Finally, hipsters to clean up the mess made by hipsters!
A new house-cleaning service says its using hipster know-how and hipsters themselves to put a new spin on an old service — making sure your commode has that fresh-as-sunrise smell.
“It’s kind of how hipsters put a new twist on old things,” said Cathy Tang, who co-founded Hipstermaid on the West Coast last October and recently expanded to Brooklyn, where a large population of young adults is ready to clean and be cleaned. “[Our employees] are more hipster than your average maid.”
Tang claims Hipstermaid’s business model has the skinny-pants set in mind, featuring eco-friendly supplies, seamless online booking, and higher wages — and smartphones — for its maids.
In the company’s San Francisco branch, Tang says several artsy types and yoga teachers have been brought on to scrub floors and wiped windows to supplement their income.
So far, Brooklyn’s maids have been slightly less prone to wearing black-framed glasses, Tang said. The company has mostly hired independent cleaners who want a more stable income. But the job posting is still out there.
A hipster cleaning service could be seen as a new kind of gentrification — with underemployed college grads occupying blue-collar jobs rather than fixer-upper loft spaces. It also might be a sign that hipsters aren’t snobs about hard work.
It’s the latest wrinkle in the complicated relationship hipsters have with the working class — from the brief fad of wearing trucker hats, to people who call themselves “poor” because they spend half of their income on a $2200-a-month on a Williamsburg loft.
It brings up a few trivial questions, too. Who is hiring a hip maid? Are successful hipsters creating their own for-hipsters, by-hipsters economy?
Tang isn’t sure.
“There maybe are hipsters using our service, but we don’t have any stats,” she said.
Reach reporter Jaime Lutz at jlutz@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-8310. Follow her on Twitter @jaime_lutz.
