Let’s Be Honest (Part 7/7): Housecleaning is a Dog-Eat-Dog World

The Trust Problem in the Housecleaning Industry

The housecleaning industry doesn’t play nice. It’s a battlefield, where businesses,
employees, and even customers are out for themselves. Collaboration? Forget about it.
Trust? Barely exists. And who suffers? Everyone.
How many times have you heard this story: “I hired someone, trained them, and after
four months they quit and poached some of my clients to start their own business.”
It’s not rare—it’s practically standard. Employees see what you charge, compare it to
what they are paid, get a bit huffy and puffy about it, and then decide they can do it
themselves. They think they are smart like a fox: charge a little more than what they get
paid now, and less than what you charge (so they can poach the clients on price, not
value)…and they get all the extra money for themselves and be rich!
The worst part? Pretty much all of these rogue startups go broke in less than a year, but
they’ve already done the damage to you, themselves, and the industry.

A Cutthroat Environment

Housecleaning businesses treat each other like rivals instead of allies. Instead of
collaboration, there’s undercutting, price wars, and constant suspicion. Imagine this: you
have an emergency and need to reschedule a client. Would you call another local
cleaning business to cover for you? Probably not, because you don’t trust them to do
the job or respect your client relationship.
This lack of unity keeps the industry fragmented and weak. Instead of building networks
that benefit everyone, businesses operate in isolation, trying to outdo each other while
barely staying afloat. In most other industries, competitors collaborate to handle
overflow work, share resources, best practices, and grow together. But in
housecleaning? It’s every housecleaner for themselves.

The Employee Exodus

Let’s talk about staff. Good employees are rare, and keeping them is even harder. High
turnover rates plague the industry, and most businesses can’t seem to crack the code.
Why? Because the job is seen as a temporary gig, not a career.
Many employee treat their roles as stepping stones, and as soon as they see an
opportunity to make more money—whether it’s poaching clients or jumping ship to
another business—they’re gone. And who can blame them? Most housecleaning jobs
don’t offer benefits, career advancement, or even a sense of pride.
But here’s the real kicker: if you’re not paying well, providing growth opportunities, or
treating your employees as valued team members, you’re not building a
business—you’re setting yourself up for constant hiring headaches.

A Broken System

This dog-eat-dog mentality doesn’t just harm individual businesses—it holds the entire
industry back. Without collaboration, there’s no progress. Without trust, there’s no
stability. The industry remains stuck in a vicious cycle of low prices, high turnover, and
fractured relationships.
Imagine if businesses worked together instead of tearing each other down. Imagine if
there was a network of trusted professionals you could lean on during emergencies.
Imagine an industry where employees felt valued, stayed longer, and took pride in their
work. It’s not a pipe dream—it’s how industries grow and evolve when people stop
competing against each other and start collaborating.

Your Wake Up Call

The housecleaning industry doesn’t have to stay stuck in a cycle of mistrust and
competition.
The truth is, this “dog-eat-dog” approach is killing your business. You’re wasting energy
fighting competitors and scrambling to replace employees when you could be investing
in growth, trust, and collaboration.
It’s time to break the cycle. Stop seeing everyone as a rival. Start thinking bigger.
Together, the industry can evolve from a survival game to a thriving profession—but
only if you’re willing to change the way you play.