Customer Reviews

Speed Cleaning

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because, from reading the other reviews, I see that the author kind of turned people off a bit to his methods. Here's the real scoop: Yes, he thinks that His Way Is The Right Way. He's really into this idea of walking around your house with a special kind of apron and keeping your tools and cleaning objects in various pockets of the apron so that you can easily and "speedily" get to them. Okay, so now that you know this, you can forget about it. In fact, you can even forget about the speed part of the speed cleaning because that is not even what I consider to be the best part of this book.

So, who is this book good for? Well, it's good for people like me who thought they knew how to clean but (as someone else mentioned) were using all the wrong methods and all the wrong products. Quite frankly, my mother never showed me how to clean the house properly and I can safely say -- since my mother won't be reading this review -- that my mother knew zip about cleaning house. Oh, she did the best she could, but it wasn't really very good.

This book is great for someone who really feels like a slug trying to clean the house. Oh, and by the way. For all of you messy cluttering slobs out there. You're not going to be happy about cleaning until you get rid of your clutter. So I'd suggest you either start de-cluttering your homes or first buy a book about getting rid of clutter (a good one is "Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui" by Karen Kingston). Once you've gotten your place de-cluttered, you will find that cleaning it is quite a bit easier than you ever thought. Then, buy "Speed Cleaning" and get some extremely useful ideas about how to clean, what to use, what's important to clean every day or every month, etc. Don't be put off by some of the negative reviews here because the author is not your parent and you can take what's useful from the book and leave the rest of it alone. And, yes, Mr. Campbell does have a catalogue of goods that he sells, but you do not need any of his products (that is, you can probably find any and all of those product in your own neighborhood). Personally I have bought a few products from his catalogue and I think they're of extremely high quality and often much nicer than the cleaning products I find in my local stores. But, again, use the book to give you some good ideas about cleaning. And, if you're a seasoned cleaner, you might find that this book is a bit below your abilities, so take a pass on buying it. Good luck to all and I hope you all eventually have a nice clean house to come home to! It really feels good to not be such a slob anymore.

There are dozens of popular cleaning books on the market, many of which are touted on TV or tied to a particular cleaning maven's approach... and web site!

What I've found in most of those books--and I am a full time bookseller, so I see a lot of them--is a long list of recipes for multitudes of all purpose cleaners, or tricks for particular stains. This is the BEST, most SPECIFIC book I've seen yet for describing how a person should begin cleaning their entire home. It takes one step-by-step through every room.

Though some reviewers complain about so many references to the Clean Team web site, the book explicitely describes alternate solutions and products in chapter 13. They use their own product names simply because they are writing an INTRODUCTORY how to book for those who are stumped as to how to clean their own homes! Some (many?) of those people will probably breathe a sigh of relief to have a single source for exactly the right tools for the job.

The "recommended instead of" and "recommended in addition to" right now are both for the excellent housekeeping manual, "Home Comforts." I agree wholeheartedly that everyone should own that book, but this one does serve a different purpose. "Home Comforts" is an ideal housewarming or wedding gift, but it is HUGE and covers lots of other territory. "Speed Cleaning" is a quick--dare I say speedy--overview that can get a person working toward a clean, healthy home after an hour's reading.

I must also add that I believe the emphasis on scrubbing over soaking is based upon the author's own habit of keeping an environment constantly essentially clean. A person who follows these steps on a frequent schedule and does daily cleaning religiously will find these methods cover every need. The expectation is that one will maintain using every step in the book, and therefore rarely need stronger methods.

Buy this book if you want instructions as to how to quickly do a basic weekly cleaning of your home. Look elsewhere for:
* specific homemade cleaning product recipes
* clutter control
* heavy-duty spring cleaning tips

I have to admit something: at first glance, I tend to judge books by their covers.

When I first saw the cover of this one, I wasn't too impressed; the picture of the author on the front made it look like some kind of "as seen on TV" tripe, and the overall design of the cover was just very... amateurish. Perhaps the authors were in this for a quick buck, so they could push their own "special" cleaning goods.

But then I noticed that there were over thirty amazon user reviewers who had given the book an average rating of 4.5 stars, and I noticed that the book has been in print for almost 20 years. So, I decided to try it out.

