What do house cleaners bring to your home?

What do house cleaners bring to your home? With Brio, almost everything: commercial vacuums, mops, microfiber towels, dusters, a step stool, brushes, sponges, and every cleaning product. On Standard and Deep cleans, we only ask you to leave out trash liners, paper towels, and fresh linens and towels. On a Move In/Out clean, we bring all of it.

“I like that they bring their own cleaning supplies and vacuum so I don’t have to keep track of keeping supplies on hand.”

Thomas Garguilo, Google review

Some clients ask us what we use. I’ve been cleaning homes since 2019 and co-founded Brio in Richmond in 2020, and I put this list together to show exactly what comes into your home. Here is every tool and product we bring, what we use it for, why we chose it, and where we buy it, in case you want to get the same things for yourself.

None of these links are sponsored. We don’t earn anything if you buy.

Cleaning products

Most of every clean is soap and water. The stronger products only go where the job calls for them, always diluted per the label. For how we use each one safely, especially in a home with kids, read are green cleaning products safer for kids?

Product	What we use it for
Member’s Mark Commercial Dish Detergent	Kitchen countertops, sinks, faucets, tubs, and most surfaces, in water
Member’s Mark No Rinse Floor Cleaner	Hard floors, diluted in the mop bucket
Ecolab Pro Glass & Multi-Surface Cleaner	Mirrors, glass, and windows
Pledge Lemon Enhancing Polish	Wood furniture, after dusting
OdoBan Disinfectant Concentrate (Eucalyptus)	Toilets and high-touch spots like light switches
Bar Keepers Friend Cleanser	Stainless steel, tubs, bathroom sinks, and porcelain
Member’s Mark Heavy Duty Degreaser	Body oil buildup in showers and tubs, and greasy kitchen cabinets
Zep Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish	The outside of stainless steel appliances
Clorox Performance Bleach	Disinfecting sinks and treating mold on shower walls and grout
Member’s Mark Commercial Oven Cleaner	Inside the oven, and heavily soiled gas stove grates

Vacuums

We bring two commercial vacuums to every home: one built for carpet and one for hard floors.

Vacuum	Where we use it
Clean Max ZM-200	Carpet and rugs
Perfect C105 Commercial Vacuum	Hardwood, tile, and every other hard floor

We buy both from Willett Vacuum, a local shop at 8422 W Broad St in Richmond. Commercial vacuums are sold through dealers, and buying one online often costs more, so if you want one, a local dealer is the place to start.

For floors where a vacuum isn’t the right tool, like concrete, garages, and unfinished floors, we bring a Libman 15 in. Precision Angle Broom and Dustpan Set. It’s also our backup if a home has no power and the vacuums can’t run.

Floor care

Tool	What we use it for	Why we chose it
Adaptable flat mop kit	Mopping every hard floor	Light, gets close to baseboards, and the pads come off for washing. Ours is a generic kit from Willett Vacuum. The Rubbermaid Commercial Adaptable Flat Mop Kit is a close match.
GreenPlus Stage III microfiber mop pads	The flat mop: one pad for bathrooms, another for the rest of the house, rinsed as needed	In our tests, these pads lasted the longest through repeated washes with bleach. We also buy them at Willett Vacuum. The Rubbermaid Commercial flat mop refills are a close match.
O-Cedar EasyWring Spin Mop	Floors that need more than one pass	We use it to spread the floor cleaner, then dry the floor with the flat mop or a microfiber towel.

In bathrooms, we sometimes skip the mop and clean the floor by hand with a microfiber towel.

Microfiber and cloths

We wipe almost everything with Member’s Mark Microfiber Towels from Sam’s Club. Each one is used once, then it goes in the wash (more on that below).

On Move In/Out cleans, where we bring everything, we also bring POM Individually Wrapped 2-Ply Paper Towels.

Dusting and reach tools

Tool	What we use it for
Swiffer Duster Kit	Everyday dusting of sills, blinds, shelves, and decor
Swiffer Heavy Duty Extendable Handle	Ceiling fans, light fixtures, and the tops of tall furniture
Unger Cobweb and Corner Duster	Cobwebs in ceiling corners
Unger 6 ft. Telescoping Extension Pole	Holds the cobweb duster to reach high ceilings
COSCO 3-Step Folding Step Stool	Wiping down ceiling fans and light fixtures on Deep and Move In/Out cleans

Scrubbing tools

Tool	What we use it for
Scotch-Brite Zero Scratch Scrub Sponge	The kitchen only. It’s our kitchen sponge, so it never goes into a bathroom.
Scotch-Brite Heavy-Duty Scrub Sponge	Bathrooms only. It’s a different color from the kitchen sponge, so the two never mix.
Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Extra Durable	Scuff marks on walls, doors, and baseboards, and tough grime on bathtubs
HDX 7.8 in. Tile and Grout Brush	Shower and tub tile and grout
Great Value Multipurpose Scrub Brush	Shower floors, tubs, and textured surfaces
Libman Big Job Kitchen Scrub Brush	Kitchen sinks and stuck-on spots in the kitchen
OXO Good Grips Deep Clean Brush Set	Tight spots like faucet bases, drains, and window and door tracks
Scotch-Brite Stainless Steel Scrubbers	Baked-on grease on oven racks and gas stove grates, never on appliance surfaces
HDX Solo Toilet Brush	Inside the toilet bowl
Pumice stone toilet cleaner sticks	Hard water rings in porcelain toilets, always used wet
Anvil Safety Glass Scraper	Stuck-on residue on glass cooktops and oven door glass

Kit and safety

Item	What we use it for
4-cup plastic measuring cup	Mixing soap and water, and rinsing showers and bathtubs
Ecolab 32 oz. Heavy Duty Pro Spray Bottle	Holding our diluted products
ReadyWares 14-Pocket Supply Bag	Carrying bottles and tools from room to room
Member’s Mark Nitrile Exam Gloves	Protecting our cleaners’ skin from the products they work with

How we keep our tools clean

A clean tool matters as much as the right product. Nobody wants a towel from someone else’s bathroom on their kitchen counter, so:

• Each microfiber towel is used once, then it goes in the wash. Nothing wiped in another home gets reused in yours.
• Kitchen and bathroom sponges are color-coded: a Zero Scratch sponge in the kitchen, a Heavy-Duty sponge in the bathroom. A bathroom sponge never touches your kitchen.
• Bathrooms get their own mop pad, and the rest of the house gets another.
• Towels and mop pads are washed with Clorox Performance Bleach and plenty of regular laundry detergent.
• Sponges are replaced every week.
• Our tools and equipment get wiped down with OdoBan disinfectant.

What does it cost to buy all of this?

At today’s prices, everything on this list costs about $525 without the vacuums. Add our two commercial vacuums and it comes to about $1,430.

You can absolutely buy the same kit and clean your own home. The supplies are the easy part. The time is what adds up: a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home takes our team of two 1.5 to 2 hours, every visit. On your own, the same clean can take most of a day. On our monthly (every 4 weeks) plan, that clean is $220.50, and we bring everything on this list.

Can we use your products instead?

Yes, as long as they’re safe for the surface. Leave them out and let us know when you book. We can’t guarantee the same result with products we don’t normally use, but it’s your home, and the choice is yours.

Want to see what we do with all of this? Read exactly what each visit covers on our cleaning checklist, get a quote for your Richmond-area home, or call us at (804) 655-0006.