is your best year ever!

Top Secret Referral Program January is always a good time to mention referrals. One of the things that we have learned in our 16 years in business is that we clean very differently from most companies. We sometimes have a hard time communicating how deeply we clean (and why we cost more) to prospective clients. It usually hits them once they see our fabulous team at work in their homes, but sometimes we never get that far as it's hard to explain what we do without seeing it first hand. Of course we know that you realize and appreciate how we clean, and that is why your referrals are the best way for us to grow. We have a very lucrative referral program going on right now....too good to put in the newsletter. Please speak with Angela if you have someone that you think would appreciate what we do, and she will give you the lowdown. Thanks for all you do and for those wonderful clients many of you sent us in 2015! Lockouts One of our toughest dilemmas is what to do when we get locked out. Many of our competitors charge a fee for this, we do not. Not yet anyway. Most of you offer us access to your home without restriction, and we appreciate that. We carry lots of insurance and documentation so you should always feel comfortable with us in your home, even if you can't be there. The worst thing is when we arrive at your home and cannot get in for some reason. We pay our teams from the moment they leave our office and it's quite expensive to have them driving places with no home to clean. Worse, the next client often isn't ready for us, so it creates a bunch of problems. We would be incredibly grateful if you would alert early us when you need to cancel your clean or if there will be some problem with access. We understand emergencies and will always accommodate you when we can. We appreciate your help in improving our efficiency and keeping our costs down!

Snow Days Ahh, winter.....we love you. Actually not so much. It's great for skiing and snowboarding, but it really cramps our style (and yours) when we get a big storm. We know how frustrating this is, as it is incredibly hard to reschedule. Think about it like an airline. We have days full of flights and when snow wipes some out, unless we have cancellations going forward there isn't any place to put folks. It frustrates us as much as you....so what can you do to help? Please be patient with us when it snows. If you want real time updates on whether or not we are working, you can follow us on Twitter at @bestmaidsdenver. We typically send out a tweet when we are going to be closed. We have been known to work Saturdays in special circumstances so that is sometimes a possibility as well. A good rule is that if schools are closed we are as well. The safety of our employees is the most important thing, and even though the main streets may be plowed, side streets in Denver don't get plowed until we get a foot of snow! Thanks, and here is to a snow free (in Denver) winter! 88 Truths about Life Our first newsletter of 2016 wouldn't be complete without some tidbits of self-improvement that we found interesting. The new year usually brings about reflection and planning about how we have done things, and how we might do things better. We ran across a great piece from raptitude.com on "truths" in life. We felt better after reading them and we hope you do as well!  To learn more take a look here. Queen Bee Corner by Angela For the past two weeks I've joined the ranks (albeit temporarily; nothing serious, pulled muscle) of those who work from home, as do many of our clients. It has certainly given me a good understanding of the pluses (no drive time) and the minuses (my dogs barking).  I didn't have a visit from Denver Concierge, but I imagine that three ladies cleaning can be fairly disruptive.  I will remind the teams in the next employee meeting to please keep the working client in mind as you move about the house. Be very very quiet every chance you get. So..I will be back in the office on Monday due in large part to the expert advice given me by a client.  Thank you Caylene!  It worked! Queen Bee

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The most important things to do when kitchen cleaning

January 10, 2016
The most important things to do when kitchen cleaning

Kitchen cleaning is quite an overwhelming task, especially if you do it more occasionally like once a month or even more rarely. Deep cleaning the most soiled objects and appliances is not enough, because the dirt often spreads everywhere, yet it comes to the kitchen - the most frequently used room in the house, which sees the heaviest dirt from kitchen grease and other persistent types of spots. Next is a short To-Do list or a set of tips and tricks to deep clean the most important things in the kitchen.

1) The counter top and the sink. The kitchen sink disposal should be first. Run a couple of ice cubes through the disposal to sharpen the blades, whiles if you worry about the elimination of bacteria - add the juice of one lemon to the water for the ice, and then put the mixture in the freezer to form ice cubes. The lemon juice acts as an antibacterial agent. Then, remove the objects from the counter-top and rinse thoroughly with clean hot water. Rub with a grooming brush to get rid of the dirt between the grout lines. The wooden counter-tops should be soaked a bit longer if you want to get rid of the dirt easily. Clean the sink with a commercial detergent for metal objects, while for the chrome parts is required a special detergent. It will prevent the chrome parts from scratching, while cleaning and polishing them in the meantime.

2) Defrost the fridge and the freezer, and remove all the inner compartments, shelves and doors. If you do it once a year, for example during the big spring cleaning - a great tip is to begin right from this step and to save time by doing other things while waiting for the fridge to defrost completely. Soak the detached parts in the sink and make a homemade detergent of hot water, dish detergent, baking soda and alcohol. It will sanitize and help dissolve the hardest stains from dry grease, which is a common issue on the grilled or on the glass shelves. Don't forget to clean the cooling coils on the back of the fridge. A brush with electrostatic charged fibers is perfect to wipe off dust, spider webs and other dirt.

3) Oven cleaning is the next challenge, which should begin with the removal of the shelves and the racks. Soak them in the solution in the sink and brush to get rid of the stains. Clean the interior of the oven with towels and pay more attention to the lights and to the ventilation system. Ensure a flawless transparency of the door of the oven by rubbing with a clean soft cloth and with a solution of hot water and white vinegar. Attach the already clean and dry shelves and run the oven at its highest temperature for a while to eliminate all the unwanted odors.

4) The flooring in the kitchen are especially important, especially if your kitchen is a part of the dining room and the dining table is in a close proximity. The area around the table and around the kitchen triangle is the area, which sees the heaviest foot traffic, as well as heaviest dirt from food, such as crumbs, spills, drops, etc. The tiled or the hardwood flooring are easier for deep cleaning, but if you have textile floor coverings like carpets or rugs - a better idea is to use the professional services for carpeting. The carpeting experts have the perfect machines and detergents to sanitize and deodorize even the most soiled carpet, without the risk for damaging the fibers or causing discoloration.

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Happy Holidays

December 20, 2015

Happy Holidays

We want to wish all of our clients, friends and partners the happiest of holiday seasons in 2015. We have had a wonderful year and want to thank all of you that helped make us successful. We hope you have a safe, warm and connected holiday, with lots of family, friends and good cheer. We look forward to serving you again in 2016, and to another wonderful year. Thanks again for being part of the Denver Concierge "family" and for supporting our local business.

Partners We Love

Recently we had a shower door "explode" on us. Evidently, over time tempered glass combined with pressure can come apart in a surprising fashion. Thankfully, no one was injured, but it gave us a chance to call our friends at Buonsante Glass to come out and take a look. Not only was the shower door repaired perfectly, but they were fast, efficient and reasonably priced. We know Andy Buonsante the owner, very well and wanted to give him a shout out in case any of you need any glass work done in your homes. You can learn more about Andy and his great locally owned business here. You can also call Andy at 303-886-2876 or email him here. Tell him you heard about him in our newsletter and receive a special offer!

Buying more Stuff

In our over commercialized holiday season, we sometimes feel overwhelmed. Between all the ads on TV, gifts to buy, etc., we find ourselves trying to sort out what really matters. We ran across a great piece on why we might want to buy less "stuff" and work more on creating memories that will last. We thought it made a lot of sense so we are posting it here. It seems that the payoff for buying more stuff is pretty short, and the article helps explain why that is.

