Cleaning Business Owner Hires Those Left Unemployed by COVID-19

Cleaning has increased extensively this year due to COVID-19 as many public and private facilities are hiring more staff and building service providers to clean and disinfect their surfaces. One cleaning businesses that has seen more work in the past months is LuRay’s Cleaning Service in Durham, North Carolina, which was launched by Shamire Teasley last summer, ABC11 reports.

Teasley, 40, shared that she never thought months after starting her cleaning business that it would become vital to her community. Last year, she left her profession as a nurse assistant after 20 years. She told ABC11 that she “just wanted to do something a little bit different.” She has been cleaning all her life and loves cleaning. “I think it helps the soul, the mind.”

LuRay’s Cleaning Service, a franchise of Anago Cleaning Systems, disinfects medical and dental offices in Durham. Teasley said since the pandemic began, that she now cleans to save lives, disinfecting businesses to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Teasley began with two employees and now has 20. She hired people who were left unemployed by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Essential workers face extreme risk of catching COVID-19. Especially, custodial staff which make up 1.7 million people in the U.S., according to Brookings Institution. Teasley has become one of these high-risk essential workers. However, she is not worried about testing positive for COVID-19 as she and her team wear masks when cleaning.

Teasley and her team recently cleaned the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, a dormitory-style residential school. She said the students walked past them and thanked them, saying, “Thank you so much for doing this for us.”