With VBS done, Medford United Methodist Church is ready for their annual cleaning.

Like clockwork, once vacation bible school is over, it’s time to clean the carpets and floors.

For almost 15 years now Medford United Methodist Church has us clean their carpets after their youngest parishioners attend their week long vacation bible school. With lots of fun activities for the week, there are also lots pairs of feet traipsing dirt, spilling drinks and crumbs, and debris from arts and crafts like glue, and glitter.

All in all it is a fun week the children look forward to, and their is quite the team of Sunday School teachers and volunteers, so it is a busy week at the church. Likewise, when it is over everyone takes a sigh of relief. And, major cleaning is scheduled not only to clean up after “VBS,” but also it is the time to prepare the church facilities for families returning from summer vacation. It is ‘back to school’, and regular attendance increases for worship and Sunday School.

Mid-summer arrives and I stop by the parish office to meet with Lisa the church secretary and walk the main areas of the church with her.

After catching up on family, other parishioners, activities and grandkids, we take a walk and look at carpets and upholstery to see what our “action list” is. Not as much now, but at one time we had carpets and upholstery to clean throughout. And depending on the use of the church facilities, we often had sunday school classroom VCT floors and the Bowher Hall (the church kitchen and gathering area to strip). This was duly timed after their hosting a “homeless retreat” week.

Additionally Lisa tees up the carpet cleaning for their preschool program as well, always done at the same time we work in the main church area.

Normally just a schedule thing, we tell her what day we will clean that area, so Marybeth, and now Caitlyn can prepare their rooms for our cleaning. Usually we do a day in the preschool, and two or more days in the main church.

Reviewing the condition of the carpets overall, we also review the previous year’s work, and other needs they may have.

So this year, while it is typically the year we don’t do the entire sanctuary, Lisa and the trustees determined that the upholstery on the fronts of several of the pews need attention. Together we think it’s mindful of the budget to add them to the cleaning list this year, since we do a shortened cleaning in the sanctuary to include the main aisles, the alter, and spot clean the spills between the pews.

In all, Medford Methodist appreciates our steady hand in working with them to deliver results.

From being fluid in creating an action plan that fits their needs, we hold our pricing steady, and work it as if we are making budgetary decisions as if we were in charge of them. They appreciate it that we “have their needs in mind.”

For instance, the upholstery portion of the project is one such example.

As we walked the sanctuary Lisa pointed out that several of the pews had spots and spills. As usual, it appears that there are drink spills, perhaps grease marks, and wax from when the use lighted mini candles. She asked our opinion, should they just target the soiled pews only, or should they consider doing all of them. In this case, that meant doing 19 pews vs the more than 30 total.

Both Chris and I suggested that it is better to tackle the pew cleaning this year, as the amended and shortened project in the sanctuary created some savings for them. Waiting perhaps for the following year would “tip the scales,” so it might be better to knock them out now. The only issue, is just doing the soiled pews, vs. doing all of them.

With only 19, we did give them pricing for just them, or all of them, and they could decide how best to proceed. We didn’t see enough soiling to do them all, so we advised them just to do the ones affected and save the money.

Without meeting with the trustees, Lisa called the head trustee and got approvals.

Not only for the main church areas, Michael Polhemus, the head trustee requested work at Parsonage II also.

After doing this for almost 15 years now, approvals were given over the phone. And immediately after finalizing the program at the church, Michael requested we also plan to clean their Parsonage II home, located in Lake Pine. Having been there and cleaned it many times, our scope expanded to assist them in preparing to list it for sale.

Over the years we have cleaned it, and Parsonage I many times. And while Parsonage I gets little action, we offered to handle more services that Parsonage II needed. Included in addition to carpet cleaning, was a good overall detail cleaning, and some carpet repairs. Being in the cleaning and flooring business for years, we also could bring in appropriate people to handle those tasks, and did so with little effort put forth by the trustees.

Bring on our team member Jeff, and a carpet installer Malcom.