The Skinny on New Year's Resolutions

Yes, we have fallen into the failed resolution trap well. We fully understand that gym memberships are the highest in January, as all of us want to get the new year off to a great start, and try to stick with our plans. Making significant changes in our lives is hard, especially when it comes to breaking bad habits. We found some great stuff on this whole idea and we thought we would share it. For a list of the most common resolutions and success rates, click here. For the reasons behind why we usually fail at our resolutions (and some tips on how not to), check out this article. We wish you all the best in making positive changes in 2016!

Successful Habits

Since we are kind of on the new year's resolution and self-improvement theme, we found a couple of articles that sort of got us going. First, what are 12 things that enormously successful people refuse to do? Well you can find out here. We also ran across this piece on 30 challenges for 30 days. Some of these really made us stop and think. We hope it does the same for you. The article, courtesy of Marc and Angel can be found here.

Queen Bee Corner

by Angela What a hectic time!  With all the schedule changes, and special holiday requests, I have spoken to more clients in the past month than I have all year.  As always it is my pleasure and though work related (but not always), it's fun to touch base.  I have known many of you since the very beginning of the company! I would like to wish you and yours a continuing safe and enjoyable season and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Cheers!

Vehicle Project Complete

Hopefully you have seen our new rides out on the road and in front of your homes. Our fleet has been completely replaced (we kept a couple of our old blue vans for nostalgia's sake) and we couldn't be happier. We hope you like the new look...our ladies are much safer and much happier traveling to your homes!

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The key for reducing the volatile chemical compounds when cleaning

December 01, 2015

The key for reducing the volatile chemical compounds when cleaning

The best way to reduce the volatile chemical compounds when cleaning is to avoid cleaning with chemical compounds. This means no detergents that you can usually find in the store, nor detergents that are added to the water tank of the cleaning machine. The result may not be that satisfying as when cleaning with a powerful detergent during the big house cleaning, but let's face it - there will be no need to leave the windows open for a long time, neither to worry about your kids or pets. Some hand-knotted carpets, rugs and other natural upholstery are also very sensitive to chemical compounds. Not to mention the effect of the chemicals onto the wooden texture of the furnishings or onto chrome parts if you pick up the wrong detergent.

The key for reducing the volatile chemical compounds is to avoid or at least to reduce the periods for deep cleaning at home, which means a more frequent cleaning so you can't let the objects to get heavily soiled. For instance, let's take the textile floor coverings. A great idea is to rotate rugs and carpets on a monthly basis. This yet simple trick ensures an even wear of all the areas of the carpets, which is especially important for the carpets in the living room or in the bedroom. These are the most frequently used rooms and so the foot traffic is not an exception. By rotating carpets and rugs, you expose different areas to the foot traffic and so the need for deep cleaning with professional cleaning services reduces as well. Another great idea is to flip the carpets and the rugs if they have beautiful backings. By doing so, you basically expose a whole new side of the carpet to the foot traffic and everything else like dirt, dust, indentations from heavy objects, etc. One, the textile floor coverings become longer lasting and two - you reduce the period for deep cleaning with powerful chemical compounds.

Another common way to avoid breathing volatile chemical compounds is to leave the doors and the windows in the house open so there is always a constant airflow. This is simple, but it is applicable only for the warm seasons. That's why the end or the beginning of the summer are the best moments for deep cleaning at home even if you plan to call the professional cleaners who use big powerful machines with a myriad of cleaning solutions.

Use the vacuum cleaning machine everywhere! Whether it comes to just freshening the fluffiness of the carpets and the sofa or a weekly cleaning of all flooring - the vacuum cleaner is the fastest and yet easiest way for cleaning at home. It removes dust, food crumbs and other loose particles without the need for a treatment with chemical compounds.

Another common way is to beat gently the cushions and the carpets through the windows in order to get rid of the dust and the loose particles. Take a pick of a warm sunny and windy day for cleaning. The wind will help blow away the dirt and the dust, while the effect of wiping off dust should be the same even without using a vacuum cleaning machine.

Yet if you have to deep clean with some commercial detergents – make sure that they're pet-friendly detergents. A simple hygiene spray should play a great role for cleaning spills of margarine and other common spots from kitchen grease. Always read the labels on the compounds and try to avoid the powerful detergents that are recommended for cleaning machines.

Find more helpful cleaning tips on carpet cleaning please click here.

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November Newsletter

November 14, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving What a great opportunity to express how thankful we are to have you all as clients, partners and friends. We couldn't ask for a better group of people to associate with and we remain flattered that you allow us into your homes on a daily basis. So let us take this opportunity to say THANK YOU for being part of the Denver Concierge family and for supporting our local business. We will continue to strive for perfection and to ensure you are thrilled with what we do. We hope you and your family enjoy a safe and wonderful holiday. We have included some of our best tips for surviving the holidays a little further down the page. Enjoy!
Movember What the heck is Movember? Well, just as October was breast cancer awareness month, November is one for men's health awareness, and is also known as "no-shave November". We think that ladies in general seem to do a better job of focusing on health then their male counterparts. The men we know typically wait until "something breaks" before visiting a doctor, whereas our female counterparts take a more preventative approach. Taking a page from that book, please support the men in your life by putting up with excess facial hair this month! To learn more about this movement (and why the man in your life might not be shaving), visit the Movember Foundation here. Here's to wellness, early detection and keeping the men in our lives healthy!	Vehicle & Company Update Hopefully you are noticing lots of new Denver Concierge vehicles out on the road and in front of your homes. We have now nearly replaced our entire fleet and are more fuel efficient, safer and we look better running about town! We are also making our plans for 2016 and have lots of great ideas about how to make our company better. Look for more details in upcoming newsletters. In the meantime if you have suggestions about how we can improve in any way, please submit them here. Thanks!
Queen Bee Corner by Angela Orange.  It's the color of fall and pumpkins, turning leaves.... and our Team Leaders' uniform shirts! We chose a different color for our Team Leaders uniforms thanks to a client asking which woman was the Team Leader at her house that day. It also helps me in the morning as I found that I can quickly find a Team Leader when I need to give out instructions during our hectic morning dispatches. I can now spot the orange among the sea of blue shirts, so keep those ideas coming! I have also been asked if the orange is a tribute to the Broncos. I'm not sure because we left the color decision up to the Team Leaders themselves. But it could very well be as they are enthusiastic fans of our home team.  Go Broncos!	Holiday Survival Guide It is that time again...a fall and winter with holidays. With that comes entertaining, lots of eating and drinking, and hopefully for Denver Concierge, some before and after cleaning!! In that spirit, we wanted to provide some survival tips for the holidays. We found some pretty cool resources. First, the folks at the Cleaning Institute have some great information on managing the holidays in a clean home. Click here for more details. Also, we ran across some great cooking tips as well, which can be found here. Finally, to help beat holiday stress, the folks over at Sparkpeople provide some great information here. All great stuff....Happy Holidays!
Veterans Day Veterans Day is Wednesday, November 11, and last but certainly not least we would like to thank our veterans for their service to our great nation. The courage that it takes to be willing to sacrifice one's life for the benefit of others, our freedom and way of life is the highest imaginable. I am sure we all know someone who has served and many of you have personally served. From each and every one of our 70 employees, we wish to say thank you. You have our utmost appreciation and respect.

