New City resident Ed Roth decided 10 years ago to leave the corporate world behind and become his own boss.

“I had worked in corporate my whole life,” he said. “I wanted to have my own business.”

Roth studied various franchise opportunities and settled on Merry Maids because he liked the company’s rules and structure. He said the significant differences between his firm’s cleaners and independents are that Merry Maid employees are trained, the company is insured and all employees are bonded.  Roth’s territory includes all of Rockland County. 

Roth opened his Merry Maids franchise with no customers and no cleaners.  Now he has several hundred customers in New City, Nyack, Tappan, Stony Point and Suffern; 23 cleaners, and two office employees. While most clients are residential, the service is not exclusive to homeowners or apartment dwellers.

“90 percent are residential, we do offices too but they are more the exception,” Roth explained. “Some people want customized cleaning.  Every home I give a different price to.”

Some of the standard services include:

• Dusting
• Vacuuming
• Clean, scrub and sanitize showers, bathtubs and sinks
• Clean and sanitize vanities, backsplashes and toilets
• Clean mirrors
• Polish chrome
• Cleaning appliances, counters, cabinets, tables and chairs

Roth makes the initial visit to each potential customer to find out their cleaning needs whether weekly, biweekly or monthly and provides an individualized estimate. It varies according to whether there are pets, knickknacks, hardwood floors versus carpets and whether they want additional services such as oven or refrigerator cleaning and window washing. The size of the home or office and amount of time it is expected to take to clean are factored into the price.

Teams of two cleaners go to each location supplied with two vacuums, microfiber cloths and the company’s scented cleaning products.  They are based out of a 20,000-square-foot office on Congers Road in New City, which includes a laundry room where eight to 10 loads of cleaning cloths are washed daily.  Cleaning services are available Monday through Friday and Roth said customers vary between being home at the time or providing access for the cleaners.

Roth said if a customer is not happy with something, the cleaners will return the next day and take care of it.  Customers are not required to sign agreements.

“Generally we don’t feel a need to lock people in because we feel we do a good job,” said Roth.

Merry Maids can be reached at 845-634-9000 and is located at 216 Congers Road, Building 3 #D in New City, across the street from Clarkstown North High School.