Allergies on the rise...

Since spring has arrived and most of us who suffer from allergies have them in full swing, I thought I would share an article that might help us all make it through the itchy, watery-eyed season.

Combating Allergies With Homeopathic Allergy Remedies

By Maria Brooks

If you suffer from allergies, you may be interested in learning about various homeopathic allergy remedies. We have been programmed to medicate ourselves at the slightest onset of symptoms of any kind and it is not always necessary.

Considering the side effects of many allergy medications, including feeling sleepy or groggy, many people do not want to take them during the day because they need to be alert at work. Using homeopathic allergy remedies to control your allergy symptoms can be just as effective and provide a good amount of relief for allergy sufferers.

There are many herbal remedies and homeopathic allergy remedies that can be just as effective as over the counter medications, and there are also some very good tips to reduce the amount of allergy attacks that you suffer on any given day.

Here are some additional tips to help to reduce your allergy symptoms:

1.Use air conditioning in the summer time, in your home and in your car. It helps to reduce the incidence and your exposure to mold and dust mites. When you use air conditioning in your car, there is no need to roll the windows down and inhale the clouds of pollen.

2.Install and use an air cleaner. This can help with allergens and clean the air in your home in order to remove the pollen in the air.

3.Use fungicides like Clorox in your bathroom. This will reduce the chances of mold growing in these areas which is a big cause of allergic attacks.

4.Rip out your carpets. Carpets are full of dust mites, opt instead for hard wood or laminate flooring.

Prevention is the best cure for allergy attacks. Once you are aware of what your triggers are, you can avoid or reduce your exposure to these allergens.

Learn more about homeopathic allergy remedies.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Maria_Brooks

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4138565

Hello Tucson

We realize that it has been a while since we have posted to our blog. We apologize for taking so long to get back to it, especially since the busiest months are ahead of us. We have a lot to share with you. #1: We have sent letters and newsletters telling you all about our upcoming contest: Tibe Fan Club Best Pet Ever - Not Contest. Tibe (Tiberius) belongs to Jim and Suzanne Faustlin, the owners of The Maids of Tucson. One day Tibe found the bathroom open and the toilet paper just sitting on the roll alone and unsupervised. He began to wonder how many rolls it would take to get to the center of that toilet paper! Luckily, Jim was home and was able to catch Tibe in his quest to find the secrets at the center of the toilet paper roll, and he was able to snap some pictures for us.

Through Tibe's inspiration, we are inviting all of our current customers to send us pictures of their pets at their very best (or worst, as the case may be). As we receive the pictures, they will be posted on this blog site for people to vote. The contest rules are as follows:

• Voting begins October 1st, 2011 as early as 12:00 am
• Voting closes October 31st, 2011 at 11:59 pm
• Pictures can be submitted via email to maidsoftucson@att.net or to our facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/themaidstucson
  
• Anyone can vote -- So invite your friends and family to come and vote for you
• Because not all of our customers have access to facebook, all voting will be done on this blog page
• The winner of this contest will receive 1 free cleaning and their pet will be featured on our facebook page as our profile picture for 1 week. We will also feature our runner-up in a single post.

We are very excited about this contest and look forward to seeing how mischievous and adorable our Tucson pets are.

#2: Making Strides Against Breast Cancer : We are working towards a goal of raising $2500 this year. Last year we were just short of our $2000 goal, and we want to do better this year. We will be hosting a car wash on October 8th at our office (4425 E. Broadway Blvd.) to collect donations. All donations collected go directly to Making Strides Against Breast Cancer & The American Cancer Society. This charity means so much to us because 60% of the funds raised stay in Tucson to help our community. We have all had someone in our lives who has been affected by some form of cancer. Because of this, we are driven to help.

If you would like to help us, please visit our team page at http://main.acsevents.org/goto/maidsoftucson
to make a donation or join our team. We are very gracious to each of you for helping us. We hope to see you on October 8th for our car wash. Thank you!

