BRAINERD — Jenny Scott, the owner of Tru Clean Housekeeping, finds enjoyment in something that most people consider stressful.
Scott started Tru Clean Housekeeping a little over a year ago. She wanted to find a job where she could maintain spending time with her family and be a stay-at-home mom with her nearly 2-year-old child. She had previous experience in hospitality, but wanted to do something she enjoyed a little more.
Cleaning is something Scott enjoys to do. She even finds it relaxing, unlike some people. She thought a cleaning business would be something she could do during the day and balance between being a mom and a business owner.
With the help and support from her fiance, Jeremy Hodges, Scott began her business. Tru Clean Housekeeping stands for trustworthy, reliable and understanding — three qualities Scott said she prides herself in. She said she wants to be able to be relied upon by her clients and understanding of everyone’s situation.
“I just want to help,” Scott said. “My main thing is I want people out here to help in any way I can. It doesn’t matter if I clean the bathrooms one time, I just want to help.”
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For Scott, starting her business with the support of her fiance and children was very important. Scott was adopted at the age of 10 from Columbia and moved to Minnesota. Although she doesn’t have a good relationship with her adoptive parents, she said the support from Hodges and her three children has meant the world to her.
Scott said people told her she wasn’t going to go anywhere as a child. She was put down and has used the negativity to motivate herself to work harder. She wants to prove to the people who didn’t believe in her — and to herself — she can do it.
Scott has lived in the Brainerd lakes area for a majority of her life and doesn’t have any plans on moving in the near future.“I don’t think I’ll ever move out of the area just because it’s not like the Cities,” Scott said. “I get really bad anxiety in the Cities and I just feel very comfortable in the Brainerd area.”
In the Brainerd area, Scott has regular customers she has gotten to know well. She also has partnered with a property rental company that she assists with cleaning apartments after people move out.
“I kind of do a little mix of everything,” Scott said. “I work with a couple Realtors. I work with a couple rentals that I clean for them for move-ins and move-outs a lot. I love it, but at the same time, especially in apartments when people move out, I never know what to expect when I walk in those doors. But I like the challenge of some of these places. I’m not afraid of any kind of challenge.”
Scott finds finishing a challenge satisfying and loves to experiment to see the best way to clean each thing. She has found a mixture of products she thinks works best and enjoys the work she does. She also said she loves the feeling of completing a job.
“It’s pretty gross sometimes, but then after I leave this place, the feeling that I get from it makes me feel happy like I helped someone,” Scott said. “That’s another thing why I like doing it, because when I leave after I clean a house, sometimes they’ll send me messages like, ‘Thank you so much, you have no idea how much I appreciate it.’ Knowing I helped is another purpose of me doing this too.”
One of Scott’s favorite things about owning her own business is that she is her own boss. She makes her schedule and can prioritize spending time with her family and her business on different days.
Scott offers a wide variety of services from one time services to regular cleanings. She is currently working with herself as the main employee, but Hodges will occasionally come to help on bigger projects. In the future, she hopes to bring on more staff, but she said she wants to make sure she maintains her three desired qualities, trustworthy, reliable and understanding, in every job she does.
SARA GUYMON may be reached at 218-855-5851 or at
sara.guymon@brainerddispatch.com
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