That said, this book is a masterpiece. With a really bad cover.

I've been living in an apartment for almost 3 years, and I have never enjoyed cleaning it. In fact, I've been so discouraged by all my cleaning attempts that it's made me want to clean less and less--a sentiment which the author actually talks about in the introduction. The thing is, no one ever really taught me how to clean; among those I grew up with, it was always assumed to be some kind of innate talent, one not worthy of writing a book about, so whenever I asked anyone about how to clean something, they always responded with something to the effect of "just do what works well for you."

That said: I essentially had absolutely no idea how to clean, and this book told me everything I needed to know in about 100 pages (the last 100 pages of the book talk about how to organize cleaning in a team, how to deal with housecleaning services, and some other things, which I haven't read yet). It wasn't intimidating at all, the print was nice and large, and the prose was very conversational.

And the book actually teaches two different things--how to clean well (he introduced me to the use of a toothbrush, feather duster, putty knife, sh-mop, and some other things, all of which were far more effective than tools I'd used before), and how to clean as efficiently as possible, if you so desire. As another reviewer mentioned, this book really isn't a religion--take what you want from it and use the rest as food for thought, or throw it out entirely. Right now I'm only focusing on the techniques because I just want a clean apartment, but once I've got the techniques down I'm going to try to take some of his advice on efficiency and try to put it to good use too.

Also, given the fact that the author sells his own products, he is remarkably good at not pushing them. He states repeatedly through the book that the tools you use aren't as important as the methods you use, and he offers the names of several commercial brands that work well. He even says that you can make your cleaning apron (more on that later) on your own; although he doesn't give much direction on how to go about doing this, I imagine if I knew how to sew it wouldn't be too hard.

The only "non-standard" tool in his arsenal that isn't available at a standard hardware store is the many-pocketed cleaning apron--you're supposed to put all your tools on it, so they're always on your person when you're cleaning. A lot of people seem to think this idea is ridiculous, and I'll admit that at first glance I was fairly skeptical about it, too. I still don't own a cleaning apron, actually, but when cleaning my apartment after reading his book, I realized why one could be incredibly useful. The author claims that the apron is the most important of all cleaning tools because it saves so much time--you won't ever have to walk somewhere to get a tool. However, what he doesn't mention is that such an apron would probably make cleaning a less stressful activity. One of the things I realized when last cleaning my apartment was that a lot of the time I'm cleaning, I'm not actually *thinking* about cleaning--instead, I'm thinking, "where did I put my putty knife?" or "where's my glass cleaner?" Having an apron with dedicated, separate pockets for each tool would enable me to focus all my attention on cleaning, not constantly switching my thoughts between cleaning and wondering where my tools are. I believe this would make my cleaning routine not only faster, but also more focused, less stressful, and possibly even (ok, maybe this is a stretch) enjoyable. It sounds like a great idea and I hope it actually works well in practice.

Another thing I really like about this book is that it's one of the few books I've read on domestic activities that doesn't assume the reader is female. In this day and age, it actually angers me when I read recently-published material on home economics that assumes the reader must be a married mother (even many of the married couples I know share household duties), and I think it's one of the things that really turns men off from reading these kinds of books--as a 25 year old single male, whenever I pick up a book and read something on the back that tells me I'm a 30-year old mom, it's kind of hard not to put it down. Fortunately, this book is incredibly good at being very unassuming about the reader and their lifestyle, and other home economics books would do well to follow its example.

All of that said, the book does have a few downsides, apart from the horrible cover. For one thing, the author often tells you things like "Trust us. Don't argue with this method, don't ask why, just know that it works." The problem with this is that, for one thing, without a solid understanding of *why* you're doing something, there's no possibility for you to alter or improve on it to make it more effective for your particular situation. Furthermore, it makes it harder for me to remember, because I usually remember things by understanding the reasons and then deriving the actions that follow from them, instead of memorizing the actions by themselves. That said, however, the author does actually explain the reasons behind most of his techniques.