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October Newsletter

October 12, 2015

Holiday Planning & Schedule We have the incredibly good fortune of being very busy these days. We want to make sure that all of you wonderful, loyal clients get your homes cleaned over the holidays properly. We are currently planning to be closed on Thursday November 26th and 27th for Thanksgiving and December 24th and 25th for Christmas. As you can imagine, this will make us even busier as we attempt to get folks moved around. So, if you have any special needs or requests, please get with Angela right away so we can attempt to accommodate you. If you are on the schedule for Thursdays or Fridays, this will impact you for sure. So, in the meantime, Happy Halloween and Happy Columbus Day, we hope you are getting to enjoy a Monday off!!! You can contact Angela to discuss scheduling by clicking here.
Referral Program Every now and then we like to remind you wonderful folks about our referral program. While we do very little advertising, most of our new clients come to us by way of referral. So, THANK YOU to all of you that have referred family, friends and neighbors. We will do our best to make sure they are treated like royalty. In that light, we are offering some very nice rewards for new clients that come on board by way of referrals. We won't spoil the details here, but if you want to learn more, give Angela a call at 303-975-2808 or email her here.	Denver Area Top Restaurants You may be aware that we love to eat over here at Denver Concierge. We also love to fill you all in on what is happening in our fine town. The folks at 5280 Magazine recently published their annual list of Denver's top restaurants.  Frasca in Boulder was unseated from the top spot for the first time in a couple of years....if you want to learn more, click here. We hope to see you out there having a bite around town! By the way, we tried Blackbelly Market in Boulder and it was worth the drive!!!
Queen Bee Corner by Angela October is a month of change, when foliage turns color, weather is cooler (supposedly), days are shorter - and outdoor critters start seeking indoor shelter for the winter. Well, not in my house, guys.  A client recommended Beeline Pest Control. How could I resist with a name like Beeline?  It took very little time and my house is now pest proofed.  A great company. Professional, local, friendly.  Like Denver Concierge!  You can find them at their website here. Happy Autumn! Bee	Unplugging The changes in technology over the past 10 years have been nothing short of amazing. Nowadays we find ourselves growing anxious if we haven't checked email, Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, our texts, etc. It's all pretty stressful. So we started to think about the benefits of unplugging once in a while. We know how hard it is, but we also think it might improve our life balance (and our relationships) a bit if we took a break once in a while. The folks at attn.com tell us that the average social media user is exposed to 54,000 words a day!!! They  did a great piece on this, and you can find the link here. Good luck in your efforts!

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September Newsletter

September 13, 2015

Homejoy is No More

Some of you may be familiar with Homejoy, the national service that would connect folks with housecleaners. Much like Uber and Lyft, they faced serious consequences by attempting to make everyone that worked for them independent contractors and not employees. Why do we bring this up? Because we want to remind you just how different we really are. Not only are all of our staff full time employees (trained, insured and bonded), but we take the old fashioned approach to everything we do when it comes to your home. Having varying and inconsistent people in your home every time you request a clean is not a very good model to us. Homejoy went out of business last month. Meanwhile, Denver Concierge has been around for 16 years and counting, thanks to our loyal and passionate clients. Thank you for supporting our local business!!!

Partners (and Events) We Love Every year we attend a fabulous event sponsored by our friend Heather Klutznick at Trilogy Financial. The event is their annual Economic Update and this is their 8th year in a row, which is mighty impressive! Heather has been kind enough to extend complimentary invitations to any Denver Concierge clients that wish to attend the event next week. The registration link is here, and you can enter the password KLUTZNICK at the bottom of the page to waive the 0 event fee. There are breakout sessions as well as a great keynote speaker. If you are interested, click here on the big 'register' button. We hope to see you there!! Why you Need your Sleep Seasons are changing and with daylight hours adjusting as we move into fall and winter, sleep can sometimes become challenging. We know we get super cranky when we are sleep deprived, but we wanted to learn more. To see what happens to your brain when you are sleep deprived, visit the article at mic.com here. Queen Bee Corner by Angela I would like to dedicate this month's Queen Bee Corner to Le Central, the colorful French restaurant on Lincoln that is closing after 34 years in business. (Thank you Pam for your email alerting me to the closing).  It's the talk of the town, as it should be.  Denver is loyal to its independent businesses and I know this from our clients who have been with us for years and years and consider us a part of the family.  We support independent businesses because they build a sense of community.  The downside is we feel their loss more acutely. Merci Le Central.  We will miss you.

September Charity Events On September 17th we will be attending the annual MS On the Move Luncheon at the Westin downtown Denver. Unfortunately we know a few folks that have been affected by this terrible disease and we are in full support of the search for a cure. The cause is a great one, and for those of you that are interested in attending and/or donating, more information can be found here.   The World's Wealthiest People What do the world's wealthiest people have in common? If you answered money, that is a great guess. However we were looking for something deeper, and we ran across this great infographic from The Roosevelts that gives us a better snapshot. To see the complete list of what the world's wealthiest folks have in common, click here. Fleet Update We are proud to announce that vehicles 10, 11 and 12 are now on the road to your homes. Here is a great shot of our ladies celebrating one of their new vehicles!!

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August Newsletter Update

August 25, 2015

Green Clean Institute We are proud to report that we have been re-certified by the Green Clean Institute for 2015-16. There are only a handful of Colorado cleaning firms that are on this prestigious list and we were the first, going back to June of 2008. We are happy that we made the move for the right reasons and were ahead of the curve before 'green' became truly fashionable to use in marketing and branding. We take pride in the fact that we keep the inside of your home clean, while doing our best to keep the outdoors clean as well! We also know our clients appreciate our commitment to keeping their home environments free of anything harmful. To learn more about GCI and what they do, or to see our name in lights, click here.
2015 Top of the Town 5280 Magazine recently released their "Top of the Town" annual review of all things Denver. We love to go out and enjoy our wonderful city, and if you missed it, the complete list can be found here. Fleet Update Vehicles 7, 8 and 9 are on the read and rolling towards your homes. Here is a great look at our vehicles tucked in for the evening after a long day of making homes happy! Look for the next wave of sweet rides next month! Special thanks to the folks at Ehrlich I25 Kia for wonderful service and delivery.	Back to School Help Man, we can't believe where summer went! While we know we have some time left, our kids aren't so lucky. Many schools are back in session in August, including Denver Public Schools who resume on the 25th. Boulder Valley School District starts back up on the 21st, just to name a couple. We looked high and low for a way to provide a consolidated list of all the schools across the Front Range but came up empty. What we did run across however, was a great resource on how to smooth out the process. The folks at getsimplifized.com  put together some great tips that can be found here.
The Eternal Quest for Happiness and Self Improvement Ok, so that title was a bit over the top. But....we are actually seekers of not only happiness, but ways to make our lives better. Whether it's work, relationships, health, or just plain habits, we at Denver Concierge seek improvement on a regular basis. So, we fell in love with a website calledmarcandangel.com.There were so many things that we wanted to share that it was hard to include them all, so now you have the link. If you want to see one of our favorites try this one on reliable steps to making change in our lives at any age. For the record, we don't know Marc or Angel, but we liked their take on things and wanted to share it here!	Queen Bee Corner by Angela Lately I've had a few questions on how best to communicate with our cleaning teams. In a nutshell, the best way is through me directly. There is a computerized work order for each client that can be easily updated and I personally see each employee every morning before dispatch (and we connect during the day as well).   Also, please feel free to contact me with any concerns you may have about special items you may have in your home. This helps us avoid accidents or damages as some things are not intuitive to everyone, and each house is different (certain types of faucets come to mind). Thanks and until next month then!

