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Jinny Carter, 47, owner of Designer Maid, St. Petersburg

How did you come up with your business name?

It took me six months to come up with the name. I thought of all different types of maid services but it wasn't until I went to Phoenix and got trained on how to run a maid service that it just came to me.

I started in 1991. I cleaned for the first three years - spring cleaning from top to bottom, one customer at a time. Then I hired a couple of girls to work with me. I was a registered nurse before that and was with a sales company where I helped a lot of people get motivated. One day I was going to my job and I decided that I'm not going to do this anymore. I wanted to start my own business and went into cleaning. I'm a real people-oriented person, and I knew I could do it.

I probably work 40 to 50 hours a week, but I'm always thinking about the business because I love it.

We have 12 girls ranging from age 30 to 50 years old. Most are full time but we do have some that work part time.

I control all of it. I do the accounting, the advertising, scheduling, any complaints. I know everything that goes on with this business. I do the computering, I take the orders and fill orders for supplies. I'm like the comptroller. Nothing gets by without me knowing. Mainly, I keep everybody happy. I talk to the girls every day when they come in and come back about their work and how their day went. I'm their bouncing board. I listen to them and I can tell whether they're not happy. I'm a very good listener.

We have 200 customers that are regulars. We cover south Pinellas, anywhere from Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard and all of south Pinellas down from that, including the beaches.

First we do estimates where we go to the house and tell the customer all about the service and what we do. We do most of our estimates over the phone now. We do a spring cleaning first. We work in teams of one or two, and the customers get the same maids each visit.

98 percent are homes; the other 2 percent are small offices. We also do move-ins and move-outs and light construction. That's where they build the house and the tile floors will have stuff on it but it's easily washable, nothing you have to use a tool to scrape. On the move-ins and move-outs, we clean the inside of cabinets, closets, refrigerators, ovens, windows inside and out, screens, cat and dog hairs - all of it. But our specialty is spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning is washing everything from top to bottom except for the walls. We clean the fans, all the wood work, remove all the furniture so that we can get behind and under it. The kitchens and bathrooms are scrubbed from top to bottom. We clean the vents, do all the dusting and wiping of doors, wood or tile floors. We do it the old-fashioned way and get on our hands and knees and scrub.

A vacuum cleaner - an upright and portable; a mop and bucket; a tray or two of cleaners such as vinegar, lemon oil, tub and tile cleaners, ammonia, degreaser, Murphy Oil Soap; a non-scratch scrungie pad, griddle screen for the toilet, plastic gloves, a scrub brush, grout brush, fan brush and a ladder.

I won't send my maids out on a job I wouldn't do myself. If I open the front door and there's roaches crawling out the door, I won't ask my maids to do that. However, we don't run into situations like that much.

The minimum is $55 an hour for two maids, unless you're a senior, then its $50. Most of our customers get a set price, probably $65 to $75 a job. A normal spring cleaning can run anywhere from $110 to $600, depending on the size of the house, the way that it's decorated with knicknacks and pictures, the age of the house. ... During these cleanings, the maids are generally in the house all day long and sometimes for two days. An average cleaning usually takes anywhere from an hour to three hours to keep it clean.

The girls get paid $350 a week, but it depends on if they take off a couple of days off.

Each maid wears a T-shirt with our logo Designer Maid Service Designed for You. They also wear cut off jeans or whatever's comfortable and looks nice. They wear tennis shoes, too.

We've cleaned Mayor Rick Baker's house, biweekly, for about eight years. We did a spring cleaning of Evander Preston's (St. Pete Beach artist/jewelry designer) gallery/house in Pass-a-Grille. Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island (Dawn Wells) beach house is in Redington Beach. When she comes into town, we'll do her spring cleaning. She paid a pretty penny last time, probably about $350.

The biggest site? Preston's gallery, we did the spring cleaning and it cost about $1,800. We moved everything, got on ladders. He had a lot of artwork and all other kinds of things. We also cleaned the top floor of the Bayfront Tower about three years ago. It cost about $2,400 and was probably 3- or 4,000 square feet.

The hardest part of my job is bookkeeping and little technical things, but I do them well. I'm a better people person.

I'm in it. I'm doing it. I'm living it. I created it. I couldn't do it without any of these people with me.

They need to be very personable, conscientious, detailed, dependable, and they need to love to clean and be able to put up with me.