The only other thing that would've helped this book would've been full-color photos: being completely clueless, I don't really know what mildew and soap scum look like (or what the difference between them is), I don't know how to tell whether my floor is vinyl or linoleum, and I don't know how dirty a cleaning cloth should be before I should throw it out and use another one, so full-color photos explaining these things would have been very useful.

Oh, and to those who buy the book or are worried about getting a hold of this gimmicky-sounding "sh-mop": at first I was worried I'd have to mail-order this contraption, but I found out that the sh-mop is actually mechanically simpler than a standard mop, and was apparently successful enough that generic brands are now selling them under different names; my local hardware store had something called a "Hardwood Floor and More!" which matched the book's description of the sh-mop precisely (its base even had the same dimensions), so this tool shouldn't actually be too hard to get your hands on; I also find it far more effective than both my sponge mop and my Swiffer WetJet.

Ultimately, this book has been extremely helpful for me and I now feel much more confident in my cleaning abilities than I did before.

I thought this book was too good to be true until I read it and tried it. WOW! I also bought some of their products that are recommended in the back of the book and DOUBLE WOW! I am loyal and commited to the Clean Team forever. I cannot get over this. I live in a brand new house and have always prided myself on having a clean home, even with a husband, two kids, a puppy and two birds and an endless stream of neighborhood kids. Add to that the countless activities I spend chauffering my children to. I never had time for me because in my 'spare' time I was cleaning house. NO MORE! I have never cleaned my home more quickly, efficiently or cleaner before. Hat's off to Jeff Campbell and the Clean Team and their products. You are wasting your precious time, money and sanity if you do not read this book. Anyone can learn their techniques. It so simple and if you have the time and desire, the book is readable in one day. I will also use their products forever. This book has helped change my lifestyle and I will never go back to the 'old way'.

I've always tried to keep a fairly clean (2,600 sq. ft.) house. My friends thought I was successful, too. But after the first "Speed Cleaning" pass through my house, I can honestly say that my house has never been cleaner. Yes, it took over 5 hours to complete the job the first time. But I can see that once the initial "baseline" cleaning job is done, the weekly trip through the house will be much faster.

There are great tips in here for how to clean things, what tools and cleaning agents to use, how to enlist help from your family and more.

If you want to buy the "right" tools, you can obtain reasonable facsimiles of the recommended products at Home Depot and Target/Wal-Mart for a lot less dough.

I would recommend this book for anyone who wants a cleaner house, but is overwhelmed at the prospect of attacking the cobwebs in the corners or the dustbunnies under the beds. You'll learn the fastest, easiest, most effective ways to conquer these areas in addition to the basics (scrubbing the bathrooms, kitchen, dusting EVERYTHING, etc.)

This book is not for ridding your house of too much stuff. In fact, if clutter is a problem that needs to be attacked before the real cleaning begins, I recommend Campbell's other book, "Clutter Control" or "How Not to be a Messie" by Sandra Felton. Both give detailed instructions and guidelines on how to reduce the amount of stuff in your home. If this is a problem for you, you will be amazed at how freeing it is to discard things. The more you discard, the more you will want to discard, so motivation to complete the project is sort of self-perpetuating.

I was very excited about this book and the idea of learning to clean my house more quickly and efficiently. When I read the author's intro and the comments included in the book [as well as the positive reviews here] I just knew I'd hit on a great cleaning solution. Unfortunately, in reading the book, I found it really didn't live up to the author's build up.

For starters, the method really ISN'T very efficient. The author strongly recommends a whole arsenal of cleaning solutions and cleaning devices/tools. I just don't think the average home owner really needs all that stuff to do a quick and good job cleaning. [I'd be lost just trying to keep up with all those things!] I will note however, that all of these cleaning items are offered for sale on their website and catalog - a fact that is mentioned NUMEROUS times throughout the book ["buy our stuff!"]. The first time or two I read about their catalog in the book, I thought "how cool - one place to pick up all this stuff!". By the 10th mention of it I was feeling a little like I'd paid for a book that was really just advertising for their company and products. ["No, really, BUY OUR STUFF!"] I also thought the prices on the website were pretty ridiculous [way higher than I would pay to get the same stuff at Home Depot or someplace like that]. You would *easily* spend well over $$$ to buy all the products they tell you that you MUST have from their website/catalog.