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Quick tenancy cleaning for students and roommates

August 20, 2015
Spread out tasks to your friends and roommates for a quicker and easier end of tenancy cleaning, which usually can last only a couple of hours if you select the tasks justly. For example, pre-vacuuming is the first quick highlight in this guide that will prepare the flooring for deep cleaning. - Pre-vacuuming is the most effective and quickest opt to get rid of the bigger sand particles, crumbs, hair and other blemishes that are stuck onto the floor coverings. Whether it comes to only a couple of small carpets, one big rug, hardwood or tiled floorings - pre-vacuuming will help you to see the locations of the most soiled spots and so to take a the right pick of a further treatment. Moreover, a regular vacuuming is the best way to keep the clean outlook of the floorings for a longer time, so it should be one of the most important highlight in your student`s maintenance schedule. - Treat the heavy stains onto carpets, rugs and other fabric floor coverings. In some cases, this is more than enough to achieve a quite better look of the floorings, while in the meantime saving time and efforts for hiring a professional cleaning company or using a big rental carpet cleaning machine. Spot clean via stiff brush and a homemade detergent of hot water, dishwashing detergent and shampoo, mixed in a medium sized bowl. This application is truly useful for synthetic carpets or carpets with short fibers, where the brush can easily get to the base of the fiber and therefore to wipe off the dissolved dirt. - Furniture with leather upholsteries are another difficult part that is worth the efforts. The leathery surfaces require a little bit of a special treatment so you may want to call the professional cleaners. They use special pigmented detergents and solutions that can truly restore shine and texture of the leather surfaces, and thus making them to look like new. Such a pigmented detergent also protects the cleaned spot from future staining like coffee spills or cracks. - Dealing with stains onto glass objects is another great highlight in the schedule. They may include windows and mirrors, as well as cups, paintings, different glass surfaces in the bathroom, etc. Just make sure to use non-abrasive applicators like a homemade detergent of just white vinegar and water. Use only soft clean cotton cloths and a squeegee, and don`t forget to clean the windows frames too. - Dusting is one of the final steps of every tenancy schedule for cleaning. It should take place at least once a week. Organize your roommates to help with the wiping off dust via several clean towels and paper towels, as well as deodorizing spray that can enhance the atmosphere. A regular duster can do the perfect job, but a duster with a flexible electrostatic charged head is a great too that help you to get to some truly difficult to reach and hidden places, where usually the dust accumulates. - A final polishing of metal and wooden surfaces will ensure that little final touch, which will be appreciated from your roommates and guests. Polishing and waxing wooden floors alters the true texture of the surface, as well as colors and reflections. Waxing also adds an extra layer of protection, which seals the clean effect and makes it longer lasting. The same applies to metal and tiled surfaces too, except that their shine and reflections makes them some of the most remarkable sights in the freshly cleaned room. Read more helpful basic cleaning tips at: nottinghillcarpetcleaners.org.uk

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July Newsletter Update

July 13, 2015

Happy Birthday America!

We hope you all had a safe and fun Independence Day!! We heard lots of stories of you all going camping, biking, hiking and cooking out with family and friends! The fireworks across the Front Range were fabulous and other than the mountain traffic, it was an amazing weekend all the way around. We also want to thank all of those that have served our country and helped to maintain our freedom and way of life. So for all of you that are either in the armed forces or have family or friends serving, our biggest thanks and appreciation for all you do and have done.

Partners We Love We are fortunate to have so many friends around Denver in a variety of fields. One of the more unique companies in town is Auctoris. They specialize in wealth preservation and planning and have been at it for nearly 40 years!! They are experts in finding ways to preserve capital via alternative, customized strategies that utilize any and all avenues to protect your family and your wealth down the line. Most importantly, like all of our partners, they care deeply about people and about doing things the right way. If you are planning for the future and need some guidance on how to best protect your assets and ensure they are maximized for future generations, give our friend Frances Mickelson a call at (303) 740-8001 or email her here. To learn more about Auctoris and their innovative approach to wealth preservation, visit them here.

How's Your Memory? If you are like us, sometimes really good, and sometimes...not so much! Nothing like walking into a room and suddenly realizing you have no idea why you walked in there! Of course that never happens to us, but we have heard stories. We also tend to forget names sometimes, so running acrossthis article on mnemonics helped us tremendously. If you could use some tips on remembering names and other things, visit the folks at mental floss here.

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Giving Back For you regular readers of our newsletter, you know we love giving back. We support numerous charities in Denver and love to support partners that share our vision. We also realized that we are usually in a pretty good mood over here atDenver Concierge. We think the two are related. You folks are great at giving as well, and we hear stories all the time about charitable things that you do (that is why we love our clients so much). The folks at LifeHack confirmed our suspicions. Generous people are more successful and happier all the way around To get their take on things, visit them here. Our Outstanding Leaders Some of you know our General Manager, Maria Herrera, who has been with the company 15 years this month!!She took a short sabbatical to part time for the birth of her child, but she has returned to full time and is celebrating a long career here.We will honor her this month at our employee meeting, but wanted to give her a shout out, as she is the person that makes sure your home is clean and that our ladies perform their duties to the excellent standard that you expect.Also, our very own Queen Bee, Angela Danessi had a birthday this month (those of you that follow us onFacebook may have noticed!) Both of these ladies are instrumental to our success...congrats to both of you and thanks for your dedication.

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Queen Bee Corner by Angela We are getting a lot of compliments on our ladies in the field, which makes us very proud (and prone to brag).  At the end of each month when we have our employee recognition meeting and birthday cake we announce each compliment and give a big round of applause to the recipients. ALL of your comments are taken seriously and hopefully you feel like we listen.  I do attempt to answer the phones promptly so you get a real person when you call (me!). Still, with over 450 regular clients it sometimes just isn't possible. But, please, leave me a message so I don't miss anything!  Or just leave your name. I know all of you and I will call you back right away! Fleet Update Be on the lookout for DenverConcierge's latest additions to our fleet this month. Vehicles 7, 8 and 9 will be hitting the road next week and more are coming. We hope you love the new look and the improved presence in front of your homes! Our teams are thrilled to be driving to your house in style!

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June Newsletter Update

June 13, 2015

Welcome Summer!

On June 21st, we will finally be able to officially welcome summer into our lives again. Not sure about you, but we are ready for a little less rain and a little more sunshine! In that spirit, we know kids are out of school and that many of you take vacations. Please let us know your schedule as soon as you can, so we can make the right adjustments for your cleaning schedule. We hope you all have a safe, dry and enjoyable summer, starting this month! Finally we decided to learn a little more about summer, the solstice and what goes with it. So we consulted the Old Farmer's Almanac for some info. If you want to learn more, visit them here.

Denver Summer Restaurant Openings We love a good meal over at DenverConcierge and sometimes it's fun to try new things. This summer will be a busy one for new restaurants inDenver and the folks at Zagat have helped us figure out what's happening. To see a full list of what is coming to our fine city, click here. Partners We Love Is your company looking for more information on health care reform and how to handle it? The Affordable Care Act is in full force and it's fairly complicated to navigate. We love the folks over at Rocky Mountain Insurance Consultants. They deal with group health insurance plans for companies large and small, and have been instrumental in helping us prepare for the health care mandate that we will be facing next year.  They have 20 years in the industry and are nice people to boot. To learn more about Rocky Mountain Insurance Consultants, please click here. Or you can email them directly here.