Jeff, longtime in the business of cleaning and detailing was the perfect fit for their cleaning. Having his own business detailing cars, and WAWA overhauls (where precision and health inspections must be met), Jeff also does cleaning for multiple places of worship. Whether it be “FAC”, Fellowship Alliance Baptist Church, or “FBC”, Fellowship Baptist Church, he routinely does projects for them. So we scheduled Jeff to run through and do the cleaning for them. And since Jeff moonlights with us regularly, we incorporated his work with our work, with little effort beyond a phone approval for the cost.

Simultaneously, we scheduled Malcom, a carpet installer to come and repair 3 areas where doors rubbed and created holes in the carpet. Again, without the trustees lifting a finger we coordinated the repairs with Malcolm. He arrived, saw that the donor carpet, (extra carpet available to do a re-section, or “patch repair”), was not the same as the areas in need of repair. Thinking quick on his feet he cut carpet from a linen closet to do the repairs, then seamed the donor carpet into a dark closet where it wouldn’t be seen as different. In a mere 20 minutes Malcom was in, out and paid a fair wage for the work that was done.

All in all the work was executed with precision, until it was time to steam the carpets at Parsonage II.

Guess you could call it a slight hiccup, the weekend before we were to clean Parsonage II, Mike and the trustees discovered the air conditioning stopped working. They communicated to us we probably would have to delay the carpet cleaning. And while Mike was scrambling to install some window ac units, so they could continue the repairs and preparation for listing, I called Mike to offer some cooling and drying equipment gratis, to keep the schedule going to meet their target dates.

Making a quick call to Harry Alcroft, of Puro Clean, he lent me a couple of dehumidifiers.

Harry, a colleague in a similar industry (emergency restoration and remediation), has boat loads of drying equipment at the ready to respond when calls for water damage and flood work comes in. Understanding our need is in a place of worship, Harry welcomed us to borrow his equipment. So I met him at his business, and snagged 2 LG dehu’s, certainly up to the task.

So between 3 window units, 2 commercial dehu’s, some air movers, and their own home model dehu, we hardly had a skip in our step in getting the carpets cleaned. That same night much of the carpet was dry, and all but one area was dry the next day.

PS- if you ever need water damage, fire or mold remediation, Harry is your guy. He not only has a restoration company, he ia a Mold Remediation Instructor. What’s that mean for you? I means he is up to speed with all the technical knowledge of water, fire, and mold. Here is a quick link to his website.

Indifferent to normal cleaning at Parsonage II, the carpets were dry lickety-split!

Usually Parsonage II stays damp when we clean it. Just the floor plan alone, and interior air space, the drying for this property is slower than normal, but not this time.

Final touches are done, and Parsonage II is ready for pictures!

We arranged for Jeff to swing back in, do a couple of touch ups and some areas he couldn’t tend to with all the equipment running, we reconvened. Again, this additional work was arranged all by phone, and Mike the trustee was able to focus on his activities on the upcoming and beloved Medford Lakes Annual Canoe Carnival festivities. While it is not known if Mike was on one of the canoe teams paddling a float in the carnival, it is a tireless week of activities, that most homeowners in Medford Lakes either host their own party or partake in the actual carnival rituals.  Either way, we executed our work with hardly a look over our shoulder, or distraction from Mike’s carnival activities!

With another successful year tending to Medford Methodist Churches needs we wrap up our yearly work for them with precision and ease. With mutual gratitude and gratefulness we say our goodbye’s.

But right then, out of the blue, Haddonfield United Methodist Preschool requests an estimate for floor stripping and waxing from us.

Although unaware of long reference list of places of worship, Phil Juliani discovers our strip and wax work on line and calls us during the very days we were working at Medford United Methodist. Doing the same thing, scheduling their floor cleaning projects after “VBS” scheduled for August 14th – 18th, they requested pricing for their floor work.

When asked, Phil told me he saw the pictures of projects on our website of our “case studies” that he saw all the commercial services we do. He eagerly wanted pricing and planned to schedule their preschool floor project with us!

Want to see our reference list of places of worship we have served.

If your church, place of worship or non profit needs carpets or floors cleaned, give us a call. We make it easy to get the job done and be a steady hand in the process! Give us a call at 609.953.0472. Contact Us on line and we will reach out to you!