#3: As you may have noticed, we are making a point of getting involved in our community. This year, for the months of July and August, we collected a portion of each clean and set it aside for donation. We chose five local charities that mean a great deal to us: Ben's Bells Project, The Southern Arizona Humane Society, The Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, and Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Because of our wonderful customers, we were able to donate $2,469.73 between the five charities.

#4: Our final bit of current news - On facebook, we are holding a contest for a free cleaning. You must have a facebook account in order to participate in this contest. All you need to do is 'like' our page. In the events listed, there are rules for participating in this contest. You must live within our service area (zip codes are listed on the event page) to be considered for winning. Post positive comments and 'likes' to earn entries. Each new post is a new entry. The contest closes on November 23rd and the person with the most 'likes'/comments will win the free clean. The winner will be chosen on November 28th and notified shortly after.

Thank you all for all that you do. We are proud to be serving you and we look forward to the things to come. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our office anytime at 520-795-7977 or maidsoftucson@att.net. Thank you again from all of us at The Maids.

Cold Weather Blues

The nation seems to be in a state of shock lately. We are all experiencing colder than normal temps...many of us (especially here in Southern Arizona) are not quite used to dealing with weather below freezing. We tend to want to stay indoors when the cold weather takes over, but this may be bad for our health if the right precautions are not taken.

According to Family Voices, "One in 5 people have allergies and 20 million people have asthma; 6.3 million are children and that number is growing" (2007) http://www.ndhealth.gov/CSHS/docs/newsletter-winter-2007-family-matters.pdf. These ailments are triggered by dust, dust mites, and mold which are generally at higher levels during the winter because we seal our homes to keep the cold air out.

The best way to combat these triggers is by reduce the moisture as much as possible. Clean and change linens regularly, clean and sanitize bathrooms, vacuum using a machine with several filters (including a HEPA filter), and sanitize the areas we touch most...knobs, telephones, door jambs, and light switches.

The Maids cleans these areas as a part of the regular cleaning routine. We also mist the bathroom (toilet and shower) with a neutral disinfectant after cleaning to ensure these areas are free of germs/viruses and are sanitary. The team will also remove dirty linens and replace with clean ones, and our vacuum has a four filter system that includes a HEPA filter. Our vacuum removes 99.9% of dust and allergens from the air as the team is working, so it is basically cleaning the air as it cleans your home. All of our products are botanically derived to be safe for your home and our environment.

We thank our teams everyday for the hard work they do...and so do their customers:

"Debra and the Yellow Team did a great job cleaning our home. We appreciate their attention to detail and their high standards of cleanliness."

"We love our team, they know our house and clean it well. Reliable and thorough."

"The Maids have been cleaning our house for at least 5 years now. I am always happy with them and happy with the work they do. The are friendly and aim to please."

"I love coming home to such a beautifully cleaned home. They shine my counters and sparkle my bathrooms!"

"My team deserves a good rating because they always do a good job."

"Great job Turquoise team! We love how well you clean, the attention to detail and how great the house smells whe we get home. Thanks so much!"

"It's great to have my home cleaned regularly and consistently so I don't have to worry."

Keep up the good work, teams. We are so grateful for your attention to detail and care of your customers.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
Theodore Roosevelt

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius

Welcom to the New Year

I realize that it has been a bit since I posted to our blog. Luckily, the end of the year turned out to be a little on the busy side for us.

We hope that everyone is having a successful start to 2011.

We would like to start out 2011 by placing greater emphasis on the fact the The Maids is now and has always been a green house cleaning company, using green cleaning products. We would also like to tell you that we have expanded to include Sahuarita house cleaning and Green Valley house cleaning with our service area.

We have made some changes to make sure that our name is consistent in the community. If you listen to 790 KNST, you will hear Garrett Lewis giving testimonials about his experience with our service. We have also joined Yelp, which is a review site. Consumers can visit this site and post reviews about their experiences, share experiences with other posters, and communicate with the business. We are really looking forward to this proceeding well.

We would like to invite anyone with questions, to please contact us. Our website provides good information, but there is something to be said for speaking with a live person.

