Woman finding success with new cleaning business in Albert Lea

Published 3:44 pm Thursday, September 28, 2023

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Some people ask for clothes for a birthday. Others may want the newest gaming counsel. Yessica Garcia, owner of Back2Sanity Cleaning LLC, wanted a cleaning company.

“It started a year ago, I gave it to myself as a birthday present,” she said.

Garcia, owner of Back2Sanity Cleaning LLC, wanted a cleaning company after previously working at Head Start, which meant she had summers off.

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During those extended breaks, she got bored. And because she had experience cleaning houses before working for Head Start, she decided to start her own business last summer.

“I decided to go full-time in it due to some issues I had with immigration where I had lost my green card,” she said. “They said I would get it in 18 months, it never came, and it was a summer I had off from Head Start.”

Head Start notified her that because she didn’t possess a physical card, she would have to wait to return to work until it came. Garcia is originally from Mexico and arrived in the United States when she was 3.

Taking that as a sign, she decided to invest full-time into her cleaning company.

Garcia also appreciated coming home to a clean home.

“You come in, you know you don’t have to do anything, you know there’s no dust in hidden creases, there’s nothing left out, you don’t have … crumbs [and] you’re not going to step on something you don’t want to step on,” she said.

To her, that sense of cleanliness also equated to being in a safe, comfortable place.

Not wanting to go in unprepared, she started researching, listened to podcasts, read books and started picking the brains of people who were successful in the industry. Through that, she learned a lot about cleaning and the appropriate products to use that would make the job easier.

Owning a business has taught Garcia about marketing, networking and taxes as well.

“I had no idea all these tax things were going on, and now it’s like another world,” she said.

She’s also working out to prevent soreness, and said mentally she felt a difference.

She described Back2Sanity Cleaning LLC as a local cleaning company covering both residential and commercial properties.

“I started off with getting houses first, and then I got into commercial where I do their deep-cleans,” she said.

She described deep-cleans as covering everything top to bottom and underneath everything. It also included vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing, removing cobwebs and getting areas not normally cleaned, including ceilings.

Currently, the company regularly works with six residential properties and another commercial property. Including Garcia, there are three employees with another on the verge of becoming a member, which would allow her to deploy two teams.

Her immediate goal is to build the business, implement more employees and — at some point — be able to step back and watch the company grow organically and get to a point where she could provide free cleans to people who couldn’t afford them otherwise and needed to be in a good environment.

She would also like to have the opportunity to deploy one specific team for each specific area.

“I would like to have a team that does only commercial buildings, a team that does only houses that are reoccurring, another a team that does only the deep-cleans, a team that does only the move-in, move-outs,” she said, noting she’d like to expand their current coverage area, which includes Austin, New Richland, Wells and Northwood.

They’re also starting to receive referrals.

Anyone interested in employing Back2SanityCleaning LLC can call or text 507-318-6742. Their website is back2sanitycleaningllc.com.

Currently, the business is run out of 300 E. Second St.

“Instead of going insane with your mess we’ll bring you back to sanity,” Garcia said.