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Father's Day June 21st will be a busy day, the start of summer and one of our favorite holidays, Father's Day. For you golfers out there (we try) It is also the final day of the U.S. Open (that's just a reminder for the ladies that you might be busy that Sunday afternoon). Just as we saluted Moms last month, let's give a big shout out to the Dads out there. We know you probably don't want any credit but let us thank you for all you do on this special day. Here's to fixing things, bumps and bruises, eating meat, playing catch, and all of the other many things that fathers do. Most importantly, thanks for your influence on all the people in your lives, primarily your kids. Learning to grow up and be a real man is one of the most challenging yet rewarding things around. So, Dad, here's to you, thanks and have a cold one on us!!! Queen Bee Corner by Angela Now that the weather is hopefully beginning to settle down enough to make outdoor plans, remember that that we automatically clean your patios/balconies/decks each visit (weather permitting).  On the other hand if you'd rather we didn't just give me a call or send me an email and I'll make a note on your work order. Also, with the real estate market booming we have quite a few clients who are moving but staying within our cleaning area (thank you!).  If your house is on the market and you need to have it spruced up from time to time outside your normal schedule, let me know. Happy summer!

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Tools and tricks for hard floor cleaning

June 06, 2015

Tools and tricks for hard floor cleaning – tiles and laminate floors

The tiles and the laminate floors are usually the easiest places to clean and they get dirt not that easier, than the carpets for example. However, they should be frequently cleaned and sanitized as the best prevention from further staining. The tiles in the bathroom or in the kitchen floors make an exception, because they see daily foot traffic and they usually stain with dirt from food, crumbs and other blemishes. Mopping or wiping off dust then becomes not enough to restore shine and cleanliness of the tiles and laminate flooring, and you need to apply some tricks for hard cleaning. Take a look at the following ones:

• Call a professional cleaning company and first stroll through the sites of the companies in your region and find if they have tile cleaning services. Some cleaning agencies are also specialized only in cleaning tiled floors, including stone floors, laminate floors and floors with other hard coverings. Their professional crews are well experienced and they can choose the right methods for cleaning, saving you time and money for buying numerous detergents from the market. The professional cleaners also have the needed tools and items for deep cleaning tiles like a scrubber machine. It is the most effective tool for cleaning the grout lines in the meantime too. Moreover, if you want to deodorize and sanitize the tiles - the crew can add a small amount of sanitizing or deodorizing agent in the detergent for the scrubber machine. This is very important if you have pets like dogs and cats due to animal odor from food, hair, etc.
• Deep clean tiles and grouts at home via simple homemade detergent solution. You can take full advantage of some cleaning detergents that you already have in your home like soap and shampoo. They can act as the perfect de-greaser, while spreading fresh and pleasant aroma in the meantime. For truly heavily stained areas and grouts - apply some spot cleaning tricks like scrubbing the spot via stiff brush and a paste of baking soda, hot water and dish-washing detergent. Wipe off the dirty excess via cloth and repeat the procedure with a new detergent application to remove the deepest stains and most soiled spots. A great idea is to let the detergent to soak up and dissolve the stain for a dozen minutes or so, and then to wipe it off via another clean towel.
• Don't let your laminate floors and tiles to get dirty very often. Just an impromptu daily mopping is the perfect solution to wipe off dust, sand, grit, stains, hair, pollen... Especially the areas that see the heaviest foot traffic should be mopped quite regularly to prevent the thriving bacteria, pollen and allergens, which on the other hand, appear on wet areas with remnants of food crumbs, for example. Add a few drops of a sanitizing agent every few times when changing the water for the mop.
• After finishing the hard floor cleaning of tiles and laminate, it's recommended to polish the floors or to treat them with a protective spray. It reduces the chance for further staining or at least it makes the floors more resistant to dirt spots and stains. In addition, the polishing wax adds a tiny little film or layer of protection, which also ensures the finest glossy look of the tiles like they're new.

More cleaning tips find at this site    

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May Newsletter Update

May 10, 2015

Happy Memorial Day

Even though it's not until the end of the month, we want to wish you and your families a happy Memorial Day. We are truly grateful to those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and way of life. For those families that have lost someone that served, we thank you as well for your sacrifice and we will honor their memory this Memorial Day. We hope you all have a safe, fun holiday and get to enjoy time with friends and family!

We will be closed on Monday, May 25th to commemorate this special day.

May Charity Events One of our favorite charities is Judi's House. We were honored to attend the first ever "Speaker's Series" event on the 5th that featured former NFL greats Bob Griese and Archie Manning speaking about adversity and the loss that they have experienced in life and how they overcame it. For those of you that aren't familiar with Judi's House, they provide grief counseling for children that have lost loved ones. Founded by Brian Griese, it honors his mother Judi, who he lost to cancer as a child. Our fearless leader, John Kitts, is pictured far right above with Michael Foster of Sports Authority and former Broncos Head Coach Mike Shanahan and NFL Hall of Famer Bob Griese (we don't know who the two lucky guys on the left are!) To learn more about this amazing cause, please visit Judi's House here.

Partners We Love We love the guys over at i5fusion! They are responsible for our website, our online marketing and pretty much everything we do technologically around here! Website building, pay per click management, online presence, reviews....for those of you that are trying to promote your business, these can be tricky and tough areas to navigate. The team at i5fusion take time to make sure you understand what you need to do, then they help you implement at a reasonable cost. If you haven't seen our website, please take a look at their work by clicking here.  To learn more about i5fusion and the great work they do, visit them at www.i5fusion.com, or click here. Mention Denver Concierge when you contact them and you will receive a discount on their services!

Celebrate Small Business Week Did you know that the week of May 4-8 is National Small Business Week? Each of you supports small business by using Denver Concierge and other independent companies across the Front Range. We are proud to be a family owned small business in such a great community. To learn more about Small Business Week, click here. Mother's Day Happy Mother's Day to all of you Moms out there! We know you run the household, keep the kids and pets in line and truthfully, without you the men in your lives would be lost (sorry guys, but it's true). We take this opportunity to appreciate you for all you do and for the thankless job that is raising children and taking care of all the things that no one ever sees! Here's hoping your families reward your tireless efforts and celebrate with you this Sunday!

You Googled What? We really like finding interesting stuff to share with our readers. This month, we uncovered the secret stash! That is, what do people around the world Google the most, with the term "how much does_____ cost?"We were fascinated by the types of searches from around the world and the inferences that can be drawn by the information collected by Google.For example, in the United States the most common "how much does it cost" question gathered by Google is "patent". Great job America! On the other side of the spectrum is "prostitute" which comes up more than once! Also mentioned were camels, nose jobs and kidneys!To see more of this fascinating survey, click here.

Fleet Update You may be noticing we are multiplying! We are now up to six brand new Kia Sorentos in our fleet and our ladies couldn't be prouder! Here is a good look at our new rides going out for another day of making homes happy across the Front Range!

Queen Bee Corner

by Angela

Mother's Day might be one of the few days of the year, with exceptions of course, when mothers are super pampered.  In the spirit of pampering, while our team is in your home cleaning, dusting and making beds, don't forget that we can always do a few random things to help you out even more.  We have had requests to let the dogs out and back in; to receive a package from UPS, or retrieve a package from the porch; bring in the mail if you are out of town.  If you call during the clean I can even get a message to the team leader in case you've forgotten to turn something off - my personal fear is - "have I left the stove on?" But that's just me. If you need help with yours please let me know! So...again Happy Mother's Day and Happy Spring!

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April Newsletter Update

April 10, 2015

Happy Spring 2015

We are so happy that spring is finally here. Another weird winter, with record snow in Denver for the month of February. In case you didn't know, we broke a record that stood for 100 years!!! Boy are we glad that's over. Now, as we enter spring with birds chirping and baseball starting, our moods have certainly improved! We love spring cleaning and realize that we can't be in your home every day, so we included a very awesome list of green cleaning tips that you can use while we are away. The article includes 10 products you can make yourself right at home (some of these we actually use in homes as well, like vinegar). To learn more, visit the folks at Green America here. Wishing you a fabulous Spring!

