©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

How did college graduate wind up cleaning houses?
by SUSAN GRAHAM

CLEANING UP: Susan Graham, of West Mt. Airy, has a college degree in Italian Literature, but for the last 20 years she has been a full-time house cleaner. To learn more about this seemingly incomprehensible juxtaposition, read the article on page 18. (Photo by Kristin Pazulski)

I recently returned to Philadelphia after a 20-year hiatus. I have often thought longingly of it in the intervening years, but couldn’t muster it up, take the plunge and relocate until now. I found a lovely place in Mt. Airy near the Wissahickon to live.

Twenty years ago, I graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in Italian Literature. For spending money during college, I cleaned homes near the campus. One year, I earned enough to send myself to summer school in Florence, Italy. I worked cleaning houses during my other summers and between semesters. It paid better than other jobs available to college students and was perfect for a shy, bookish type like me.

After college, I applied for some entry level office positions which didn’t fire me with enthusiasm or funds, so I decided to keep cleaning houses. Cleaning, being mostly solitary and physical, has always afforded me the luxury of contemplation. In my spare time, I enjoy studying, and in my daytime hours spent cleaning I can and do assimilate what I have learned.

I have come to discover that there is a joy to be found in making something so clean it shines, bringing a smile and a word of cheer to someone struggling under difficult circumstances, learning about a client’s favorite hobby or job, reorganizing someone’s closet so that everything has its perfect place and there is room to breathe.

I have been with my clients through business successes, marriages, births, divorces, illnesses, retirements, moves and deaths. I’ve had SuperMoms who needed to be reassured that it was okay to hire me to do one of the tasks they thought they should be doing in their 23-hour day. I have taken care of a home filled with 16th and 17th century furniture, porcelain and paintings and learned about them as well.

I will always treasure the moments when my client would pull me aside to show me his latest acquisition or a favorite treasure. I might not be an expert on the subject, but I can go to a museum like Winterthur and truly enjoy myself.

I had a client who telecommuted for IBM. He was an engineer by training, but I learned that his job entailed protecting Web sites around the world and preventing and also catching hackers bent on mischief or evil. One time, while I was cleaning, he caught the guy who had been breaking into an international bank’s database to embezzle, and he notified federal authorities. The hacker was across the world in Russia.

I have worked for couples where the husband retired and the wife went out to work. I cleaned for many an octogenarian and even several whose mothers still resided with them. There must have been something in the water for they lived across the street from each other. I have learned from them that despite a few wrinkles, their insides have never grown up.

In fact, one client was celebrating her 60th birthday with a phone call to her son on my cleaning day; she said to him: “I might be 60, but I still feel 18 inside.” I think she summed up what they all feel.

I have been truly blessed in my profession. I didn’t start out to make this my career, but it certainly has become that. I have also had a second education while cleaning in subjects that my college education never covered.

For more information, call 215-313-2777 or e-mail sgrahamct.@gmail.com.