Another example of why I don't feel this method is very quick or efficient - many long years ago I read a Don Aslet book [who I recommend!]. In that book he said something that has stuck with me for almost a decade - "don't scrub anything you can soak" [or something to that effect]. Practically speaking, this means that when I begin to clean, I soak things first. If there are spills of food on the stove that have turned to rock, I pour a bit of water on it and let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes while I clean something else. The same with dishes, etc. I *NEVER* have to scrub - when I come back, I am able to wipe up the mess in one or two swipes with a paper towel. VERY QUICK and energy and time efficient. In contrast, Mr. Campbell spends pages and pages on how to scrub and scrape up a similar hardened spill/mess. He recommends beginning with one scrubbing utensil and working up to another and then yet another and then moving to a putty knife type instrument and then an actual RAZOR blade [which would damage my kitchen surfaces to no end...]. Never once does he even mention the idea of just soaking the stuff so it wipes up easily. I don't think that's very efficient personally.

Other things that bugged me about the book were that it seems really written more for commercial cleaning teams. It claims to be written for the average homeowner, but most of the methods are truly suited to a professional "team" approach. He spends a great deal of time describing how the team should split up the work, etc. [I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have a set of friends that show up at my house every weekend to help me clean it...]. He runs a cleaning service in San Francisco, which he mentions repeatedly - I feel this book was really written for professional cleaners like him. I also didn't like the constant high pressure sales pitch; and I agree with another reviewer that the "spanish summary" at the end seemed kind of useless - why not publish the whole thing in spanish? Much more useful.

There WERE good things about this book - while I found most of the better suggestions to be "common sense", they might be really helpful to someone who has never done a lot of cleaning [maybe a young person out on their own for the first time] or for someone who doesn't feel that they are very "efficient" in general. I also LOVED the chapter on the environmental impact of the cleaning products and found it very useful. [Worth the price of the book in fact]. There is also a good chapter on hiring a cleaning service/housekeeper - although that chapter seemed very misplaced in this particular book [If I could afford a house cleaner, I *wouldn't* be buying this book to learn to do it myself!]. The book was also very easy and quick to read.

Overall I'd say it was worth the money, but not NEARLY as wonderful as it is hyped up to be!

I was a clueless housecleaner, absentmindedly pushing a sponge or rag, without much thought as to where to start, which cleaning tools to use, when to use powders vs. liquids, how to economize motion, etc. I knew there had someone who figured all this stuff out, so I picked up Jeff Campbell's "Speed Cleaning" book. Jeff runs a cleaning service and is an efficiency expert, who has cleaning down to an economy-of-motion science. His book is an easy, entertaining read, with well-explained instructions and many helpful diagrams. He makes a good case for his methods, although he does come across with the attitude that his is the only and right way to clean.

I decided I would give his system a try, so I bought the cleaning apron, cleaning cloths, small cleaning tools, and Jeff's own brand of non-toxic, cleaning agents (free of animal products and not tested on animals) available on his website. Then I put on my cleaning apron and followed the book nearly to the letter. I'm delighted to report that his system absolutely works! My bathrooms and kitchen especially are cleaner than before, and his system is much faster and easier than what I was doing. It is not necessary to use a cleaning apron or Jeff's cleaning agents to improve one's results, but I do find the apron convenient, and the two cleaning agent bottles that hang from it are the 16 ounce size, so they're not heavy even when full.

I have several issues with the book that prevent me from giving it 5 stars:
1) He often tells to reader to only clean what is dirty--not to clean phantom dust nor wipe surfaces where you don't see dirt. However, not all dirt is visible, such as germs and dust (complete with dustmites) that builds up before it's visible to the naked eye. So it's actually a good idea to wipe and where appropriate disinfect surfaces that don't look dirty. Why not be proactive and prevent visible dust?

2) Jeff encourages people to dust with an ostrich feather duster, which only moves dust around. He reasons that you move the dust to a lower level & vacuum it later. I disagree that this is the most effective system for removing dust. Also ostrich farming is a very cruel industry where the feathers are removed with pliers or electric shears from the birds *before* they are slaughtered, to protect the commercial value of the hide, which makes expensive leather.

