Her own house is a mess, always has been. When her mother found out she was cleaning houses, she literally could not stop laughing. Jan couldn't tell if it was nervous laughter or insane. Who cares. When she told her mother how much money she made in a week, that stopped her cold.
"Really? That's serious money."
Jan is in high demand, so she can charge a bundle. And she does. She's a highly educated white woman, drives a 3-year-old Subaru, cannot abide being late. She would not dream of not showing up. Even she is surprised that she likes it.
Of course she's not a house cleaner. Not really. Her Facebook page says "freelance writer," but that dried up a while ago. She goes back and forth on adding "cleaner." It could add some blue collar cache, but is that what she wants? She does have two totally unrelated master's degrees.
It's so satisfying walking into a mess and leaving it all clean. And then there's the money. Why must it all come back to money? With the kids in school she thought she'd use the extra time to finally write a novel, but instead of writing she found herself organizing the basement, cleaning closets. The kitchen floor never looked so good. Might as well make a few bucks with this newfound obsession. Let her own house rot, it always had before. Hire someone else to clean it. Another good laugh for her mother.
Cleaning other people's messes is a whole different story. She isn't there to get indignant as her hard work goes all to hell.
It's shockingly good material. She only cleans for people she doesn't know, and only if they're out of the house. She doesn't trust herself to clean friends' houses. Besides potentially fucking up the relationship (class struggle and all of that), she'd get too much dirt. She doesn't trust herself not to spread it all around. Best not to know, because she dearly loves to tell a good story.
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