Thank You Tucson

We would like to thank the generous people of Tucson, our wonderful customers, and our awesome employees for helping us to raise $759.75 at our rummage sale/car wash. Total to date, we have raised $974.75 in donations. The Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk is only a couple weeks away and we are all very excited about our contributions. We are still working to raise more funds and make an impact in our community. Thank you all so very much.

The teams are hard at work in the field with the change in seasons. The winds have been blowing and stirring up dust in our homes. Our teams are fully equipped to handle your dusting needs. Here are some of the comments from customers over the last couple weeks:

"The house was super clean - no detail was missed!"

"Debra, Breanda, Patty, and Rebecca did a great job today cleaning our house. We appreciate their attentiveness to detail."

"Reliable and thorough."

"We just had new flooring, carpeting, and interior paint done in our house and The Maids Team seems to be trying to keep everything in the new condition by keeping the electric cords away from the corners of the walls and working to keep the new flooring and carpets clean as well."

"Honest, thorough, and fast over light years."

"The Purple Team always does a great job."

"Mary and her team have done a great job as always."

"Friendly staff...very efficient and before doing anything, the team leader comes to us and asks if everything was okay with the previous cleaning and if we needed anything special done this time."

Finally Fall

We all know that Tucson doesn't have much in the way seasons... about 2 weeks of cool and 50 weeks of summer. Hahaha! However, the change of seasons is visible. The sun is going down earlier, its getting chilly at night, and the breezes are blowing. This means another round of allergies. For anyone fighting the seasonal allergies, a thorough home cleaning is a step in a better direction. Our teams will provide a thorough cleaning to remove dust and allergens from the home; as well as sanitizing the surfaces that sneezing people are touching. We are always here to help.

Our office is preparing for a rummage/bake sale and car wash next weekend. We will be holding the sale at our office - 4425 E. Broadway Blvd. - Saturday September 25 from 7:30am - 1:00pm. We are so excited to be working with the community to make a difference in the lives of those faced with cancer. The exciting part about working with Making Strides and the American Cancer Society is that 60% of the money raised stays in Tucson to help our community. Please come and join us.

This time I have so many comments to post that I think the best thing to do is post one or two from each team.

"Every time you come, when I get home from work I walk around the house with an eagle eye. I never see one spot of dust or one hair anywhere. I would highly recommend this company, and this team to a potential customer. Great job, ladies. I have no doubt you will keep up the outstanding and superior work. Thanks so much. My life is so much easier because of you!"

"I am just very happy with the service I am receiving. They come in, get the job done, and when they leave the house is just wonderful and I can relax."

"Very reliable, very dependable, very thorough, very professional, and I can depend on you."

"Trustworthy and attentive. I like using the team approach because the house is cleaned quickly and thoroughly."

"I have the Purple team and am very happy with them They are very friendly and do a great job. The leader, Martha, is wonderful. She always checks to make sure that everything was done right."

"Exceptional Job!"

"They are fast/effective and always happy. Always have a smile on their faces...take care of the little details and will go that extra effort to make one happy."

"We are very pleased with our team. They leave wonderful notes, and are most willing to please. Please let them know how much we appreciate them."

"Everything was neatly put back after the cleaning. They even straightened the disheveled bed as a finishing touch in the bedroom. House felt clean and sanitized."

It has been a while since I have left you with food for thought, so today I would like to close with something special. I wish you all a wonderful day.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau

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A couple of exciting things....

The Maids has a couple of exciting events coming up that we would like to share with you!

First, on the 19th of August, Suzanne will make another appearance on The Morning Blend. This time she will be discussing the proper way to clean/disinfect a toilet, and she will discuss some of the most common questions asked of our staff when setting up a cleaning.

Second, The Maids is holding a rummage/bake sale and car wash on September 25th at our office: 4425 E. Broadway Blvd. We are raising money for donation to the American Cancer Society. This ties into our third upcoming event.

On October 31st, the American Cancer Society is holding its annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. The Maids is participating for the second year in a row. Our goal this year is to raise $2,000 for donation. We are hoping that the rummage/bake sale and car wash will help us reach our goal. If you would like to join our team or make a donation, please contact Brandi at 795-7977. We thank you for your support!