3) Twenty pages of the book (10%) is a Spanish summary. Like many non-Spanish-speaking readers, this part of the book is useless to me. Why not publish a Spanish-speaking version of the book or sell the summary separately as a booklet?

Overall however, I'm very happy with this book and cleaning system, and have a cleaner home and more time on my hands to show for it. :-)

As someone who has suffered with a messy home for . . . uh, several decades, I can honestly tesfify that these techniques work. Campbell's "clean team" techniques can help you cut your cleaning time in half and more importantly, you'll end up with a cleaner home, with the dust out of those nooks & crannies, the splotches of paint off of the linoleum floor, the cobwebs out of the vents, the grime out of the grout in the bathroom. This is a no-nonsense, no-gimmicks (well, except for the apron), how-to book about systematically going throughout your home getting things clean. Really clean.

Campbell's approach is surprisingly straight-forward and simple. Working from top to bottom, left to right, he methodically goes from room to room, explaining how to clean. He makes the basics seem simple, but his technique has you getting out grime in all sorts of often-overlooked spots. Campbell recommends that you carry your basic cleaning supplies -- a heavy-duty cleaner like 409, a windex-like cleaner, cotton towels, a scrubber, scraper & razor blade -- with you in an apron (after all, who would hire a carpenter that went back & forth to supplies every time he needed a nail). A little dorky, but three weeks after reading the book, I now own a dorky "Jeff Campbell's clean team" denim apron -- and admittedly, it's pretty handly. Campbell doesn't push his own products, but they are available by catalog. And they're good.

Some of the tools he suggests (cloth napkin "cleaning cloths", a large, flat-head mop) are infinitely more effective than the old sponges, old towels, and sponge mop I had been using.

Campbell's style is pleasant and easy-going. You don't sense that he advocates creating an antiseptic, anti-bacterial, hermetically sealed home where you have to leave your shoes & pets at the front door, or taking up cleaning as a hobby. Rather, he advocates using your cleaning time wisely, to create more time for fun.

I used to think house-cleaning is a never-ending job with a husband, two kids, a dog and a bird...the living room today, the bathrooms tomorrow, the bedrooms the day after tomorrow, the kitchen the following day... Then this book came along. WOW! I could not believe how efficiently and effectively the entire house can be cleaned! I wholeheartedly thank the author for sharing the method he developed over the years of experience. I always liked a clean house, and tried my best, but my house never looked like the house you see in interior magazines. But now, thanks to his tips, yes, my house does look sparklling clean, and I am actually excited about cleaning the house!

This discusses time-tested methods of cleaning quickly and efficiently. Efficient movements, strategic paths through each room, keeping all your supplies with you, soaking not scrubbing (unless necessary), using the right tools, and even what to do if you want to hire a maid service.

I have to disagree with an earlier inaccurate review. This book DOES recommend soaking things over scrubbing them. It also mentions what to do when that doesn't get the gunk off, starting with safe methods and leading up to (and warning about) less safe methods. Using a razor blade is the last resort, and Jeff mentions how to use it right so as to minimize the possibility of damage to the surface.

Yes, he does recommend things that can be purchased in his online store, but I see nothing wrong with that. Only some of the items can not be found elsewhere. The rest are items you can get in other places for about the same prices. But you can be certain they do the job well. If you decide to skimp on this area, you'll end up saving a little money, but you're likely not getting tools that will be the most efficient. I appreciate the ability to go to one site and place one order and pay one shipping fee.

Most of us don't really think about cleaning in this way. It's no longer a huge chore for me. I used to feel overwhelmed by having a large two-story place. Now, I can look at the kitchen and think, 15 minutes. The living room, 10 minutes. The bathrooms, 20 minutes. The bedrooms and office, 15 minutes. I can do my daily pickup routine for clutter, then, every other day, pick any of those sections, and be done in 30 minutes or less and always have a clean house. That's not just simple cleaning, that's full and complete cleaning. I'm not overwhelmed. I can skip a day if I'm tired and just pick up the routine again the next and things don't fall apart.

Jeff's given us a wonderful too. Now, unlike that like-new nifty juicer in the back of your cupboard, you have to choose to use it.