Partners We Love We aren't sure about you, but we get so busy taking care of business that we sometimes don't do a great job of taking care of ourselves. One of the folks in town that can help is Jacque Stevens over at Body Renewed. Her company specializes in non-traditional fitness approaches, including new technology such as a recumbent bicycle that uses infrared light to eliminate cellulite and detox the body. Beyond the cool technology, we love that they approach fitness from a holistic standpoint and are very creative and different in their approach. In short, this is no regular gym. So if your New Year's fitness resolution has fallen by the wayside, give Jacque a call at 720.428.2347, or check out their site here  and they can help you get back on track! Mention that you saw her in our newsletter and you will receive a special offer.	Spring Allergies Here at Denver Concierge we take the bad with the good. As you may have heard...we love Spring! What we don't love as much are the allergies that come with it. After all that moisture over the winter (see snow record above) we are expecting a pretty robust allergy season here in Colorado. We found some good information on surviving the allergy season on WebMD here.
Queen Bee Corner by Angela I can honestly say our clients are the best in the industry. I know some of this is due to the fact that we have been in business so long and have known many of you for years. Still, when I get calls about different topics or things "just because I thought you'd like to know", that's pretty amazing. No action necessary; just touching base. I mean, who gets calls like that from clients? And while I'm at it, thank you for the interesting articles, photos, trip descriptions, pet updates, family updates. I even received a lovely hyacinth plant to celebrate the arrival of Spring. Thank you for it all! You're the best.	Vehicle Update For those of you that don't see our Facebook page or our occasional Tweet, we are proud to announce that we now have FIVE new vehicles on the road! Our fleet upgrade project is working well and our ladies are happy to be driving these shiny new vehicles around town. Our latest happy team is shown above. We hope you like these as much as we do, stay tuned for more updates!
Tax Season We are guessing that this is a topic that you are as thrilled about as we are...tax season. Another unfortunate reality of life. Now that our complaining is done, we wanted to dive in and see if we can help even a little bit. We realize the deadline is right around the corner, but if you have procrastinated a little like we have been known to do, Forbes has published a comprehensive Tax guide for 2015. Obamacare requirements have kicked in, and there are other nuances going on this year that are new. Check out the nice resource here if you have questions or need information.

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March Newsletter Update

March 10, 2015

Our Big News We want to thank those of you that called or emailed to guess our big announcement. We had a lot of creative guesses (some we may actually steal and use) but no one got it right! Drum roll please...... We are upgrading our fleet! We are proud to announce our partnership with Peak Kia in Denver for the transition of our existing fleet to brand new all-wheel drive Kia Sorentos. Our ladies will be safer, warmer and happier in getting to your homes for sure, and the Colorado winters should be easier to navigate. Not to mention we think it will look a lot nicer sitting on your curb while we are inside working our magic! We took delivery of our first new vehicle in February and will be adding to our fleet each month. Yes, we kept our octopus who seems to be very popular with you all. Here is a look at the graphics, the full vehicle is further down in the newsletter. Take a look and let us know what you think! Send Us Your Feedback

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Letter from the Owner Every now and then, we get our fearless leader, John Kitts, to speak up about the business (OK, those of you that know him realize it's impossible to keep him quiet mostly, but don't tell him we said that). In that spirit, we asked him why, if he were a prospective client, would he choose Denver Concierge? What followed was a very thorough reminder, top to bottom, of what really makes Denver Concierge different and truly unique in the world of housecleaning. We posted it on our website, and the link can be found here. For those of you who haven't seen our new site, this will give you a chance to check it out as well. As always, we welcome any feedback and we hope his comments increase your faith in us even further.   March Charity Events For March, we are happy to be attending the Bal Swan Ball, held at the Omni Interlocken Resort on Saturday, March 7th. Bal Swan Children's Center is a non-profit that assists families with their preschool children to better prepare them for life, and improve the relationships between parent and child. They also have amazing programs for children that have special developmental needs. They use innovative and proven techniques to ensure the best possible scenarios for preschoolers. Information on Bal Swan can be found here.  The event we are attending began in 1963 and will be attended by over 600 people supporting this great cause. Details on the event can be found on their website.

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Partners we Love It is probably the right time to mention Peak Kia in Littleton. We searched high and low for someone to help us with our fleet and they won the prize. Everyone at the dealership has been outstanding, and they have completely delivered on all of their promises. Our representative, Grant Harrell is outstanding, and was key in us putting this program together. Peak Kia can be found here, and you can email Grant directly if you want to learn more. If you mention Denver Concierge to him, you will receive a nice surprise! We love our new Sorentos, and are looking forward to our brand new fleet! Thanks to Peak Kia for the great partnership!   St. Patty's Day Green March is one of those months we love. Not only because it means spring is around the corner (no more snow!), but because of the "green" holiday known as St. Patty's Day! Much like our tradition of being green, St. Patty's Day traditions have been passed down for years. From cabbage to shamrocks, we can all identify with this holiday and its history. We found out a lot about St. Patty's Day in our research, and realized that we had a lot to learn (like St. Patty's day started with blue not green)! If you are curious about some of the myths behind this holiday, click here. In the meantime, know that by using Denver Concierge, you will be "green" not just in March, but year round! Happy St. Patty's Day!

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Queen Bee Corner by Angela I've been with Denver Concierge going on 15 years now (yikes!) and during that time I have gathered in my proverbial black book, quite a few names of reliable, honest and knowledgeable tradespeople from all different industries. I'd be more than happy to share if you are looking for help around your home. On the other hand, if you have someone fantastic that you would recommend feel free to send me their info and I'll add it to the book.  Many of these names have come from your fellow Denver Concierge clients (thank you Bettie for the roofer recommendation.  I love those guys!). Happy Saint Patrick's Day!  May the luck of the Irish be with you!   Spring Cleaning Specials Don't forget that we have some amazing specials heading into our busy spring cleaning season. You are probably aware we have referral bonuses where you can earn free cleans by recommending us to your friends and neighbors. You may not be aware that we have a 50% off special on initial cleans! There are rules to the promotion, and we are really looking for people that want to become clients. This offer gives folks a chance to try our services at a reduced rate, and hopefully fall in love with what we do. Give Angela a call at 303-975-2808 to learn more. As always, we appreciate your faith in us and your recommendations. Here is to a great spring!

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Deep Cleaning Tips

February 25, 2015

Deep Cleaning Tips

“Deep cleaning” are two words that inevitably evoke association a lot of efforts and sufferings. Maybe, you were doing it all wrong. Although you cannot omit it completely, you can make your life far easier. Get a thorough cleaning while saving times and money.

The Faucet

You can take care of the whole sink including the drains with green cleaning products. You will need baking soda, white vinegar, lemon, sea salt and a liquid dish washing soap. Bleach and strong acid, as well as abrasive cleaners may damage the stainless steel. Sprinkle the baking soda over the area, with a small amount of water running until you create paste. Place paper towels soaked in vinegar and let it sit for 20 minutes. Remove them and wash the sink with hot soapy water. Grab your old toothbrush and rub the difficult to reach parts. To clean the drain, put half a cup of baking soda and vinegar. Then pour boiling water. Finish by putting sliced lemon that will sanitize and aromatize the area.

The Oven

Haven’t cleaned your oven in while? Are you afraid to open it and see the damages? You can deal with the persistent stains, by placing a bowl filled with half a cup of ammonia in the cold oven. Leave for the night and rinse it the next day. You will find it a lot easier.

