Company uses Australian timber oil on decks

SCC Cleaning Co. Inc. of Gurnee is taking what it has learned from more than 30 years of janitorial work in schools, businesses and offices and is now applying it to homes through its four-year-old Deck Monkeys division.

"We are not a maid service," said Jeff Spivey, president.

Instead, the company is attacking the time-honored "honey do" list that steals so many weekend and evening hours from homeowners who desperately want to relax and enjoy their precious time off.

"Inside homes we wash windows, shampoo carpets, paint baseboards and we even have a waterless and sand-less way to refinish wood floors that are scratched and dull, but not yet badly gouged and damaged," he said.

"Our process makes the finish sticky again and when it dries, it looks just like new. In fact, that is the process we recently used on the gym floor at Warren High School and it turned out fantastic," Spivey said. "This is usually a two-day process and there is no dust to get on walls and cabinets and into vents. It is great. We also did this six or seven years ago on the wood floors at Gurnee Mills."

When it comes to the outsides of homes, Deck Monkeys power washes siding, paints trim, paints and stains fences, cleans out gutters, plants flowers and uses a heated steam cleaner to get oil off garage floors and then applies epoxy coatings to make them look like an auto showroom.

Its specialty, however, is staining decks with Australian timber oil which it brushes on.

"It is the best product to use, we have found," Spivey said. "It makes water bead up like car wax does and protects against damage from the sun. Most homeowners get five to six years of life out of one application.

"You name it, we have done it," he added, "and wherever possible, we use environmentally friendly products. We have to use them in schools, so they have just become part of our normal operations."

SCC Cleaning is a family-owned business and what sets it apart, Spivey said, is the fact that every job is watched over by an owner with at least 18 to 20 years of experience.

"If there is a problem for some reason, we will go back and do it again until it is right. We refuse to leave a job in poor shape because we know that all it takes to ruin your reputation is a few bad jobs," he said.

For more information about SCC Cleaning and Deck Monkeys, call (800) 472-1007 or visit www.scc-cleaning.com.