Professionals Serendipity 
David Mackenzie has worked closely with us here at the Professionals team as the proprietor of Mountain Cleaning Services. Today we speak with John Craig, another friend of ours, on his behalf to put a spotlight on our relationship and what it means for the mountain.
by Kyle Hitchmough
How long have you been working with Mountain Cleaning Services? How did you get started?
When David decided that he would sell his property at Mount Nathan and move up here, he looked around for a house. The one that he liked was owned by people who had a cleaning business. David had been in the motor trade all his life, but he went ahead and bought the house, and the existing business. He wanted a change, loved the Mountain lifestyle, loved meeting people and doing things, and that’s how it all started.
Can you explain what kind of services you offer?
Mainly we do holiday rental cleaning. We also have quite a few clients who have holiday homes and live on the coast, or in Sydney, or somewhere else like that. They ring us and we prepare the house: beds, whatever food they want, if they want champagne, if there’s any repairs to be done… we organise it all. When they go home, we come in and clean, make sure there’s water… and check everything. That’s mainly what we offer. Everybody we work for is sensational. We get great reviews between 4.7 and 4.9. We also do a lot of work for Professionals such as their rental cleaning.
The business has grown a lot in the four years we’ve had it.
What do you believe gives Mountain Cleaning Services such a great reputation in the community?
The business has grown because of the service we give. Most of the holiday houses have guestbooks and we look at the reviews there and note its mentioned how beautiful and clean the place is. We supply all the linen, towels and soaps, detergents, shampoos… everything’s done.
Another service we offer is that if there’s a house that’s going to be sold, we go in and do a clean before it’s photographed. Sometimes I stage the house for the real estate company. If there’s minor repairs to be done, we have a team of tradesmen who can do all that for the client. We’re available seven days a week and we go beyond what we normally have to do. We even work Christmas Day. Things can go wrong, and we’re a point of contact for everybody. People go overseas for holidays; and leave us the keys to help them manage the bookings. I think that makes us stand out. If you talk to anyone we work for, I think you’d get very positive remarks for sure.
Can you give us some examples of how you go above and beyond for your clients?
Let’s say for instance …we’ve got a couple of chalets and one of the guests is planning a romantic weekend. They might want chocolates, or the barbecue done, or champagne and rose petals, we will go in and do all that for them. Occasionally a guest might lock themselves out of the house, or a fridge might break down, we can help with all of that. We’re always prepared to provide or do any extras they might want.
The reviews I get for staging are all really good, and if people’s houses haven’t sold, I’ve gone in and helped them with that. The houses I’ve staged, and David’s cleaned, seem to get better prices than the seller expected to get.
What’s your opinion on Tamborine Mountain as a community?
The people that we deal with are just fantastic, so is the lifestyle we have up there, the neighbours, and the Tamborine Mountain community spirit… I like that it’s small and that there’s minimal pollution. There is so much to do here, and it makes it a very good holiday for most people when they come up here. I’ve lived on and off the mountain for twenty years, I have friends and family up here… I wouldn’t live anywhere else. We’ve just built a small flat for a friend of mine that has ill health and in the two and a half weeks since he’s lived here his health has improved unbelievably.
What do you find most rewarding about doing this?
If there’s something going on in the community, we’re quite prepared to help. At one stage a lady died and left two young children. We helped clear the house, get everything sorted… that’s just the sort of thing you do when you live up here. I think the best recognition is getting fabulous feedback on a job.
That’s what David likes more than anything. If you do something and you get great feedback, you just feel good. We make quite a good living and we try to keep our prices reasonable—everybody’s only got x amount of dollars after all. I often make good friends with the people we work for and it makes it all so worthwhile.
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Or email the writer at kyle.hitchmough@hotmail.com, and follow me on Twitter @realcasualrvws.