The Carpet

Use iron to remove very deep stains like the wax spots from your carpet. Put a clean cloth over the stain and then go over with the appliances. Not all of the stains can be removed with the iron, especially the oil one. Fear not! In this case you can use a completely green, efficient and cheap ingredient – baking soda. Sprinkle it over the spill and wait for about 10 minutes. The baking soda will soak the oil. Remove it with a vacuum cleaner. Then make a solution of two tablespoons of vinegar, two cups of hot water and a tablespoon of liquid dishwasher. Apply the mixture over the stain and let it stay for a couple for minutes. Wipe it up with a damp cloth or sponge. You can basically use it on any type of fabric. Say goodbye to the carpet steam cleaning.

The Blinds

This is quite a difficult area for cleaning and requires a lot of patience. Get a sock and soak it in a solution of equal parts and vinegar and water. Use the sock as a glove and clean the space between the window blinds.

The Shower

If you are sick and tired of rubbing the hard water deposits from your shower heads, you can now breathe a sigh of relief. Fill a plastic bag with distilled vinegar and fix it on the shower head with a rubber band.

Bathtub

Clean the annoying bathtub rings with a grapefruit juice and salt. Apply the salt over a wet tub and to scrub the surface until it’s clean. House cleaning is a reoccurring task on your agenda and weather you like it or not you need to take care of it. Al least you can now do it the easy way. For more helpful tips click here

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Upholstery Cleaning

February 12, 2015

Upholstery Cleaning is a Must!

No matter how high quality your upholstery fabric is but at some point it will need to get some deep cleaning. In fact, there are some upholstery fabrics that even require more than frequently cleaning practice. The cleaning requirements for each of the upholstery fabrics are different from one another. It is important to take care of the cleaning needs of the upholstery otherwise there are chances that your upholstered furniture can get damaged. The cleaning routine and the condition of the upholstered furniture also depend on the use of your furniture. The more the furniture is used the more cleaning it will require. The appearance of the upholstery can tell you a lot about its condition. People do invest a lot in the furnishing of their home and the major investment is made in furniture. The majority of the people do make use of soft upholstered furniture. The proper upholstery cleaning products must be used in order to keep your upholstered furniture ever green. Also, it will enhance their look as well. If you are not regularly cleaning up your upholstery then dirt and dust will settle down in your furniture. Regular vacuuming can also contribute a lot in the cleaning of upholstery. If you are not paying attention over the regular cleaning of the upholstered furniture then it might create bacteria and germs which are really unhygienic. The dirty upholstered furniture can provide breeding ground to these bacteria and germs. As a result, you get different kinds of allergies from them.

Clean it regularly

It is recommended by majority of the professional cleaners and furniture makers that if you are going to keep the upholstered furniture then deep cleaning is a must twice a year. The cleaning also depends largely over how the upholstery is made. In many cases, the surface upholstery fabric is then having padding underneath to provide the cushion effect. Any kind of spill and stain also gets absorbed into this padding as it is normally made up of some foamy material. The usual and home made cleaning normally do not provide the complete cleaning and the padding stays the same unhygienic and dirty. Also, there are many kind of stains that leave their bad odor and the odor stinks the upholstery. It is very important to not only clean the surface but also clean the underneath your furniture items. This is the only way through which you can also get rid of the bad odor and dirty padding. Obviously, you cannot do this at your home.

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February News

February 10, 2015

Partners We Love One of our favorite people in Denver is Edie Marks of Kentwood Real Estate. On top of being one of the best Realtors the planet has ever seen, Edie is passionate about the Cancer League of Colorado and donates her time, money and effort to the cause. She is a great friend of Denver Concierge and we admire her tenacity and dedication to the causes she believes in. We will be attending the Hope Ball on May 9th and will also be donating a free green housecleaning in support of this wonderful cause. You can learn more about Edie at her website and about the Cancer League of Colorado here. Charity Events We love being involved in the community by attending different charitable events. February 21 Joseph's Journey We will be attending a silent auction for Joseph's Journey, a non-profit that assists terminally ill children via wilderness experiences. We will be donating a free green housecleaning to this event as well. If you would like to join us, there are some fabulous items to bid on. The event goes all day and there are some great bands going into the evening hours. The event is at Twisted Pine Brewery in Boulder. February 27 High Rollers for Health Hope for Project C.U.R.E. If you aren't familiar with Project C.U.R.E., it is an amazing organization. They provide medical supplies and equipment around the world for folks that cannot afford it and their founder, Doug Jackson is a great friend of Denver Concierge as well. Visit here for event information.

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Queen Bee Corner by Angela I hope you enjoy February with all its special holidays. Speaking of special, I have heard from a few of you that you sometimes ask the ladies to do something special in the house and it doesn’t always get done. Perhaps they don’t completely understand. Please feel at ease calling me or emailing me with any requests. I am here early every morning for just that purpose; to act as liaison between client and team leader, and pass along any instructions or concerns you may have. Let me make it easier for you! Really! Contact the Queen Bee ​ Denver is Growing Fast Forbes Magazine published the fastest growing cities in the U.S., and Denver came in 6th! The article can be found here. We are proud to be a member of such a dynamic and fast growing city! How to be a Jedi We love finding stuff that makes your lives easier. Read these two articles from Pansy Panda and Lifehack for ideas on stuck zippers, how long a dollar bill is (6 1/8") and other useful tips and ideas! Big Announcement Contest Ok, so if it were really a big announcement right now it would be at the top of the page! That said, we have some big news and changes coming up at Denver Concierge that we believe will improve our service to you going forward. Stay tuned in the months ahead for our exciting announcement! Any of you that would like to GUESS at what might be coming can earn a free refrigerator clean if you are correct. Just give Angela or Alicia your best guess and we will tell you if you are right! The good news is even if you are wrong, we will let you in on our surprise!

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What's needed for a perfect rug and carpet cleaning

January 22, 2015

House Cleaning Denver: Tips and Tricks

At the end of the tenancy, it may be a time for a little bit of end of tenancy cleaning. The tenants should keep everything clean, but often that's a mirage. The flawless services of a cleaning company are therefore all that you're looking for, because they have all the professional equipment and outfit to make your rugs like new. On the other hand, if you have your own lovely hand-made rugs and carpets in your house - you should take good care of them on a monthly basis or so. It's not enough only to clean everything at the end of the season, but it's not recommended to treat the carpets and the rugs quite frequently, especially the hand-made ones. Their colors and freshness requires special attention, while the big carpet that covers the entire floor of the room definitely requires more time to enhance it into the picture perfect carpet. In all cases - next are few ideas and items that one may need for the perfect cleaning of the coziest thing for the wintertime.

1. A vacuum cleaning system is as important as the carpet itself. Whether it comes to big carpets for the winter or rugs with complex irregular shapes - vacuuming is the first most important thing to do for removal of dirt, sand, grit or other greater particles. Vacuuming is the most common method for domestic cleaning and the easiest one too. It would be better if you can move or rotate the carpet so it becomes evenly exposed and all the corners are easy accessible. Find out the most unpleasing spots visually. They are usually the spots around the legs of big furniture objects like the kitchen table, the sofa, the wardrobes, as well as the spots with the heaviest foot traffic. If needed - make sure to repeat the vacuuming process or shake the small rugs through the balcony if possible.

2. Begin with a deep cleaning method. There is a myriad of opts to deep clean your rugs and carpets, and the services of the professional cleaners can help you with this yet overwhelming task. A rental wet-cleaning system is a typical choice to begin with, but first make sure to know the exact condition of your carpets and rugs. There are colors, materials and mostly Oriental rugs, which are not recommended for cleaning with detergents and solutions. Other carpets and colors can be deep cleaned only with a special detergent, while steam-cleaning machines are definitely not recommended for long fibrous carpets.

 

3. For small rugs - a machine or a hand wash is the perfect choice. Just read the label of the carpet to make sure that it's suitable for washing. This can take place outdoors in the summertime or in a hot spring day, when the direct sunlight, the hot air and the big open space facilitate the natural evaporation of the water. For this, you may need a tub according to the size of the rugs, a drying rack or so, shampoo or your favorite cleaning detergents.

4. For carpets with stains and dirt at only a few small spots - a stiff brush will do the perfect job. Treat the spot with a dis-solvent solution, then - leave a few minutes according the manual to dissolve completely the stains and the dirt, and rub in circles until it becomes a real mess. There is no need to struggle - wipe it off with a cloth or spatula, then treat again with a dry compound or directly vacuum the humid spot until it becomes even brighter than the rest of the carpet.

Article by Ella Andrews on behalf of this website

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Happy New Year!

January 10, 2015

Post-Holiday Blues?

Happy New Year to all of you and here is to a wonderful 2015! We thank you for being part of the Denver Concierge family. Now that the holidays are over, many of you may be asking "what the heck happened to my home!?" Holiday parties and guests can take a toll on your home. Of course, a deep cleaning by Denver Concierge is the easiest way to relieve some of that, but for the things that we can't fix, we found a pretty nifty resource for you. From red wine stains to wax on tablecloths, we found this very interesting.

Partner Special - Business Head Shot

Anyone out there besides us with outdated photos? If yours was taken with the camera on the left it's time to update! We get so busy we forget just how long it has been. One of our partners, Misha Photography in Broomfield is holding a special event where you can get a brand new business head shot for only ! The regular price is 5 so this is quite the deal! The deal is one day only on January 15th at the Misha Photography Studio, so RSVP soon! She's the best in the business and you will also get a chance to network a bit if you so desire (oh and free martinis!). Mention Denver Concierge when you register and you will receive a bonus surprise gift!

Our Best and Brightest

We love to celebrate our successes and each year we name our best Team Leaders and Cleaning Associates. This year we are proud to announce Josefina Quinonez as our Cleaning Associate of the Year! Runner up was Aurora Dominguez. Our Team Leader of the Year is Natalia Olivas who ran away with the award. Runner up was Nancy Ramirez. We love to celebrate our best people and for 2014 these were the best of the best! Thanks to you our clients for letting them shine! Keep your comments and compliments coming as you are the basis for these awards!

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Happy Holidays & Schedule Notes

December 11, 2014
Happy holidays to all of you...Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to the best clients any company could ask for! Also, please be aware that we will be closed on December 25th and New Year's Day. Those days both fall on Thursday this year, so more importantly we ARE working on Friday of both weeks. We will be contacting you to reschedule if you fall on one of our closed days, but if you are scheduled for Friday either week, we will be coming as usual. We hope you have all had an amazing year and we look forward to an even better 2015 with all of you!

Energy Tips & Saving Money

We ran across this great piece on saving energy in our homes. We are always looking for tips we can pass along and we found this piece by Popular Mechanics to be very useful. If you are like us, we are always looking for ways to be more efficient and maybe save a buck in the process! We hope you feel the same, the details are here.

Weather Reminder

So far we have been really lucky this winter in regard to snowfall. Just a reminder that we will do everything in our power to stay open and get to your homes when the white stuff hits. Please understand that it gets pretty chaotic when we get 'dumped on' but we will do our best to let you know what is going on. Generally speaking if schools are closing we are as well, but if you want real time updates, you can follow us on Twitter at @bestmaidsdenver.

Tipping

We get lots of questions about whether or not our ladies accept tips around the holidays. We like to think we take great care of our people, but like anyone in the service industry they always appreciate tips. The easiest way to make sure that everything is handled fairly is to work with Angela in our office directly. She can work with you on any details and make things easy for you. Of course, if you want to provide to the girls directly, we would recommend giving that to the Team Leader in your home. From our ladies to you, THANK YOU for your kindness, hospitality and generosity. We see this all year long...not just at the holidays and it is appreciated more than words can express!

New Year's Resolutions & Productivity

We love finding stuff that makes us more productive. Like you, we have been known to make resolutions as well. In 2015, our resolution is to be more productive and we found these tips at Revolution Australia here that might help. Here's to sticking with all of our resolutions in 2015!!!

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Happy Thanksgiving

November 07, 2014
We would like to wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving this month. In this time of gratitude we would like to say thanks to you for trusting Denver Concierge in your home. We are grateful for each and every one of you and from our 70 employees...THANK YOU for being a part of the Denver Concierge 'family'. Also, please be aware that we will be closed on Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving week so our employees can spend time with their families and recharge. We will be reaching out to those of you that have cleans scheduled for those days so we can get you rescheduled.

Home Improvements

In our quest for excellent newsletter content, sometimes we stumble across stuff we think you will find helpful in your home. We found this cool piece from Amazing Oasis that offers some ideas for things you can add in your home that make sense and add functionality. You can find out more by clicking here.

Holiday Parties

Things get kinda crazy around here over the holidays! We have lots of people that request special house cleaning for either before or after their holiday party, or as a gift for their families. While most of you are on a schedule with us, if you have special requests for the holidays, please let us know right away so we can make sure we can take care of your needs. We look forward to making your home sparkle over the holidays, starting with Thanksgiving!

Veterans Day

Veteran's Day is Tuesday, November 11th. We want to express our thanks to the men and women that serve and have served our country. Our deepest thanks for your service and dedication to our freedom. Without your courage and sacrifice our lives would not be the same.

Smart People's Habits

We know in talking with our clients that we deal with a very smart and accomplished bunch of folks (of course we think you are smart for using us, but that's a different discussion!). We found an interesting article about the habits that people of higher intelligence frequently possess, both good and bad! Interesting stuff indeed and you can see the full list here.

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We Have a New Look!

October 08, 2014
We have updated our website! We think it better reflects the type of company we are and the incredible clients we serve. We will always maintain our "old school" approach to cleaning and in that regard we are rather "retro". That said, we wanted to update our look, so we encourage you to take a peek! As always we can be found at www.denverconcierge.com. You will see links to our Facebook page (feel free to like us!) Twitter, and all of the other modern accoutrements, including live chat and easy to use buttons for a quick review (always appreciated!) If you have any feedback please let us know!

Our Queen Bee

We have added a new feature to our newsletter. On the left you will note the "Queen Bee Corner". Our Queen Bee, Angela Danessi wanted to connect with our clients personally and with 15 years under her belt here, we were in strong agreement. Take a look at her personal message to you, our clients. She is truly the straw that stirs the drink at our company and we hope you feel the same way!

Boo!!.........Happy Halloween!

Wishing you and your families a fun Halloween. The folks at the American Academy of Pediatrics have provided some great tips for keeping kids (and adults) safe and happy at Halloween. We hope you enjoy their tips which can be found here.

Welcome Back

Please join us in welcoming Alicia Valencia back to the company. Alicia had a baby and left us for a short while, but has returned and will be serving as our Director of Operations. She will be doing a bit of everything for us, including helping our clients along with Angela. She is super excited to be working with all of you again and we are thrilled to have her back!

Columbus Day

We know that Columbus Day on Monday, October 13 is a holiday for some of you. Denver Concierge will be open and planning on cleaning you unless we hear otherwise. If you are on the schedule for Monday and wish to reschedule, please give us a call or email and we will accommodate you. If you are off, enjoy your three day weekend!

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